Venice

When I studied in Rome during college, I traveled to Venice with friends for a weekend. It rained the entire time. Every street was crowded with people walking with raised umbrellas, but the streets were so narrow that there wasn't room for two umbrellas to fit side by side, so pedestrians piled up behind each other, rain-soaked, in umbrella-driven traffic jams. Cell phones didn't exist yet so we navigated by maps, but half of the streets ended in uncrossable canals, forcing us to turn around and try to retrace our steps. All the buildings are tall and all the streets are narrow, so there are no vantage points to know where you are in relation to anything else. We were lost and wet the whole time.

So I was reluctant to go back to Venice. The short version of this story is: I'm so glad I did! Thank you karma for the warm weather, the sunshine, cell phones, and the opportunity to know Venice for the beautiful, extraordinary place it is. It's a city without street vehicles: you either walk or ride in a boat. Mostly you walk and cross tiny bridges (up the steps and then down the steps). It's a city that was the western-most point of the Silk Road since the 1300s, so the fabrics and spices and products from all across the Middle East and Asia entered Europe through Venice. People from around the world arrived along with these goods, which means that Venice has long been a cosmopolitan city, a place of mixture and intermingling.

The Grand Canal

We celebrated Keeley's birthday with a gondola ride. Our gondolier, Giovanni, explained that he was born and raised in Venice and is a fifth-generation gondolier. Lisa asked him if he has a boat: "Yes, of course I have a boat, everyone has a boat." Lisa asked him what he does for fun: "You get in a boat and go to a beach."

Once we were in the gondola, we learned that Giovanni only took cash, so he stopped at an ATM. What this meant is that we pulled up alongside another boat filled with lumber and construction supplies (when you live on water, this is the only way to get a repair or remodel done). I had to climb out of the gondola onto the construction boat, walk across a plank of lumber laid across the construction boat and then leap from there to the road with an ATM. Then do the whole thing in reverse: leap onto the construction boat, navigate the plank, and jump back into the gondola. For a few minutes there I was in a slow-motion Jason Bourne movie, except no one recorded my daring adventure. Instead here is a photo of the two women who nominated me to go to the ATM (with Giovanni behind them).

A few more views of Venice:

A hidden island where gondolas are built and repaired.