Italy days two and three...Venice...

Arriving in Venice is supposed t'knock you on yer ass, you know, aesthetically and all. I suppose it did, but after awhile. Granted, we were a little groggy after the train ride, but I still remember thinking that we'd have no chance of finding our hotel. For reals.

Anywhere you roll in Italy, you're bombarded with dudes selling useless trinkets. You know, leaning towers, fat mobsters, that kinda shit. But on coming out of the train station in Venice, I was hit with a million euro idea; sell compasses. You'd make a fortune. I kid you not, getting lost in Venice isn't so much an inevitability as it is a constant state of mine. You find yourself in these narrow little alleyways, with no common tower or anything to gauge yer dırection or even how far you've came.

The trade-off is that it's a righteous place to get lost in. Every turn more daunting than the last. Shit, it makes you use words like daunting for fuck sakes. Aesthetically, it was all that I'd hoped. We filled our days drinking cheap wine during pıt stops after being lost. I had the 3rd best 'za of the trip. On Christmas eve, lady luck convinced me t'go to midnight mass, cos we really had fuck all else t'do.

She thought it was a great idea. But I'd been on the piss all day, and by the time we fanagled our way into this monster of a church, I was long passed out on the shoulder of someone holier-than-I. But I suppose it's a sliding scale.

Christmas day in Venice was righteous on so many levels. It was our first blue sky of the trip, and that morning blue sky was exactly what I needed. Lady luck woke me around 9, after I'd gotten off the phone with the comrades back at Casa De Kesek around 4. Cool. We toured around on some boats for awhile; we were debating getting in a Gondola, but the fucking drivers kept calling me "Amigo!" I don't know if this is a new gig, but for the past year everyone thinks I'm of Spanish descent. But hey, they lost out on a prime fair. Plus, it seemed like only wide-eyed Asians ride Gondolas anyway. We rode some other boats, for a fraction of the price, froze our asses off and did just fine.

Then Christmas dinner came. We hadn't eaten mcuh all day (2 or 3 delicious paninis) in the hopesof gorging for Christmas dinner.

We found a joint that looked homely enough, complete with a waitress taking our orders with her baby on her arm. I asked if I could hold the baby, she obliged. Then, the REAL mother came dashing around the corner (Nothing daunting about that) and snatched the baby away. For that moment, I understood Italian.

"Maria! We're trying to clean up the homeless problem here in Venice! How dare you let my child mingle with trash like him! God only knows how much he's paying a girl like her to even sit at the same table at him." It was depressing. I regretted bringing my Italian phrasebook; it only brought me shame.

Anyway, I don't think she spat in our wine. But it lıkely wouldn't have mattered. We washed a litre of wine down with this Christmas Dinner-

2 salads.
2 pastas.
1 large 'za.
1 piece of veal.
1 steak.
1 bowl of strawberry ice cream.
2 glasses of lemon alcohol which we thought was to wash our fingers with.

We crawled home, enjoyed more wine and slept early. The train to Rome left at 6.43 am.

Venice is worth it. Apparently it's one of the three most-visited cities in the world; the fact that it's quiet enough in the morning to lıterally hear the sun rise over the canals makes things that much less daunting, and that much more righteous. Transcendence achieved.


A common pose for lady luck.

Obligatory photo of a young North American couple in Venice on Christmas.

Even Dali would get tripped out in a place like this.
She didn't know it was gonna be black pasta.
But I didn't give a shit.
But this is what we were bummed about, mostly.
Venice is as confusing as this sign.

More aesthetics.
That little dude is tired of arguing from behind the scenes.
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