Photos!

My first view across to Venice from the hostel (on the island of Giudecca)

And my view on the second day… Venice is there, really!

Carnivale!

This guy had waaaayyyy too much fun hamming for all of the cameras.  I have several shots of him snarling at mine.

The last costumes I saw on Tuesday evening.

Ah, Venice.

It was kind of that person to hang their laundry in such a picturesque manner!

The last photo I took in Venice, the night before I left for Prague. 

Thanks, WebBits!

Whilst perusing one of the most entertaining websites in existence , I happened upon a link to this webpage. I am very tempted to try some of the moves, since although my current living space lacks stairs, bannisters and the other accoutrements of bi-level living, it has the benefit of being small enough in total area to make some of the moves entirely feasible using the four walls as my supports!

(Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration.  But not much.)

Yet again…

... the computer I’m using won’t let me upload my photos.  I’ll try again tomorrow at school (where I normall update my weblog and upload photos), and we’ll hope that works!  I have some great photos to show you!  In the meantime, read on for the second chapter of my “winter travels” tale!

Winter travels, vol. 2

I could bore you senseless with drawling about the wanderings I did for three days, with how I made a point of crossing each of the three bridges over the Grand Canal at least once, with how much identical junk there is for sale in all of the shops and yet how much the price varies from one area of town to another, with how you are almost better off, financially, paying the price of a trip to the hospital from malnutrition than paying for three days’ worth of meals in Venetian restaurants, etc.  But instead, I shall pick a few, isolated anecdotes that you might find amusing or astounding, depending on your mental bent.

February 25th - I caught a waterbus at the Piazza San Marco to the island of Murano, just for the heck of it.  For the reference of future visitors to Venice who might be trying to save as much time as possible, the trip from Piazza San Marco to Murano takes about 45 minutes by waterbus.  It would be much quicker to walk to the Nuova Fondamenta on the north side of Venice and catch the same waterbus there.  But, going the long route does give you some beautiful views of the eastern point of Venice, which is mostly untouristed. 

Once I got to Murano, I headed straight to the main glass “factory,” which consisted of a single room of four tired-looking glass workers and one tired- and bored-looking “tour guide.” I had my camera out and my big zoom lens locked onto it, in the hopes of getting some sort of cool closeup, which drew some very strange looks from everyone, the tour guide especially.  In hopes that I wouldn’t somehow annoy him by being such a blatant tourist, I gave him my “yeah, I know it’s ridiculous, but hey, when a tourist, act like a tourist” look, which I reserve for just such occasions.  As usual, it worked a treat, as did my pithy comments.  ::chuckle::  Whatever it was that did the charm, it worked, and he started talking with me.  From him, I found that the beautiful scraps of glass that were swept off the ground and into a large container are sent to industrial glass factories elsewhere and that there is no hospital on the island of Murano so everyone on the island is, perforce, born in Venice.  I also learned that I had slipped in just under the wire for the day’s tours - they were closing up after they had gotten rid of the group that I had wandered in with.

While he and I were talking, another info guy came up and joined in the conversation as well.  I had wandered into the overpriced showroom (the relative prices in the showroom versus in Venice proper being one of the comments I had made to the tour guide which had made him laugh), but the second info guy asked me if I would like to see some really nice stuff.  Of course I would!  So he led me through a door in the workroom that was marked ‘private,’ which I had assumed led to a break room of some sort.  No such thing.  Rather, it led to a series of rooms normally only seen by very wealthy individuals who come to Murano to pick up a six-digit-price piece of sculpture or chandelier for their sumptuous mansions who-knows-where.  Each room - I saw six, but apparently there were quite a few more - was devoted to the work of a single artist, and while the range of styles was quite wide, the range of quality was not.  I think the piece that I saw that I coveted the most was a four-foot-tall statue of Pegasus taking off, wings spread and two feet off the ground, made of clear and frosted glass.  It was breathtaking - as were most things.  I would have dearly loved to ask several of the artists how it was that they achieved certain effects.

We left the sparkling showrooms and went back into the tourist area, where I said goodbye to the two guides.  The one who had shown me the showrooms merely shook my hand, but the tour guide first shook my hand, then pulled me forcibly towards him.  There was a brief second where I wondered if he was going to kiss me full-on - I have heard many tales about the forwardness of Italian men - but he merely gave me the “two-cheek salute,” as Iím starting to think of it: the pair of kisses, one per cheek.  Whew!

February 26th - I was wandering around a less-touristy area of Venice called the Tre Archi, and had paused to take a picture of an interesting bridge.  (What an unusual picture subject in Venice, Julia!) I heard a male voice speaking a very cultured - almost affected - version of British English behind me.  As I tend to do, even when I have no desire to be counted amongst tourists, I turned around to see what the speaker looked like.  The guy I saw (average height, late twenties, blonde hair, long coat draped around his shoulders in a way that upheld the affectedness of his speech) seemed vaguely familiar, as had his voice, but I simply put it down to déja vu and an increasing desire to see someone I knew and turned away.  He and his friend walked on down along the canal.  After a few more minutes fiddling with my camera, something clicked in my mind.  I set off after the Englishman and his friend, fully knowing that I was about to make a huge fool of myself and not really caring, since I would never see either of them again afterwards.

Either they habitually walk very quickly or I had stood around for longer than I thought, because it took me several minutes at my fastest walking speed to catch up with them.  I didnít want to break into a full run; my pride could only take making a fool of myself once in five minutes, so I had to save that for when I caught up to them.  Which I finally did, completely out of breath and, I dare guess, extremely red in the face.

- ::gasping::"Excuse me, sir, but I was just wondering what area of England you are from.”
-"Why, from London.”
-::disappointedly:: “Oh.  Iím sorry to have bothered you.  You just reminded me very much of a guy I met in Shropshire.”
-"Of course!  You’re that girl from Oregon, aren’t you?  You do get around a bit, don’t you?”

Thus followed a brief but pleasant conversation about the respective climates of Venice, England and Borneo and the great need for more orangutans in England. 

When I was in Newport over Christmas, I had stopped into the sole used book store in the town one afternoon, and had had a very pleasant chat with the fellow behind the counter.  He had been somewhat abashed that they didn’t have anything that I was looking for - Bill Bryson books, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, or an English translation of Cyrano de Bergerac - and had laughingly worked very hard to try to convince me that a book on the economics of England would be a suitable substitute.  We chatted about where we were from - me, from Oregon, he, from London but living in Italy (he was merely running the store for the afternoon as a favor to his parents, whom he was visiting for Christmas) - and I promptly forgot all about him.  He didn’t even merit a note in my little purple notebook.

I wandered back towards the Grand Canal, humming ‘It’s a Small World.’

February 27th - At the airport, getting onto the same flight as I was to Prague, was one of the most humorous-looking women that I have seen in a long time.  She must have been a representative of the “more is better” school of animal-pelt clothing.  Her pants were velvet giraffe-print, her shirt was of glitter-bedecked snow-leopard-print and her mid-calf-length fur coat looked vaguely like the hide of a black panther and had a ruff along all the hems of four-inch-diameter fur.  To top this all off she was wearing a Dolly Parton wig under which she hadn’t quite managed to tuck all of her own dark brown hair, and her lipstick was fluorescent pink.  She was about 65, I would guess, and about 5’3” in two-inch heels.  Her two traveling companions - her daughters, perhaps - looked like they will follow in her tasteful footsteps.

Her appearance prompts a comment about Venetian women in general.  I have heard so much about the style-consciousness of the Italians that I expected to feel very much like an old scuffed sneaker tossed in amongst a closet full of shiny new stilettos.  What I instead felt like was a normal young woman tossed in amongst human-sized, walking brown pillows.  The majority of the Venetian women I saw were wearing that particular style of fur coat-slash-muumuu that isn’t flattering to anyone, even those of supermodel proportions.  It didn’t help that Venetian women are generally on the petite side.  I felt gratifyingly tall during those few days in Venice, and I’m only 5’6”. I simply can’t understand it, even if it is the fashion!  ::shrug::  Then again, I’ve often noticed that “fashionable” doesn’t necessarily mean “flattering.”

Plan 2

Well, I was going to post some photos from my days in Venice, but the computer that I’m using doesn’t want to read the CD that I put them on, so instead I’ll take a cue from David and take a poll about what I should do for my birthday, a week from this Sunday.  Just to see how many of you have too much time on your hands.  ::grin::

The long-awaited vacation summary, vol. 1

I’m sorry for how long it has taken me to start writing up my vacation experiences; I plead a deep and abiding procrastinatory tendency.  But popular demands - okay, demand - has spurred me to action. 

I left for Venice on February 23rd, taking a night train from Paris.  It was not very comfortable - I was in a couchette, which sleeps six, and the only person in the couchette who snored (and who smoked) was in the top bunk opposite me.  Also, as I had experienced on my trip to Madrid, I donít sleep very well on trains.  Still, given the price of my ticket – only 35€! – I really ought not complain.

We arrived in Venice a couple of hours late, at around 10:30 a.m.  I got to the hostel, which was on a separate island from the main part of Venice, at about 11 a.m., only to find that it has lock-out each day from 9:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m.  I was extremely unhappy to discover this, because not only did I have my huge suitcase and backpack, but it was snowing - flakes about the size of silver dollars - and bitterly cold, with a high wind that whipped in off the water and dropped the temperature another ten degrees.  There was nothing for it, however, so I took a waterbus across to the Piazza San Marco and started walking.  I managed alright for about an hour, but by then I was so utterly frozen that I did the most sensible thing: I got on the #1 waterbus, which runs the length of the Grand Canal, at Piazza San Marco, rode it all the way up to the train station, then turned around and got on the #1 going back down the Grand Canal.  I got to see the city, was out of the wind, and the two trips took about an hour and a half in total.  Then I went back to the hostel, checked in and thawed my feet out for a while.

That evening I headed back into Venice.  It was the last night of Carnivale and I had great expectations, despite the weather.  I had heard so much about the spectacle of Carnivale.  After eating dinner at the only pizzeria I could find that didn’t add a service charge and cover charge onto the cost of the meal (one of the things that makes eating in Venice so darned expensive), I headed back to the Piazza San Marco, where there was to be a concert.

Maybe I had set my expectations too high, or maybe I was just in the wrong area, but I was underwhelmed by Carnivale.  The locals did have some stunning costumes, photos of which you can expect to be posted in short order, but they were few and far between.  The vast majority of the crowd was (like me) in street garb and was foreign.  And highly inebriated, which I had expected but which didnít really add to the charm for me.  Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by San Antonio’s Fiesta.  I expected to feel the camaraderie that suffuses SA during Fiesta, as I expected the drunkenness to be of the friendly, let’s-buy-one-another-a-margerita sort.  I got neither.  The crowds felt strangely articulated, rather like a large group of lots of small groups than a single crowd, and the Venetians seemed very tired of the whole thing and patronizing of the tourists.  While I can understand why they would feel that way, it didn’t endear the whole thing to me.

Once the evening was over and I had had a good night’s sleep, Venice seemed much more welcoming.  Many of the tourists went home the following day and I could feel a sense of relief throughout the city.  The two days that followed were much more enjoyable than the first.  Venice is without a doubt one of the most endlessly engrossing cities that it has ever been my pleasure to wander through.  That’s all I did for the next two days: wander, passing my time happily not knowing exactly where I was, but not being entirely lost.  Some (::cough:: Paul) may not believe me when I say that I have a very good sense of direction, but I proved it, to myself at least, in those two days.  I had been told before I went to Venice that I absolutely had to have a map with me at all times in Venice, as otherwise I would get hopelessly lost and have my body found stretched over a gondola some weeks later.  I can proudly say that I purposely left my map in the hostel after my waterbus trips on the first day and that I was never lost.  It helps that the way to major tourist sites is painted on the sides of buildings and thus, if you keep a sharp eye out, you can always find the way “per San Marco” or “per Rialto.” But there were also numerous times where I passed a restaurant that looked good or a mask shop that I wanted to visit later at some early point in the day and was later able to find my way directly back to it!  Go me!

Sorry about the lack of informative postings…

...but I’ve been far too busy doing absolutely nothing of an evening to think about writing up my marvelous past two weeks.  Maybe tonight… Or maybe I’ll watch my new collector’s edition “X-Men” and “X-Men 2.” A little Hugh Jackman can’t go amiss… ::grin::

HQ, this is Shuttle Julia…

... we are preparing for final approach and reentry into the Real World at 26/05/04.  We have begun our final countdown and expect to be able to enter the atmosphere of English-speaking-relatives at about 17/04/04.  Until that time, we will go through our procedural checklists and begin jettisoning all unnecessary baggage, expecting that with our advanced “French Mail System (tm),” all jettisoned materials should reach their intended target of Portland, Oregon at some time in the next several years.

Shuttle Julia, over and out.

Happy March!

Hello everyone!  I am safely in cold, snowy Prague and having a brilliant time.  I’ve spent the past few days hanging out with people from Japan, England, Italy, New Zealand and Ireland, all of which makes me feel very cultured and global.  Prague is a really nice city, although I’m not sure that I don’t still like Venice better.  More fun for wandering.  And easier to read the signs.  I don’t have enough Russian, nor is Russian always close enough to Czech, for me to read anything more than a few little words.  Like “bookstore” - always a good one for me!

I went to a splendiferous concert yesterday afternoon - an oboe quartet playing a sort of “greatest hits of classical music” concert, including a Mozart and a Beethoven Oboe Quartet.  They were marvelous, and what’s more, the setting made me feel like I was in a movie.  We were in a grand salon of a like palace in Prague, with a high, frescoed ceiling, beautiful drapes and swags across the windows at either end, the quartet under one window, and snow falling outside.  I felt like I should have been wearing a ball gown and fanning myself with a fan made of ostrich feathers.  ::grin::

I have today and tomorrow here in Prague, and then I’m off to Oxford for a few days.  I’ve made quite a few contacts across Europe (and the world), and we’ve all exchanged visitation invitations.  Who knows - I might take my Japanese friend (who’s living in Switzerland) up on his invitation sometime in the next month!

No time…

but just wanted to let everyone know that I made it to Venice safely and am off to Prague tomorrow!

Well, I’m off!

I head for Venice on Monday!  I’m excited, although a bit nervous.  I hope that all of you have a wonderful couple of weeks, and expect several long updates when I return!

Thought for the day

Supercalifragilistikexpialidocious!

(No, I’m not sure if that is spelled correctly.  Sorry!)

Mucha!

One of my favorite artists is Alphonse Mucha, who coincidentally happened to be Czech and therefore has a museum devoted to him in Prague. I’m very excited to go see it.  I don’t know how big it will be, nor how well-kept, but nevertheless, I have 5 days in Prague - I can afford to spend some time there, whether it’s great or not.  ::grin::

It’s a tough life, but someone’s gotta do it.

Well, Paul is safely back in Portland now, after having spent an uneventful but still fun week here.  I really enjoyed having him around - it made France seem like home for just a little while.  And I also really enjoyed watching “Firefly” with him; good, good show, although too short-lived.  We honestly didn’t do much other than watch “Firefly,” “Highlander,” and “Johnny Carson.” Occasionally I dragged him out for a walk or to school (where he made quite an impression on the girls, let me tell you! ;-) ), but other than that, we just lounged.  It was great.  ::smile::

Now, however, he is gone (alas, alack), and I have to suffer through two whole days of school before vacation begins.  Like I said, it’s a tough life.  But as soon as I’ve finished the English club tomorrow at 1:15 (since the class that I normally have on Friday afternoons has been cancelled), I am officially on vacation.  I’m going to meet up with a friend of mine that I haven’t seen for several months on Saturday in Reims for a few hours, and I have a bunch of calls to make this weekend, but other than that, I’ll just be packing, double-checking that I have my passport (I have contacted a surgeon about attaching it to my wrist), and packing my cameras and film!

On a possibly-less-exciting note, I have recently joined the NBA.

That’s right - I am the sole, founding member of Nail Biters Anonymous, and I am proud to say that through a strict mental and physical regimen I have now gone for 39 hours without biting or picking at my nails or my cuticles!  Go me!

It may seem odd that I’m making such a big deal of this, but breaking myself of the nail-biting habit is my way of convincing myself that I can break myself of an equally-long-standing, much-more-ingrained habit: my tendency to hair-trigger emotionality.  Without going into a long discussion, I have decided that the “work” that I have been doing on this problem for the past three years just isn’t cutting it, and I need to really crack down.  ...

The bell has just rung, so I can’t really go into this now, and besides, my thoughts are jumbled already, but wish me luck, please!  I really want to beat this habit (both of these habits, I should say), and I’m going to need all the luck that I can gather!

I’ll try to write once more before I leave.  Until then, have a good week/weekend!

Paul’s here, Paul’s here, hip hip hooray!

It’s so good to have one of my best friends here!  I get to speak English as fast as I want, I get to exchange quips, I get to show him around my pretty city.  (Well, okay, that last will happen once the fog lifts, which it hasn’t yet, but I’m sure that it will clear up for the weekend, right?)

We’ve not been doing all that much, although we did go to dinner with two of the other English assistants last night at the house of one of the English profs.  We’ve mostly just been lounging around, watching “Firefly,” and occasionally heading off to that “work” thing and trying to teach kids English.  And that has even turned out to be less than usual, since the teacher with whom I was supposed to have both of my classes yesterday afternoon was on strike, and so I didn’t have any classes!  Woo hoo!

No big plans for the weekend and Monday.  Mostly more of the same, minus the classes part.  On Monday we’ll head into Paris, and spend the night there so that we don’t have to get up so early on Tuesday to get Paul on his plane.  I already don’t want him to go, but I just have to remember that I’m more than halfway finished with this job and will be back in the US before I know it!  And besides, I get to go travelling the week after next, so that will help distract me from my melodramatic loneliness and angst.  ::grin::