It’s a sign of how ready I am to return home that this
morning I actually stayed in bed bed surfing the internet rather than
immediately getting up. Never before has
that tiny, lumpy mess enticed me to stay in it after I’ve woken up
properly! Then I puttered around, cleaned
my room, and organized all my postcards, brochures, notes, and other paper
what-have-yous. I restrained myself from packing just yet, only because I don’t
have that much space and it’ll just make everything (more) chaotic. Seriously, Sean would have some kind of attack if he saw how I’ve been
living these past two months. Crap
everywhere…
Once I finally left home, at around 1pm, I decided to go to
Torcello, one of the outlying islands in the lagoon that was the original
center of Venice in the early medieval period.
Less than a few dozen people actually live on it now, though there are
two small, expensive hotels. Getting
there, especially from the Lido, takes quite a bit of time: maybe 20 minutes to
Fondamente Nuova, then switching to another boat to take you 45 minutes out to
the cute fisherman’s island of Burano, where you switch to another boat to take
you the ten-minute ride to Torcello proper.
This route is made even longer if you stupidly forget that you need to
switch at Burano, and have to ride another 20 minutes to the next stop, get
off, and take the next boat (which happily came in three minutes) another 20
minutes back to Burano. *facepalm* For
all this effort, I can’t say I was over-impressed by the payoff. The only
sights on the island, which is tiny, is the cathedral with its belltower and
the adjacent central-plan church of Santa Fosca. Usually you can climb the belltower, which
would have been something, even if Venice is pretty far distant, but it’s under
construction. The cathedral is known for
its 11th century mosaic decoration, a Madonna and Christ with
apostles in the apse and a whole bunch of scenes, including a last judgment
with blue devils and some creative depictions of hell, on the counter-façade.
But honestly, if you’re looking for mosaics in Venice, you’ve got the far
superior example of Saint Mark’s, and in general once you’ve been to Ravenna,
other mosaics have a hard time cutting the mustard. I did enjoy a tasty
strawberry push-up popsicle on the hot walk back to the boat stop, though, so
not a total loss.
Going home, I asked one of the sailors if I should go back
around to Fondamente Nuova or continue going around in a circle through Punta
Sabbioni; he told me the latter would be a little faster, so off I went to
complete a full circumnavigation of the lagoon!
It was a beautiful day for It, really, maybe 82 degrees, and of course
when the boat is moving at a good clip, like it can out in the lagoon (vs the
crawl up the Grand Canal), the wind for anyone standing on deck is pretty
strong. All around the vaporetto raced
the speedboats and small yachts of Italians enjoying a fine Saturday afternoon;
nearly every boat had a pot-bellied, speedo-clad man at the wheel, while two or
three bikini-clad women splayed themselves out fore and aft. One group had the stroke of inspiration to
put a full-size air mattress on the prow of the boat on which two women (always
in bikinis; no one, and I mean no one, no matter age or shape, wears one-pieces
here) were reclining and chatting animatedly.
I can’t really imagine a life where that’s your weekend, and I mean that
in an “I’m jealous” kind of way.
Sigh.
On the larger ferry from Punta Sabbioni back to the Lido, a
trip that took maybe 30, 40 minutes, some American girls, high school age, sat
down next to me on the boat. It quickly
transpired that one of them realized she’d left her bag on another boat, and
went tearing off to the officers. (For
all the agitation they were in I assumed this involved the girl’s purse, but
no, it was her bag of Murano glass *eyeroll*
The sailors radioed the other boat, which sent the bag to central lost
and found; all would be well). The girl
who lost her bag was quite lovely, red-headed, willowy, and in the most
incredible dark blue full-length summer dress with a back that was almost
entirely ivory lace, all the way down her back.
The other two, who stayed sitting near me, were plainer, and they
discussed whether the sailors would have been so eager to help an unattractive
girl who’d lost her bag. They ultimately
decided that anyone freaked out enough would elicit a positive response, but
they both acknowledged the power of attractiveness—a sadly astute observation
for girls their age. In fact, I had just
observed a small instance of this phenomenon when I went to ask one of the
sailors for advice on my route. He was
in the cabin of the boat with his back to me when I asked if I could ask him a
question; he sort of grumpily turned around to see what this person wanted, and
then very obviously broke into a charming smile when he saw I was young and
attractive. I’m sure he would have given
the same response to an unattractive person, of course, but in this case it was
the attitude that changed markedly.
I felt kind of disposed to like these girls, because for
once they actually reminded me of our group of friends in high school. They seemed normal, for lack of a better
word; not blatantly rich, like so many tourist kids you see in Europe, for one
thing, and also relatively intelligent.
Then another girl in their group, even a little bit plainer than they
were, came over and was updating them about the Affair of the Bag. They pointed out the empty seat next to me
and urged her to sit down, which was nice, but they then proceeded to ignore
her completely, which I didn’t like. It
was clear that these two girls were close friends, and the third was maybe just
an acquaintance or a classmate, so the ignoring took the form of them giggling
to each other about their own in-jokes, and then sharing headphones to rock out
to dance music and loudly compare notes on the music. I mean, I know this is how teenage girls are,
I have no doubt that I engaged in that behavior once myself, and I’m sure
there’s a sociological model that explains the cementing of a bond between two
individuals by subtly but firmly excluding a third, but from an adult
perspective one recognizes that the polite thing to do, the kinder thing to do, would have been to
include the third girl in the conversation, even if only peripherally, instead
of leaving her staring at her hands the rest of the way. It made me sad for
her, and I wanted to talk to her, but it felt weird to have been sitting with
them for 30 minutes without making it clear I spoke English (I might not fool
Europeans but I feel like American teenagers would have no idea) only to
suddenly initiate conversation. I know the process of becoming mature adults
will probably cure those girls of what they were doing (they seemed perfectly
decent otherwise), but as for the girl they were leaving out, well, I hope
she’s not someone that happens to often. God, I’m happy to be an adult now,
even if it means occasionally having to make conversation with people I don’t
like or don’t have any interest in.
There really is something in politeness, I think. The English aren’t always wrong.
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