Venice & Carnival!
Trip Start
Jan 03, 2008
1
11
38
Trip End
Apr ????
Venice,
Italy
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Angela:
"Hey family and friends of Jason!
Phew... here goes! I was on a solo trip to Madrid, Spain. Jay and I were both snapping pics of the same building when he overheard my american accent... within 4 hours we conquered that city - snapping fotos, being goofballs and pacifying the short-lived comfort of being in the presence of familiarity. 2 days later we met up in Barcelona and ate pounds of seafood right on the pier. I called the family of my childhood home which is located between Milan and Venice, Italy..
22-Venice
. a few days later he was hosted by beloved Italian family and friends, never the less a warm bed and home cooked meals from pastas to pizza! He is very healthy, happy and courageous for what he is doing. In all, he is in very good hands, he goes through more ups then downs but never backwards. And from the sounds of it, he has a lot of warm hearts back home. Seems the luck goes both ways:)Jason, as for you... serendipity's got me speechless. We crossed paths in an unforgettable time in our lives, that no matter the age... when we look at eachother only the two of us will be able to purely empathize with a single smile - young, care-free, courageous, adventurous and independent. Every time I look at the moon I will think of you.
Hats off to you Jason for grabbing the world by the balls and LIVING YOUR LIFE. Salute!"
Staying with Giorgio and his family was spectacular! Giorgio met me at the train station of his home city of Vicenza, just an hour outside of Venice. He took me back to his family's place where he lives, introduced me to the family who was eagerly anticipating my arrival with very welcoming faces, gave me the tour of the house - I had a bedroom upstairs and made sure at every moment I was comfortable. First on my agenda was to shower and shave, then we headed out for some authentic Italian pizza at a restaurant nearby. The pizza was awesome, we both had beers with our pizza and followed with a coffee for dessert. Italian coffee's are little espresso shots that you load sugar in, that's it, if you order a tall coffee, the get a very confused look, it is hard enough finding it in stores here
Giovanni & Jessica
! Also for desert Giorgio ordered a sweet liquor for the each of us that came with free desert samples of what looked to be chocolate in very shallow waffle cones. Turned out this chocolate is very bitter and as every of bit strong as a shot, needless to say my intuitive directions were a bit off after this point, I couldn't tell if I was buzzed from the alcohol or the coffee - is this how the Italian's have meals?That very night of my arrival, Giorgio took me over to a buddy of his house and where me and his friends met up for the car ride to Venice to go to a 'disco' as to say a club. Giorgio was the only bi lingual speaker, conversations between his friends and I must have been tiring for Giorgio by the end of the weekend. One of Giorgio's friends, Giovanni, he didn't speak English very well but during the weekend he sure tried very hard to hold conversations between him and I - it was great that he took the effort to establish our friendship, he really was a good guy. The disco was impossible to get into, there were hundreds of people inside and a herd of hundred of people smashed together waiting to get in. We were in the herd waiting to get in. This crown really was like a group of live stock waiting to get through a narrow gate to the open pasture that was to be the disco, we were in line for an hour and a half while the crowed has to wait until people leave one bye one and cycling through the bodies respectively, replacing each given shoulder room availability that was vacant on the inside, the only difference in there is there was music
23-Venice
. We ditched the lines and headed to a pub to grab Spritzers before our ferry ride back off the island and the car ride back to home. The next morning, I awoke to a home cooked meal of pasta's and pork. We sat down as a whole family and enjoyed each other's company the whole morning, again Giorgio translating between his family the whole way through. I contacted a friend I met at the hostel in Switzerland who was in Venice at the same time, we were going to meet up during Carnival, I told him to meet at San Marco Place in Venice (the most popular square) at the front center of a stage that had been there the night before. Turns out Giorgio and I were about 30 min past the scheduled time to meet Neal from Switzerland due to the long and beautiful ferry rides, and to find the square jam packed, and that stage I said to meet at... a performance was being held and was surrounded by hundreds of people, many of which were in mask. Woops! It was impossible to find my lost friend. Giorgio and I decided to carry on with our excursion through Carnival. The masks and wardrobes were amazing and extravagant, but what was the best site was not the Carnival but the city in itself. Venice is extremely charming and very surreal, I felt I ferried straight into a fairy tale. The water is green, people are being transported by the gondola's running through every canal, the men rowing the gondola's wear the cliché attire of stripped shirts and barrette hats
Giorgio & Jessica
. All the buildings doors that were seaside are meant to park your boat in front of and step right on through the doors. Venice consists of I believe 19 islands with canals running through each one and foot bridges connecting each island. I wish I had a vacation house here, as many of the houses are bought by very wealthy investors for vacation homes. That evening Giorgio and I went back to his place where the very same friends again came over and enjoyed our Sunday nights together. His friends brought pizza for us all to eat and we watched television and surfed the net together in the living room and lounged for the duration of the evening, it was very enjoyable to be out of a hostel for several nights and into a home with all the comforts of home, first time in 4 weeks.
The next morning I was to set south to Florence, Italy. Venice wouldn't have been the same amazing experience if it wasn't for Giorgio being such a good friend whom I will never forget, their family being so hospitable, and their friends for extending their time and energy to be with me. And I owe it all to Angela for arranging this for me from California, she really has touched my life, hard to imagine I am following her childhood steps meeting her family and friends abroad, and it was just 2 weeks ago we bumped into each other on a street in Madrid.
Ciao
