Venezia

When you last saw me, I was cutting a rug on a dance floor at midnight on Halloween (or I suppose on the day after Halloween since it was midnight), not at all preparing to catch a train the next morning. This story begins with me tired and dunking a tea bag into scalding hot, flavorless tea at the train station the day after that, probably with globs of unwashed makeup still in the corners of my eyes, and my mind questioning why I did this to myself. The answer to that question is simple: when Halloween calls, I answer.

I’m not trying to complain too much since I was up to catch a train to Venice, which could be a whole chapter in my privilege manifesto.

I decided to kick off the first day of November, and my fall break, by going to Venice with my friend Cody.

So, this is Cody:

You may recognize him from his brief shoutout in my Siena post. He’s a super cool dude, a fellow Sarah Lawrence student, which speaks for itself, and a film student. He gives off very cool film student vibes, which is a compliment.

So, that’s Cody.

When we arrived, the entire city was blanketed in a layer of fog, making everything feel moody and atmospheric. We checked into our hostel, which was a menagerie of bunk beds, and then set off down the street for lunch at the water.

*We had lunch at the water, during which time a seagull got up close and personal to me, thereby freaking me out*

Venice doesn’t feel real. It looks and feels magical, like the destination at the end of a fairytale adventure story. Cody commented that he couldn’t believe that we were there, since Venice has always been a place that existed on a postcard and I agree. Venice is where celebrities go for red carpets and film festivals, not a place for regular college students. It is famous for its glass, is covered in bridges, and has streets that are filled with water.

For the most part, we just wanted to experience Venice. We hadn’t made any plans for our day, except to walk around and see what interested us, so we went to the bridge that they filmed a scene from “Spiderman: Far From Home” on. It was, in fact, a very nice bridge.

We rode on a gondola and marked it off my bucket list. It was a half hour ride around the city, being told about all of the places that the tourists don’t know about, without telling us the names of them, so that we couldn’t go either. Onlookers standing on bridges could lean over the sides and stare down at us as we sailed by in our gondola.

In the evening I did some Venetian glass Christmas shopping for my relatives and later we sat on a dock and looked at the water, where everything looked like solid black glass. Soon after that, feeling exhausted, I went to bed and the next morning Cody informed me that there’d been a blood moon.

I MISSED THE BLOOD MOON IN VENICE!

Keeping me humble. I can’t have too many bragging rights when I come back. People would hate me at dinner parties if I went on about the blood red moon that I saw in Venice, among other things. I was, however, beneath the blood moon the whole time. Instead I got a good night’s sleep and was ready for our train the next morning.

I had to get back in time for the art class that I was not allowed to skip during fall break. We had a day full of gondolas and water taxis. I’d love to go back there someday, hopefully for longer, and actually see something like a blood moon. In the meantime though, this was a fantastic trip and I am very thankful to Cody for accompanying me.