Sunday, July 24, 2011
Don't Go to Venice
If you don’t have money, don’t go to Venice. Just scratch it right off your itinerary, Cheap-o Marx. If you have money, what are you still doing here? Go! Get a move on! Venice is beautiful! Stay in a beautiful Hotel right on the Grand Canal! Take a gondola ride! Hell, take two! Sip café lattes, sip water, sip wine. Hire a band of attractive locals to follow you around and play music. Do your thing Richie Rich, but if you’re broke, don’t go to Venice.
If you are broke, you may actually think it sounds like fun to rough it in Venice. You’ll spend all your money on the train to get there, so you’ll find a place to stay for nine euro a night. This will sound like an amazing bargain. When you first arrive in Venice (after missing your original train) you’ll wander around with stars in your eyes, taking in the city's beauty. You’ll have a bite to eat, take a few pictures, and before long you’ll want to head out to get settled. You’ll be staying “just outside of Venice.” You’ll get on a bus that doesn’t list its stops anywhere, then be hopeful enough to get off at the first campsite you spot. That won’t be it, dear friend, because let us not forget, you are broke. You’ll have to learn this the hard way by walking a little over a mile along an Italian highway, occasionally pausing to ask managers of comfortable looking hotels if you are still going the right way.
When you finally arrive at your campsite, you will be filled with relief. You will skip merrily to your tent, open it up, and discover it smells a bit like your grandparents’ shed. You and your friend Alicia will push your beds together to make it a little less scary. Your bed will fall off the back of the tent platform. You will attempt to heave it back on, but fail every time due to fits of uncontrollable, slightly manic giggles. Alicia will watch you in silence, convulsing laughter.
Once you have dropped off your purse, into which you have stuffed all your toiletries, pajamas, clean underwear and clean sundress, you will go to the snack bar to split a bottle of wine and pack of Pringles with your friends. The feast will steadily grow into a disgusting pile of junkfood.
When you decide you can no longer avoid going to bed, you will snuggle in your sheets (desperately trying to avoid using the sketchy looking blanket) and hear a strange sound. The sound will crescendo as you stare up at your fabric ceiling. Hoping, hoping, hoping. Good news, the tent is water-proof. The rain will beat down all around you, lightning will flash, thunder will clap, and you and your friend Alicia will laugh. What else can you do?
We’ll skip over the details of how you managed to get ready after your shower without a towel (you knew something was too good about packing in that purse) and jump straight into your second day in Venice. It is freezing cold. Cold?? But everyday in Italy this month has been unbearably hot! You will cry, but it will do no good. It is freezing and raining, and you feel incredibly stupid in your little sundress. You buy an Italia sweatshirt, you buy a café latte, and you buy a warm croissant. You never make it on a gondola because the only ones running are eighty euros a pop. You laugh it off, you run from store to store, café to café. You have a blast. You tell yourself it is an adventure, but when you finally make it home to Florence, you say to yourself: if you are broke, don’t go to Venice!!
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