Of how I loved and how I failed
Ah Venice. La Serenissima. The Most Serene Republic.
I lived in this beautiful, unique, decaying city for four months in 1994 as a third year undergraduate as part of my course in "Modern European & Renaissance" history. To be honest, the Venice term was a big part of my thinking in doing this course in the first place - the chance to spend a term studying "Venice & Florence in the Renaissance" in Italy, and all I had to do in return was spend 2 hours a week for the first 2 years of my course studying Italian. No problems.
I lived in a flat in Castello, just around the corner from St Mark's Square and the Ponte de Sospiri, the Bridge of Sighs. I was a member of the Marciana Library in St. Mark's. I walked over the Rialto bridge every day. I travelled (via vaporetto) on the Grand Canal. I took part in a festival in November where the whole city processes to the church of Salute to give thanks for salvation from the Plague (in 1630).
What do I particularly remember from my time there?
- Watching Venezia vs Wolves in the Anglo-Italian cup as a wind whipped in off the lagoon.
- Playing Jenga in Cafe Blue in Dorsoduro
- Being violently ill for 24 hours after a plate of dodgy spaghetti alla vongole
- walking into a plate glass door at the Palazzo Querini Stampalia (where we were based) so hard that I still have a scar on my nose
- the vast amounts of dog shit everywhere
- realising how short Henry IV of France was when I saw a suit of his armour in the Doge's palace
- wandering, totally lost, around the Arsenale district, and realising I could have been walking back in time as there was not a single thing to remind me I was in the twentieth century
- walking back home across the Academia bridge at 2am in the morning, through a completely deserted St. Mark's listening to "Yes" by the Manic Street Preachers on my Walkman.
- Walking through St. Mark's in the fog
It's a fabulous, mysterious city and there is nowhere else like it in the world, and I was lucky to live there.
I was 20 years old. There wasn't even a McDonald's in Venice when I lived there. I had to direct hungry Wolves fans to the only burger bar in town, a strange place called "Burgi" (if memory serves me correctly) where they sold fast food really, really slowly.
Why am I telling you this? I suppose I don't really have a point. Writing about the Manic Street Preachers below made me think about how much I listened to the Holy Bible when I was living in Venice. Other bands I was listening to at the time included Suede, Blur, Belly, Scott Walker and The Smiths. The scars from my school life were still firmly in place (probably still are) and I had a great deal of difficulty forming any kind of meaningful relationship with women - I could still barely have a sensible conversation with a member of the opposite sex, nevermind have persuaded one to go out with me. Shortly after I got back from Venice though, I got my first proper girlfriend and I think I finally began to leave some (alright, a couple) of my hang-ups behind me (although I'm still crap at small talk)
Think of this post as a bit of background information on my life....
I lived in this beautiful, unique, decaying city for four months in 1994 as a third year undergraduate as part of my course in "Modern European & Renaissance" history. To be honest, the Venice term was a big part of my thinking in doing this course in the first place - the chance to spend a term studying "Venice & Florence in the Renaissance" in Italy, and all I had to do in return was spend 2 hours a week for the first 2 years of my course studying Italian. No problems.
I lived in a flat in Castello, just around the corner from St Mark's Square and the Ponte de Sospiri, the Bridge of Sighs. I was a member of the Marciana Library in St. Mark's. I walked over the Rialto bridge every day. I travelled (via vaporetto) on the Grand Canal. I took part in a festival in November where the whole city processes to the church of Salute to give thanks for salvation from the Plague (in 1630).
What do I particularly remember from my time there?
- Watching Venezia vs Wolves in the Anglo-Italian cup as a wind whipped in off the lagoon.
- Playing Jenga in Cafe Blue in Dorsoduro
- Being violently ill for 24 hours after a plate of dodgy spaghetti alla vongole
- walking into a plate glass door at the Palazzo Querini Stampalia (where we were based) so hard that I still have a scar on my nose
- the vast amounts of dog shit everywhere
- realising how short Henry IV of France was when I saw a suit of his armour in the Doge's palace
- wandering, totally lost, around the Arsenale district, and realising I could have been walking back in time as there was not a single thing to remind me I was in the twentieth century
- walking back home across the Academia bridge at 2am in the morning, through a completely deserted St. Mark's listening to "Yes" by the Manic Street Preachers on my Walkman.
- Walking through St. Mark's in the fog
It's a fabulous, mysterious city and there is nowhere else like it in the world, and I was lucky to live there.
I was 20 years old. There wasn't even a McDonald's in Venice when I lived there. I had to direct hungry Wolves fans to the only burger bar in town, a strange place called "Burgi" (if memory serves me correctly) where they sold fast food really, really slowly.
Why am I telling you this? I suppose I don't really have a point. Writing about the Manic Street Preachers below made me think about how much I listened to the Holy Bible when I was living in Venice. Other bands I was listening to at the time included Suede, Blur, Belly, Scott Walker and The Smiths. The scars from my school life were still firmly in place (probably still are) and I had a great deal of difficulty forming any kind of meaningful relationship with women - I could still barely have a sensible conversation with a member of the opposite sex, nevermind have persuaded one to go out with me. Shortly after I got back from Venice though, I got my first proper girlfriend and I think I finally began to leave some (alright, a couple) of my hang-ups behind me (although I'm still crap at small talk)
Think of this post as a bit of background information on my life....
posted by swisslet @ 08:35
3 Comments:
At 10:24 am,
Teresa Bowman said…
That was beautiful. Made me think of this:
"I have not bummed across America
with only a dollar to spare, one pair
of busted Levi's and a bowie knife.
I have lived with thieves in Manchester.
I have not padded through the Taj Mahal,
barefoot, listening to the space between
each footfall, picking up and putting down
its print against the marble floor. But I
skimmed flat stones across Black Moss on a day
so still I could hear each set of ripples
as they crossed. I felt each stone's inertia
spend itself against the water; then sink.
I have not toyed with a parachute cord
while perched on the lip of a light aircraft;
but I held the wobbly head of a boy
at the day centre, and stroked his fat hands.
And I guess that the lightness in the throat
and the tiny cascading sensation
somewhere inside us are both part of that
sense of something else. That feeling, I mean."
(Simon Armitage, "It ain't what you do, it's what it does to you")
At 11:08 pm,
OLS said…
Venice still stands out in my memory as one of my favourite places from Europe. Mostly because of a meal I had at one restaurant.
I was wandering around the Rialto Markets with a couple of gorgeous Brazilian girls who spoke fluent Italian when we decided it was time for lunch. They asked the shopkeeper of the store we were in where he would recommend and he pointed us to a place around the corner, but warned us that we may not like it, as it was where he and the locals ate, and not touristy. The owner/chef of the restaurant was delighted and entranced by my companions - because they spoke fluent Italian, because they were Brazilian and he had spent some time there, but I think mostly because they both looked like models. ;o)
He wouldn't let us order from the menu, but made us his specialty dish - a huge plate of pasta with a tomato-based sauce and who knows what in it. It was divine. The meal was accompanied by a glass of wine each, bread and those almondy biscuits to follow. All for under 15 euro each.
I have photos of us all at the table to remember it all by. And a business card from the restaurant stuck into my diary - it was called the Osteria del "Sacro e Profano" - of course, I have no idea what that means though... ;o)
- OLS
At 2:25 pm,
LB said…
interesting that your failing love life story falls in a post about Venice, I had the opposite experience as I got engaged there.
bloody place.
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