The Events of Friday, March 11, 2011

                Today we survived a transportation strike, a suspected robbery, getting lost in the maze of Venice, and merciless bombers overhead. Well, that might be exaggerating a little bit. The transportation strike didn’t affect us too much; there was still transportation between Venice and Venice Lido, where we are staying. The suspected robbery turned out to be a bit of forgetfulness, but I’ll tell you more about that later. When we got lost, well… that turned out okay because if you follow along a street long enough you either hit a dead end or a canal, which can lead a person to the Grand Canal, the main street of Venice. Getting lost was also okay because we got to see lots of great sights that no other tourist has probably ever seen in their life. Our tour book actually told us to get lost, in order to see the real Venice, which we did on accident. The bombers are also known as pigeons and seagulls, which rule San Marcos Square and seem to like sending their waste down on people’s heads. However, despite some near misses, no bombs landed directly upon us.

                Anyway, our adventurous time began at the abnormal time (at least in Europe) of 8:00 when we were awakened by Mom and sent on our morning routines. While the girls rotated through the shower after breakfast, the others had their quiet times, packed and prepared for the day. We left for Venice at the time that we woke up yesterday and caught a large boat, the only boat available due to the strike heading to Venice. We disembarked at San Marcos Square, the home of the great San Marcos Basilica, San Marcos Bell Tower, and the Doge’s (or Duke’s) Palace. First we head to the San Marcos Square Museum and bought tickets that were good until the end of April. Here in Venice, public restrooms cost about €1,50, which is equal to about two dollars. This for one use, one person. (Just a bit of a lesson in European money. They trade commas for decimal points and decimal points for commas. If something was 1,000 Euros, it would be written: €1.000. If something cost 1.50 Euros, it would be written €1,50.) We figured that it would cost about €45 for all of us to go to the bathroom if we all used it several times over the course of one day. Figuring that, we resolved to use our home bathroom and free bathrooms, such as in cafés or at museums, as much as possible. Since these tickets were good for so long, a person with one of these tickets could have access to free restrooms as often as they want, without paying extra money. We used these free restrooms first before going through the rooms of the museum.

                The first of these rooms displayed artifacts and pieces of art that displayed Venetian culture. The rest of the rooms displayed a variation of Renaissance art. There were rooms that displayed statues, rooms that displayed maps or paintings, and other rooms that just displayed themselves, with frescoes, chandeliers, fancy furniture and spectacular ceiling and wall paintings. One room we visited had a collection of coins minted in Venice that dated to each year from 814 to 1789. Some other rooms we visited had beautiful pieces of art in them, but even more beautiful was the chandelier above them. Two of the chandeliers were about the size of a dining room table. They were made in Murano, and the detail was so exquisite with the flowers, leaves, branches that I just gaped upward instead of admiring the rest of the art. Soon our stomachs were rumbling and we went outside to a nearby park to eat some delicious Italian baguettes, Wheat Thin crackers, cheese, carrots and apples.

                After lunch we checked our bags at the free bag check and then lined up for the Basilica. Luckily the line wasn’t too long and we were in the San Marcos Basilica without too long a wait. We pulled out our iPods and listened to the Rick Steves’ audio tour that we had downloaded. He took us around the Basilica and pointed out many things along the way. Everything was a mosaic, the floor had many different shapes, and the ceilings and wall held pictures that told biblical stories. The first thing that he told us to look at was a mosaic that told the story of Noah’s Ark. It was made in the 12th century. It was made to have a clear story in pictures so that the peasants could read the story through the pictures. He then led us to the altar and directed our eyes first to the ceiling, then to the altar, the floor, and then the side wall. We learned that San Marcos meant St. Mark. The story was that Mark’s bones were in Alexandria, Egypt, where he had died. In 828, two Venetian merchants stole the remains of Saint Mark. According to legend, the Venetians hid the remains in a barrel under layers of pork to hide them from the Muslim guards. When they came back to Venice, they transformed the chapel of the Doge into this huge Basilica as a final resting place for St. Mark. Supposedly, when the construction was finished, they could not remember where they had put the remains. All of Venice came into the Basilica to pray for help. People started suggesting places that it might be. Then someone opened a hollow marble column, and, voi la, there were the remains. This story was also depicted in a mosaic.

                After admiring the rest of the Basilica, we went back to the museum to kill some time, use the restrooms, and walk through the Archeological Part. I was fascinated by slabs of stone made in Ancient Greece and Dad loved the “Colossus Foot”, a marble foot that was absolutely huge. Maybe he liked it because his own foot looked small next it, I really don’t know. We picked up our bags and headed to La Boutique del Gelato, the best gelato place in town. On any other day we could have ridden on one of the canal boats, but due to the strike we had to walk. On the way we got lost.

                You have to understand that Venice doesn’t have cars. It has no room for cars. There are streets (the size of sidewalks) and plazas (the size of streets) and squares (the size of plazas). There are also parks (the size of squares, such as Time Square). Some of the alley ways are barely wide enough for one person to walk through. Dad led us through streets and across bridges and then through streets and across bridges. Finally we found the Gelato place after passing it three times. Mom and I ordered rich “chocolato gelatos” and Lindsey ordered Nutella gelato with hazelnuts and chocolate chunks. Ben ordered lemon and Caitlin chose stracciatella, chocolate shavings in vanilla gelato. Daddy was ordering a vanilla cherry gelato when he found that he had no cash. The kids were outside enjoying our gelatos when Dad rushed out and went down the street. Mom came out and, in answer to our frantic questions says, “Dad thinks he was robbed.”

                Now you have to understand what was going through my head. My panicked thought process went something like this: “Oh no, we’re bankrupt. Now we’re going to have to be stranded here in Venice and I’ll never see my friends again.” I’m probably dramatic, but my fears vanished when I learned that one, Mom had her wallet but no cash, and, two, Dad had his wallet but also had no cash. Mom did not find it very probable that somebody would take Dad’s wallet out of his front pocket, take out the cash and put it back, but you could never know. We finished our gelatos and hung around until Dad came back from the bank. However, he hadn’t been able to get cash as he had withdrawn our daily amount that morning. He had bought a knife hoping to get cash back, but that didn’t work either. Finally he remembered that he had emptied his cash from his wallet this morning for safe keeping and forgot to put it back. After explaining this to the Gelato lady, he promised to return tomorrow to pay our debt. I’m excited about that as that means some more yummy gelatos for us all‼

                Happy that we were not bankrupt, we found our way to the Rialto Bridge, a very famous bridge that stretches over the Grand Canal. In the middle of the bridge are tons of shops, but from the side of the bridge we were able to have a spectacular view of the Grand Canal. We took some pictures and then went down the bridge. We tried looking for a phone store so that we could get a SIM card, but it turned out that the store our GPS led us to, didn’t exist anymore so we took the long route back to the ferry terminal, seeing more of the “real Venice”. Finally we found the ferry terminal and caught a boat back to Venice Lido.

                We walked home and unpacked, doing various activities until dinnertime. After a delicious Italian dinner (pasta, bread and salad) we had crostoli, an Italian thin pastry with powdered sugar on top. I thought it was funny that the average Italian has two servings of pasta, two glasses of wine and a half pound of bread per day. It’s the truth! For the rest of the evening we read, started learning languages and figuring out what we want to do in the rest of Europe, got ready for bed, and then headed to bed, a pretty calm ending to an adventurous day.