My two worlds meet

Lately I have been blessed with not one but two visits from Australia.  The antipodes being so far away it is always a treat and fill up for the soul to get a visit.  It’s great to see dear friends again and I wonder what they think to find me happily ensconced in Italy, it is always a little strange meeting people who you know from one life in another (a bit like the awful embarrassment when a child of seeing your teacher in the real world or was it just me who thought they disappeared in a puff of smoke at the end of the school day only to rematerialize the next morning when the bell rang?)  Being the quasi local I make it my mission to show visitors around my “for now” home and have pretty much perfected the Raji tour of Venice, which can involve any combination of history, art, architecture, islands and of course bars – there’s always bars, bars are the constant. 

So familiar is Venice to me now that it is only when showing people around that I remember the delight of discovering it for myself not too long ago.  When travelling into to Venice on one of these little expeditions I realise how fortunate I am to be blasé about going there.  Truly it is a luxury to be able to say “I really can’t be bothered to go to Venice today.”  The first of my visits was from R and her husband who rocked up to Venice for a week.  I like to think that I know Venice and can find even the smallest out of the way place without recourse to a map, when R suggested we meet in Gucci I had no idea of its location beyond the “it’s bound to be in San Marco somewhere.”  A quick google and I discovered that I had past it dozens of times without noticing along with every other high end designer shop that I have no business looking in – it seems I have selective blindness.  As I was early I couldn’t help but take a quick look around.  Stepping inside it was obvious to all concerned that I did not belong (I’d have looked less conspicuous playing for the All Blacks) and I have to say the clothes weren’t that great a perfect example of the fact that money doesn't always buy you taste. 

Greeting R again after six months was a joy and while her husband spent the afternoon watching some kind of sporting event we eagerly chatted and wondered the back streets of Castello.   After months away it was refreshing to have the easy banter with someone you have shared experiences with.  R quizzed me relentlessly on my adventures and life in Treviso and noted that with my new found love of domesticity I seem to be nesting.  Usually I would dismiss such notions  as ridiculous – Raji doesn’t nest she is an explorer of the world - but coming from someone with a PHD in psychiatry I can’t help but wonder.   After a day and an evening of exploring, eating and drinking the time to say goodbye came all too soon.  As joyous as reunions are the goodbyes are very hard and I felt quite melancholic.  Just as I was about to give in to those lonely feelings I ran into my Venetian friend T who always seems to have a cheery smile and an infinite amount of patience with my terrible Italian.     

S crossing the Grand Canal by tragehtto

This week saw the arrival of S my old flatmate from my time as a Melbourne resident.  S and I had shared a house for a year and despite this are still talking.  Once again I had the strange sensation of my two lives crashing into one another as the person I was more used to seeing in a little workers cottage in North Fitzroy was suddenly here in Treviso.  Over spritz and dinner we caught up with tales of our friends, relationships made and broken, babies born and other events in what is becoming an increasingly faraway place.  The next day and yet again it was a tour of Venice (something that I never seem to tire of doing.)  We packed in quite a lot in one day: the bascilica, the rialto markets, a few islands and even some of the biennale and S was suitably impressed.   

To give S a bit of a taste of life in my new found home I thought it would be nice for him to meet some of the locals.  GM joined us for a drink and as both he and S are DJs the conversation fell into a language of genres, equipment and mixing that soon all I was hearing was blah blah blah.  Next evening after a day at the beach (quite why S who lives in a country blessed with amazing beaches wanted to head to an Italian beach depressingly peppered with cigarette butts and lined with deck chairs in a faintly Germanic neatness I wasn’t sure) it was a night out with my fellow teachers and various friends.  The evening was a bit of a last hurrah as school was about to close for the summer and we are all heading off for the hols.  S noted that he was quite impressed that I had built a life here in such a relatively short amount of time and in many ways it makes it all the more real for me to have friends come and experience it.  To my new found Trevisan friends S thought you were the best and if you ever find yourself in Melbourne has offered to play host.  

The next morning bleary eyed from lack of sleep and a little too much cheer it was time for yet another goodbye.  As many goodbyes as I seem to make they never get any easier and are always bittersweet.  For future reference I keep them short and don’t make much of a drama: a hug and a bon voyage that’s me.