15 go mad in Venice

Was tagged in Osteria ......... 

It used to be a case of wake up, see how you feel, drag yourself out of bed, mainline coffee and slowly piece events together.  Today thanks to facebook by the time your bleary eyes open the previous nights antics have probably been shared with a good couple of hundred people.  It’s with a very real sense of trepidation that you log on to the net, navigate to facebook and get ready to remove tags from photos your friends have kindly uploaded.  Last Sunday I woke to find my facebook page looking something like this:

Thanks to modern technology creating phones smarter than me every moment of the previous night seemed to have been documented and the list of bars I’d been tagged in was embarrassingly long.  Last week it was J’s birthday and in honour of the event a gang of us went to Venice.  The idea was a tour of bacari (traditional Venetian drinking establishments) and seeing that I am famed for knowing Venice I was entrusted with navigating the 15-20 of us to the best spots in town.  As ever getting more than four people together and on the same train is a feat of organisation and we were no different resulting in two of us arriving in Venice a full hour before the main party (we got the intended train I may hasten to add.)  When we did all meet up it quickly became apparent that everyone in our party was intent on having the same good time although I was dismayed to find at our first stop the British half of the table ordering prosecco and Italian side coffee – I mean geez guys. 

Taking in the beauty between bars two and three

Now to give you a bar by bar account of the night would be a little boring but as ever I was in my element taking people around this incredible city and Venice is the perfect place for a bar crawl – small enough to not need public transport, yet big enough to sober up between bars, in fact the only real drawback is the risk of falling into a canal.   This was the first time that I had shown locals around their own back yard and my Italian friends were most impressed by this Brit’s knowledge of Venetian topography and more importantly the best places to get a drink.  Venice is so full of history that inevitably almost every building has a story attached to it and one of the fun things about bar hoping in Venice is that you get to say things like “the next bar’s near Marco Polo’s house.”  I always get a kick out of saying things like that.    

    

The achievement of the night was getting our entire party on the last train back to Treviso – no small feat and although we all got on the same train we were not exactly together but that’s just a detail.  Arriving back to Treviso at 12.30 the sensible option would have been to wish J a happy birthday say our goodbyes and head home but we had been drinking for the best part of 7 hours and we all know ability to reason is directly linked to blood alcohol content so we carried on. 

Between bars five and six, err I think

Now let’s face it Treviso is not what you would call a twenty four hour city and most late night places close by two and by the appointed hour when most people called it a night there were three of us left standing and I found myself in Treviso’s very own slice of crazy.  They say that when you make it to the No1 bar you have been in Treviso too long.  It’s the only place to go if you want a drink at 7am.  Stepping into No1 bar is akin to walking into a David Lynch movie it is at once suburbanly normal, freakily nightmarish and surreally banal.  The decor is white- white walls, white floor, large white sofas.  My companions informed me that the place had recently been refurbished – prior the floors were covered in a red carpet that made the place feel like the red room.  The walls are decorated with cheap pictures on a native American theme in the corner entertainment is provided by an aging crooner singing hits from the 80s (that night it was Phil Collins and Peter Cetera)  with a tinny old casio keyboard that looks to be of the same era as it’s player.  As for the clientele, well that was the depressing part.  Sad middle aged men and over dolled up women for whose company payment is required.  There’s been a few times when I have felt myself straying into David Lynch’s world and I always try to attach the place to one of his works (thankfully I’ve never encountered easerhead and hope I never do.) No1 bar I would put somewhere between Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks.  

The next morning I work after a couple of hours sleep feeling a lot better than I deserved to (thanks in part to the drink ease and bottle of water I had left out for myself.)  Sunday would be about recovery.  Everyone seems to have their own recovery ritual and for me it’s coffee, water and a big bowl of nasi goreng.  There’s something about the greasy goodness of the fried rice, the chilli kick of the sambal oelek and the protein in the egg that makes the dish perfect after a big night.  My Italian friends can’t understand how I can eat such a meal at breakfast but it’s served the Indonesians well for years. 

Logging on the net to begin the remove tag ritual I was amazed to find that I’d slept through a rather significant earthquake.  The first of the (at rough count) 100 pictures of the evening were emerging as were stories of the morning after.  I spent the day much like everyone else snoozing, drinking lots and lots of water and declaring getting dressed a significant achievement.  That evening as many of us reconvened most people were accounted for and only one was missing in action that is, unable to get out of bed and all of us were operating on a low blue flame.  While I don’t think I can do a night like that again for a very, very long time it is worth noting that we only got through three of Venice’s sestieri so the crawl is only half done...

On the road with Jen and Raj

The dread starts on Thursday afternoons.  At some point J and look at each other and one of us says “I don’t want to go to tomorrow.”  Yet go we must and this week in a cruel twist of fate we had to make the journey twice.

Since J and I were thrown together by the same workplace we have shared many a mile on the roads of the Veneto. While there have been fun adventures in the mountains or to one of the endless picture postcards towns that Italy seems to specialise in for the most part our road trips have been the painful Friday ritual.  Our trips to the mineral powder company have become the sort of adventure we would sell our first born or avoid.  

     

Not that the trip is entirely bad, over the months and many an hour in the car together we’ve got to know each other pretty well.  Previous evening antics and coming weekend adventures are planned and discussed.  Past experiences and trials of living in Italy are dissected and all with the passing background of the always the same faceless middle of nowhere Veneto.

In driving terms after 5 years in Italy J has gone native.  Traffic lights are often more a guide to road behaviour than law and any kind of bad driving from other road users is greeted with a stream of invective that is quite unbritish. Not just swearing but the sort of gestures that leave no driver looking in the rear view mirror in any doubt about what J thinks of them.  Recently I have noticed the creeping Italianisation in myself – even as a passenger I now react to stupid driving as if I was moral affront.

Coffee or something stronger stop

Very early into our time we discovered that if we were going to get through this coffee was going to be an essential.  We quickly came upon our regular coffee stop – Vega Benzina, Scorze – (Vega Benzina is a service station.) At first the proprietors of this out in the middle of nowhere servo didn’t quite know what to make of two British women coming in for coffee at 9.30 every Friday but now we’re regulars.   As we sip our cappuccinos (and more than once plan exactly what we are going to teach for the next three hours) it’s not unusual to find ourselves surrounded by Italians knocking back a prosecco or something a little stronger.  Am I the only one to find it bizarre to find a fully stocked bar are a service station out in the middle of nowhere?  Am I the only one who finds it bizarre to see people enjoying a glass of wine or something stronger at 9.30 in the morning?  No wonder this place has such a problem with drink driving.

Our destination  - oh the horror.

Why do we hate the journey so much?  Well in part it’s the fact that for 3 hours teaching we use an additional hour going there and coming back.  The main thing is that our destination has to be the most depressing and desolate place in the Veneto.  I call it the armpit of the Veneto (it’s not even interesting enough to be the groin.)  The company we teach in has an atmosphere that’s two parts Wernham hogg and one part button moon and those three hours are the longest hours of my week.

The drive back is a relief and we both have a set of markers that mean we’re getting nearer to home – there’s the jogger who come hail or high water is always on the road, the oversize modal horse outside the riding shop, the sign that reads “sexy shop” (I can never seem to make Italians understand why that’s so funny) and finally the porta della pace which means we’re back and we can forget about Wernham Hogg for a week.

The Rome Diary

Hard to believe but this used to be at the end of my street

A long, long time ago when I was fresh out of University I spent a hedonistic summer kicking around Rome.  As much as I loved that summer and Rome I had never managed to go back until last week when yet another Italian holiday gave me four days of freedom and the opportunity to hop a train to the capital. 

My reintroduction to Rome began at Termini station and immediately the world was different.  The Termini of 1998 was a tired, dingy place where among the legions of tourists was a constant population of seedy characters.  Often I would find myself walking past a poor junkie on the way to oblivion with the needle still in a vein.  Today the place has been cleaned up, it’s all polished surfaces and bright shops with the same interior design that renders airport terminals bland retail nightmares.  Outside the station it was heartening to see that all of Rome hadn’t succumbed to march of consumer progress – the main bus station was as chaotic as I remember it.  It was always an endeavour finding your bus but with half the square ripped up it was a double drama.  Weaving my way passed bewildered visitors, taxis and impromptu stalls selling pope branded cigarette lighters and novelty aprons, breathing in the warm air mixed with petrol fumes I realised that the last place I felt to be this chaotic was New Dehli train station.  Given the situation I impressed myself by locating the 170 bus in minutes, on the bus driving past many an iconic edifice that for now was just a fancy traffic island I quickly realised that I was no longer in the reserved north.  As soon as the bus got moving people started to talking to each other by the end of the 20 minute journey my life story had been gleaned by the lovely (yet a little nosey) old ladies.

Off the bus I was met by my host the genial R.  I’d never met R before but he had offered to host me in exchange for an Indian meal – this cooking thing is proving most useful.  R lives in Trastervere which in 98 was my absolute favourite part of the city and after dinner we headed out for a walk and a few drinks.  It’s funny how memories play tricks on you and I always remember Trastervere to be a reasonably quiet place with the main part of the city being the place that was packed but Friday night Trastervere was heaving with people.  But it wasn’t my memory playing tricks rather having lived in Treviso for a year I have become desensitised to city life.  Suddenly I found public transport that ran past midnight a novelty! Taking a tram was exciting again, and I found the whole place amazingly noisy and the traffic – well that was something else. 

The Roman traffic is a dog eat dog world and for the pedestrian a daily trauma and your companion asking “are you ready to die?” as you negotiate a pedestrian crossing is a little disconcerting.  R explained that there is a procedure to crossing roads in Rome, if you cross while traffic light is green cars will most likely aim for you and you will die.  When the traffic light changes to red cars will still run the light but you can step out and drivers will do their level best to avoid you.  (and to think I used to make sure I crossed with a nun!) You must maintain your walking pace which allows drivers to anticipate your trajectory.  With this helpful advice I only managed to nearly get killed once over the whole weekend.

The first day and finally after what seems like weeks of rain the sun came out and I walked through Trastervere to the Vatican and my old street (not in the Vatican city but very close.)  It was a very nostalgic walk for me everything looked the same but different.  All those years ago you didn’t have to walk through metal detectors to enter the basilica.  Anyone who knows me and as my friends in Argentina can attest I have a love for religious kitsch and the streets around the Vatican provide me with ample fun – glow in the dark rosary beads, Vatican ash trays and the like, still nothing tops the pope bottle opener (or popener as I like to call it.)  

     

Sunday and after a couple of happy hours trawling the Porta Portese markets I accompanied my host to a birthday picnic in a park that was another favourite place of mine all those years ago.  My host failed to mention that the birthday girl is Australian and I found myself among a small expat Australian community.  It seems an age since I was in Australia and it was great to be back in the company of convivial Aussies and to not have to explain my cultural references for once! 

The thank you meal

Monday was the day when I finally had to pay for my accommodation and cook a feast.  After a long and lazy morning wondering the sights of Rome it was back to home to prep for the night.  Word of R having temporary live in curry cook had got around and there was going to be quite a little group for dinner.   As I got down to cooking my host went about documenting the process taking a seemingly endless number of photographs – me chopping onions, me rubbing spices into meat, me throwing spices into a dish, me stirring dish and so on and on.  As the evening wore on the kitchen filled with wonderful smells and expectant faces and I’ve never had so many willing sous chefs.  It being a warm evening we ate on the terrazzo.  The food was a hit and there were more than one suggestion of a Rome relocation (although I’m not sure Trevisans are willing to give up their Indian cook.) My Roman weekend finished in the best way – sitting outside on a warm evening and sharing food with lovely people.  The next morning there was just enough time for a morning coffee with my host before it was back to Termini and the frecciarossa back to what now seems a terminally quiet Treviso.  I can’t quite believe I left so long between visits and only hope I don’t leave it another 14 years before I’m back.