Venice (Final part -finally)

Here is the final and very late part of our Venice trip, I've been delayed by a million other things(some of which I will share at some point), including internet problems. But here it is,Venice Part III!!!

When you walk out of the train station at Venice you are imediately transported to some other dimension in time. Venice is truelly beautiful with its canals and old buildings and gondoliers, one’s imagination runs back to thoughts of old romantic courtships on balconies and love letters. At the same time the aesthetics becomes almost a bit artificial as these old buildings are maintained in contemporary times.

With the carnival there are also the costumes and the masks. You find a range of costumes from period costumes to just plain bizarre costumes – a man in a snail suit and a creepy man with many hands to mention only a few.  Between crystals, feathers and bizarre characters it feels more like one is in a fantasy.  Perhaps it is this strange feeling of unreality that gives way for the strange behaviours and excess that people allow themselves at carnival.  The memories of the day seems slightly unreal as I remember us squatting in the streets, wandering aimlessly, seeing to much, my friends kissing strangers and me attacking someone...

Most of the day we spent wandering the streets; gazing at the dozens of people in costumes. By sunset we found ourselfs in the big plain overwhelmed by the spectacle. By then most people has already been drinking all day and it is with these strange surroundings that events started turning in to craze.  By now it is not strange anymore that random people take pictures of random people. Everything is spectacle there is Darth Vader, a Jedi, a very tall man, a women dressed in gold, name it.

We did not think it strange shortly after sunset when guys dressed as prisoners asked to take a picture with us (even though we were not dressed in costume). As we were posing for pictures with these random men one of them seemed to find a particular liking in me. Of course one does not think anything at first, being a little intoxicated by wine and spectacle one isn’t immediately aware of the events that could follow. So when the man put his arm around me and looked at me with a big smile I did not anticipate that his lips would all of a sudden move in towards me, and if it was perhaps just a kiss I could’ve accepted it, but what was to follow was so absurd that I did not exaclty know at that point whether I should laugh of cry. As his lips came close and my head slightly bobs away his tongue shot out with determination to enter my mouth.  In disgust I pinched my lips togehther pulled away as much as possible.  The resitance did not seem to discourage him, infact he just readjusted his plan and instead of sticking his tongue in my mouth he opted for licking my face instead. My dear friend looked on and we can still not really know why she just stood there looking at us and why I myself seemed to be so passive in the process of escaping him. I did dodge him after that but my face felt kind of sticky for the rest of the night. What is funny though is that his friend seemed to have tried the exact same thing with my friend Winnie.

As the night progressed the fools became more.  One of our travel companions of the day got lost at some point during his search for a bathroom and was only able to find us two hours later.

When the night got really late we moved from the events of the big plain in search of other parties, food and bathrooms.  We wandered the tiny streets, found a slice of pizza on the way and found plenty of strangers to have strange conversations with.  It was after one when reached a club that played strange regae music.

The club filled up more and more as night (or by this time morning) progressed.  There were tons of strangers making out, and tons of men trying to pull their moves on any girl that might have accidently cast a glance at them. There were plenty of men making an effort to come bump and grind (gosh I had that, why would I want to dance like that?), and plenty of men groping at me at random points.  I don’t know if it was just a little bit too much alcohol, tiredness or the strange atmosphere but all the groping and people pushing, but it got me feeling a little aggressive.  I at some point remeber using really rude language which I could never repeat to tell a guy to please leave me alone. In my defence, this guy continously touched me and stood way to close to me, and he was creepy and had long dreadlocks which looked like they might carry 300 different lice species.

Perhaps before I describe my next moment of craziness one needs some understanding of my reality to gain perspective on the event that followed. Now, for South Africans, crime is a reality, we all know someone personally that has been affected by violent crime at some level.  Guns to me is not something you play with, it is a weapon of destruction.  At some point after  I have been groped at too many times and I was already extremely tired a man appeared out of nowhere into our little dancing circle and pointed a gun into my face. My first reaction was of such complete terror which made me jump at the guy to grab the gun from his hands.  I completely aggresively attacked the guy, only to realise that it was infact ofc ourse a plastic toy gun. But at that point I was so angry I grabbed the gun from him anyway and try to break it and hit him with it.  I got such a fright that I was completely angered by the sittuation and needed to go outside to breathe and I almost broke out in tears. 

By then all I wanted was to go home.  Eventually I manage to get a free bottle of water from the barman (I think he could see I was in a crazy state) for me to calm down. By then though we found it time to leave and find our way back to the train. It took friendly strangers (well the one was making out with my friend so he had to be friendly) to direct us, me sort of carrying,sort of dragging my other friend who found her capacity to walk slightly affected at that point, but we made it to the train , happy to finally sit down. 

# Please excuse me for typos, spelling and grammatical errors - internetlessness = posting from library which closes in 15 minutes, no time to edit#

Carnivale di Venezia (part two)

On Saturday morning at about 5:20  I got up to  meet my friend Edith at 6:15, Romolo station, from there we took the metro to  Central Station, to catch our train to Venice departing at 7:25 with the rest of our friends. The plan was to spend the day and party through the night and return on the train which departed the next morning at five.

We were informed to be there early to find seats, and good advise it was.  By 7:00 the train was full but there was still passengers entering. By departure most coaches were filled with people standing, and as we stopped at other cities on the way, it filled up more. Like sardines in a tin people stood together as more passengers squeesed in making it impossible for anyone to move anywhere. 

As the train filled up, people eyed us lucky ones with seats with discontent, the levels of discontent rising as the corridors of the train gets fuller and fuller, making the air smell like toilet. It also became particularly uncomfortable when the ones who ended up standing next to us in the corridor were two young couples who continuously made out with each other during the three hour trip.

I became particularly greatful for our seats as the trip continued and it became apparent that I should not have had that cup of tea to wake me up.   Not being able to get up and go to the toilet, I accepted my fate that I will have to just bite my upperlip for another hour and 40 minutes.  At least I could convince myself that sitting with bladder discomfort is way better than to stand while trying to keep it together and inside.   

Eventually we arrived and the first thing we needed to find was a bathroom, the bathroom wasn’t so hard to find but it had a cue almost as long as the Great Wall of China, this made me dash back into one of the empty trains to find  a toilet. I found one with only four people cueing, only to get inside to realise that it must be the most disgusting place I’ve been in.  This I realised required some planning, one does not want to touch anything, thus it requires lifting your coat, while squating over the toilet and concentrating on (and I stress this) not touching anything.  By then four people were waiting outside the door with the same urgency, and if there is one thing I can’t do is pee under pressure. It is hard enough as it is relaxing one’s bladder muscles (I have no idea how one would call that) while squating, relaxing while someone is knocking on the door every few seconds makes it pretty much impossible.

So without relief I gave up and hoped that we will find a descent bar very soon.  Finding a bar quickly during carnival in Venice was another thing. There were so many people all concentrated into the narrow streets of Venice that we moved like a herd of cattle huddled together very slowly. So even if the bar seemed quite close in sight it still took at least 20 minutes to get to it. I cannot expres the happiness I felt when we finally arived at the bar and I could use a descent quite clean toilet. That feeling of relief, well it is priceless.

This wasn’t the only time when we experienced bladder discomfort, with tons of people at the carnival finding a bathroom became quite the ordeal. It became a mission finding a balance between the amount of liquids taken and the calculation of available bathrooms.

At some point during the night (it think it might have been at around one the next morning perhaps) we were walking from the big square to another square, by then most bars were closed and the available public bathrooms seemed non existent. One becomes quite desperate while roaming through the tiny streets and corners of Venice in the dark.  It was in such a desperate moment that our one friend winked us into an isolated side street, she found a bathroom, or that was what our happy minds thought... No, it was not a bathroom, but just a tiny little isolated street, so armed with a tissue we prepared ourselves for the unthinkable: squatting in the street.

While the rest stood guard we took turns to go. Peeing without a toilet for girls has never been the easiest of tasks and doesn’t go fast and care free like with men. One has to plan it carefully to avoid accidently urinating on your own shoes. The tension caused by our knowledge of our crime was enhanced with the continuous muttering of our one friend “Oh I am so sorry Venice, you are beautiful, I can’t believe I just did that!” I was the last to go, and not being a natural camper in general found the task at hand difficult. Just as I got my mind wrapped around the concept and ready to undo my pants men walked by on the far distant side, forcing me to look for a darker corner.

With my darker corner found I took a deep breath and as I loosened the button of my jean, all of a sudden from the top of a balcony, a woman cursed out words at me while almost throwing an entire bucket of water on me. I had to dash. The moment has past I fastened my button again and gave up, feeling somehow relieved that I did not get my chance. Eventually I did find an available bathroom, but we are forever stained with the memory of our intentions...

More to come in next post...

Carnivale di Venezia (part one)

The train on our return from Venice to Milan was silent only buzzing with a few snores and drunken half asleep slurs.  Some passengers slept with their heads bobbing up and down or sidewards, some with their mouths wide open, too exhausted to care about appearances. Some still carried the trails of the past 24 hours;  coriandoli (confetti) in their hair and clothes, a stranger still hanging on their arm or a mask dangling from their bags. Everyone relieved to be able sit down and close their eyes, all utterly exhausted.

At some point during this three and half hour trip however we were abruptly wakened by loud shouting that came like a storm into the coach. I was one of the first to wake up in fright by the shouting coming from the seats behind me.  An ominous looking man with long black dreadlocks shouted at the girl behind me about his bag which he then placed on the seat next to her, saying something about how people wants to steal his bag, the poor girl rattled out of her sleep, trying to explain to him that she really just wants to sleep and wants no trouble. Out of shear shock I hopped up and asked him if he could please keep his voice down to which he replied something in Italian which meant something like going into your ass, but really I was was too tired to really understand his insult.  

The fact that some people were now dissaprovingly looking at him and rolling there eyes only seemed to be like fuel to his fire as he now walked up and down the coach ranting insults to us all. He said something like “you are all asleep, but you are racists and thieves and slaves of arabs” inserting the word “motherfuckers”  after every statement and any other open space left to use the word. He then proceeded to an open seat opposite an Asian man.  The fact that he was Asian immediately made the man adres him. “Where are you from?” he asked with the loudest tone of voice one can possibly immagine, the poor man replied that he is Vietnamese, which didn’t really seem to sink in with the rebel here as he almost started assaulting the poor guy by shouting at him for the capitalism of the Chinese and other wrong doings, calling him ignorant and spoiled and all kinds of other names. He then started frantically looking for his bag, blaming everyone of stealing it, as it was still lying where he left it next to the other girl. He then realised it, grabbed his bag and placed it opposite the Vietnamese man, shouting about how he can not trust him, then repeated his earlier rantings about his disgust in the east.  He then continued to rant at the rest of the bus, calling the Spanish thieves, the Italians corrupt and basically every other existing nation as something negative and always using the word “motherfuckers” repeating it like a mantra.

It took my two friends to walk over 10 coaches to report the matter to the conductor. When the conductors arrived they observed him as he was now doing kicks and slamming the seats with hands.  I have no idea what the conductor said to him, but he managed to talk to the man in calmest of ways and made him leave the train at the next stop. Silence at last.

We could finally return to our numb states. This radical scene seemed almost the appropriate end to one of the crazier days I’ve come by in my life. What an adventure it has been, the carnival of Venice held up to the reputation of carnival offering chaos, absurdity and spectacle... 

To be continued...