Make Time: Lost in Venice

Woke up and our only plan for Venice was to get lost and just enjoy. It’s nice to have Reka with me because I’m usually leading my day’s path, so I just sat back and let him lead us wherever he wanted to go. We stumble upon a perfect little café overlooking a classic bridge full of tourists, and we have pizzas. I have a margarita. Reka has a beer. On the left is a nice family from North Carolina. On the right is a very cute young couple (with their 15-month-old daughter) from Switzerland. We linger. We talk. We laugh a lot. Eventually we get up and walk across the touristy bridge and find a modern art museum on the other side. Not a soul inside. We check it out, and it’s actually fantastic (pics below). After our inside art break we continue to stroll and eventually find a beautiful waterfront bar/restaurant, where we sit for hours watching the world go bye. Boats. Tourists. Locals. Dogs. Kids. Happiness everywhere. We have a few Aperol spritzes, which I first had in Vienna at the beginning of my trip here to Europe, and they are refreshing during this hot day. After a few hours we walk into the main square of Venice – San Marco. Tons of people everywhere. Quartets and quintets playing music in every-other restaurant around the square. Sellers selling goods. Peddlers peddling. We find our way to a sports bar called Inshark, which I read is a good place to watch the Italy vs Costa Rica world cup match. We setup camp in the back room of the restaurant, surrounded by Italians. The game starts and the emotion is palpable. Every shot missed is a tragedy. Every tackle is a penalty. It’s fun to be in this room with everyone who’s so passionate. It’s fun until Italy loses to Costa Rica by one goal. Not good. We walk out and at this point we’re pretty hungry, so Reka sees a restaurant a few doors down from the bar and we go into the back patio. It didn’t feel right from the get-go, and unfortunately the food is very average. I give Reka some shit about it. We laugh. As we walk back to the BnB we decide we’re going to clean up and have a drink in the big square nearby, and then maybe check out this club we saw, which is open until 4am (Piccolo Mondo). Tons of people out tonight because it’s Friday. More Americans than I’ve heard in a long while. Lots of students. Lots of people just milling about. We have a drink and have some great conversations about our families, our history, our goals, and the rest of our year. Reka’s considering coming to NYC in the next month because he has a bunch of time off from work. Hope it works out. We get up around midnight and head over to the club, which is tiny. As we go inside we see that there’s really not many people in there. Oh well. We had to at least check it out, right? The place eventually fills up a bit, and the DJ actually starts playing some good music. Before I know it I’m all over the dance floor. Reka tells me later that almost everyone in the place was watching me. One girl comes up to me and tells me that she loves the way I dance. Good vibes. I do love to dance, and I do know that not many people dance like me. Either way, I love it. We walk outside to get some air and I recognize a guy and a girl walking past as the same couple who sat behind us in the pub during the world cup match. We speak for a bit and it turns out that the guy is a guitarist in Venice, and he’s played in Norway before. Love the coincidences. Always nice. He’s a good guy and I tell him about No Goodbye and he’s excited to check us out. In the end they walk away and we say our no goodbyes to one another. We all got a laugh out of that – actually saying “no goodbye”. Reka wanted to head back into the club to dance some more, but I knew it was time to call it a night. We ended on a perfect note by meeting this nice couple who we met earlier – bringing things full circle. We walk home and pass out, only after laughing for about an hour first. Reka has the same sense of humor as me, so it’s hard not to laugh constantly around one another.