Friday 12th January 2018 Last day in Venice. We leave for home today. Jenny says Hooray. Probably 6 weeks is too long for a person my age. We were talking to a German and I told him where we had been for the past 6 weeks. And he said – well at least you certainly haven’t seen 15 countries in 10 days. I took it as a compliment. Blood Pressure 129/85. Pulse 77. My body is all geared up for the trip home and making sure blood pressure and pulse are in the proper range. We are taking the boat to the airport. We have our boarding passes already on our phones. We left at 10.30 and took the whole day to get home. Went by boat from Venice to Marco Polo Airport. Airport is close to mountains with a picturesque covering of snow. Quite close. Very sunny day. Venice was bathed in sunshine. Sorry in a way to go but glad to be going home. Venice was interesting. I’m glad we spent a week there. It was much as I anticipated. Except maybe the streets were much narrower than you could imagine. I don’t know how it has survived for 1500 years or more as a single entity without changing much at all. But it has. Venice existed to make money. Money can buy a lot of things. Including security. Marco Polo probably the quickest through security of all airports we have passed through. Bought a Guardian in the airport newsagents. We had a roll for lunch. On the plane and off the ground quickly. I felt like taking a nap early on but thought I should wait a while. This proved to be a mistake. I didn’t sleep much if at all for all the trip. I started watching The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and I must have fallen asleep for the whole film because I opened my eyes just as the film was finishing. I didn’t think I had even been asleep. But I must have. This was the only time I slept for all of the trip home. Spent about half an hour on a bus getting from the airplane to the Dubai terminal and then spent another 45 minutes walking to our gate. Jenny panics and rushes because she thinks we might miss our connecting flight. On edge the whole time. Dubai has some reclining chairs on which you can sleep but they were all taken up. I didn’t feel like sleeping anyway. I believe Emirates Airline food is substandard but they do give you a little more legroom than other airlines. One cancels the other. I watched the 3 Godfather movies. I also watched The Letters from Iwo Jima. The trip home was uneventful except for not being able to sleep. We have never encountered turbulence. Arrived home late at night. James met us. It was a cold night. Needed to have our jackets on. I had jet lag for about a week. Thursday 11th January 2018 Woke up at 6AM. Listened to a podcast about dying. How to die. How doctors die better than civilians. When do you even see a Doctor in intensive care? Or in a hospital having radiation or chemo therapy treatment. Food for thought. Should people put these desires in writing? And if you did would anyone take notice? Doctors know these things and arrange their affairs secretly. Apparently you never see a Doctor in intensive care with tubes coming out of every orifice. They arrange it so they die before they get there. Some people want the Insurance Companies to pay out a lump sum when someone has a fatal diagnosis and then let the patient spend it as they want. Rather than have the Insurance Companies paying hospitals to prolong life. Make up your own mind how you are going to spend the last period of your life alive. Not as tired as last night. Still slept well. Blood Pressure 111/70. Pulse 76. We walked to San Marco. Quite close to us really. We then walked behind San Marco where we haven’t been before and found the Jewish Ghetto. A small memorial to the Jews of Venice who were removed on 2 different days. Some in 1943 and some in 1944. But all of the Jews of Venice were removed. Every one of them. The synagogue is still there. Presumably it is still used. A kosher hotel in the same square. A kosher restaurant on the entrance to the square. We had a Venetian Roll for lunch. We then took the waterbus which went around Venice and back up the Grand Canal. By that time I wanted to go to the toilet again so we got off at Rialto and came home. What do the workmen do when they want to go to the toilet? There is plenty of workmen out today. Delivering parcels in boats. Doing maintenance on streets. Going up and down in boats. Gondoliers standing around. Where and when do they all go to the toilet? Even Police walking about. Do they have to pay to go to the toilet? The sun came out as we went around the island. Lots of tourists on the Waterbus. Most of them appear to be Italian. Lots of photos being taken. You would think that by now all Italians have been to Venice previously. But apparently not. It is obvious that a lot of the tourists are Italians. And having the same problems understanding the boat time tables. We sailed up The Grand Canal in sunshine again. Took lots of photos. I have to hand it to Venice. It doesn’t matter what the weather or time of day. Venice always looks pretty good. It takes great photos. We ended our stay on a sour note. Some days ago we had read the menu on a Chinese/Japanese/Italian Restaurant and of course a girl comes out and talks to us about how good her restaurant is and invites us in. They have a special deal. All you can eat for 12 Euros from the buffet. We question her. You have to come at a certain time. Between 4 and 6PM. So we keep it in mind and last night we take her up on it. When we get there and ask for the deal they aren’t so enthusiastic but they say yes and we are seated. It turns out the buffet is virtually empty – well the Chinese and Italian part is – and almost cold - plenty of food in the Japanese part – but this is cold also. However I accept this and make the most of it. Try a little bit of everything. Notice however that the Maître D is giving directions about us and telling the girl not to talk to us. When I come to pay the price is higher and there is a seating charge. When I query the Maître D comes rushing over to argue with me. Seating charge correct and pointed to our seat. This seating charge is for all of Venice and the higher charge is on the menu. Lower charge for outside. I asked if that meant we could stand when we ate so we wouldn’t get charged a seating charge. And we did not even have a drink of water. The Maître D shouts at everyone in a foreign language - Italian I guess - and everyone is silent. Of course no answer to my question – suddenly no one speaks English. The Maître D gesticulates as if to say stupid cheap foreigner and stomps away. I am going to put this on twitter feed or Trivago or some such site. I know I have been cheated. I have the receipt. Italian TV is interesting. A number of talk show channels. Some verging on the hysterical. Typically Italian I suppose. A number of BBC shows dubbed into Italian but you can still vaguely hear the original English person – the overdubbing is over the English voice which has the volume turned down. Benny Hill from 1980 dubbed into Italian. A classical music and Opera channel operates but not every day. Two channels showing unwatchable Hollywood sitcoms in English. A permanent CSR channel. A 24 hour news channel. Our TV kept fading every 90 seconds or so. Bad reception. The Landlord claimed all Venice is like this so he couldn’t fix it when I complained. But I know this cannot be true. He doesn’t want to install a proper aerial. Wednesday Jan 10th 2018 Slept through to 7.30AM. Blood Pressure 123/63. Pulse 49. Didn’t leave until 10.30. Came across a group led by an English speaker. Listened for a while but he didn’t say anything I didn’t already know. That’s my problem with guides – I want to correct them all the time. Or add to what they are saying. Say what they have left out. Etc. We took the water bus to Muremo. Sat next to an older Italian man who by gestures told us he had been to both Australia and New Zealand. Finished up by saying Paul Hogan Ha Ha Ha. We walked the length of Muremo. Did not go into any glass blowing place though. Lots of little shops. Most of them closed. Mostly selling Muremo glass. Most of it in bad taste. Only some shops with attempts at new artwork. Extremely bad taste glass sculpture in the main square. I think it was supposed to be a star. We had a hamburger and coffee. Jenny had tea. I asked for white coffee and got one of those very small cups of black. Which I drank. I know that Americano is a large black coffee. I know what Cappuccino is – a medium cup with a lot of froth in it. I thought I was getting a coffee latte. But no. Still I am learning as we go. As usual we both needed to go to the toilet. This is why we ate in a restaurant. So we could go to the toilet. Took the long way home and again busting by the time we got off the water bus. My body is a urine producing machine. More Australians on view. In the street. On the water bus. Walking around Muremo. This time I actually spoke to one. He has relatives in Whitfield. He and his wife are here with his mother in law who is Italian. I think that there is a lot of this going on. A woman on the ferry was directing her mother where to sit. Sit there Mum was what she said. Obviously Australian. Speaking to her in English and the mother complaining back in Italian. Apparently still not knowing what to do. Having to be directed by the daughter. Very Australian behavior. Lots of Australians of Italian descent must be visiting Venice. We ate at the restaurant that backs on to our little piazza at our front door. The food was OK. I had fish spaghetti. Jenny had vegetarian pizza. After that we had a little walk and had an ice cream. An Australian woman in the queue in front of us asked for il splendido dodge. Spelt Doge. But pronounced dodge in Australian. Impossible to mistake the accent. Fog for most of the day. Could not see Venice from Muremo. We are in Venice under the influence of Turner rather than Canaletto. Fog out tonight. Some people taking atmospheric extended shutter photos off The Rialto Bridge. Home at 8PM. Waldo – the art critic of whom I am a big fan – is talking about art in antiquity but impossible to know what he is talking about. An Italian voice over dubbed. Tuesday 9th January 2018 Slept until 7.30AM. Blood Pressure 132/64. Pulse 53 An overcast day. Cold early. Some rain. We took the water bus to Biennale to have a look but it was closed. Still we had a walk around. There is a park there. Completely different type of buildings to Venice proper. Some no trespassing signs. Got the bus back to Rialto and walked over the bridge and eventually found our way to Roma. A bit of the other side of the tracks. Definitely down market to our side of the canal. Came across the wholesale market. Just closing up as we arrived. Birds eating fish scraps abandoned by the wholesale fish market. It’s next door to the fruit and vegetable market. Just like Vic Market really but on a smaller scale. Still don’t know what type of bird the big brown speckled seagull is. Came across a big bunch of schoolchildren. Interesting to look at them. What is their schooling like? Do they have a playground? Do they kick the football at playtime? Do they ever play sport? They were all making a lot of noise talking. Not one black face amongst them though. Not many shops open. Jenny says they are priced the same as our side of the canal but I’m not sure. Had lunch at a café in Ferravio. You have to decide what you want and go and pay for it first quoting the number of the product. Then you take your voucher to the counter and present it to collect your purchase. In the afternoon we walked north to Fondamento Nove and then got the bus back. Coming the other way which we had not done before. Both morning and afternoon was spent walking except when we had to come home to go to the toilet. You start out with the intention of getting lost and finding something spectacular but you need to go to the toilet so you have to quickly find an arrow that says Rialto or San Marco and follow it in order to go home. Went into a glass shop over the other side of the canal and bought a Rialto Bridge inside a glass ball. The sales assistant was from Bangladesh. Didn’t ask him how he got here. Lots of Bangladesh shop assistants. The barrow salesmen selling fruit and vegetables appear to be from North Africa. There are Africans selling leather bags in the streets. But not a lot of black people here. Where are the refugees? When you walk about aimlessly you go down a number of narrow alleyways and suddenly you come across a large church. And I mean a large church. How they built them is a bit of a mystery. Where did they get the bricks? Where did they get the money? How did they get the land? I know Venice existed to make money but there must have been enormous costs involved in building these large churches. And it’s unusual for people who have made big money to spend it recklessly on some public building over which they have no control. Perhaps they were promised easy entry into heaven. The powerful families normally spent their money where people could see it. San Marco Square for a start. The Tower as well. And they made sure they hired the great architects and artisans to ensure the public would be impressed. Which is a good thing for us who follow on later. We had vegetarian pizza for tea to honour James. It wasn’t the best pizza I have had. We then did a bit of walking and got on another Waterbus that went the long way home. We then took the number 2 up the Grand Canal. We were asked to give directions to 2 Japanese girls. I have noticed a number of pairs of Chinese girls on this trip. I have been asked directions several times. More evidence today of Australians present. In fact I have seen Australians every day. Accents stand out. Men my age tend to refer to themselves in the third person. Heard one man say to no one in particular but could have been talking to me - “Uncle Neville is going to be in trouble if he loses anyone here”. He had several young teenagers with him. I didn’t let on I understood him. I have heard women with children who are obviously Australian looking at boat time tables. They must be children or grandchildren of migrants from the 50’s. I don’t ask. Monday 8th January 2018. Blood Pressure 119/75. Pulse 73 Up at 7.30. Slept well. Feel rested this morning. There is an arts channel on Italian TV and Simon Schama is telling us about Picasso. Dubbed into Italian which is a little disconcerting. Concentrating on Guernica. How many individual images are there in the painting? Quite a lot apparently. The Barber of Seville was on yesterday morning. I found it hard to follow the plot. Jenny is doing some washing this morning. We started by walking around trying to more or less to get lost. Lots of narrow streets. Lots of shops. We kept walking until we found a Chinese café. They have variances of spaghetti done the Chinese way. Or so I presume. There were ethnic Chinese eating in the restaurant. The menu did say spaghetti. And it had pictures of it. I had soup. Jenny had fried rice. We both had Chinese tea. All very good. We then walked on until we came to a Waterbus stop. We took the ferry to Murano and back again. This meant going through the industrial area. We then went up and down more or less the full length of the Grand Canal. Quite long. And quite interesting. It got colder as the day wore on. In the afternoon we walked to St Mark’s Square. Not as many people as yesterday. Had a bad argument over what we were going to eat. We are both tired. I insisted we eat at the pasta place near our house. It is very popular. But it doesn’t taste as good as our Albanian girls place. As usual Jenny was right. The place is always packed with young people. Lots of Chinese girls there yesterday. I thought if we changed what we ate from the night before last the food might be different. But it wasn’t. Went to bed at 10PM and slept. Sunday 7th January 2018. Slept in until 8.30AM. It’s Sunday so we can call it a day of rest. Haven’t heard any church bells though. Used the attachment to have a hand held shower. Nature show about insect’s in English on TV. Jenny says there is a fire at Lurg. Face timed James. He was watering the plants due to time difference. Blood Pressure 112/63. Pulse 71. We didn’t leave until 12 Noon and then just walked around. Just followed people. Did a big circle and arrived a water bus site that said it was going to Lido. So we went also. Once there we did a bit of walking. It’s a bit like surfers paradise. There are cars and the streets are normal sized. Finally got to the beach. I imagine everything is crowded in summer. Most of the houses appear to be shut for the winter. And there are some wide roads. Some large very Italian looking houses. Hollywood influenced I would say. More in the Mussolini style than Roman though. Some are much neglected and obviously have a demolishment order on them. Overgrown gardens. Again very Italian looking. Would make very good movie sets. Lots of Italian atmosphere. Came back and got off at St Marks and walked home because we both wanted to go to the toilet. I think Benalla has more public toilets than Venice. Even if you are willing to pay the 1.50 Euros it’s impossible to find one. It’s true though what Airbnb says. We are only 5 minutes’ walk from St Mark’s. If that. Less people in the street today. Lots of tourists and lots of shops open but not much money changing hands. In fact not much money changes hands in all of Venice as far as I can see. How some of the shops make a living is hard to see. Some carry a lot of stock. Not many have customers in them. Owners and assistants sit for hours in empty shops. Every restaurant sends someone out to talk to you if you stop and look at a menu. Not a lot of restaurants are well patronized. Some beggars in the streets. One woman who we saw yesterday appears to be in a trance. How she stays still in a begging position for hours on end I don’t know. However she did move when a group of soldiers and police came along. Things much the same as yesterday even though it’s a Sunday. But maybe more gondoliers active today. We can actually get a gondolier to our street. One of the ways of getting home. Their price is 80 Euros for 30 minutes. I prefer to walk. We left again at 4PM to walk to a water boat station and have another ride on a ferry. Had a long walk and did not get to a boat station. Stayed on a wide street we had not been on before. When it got dark we decided to turn around and go back towards San Marco. Went to the same restaurant as the night before last. I don’t think our Albanian girl was as friendly as 2 nights ago. Maybe she doesn’t want to get too friendly. Jenny had soup. I had spaghetti. Saturday 6th January 2018 Up at 6AM. Listened to a lecture by Stephen Hawking and went into a dream where I dreamed I was actually in the lecture hall and he was not as disabled as he really is. He smiled a lot. Made jokes. Talked a bit about simultaneous black holes/concurrent realities/parallel universes/worm holes which I did not really understand. Extremely smart man. Question: How big is a Black Hole? If a Black Hole pulls everything in through massive amounts of gravity shouldn’t it only be the size of a pinprick? Blood Pressure 159/79. Pulse 58 No shower here. Had a bath and would have died if I was by myself. No disabled bars to help you lift yourself out. I could not raise myself up off my back. I was trapped. Jenny had to help me. We went for a walk and found the ocean side of Venice. Discovered a bulging secondhand book shop. Some water damaged books from the 1966 flood still for sale. Some fog in the air. Passed the hospital with its water ambulances outside. We took a water bus that circumnavigated pretty well all of Venice. It’s bigger than I thought. Saw all the sights. Mud flats. Old docks. Separate Island part. Amazingly large pleasure liner pulled up to small wharf. Biggest boat I have ever seen. Dwarfs the ocean liners Uncle Jack and Auntie Doris went on. Probably dwarfs the Titanic even. Came back to Piazza Roma. We then had a look at the Railway station. Saw that you can get a boat to the airport. We then got a water bus to St Mark’s Square. Lots of tourists there. Saw the water line from 1966 flood. Long queue to get into San Marco Basilica. Evidence of lots of Australians in attendance. On the way home bought some tickets to a concert tonight. Got more or less lost after that. Venice is a labyrinth. We will have to find our way back to the church to where the concert is held. Venice definitely is a labyrinth and this is its charm. We got take away pasta from a place very close to our house. Recommended by previous guests but was not as good as last night. We then went to the concert. Jenny worried that we might not be able to find the venue so insisted on following Apple Maps. Wasn’t as bad as google maps but did take us down back alleys and not the most direct route. We arrived early but because the seating was open we had reasonable seats. Very enjoyable. Just songs and music from popular operas. Enthusiastic audience. Two songs of Mozart’s in the repertoire. Orchestra and singers very good. Lots of personality. All were wearing authentic 18th Century Costume. Tried to imagine the 18th Century. The building was a pre 18th Century concert hall. Audiences then only had one opportunity of hearing music and that was to listen to it live. Must have made it more gob smacking when you heard a new work of genius. Finished the night by having a beer in a bar in our street and watched a Soccer game with the other people in the bar - Juventus playing someone. Juventus got a lucky goal near the end – could have been offside. Still the other side appeared to have a handball that wasn’t seen by the Ref so they were lucky it wasn’t 2-0. When I say our street - it’s about 40 metres long and about 1 metre wide. A number of shops and a bar.
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