Venice Photos


2011-07-31
Venice is about what I expected, a zoo. It was worth seeing for a day, but no more. The channels are charming, but they make navigation by foot a bit challenging. Why do the gondola rowers wear Where's Waldo shirts?

It's crazy to me how few minorities there are in much of Europe. Switzerland was full of Asian tourists. The Scandinavian cities all had Arab areas, as did several of the Spanish cities. The only country that had a large black population was France. In Venice, the only minorities other than a few Asian tourists were the occasional blacks selling purses and Indians selling goo splatter toys. I knew before coming to Europe that there were fewer minorities here, but I didn't realize just how few.

The wireless internet at the hostel only worked in the lobby, so I had to sit down there to use it. The worker at the front desk was a quite odd Macedonian guy. He insisted on showing me his new computer desktop wallpaper, a grim reaper with fog in the background, and then he kept playing the same song over and over again. I must've heard that song a couple of dozen times while I was there.

When the waiter at a restaurant found out where I was from, he said "U.S. Is going down. Problems between Obama and Repubublicans. Everything going to China."

I was hungry late at night and the only place I could find that was open was a dive selling pizza slices. The pizza had an unusual taste, but there was something familiar about it. I had trouble placing it. I finally realized that it tasted like cat food smells. Yuck.