Venizia

Friday I trained to Venizia (Mestre, really, which is a 6 minute train ride from Venice and the price for hotels so much better - thanks Brian for recommending this).
There was some miscommunications so by the time i met up with Ms BlueBirdy, it was later afternoon...

Venice was beautiful to see, my jaws dropped in amazement... all the canels and side streets and bridges everywhere!!!



however, it was a bit 'disneyland' like, because Venice is full of tourists, in hoards, en masse, and besides St Mark's square and the churches and museum, the REST of venice are hotels, restaurants, and every shop is murano glass shops. After a street or two, one gets nauseated and tired of all the similar stores... honestly they all look the same!!!


------------------ Day 1 ---------------------------------

We had a decent meal there, where I complained about the rude service (BlueBirdy thought it was fine, then again back in Zurich she had waiters yell AT her so she's probably got lower standards than i do).

we were walking back to the train station that night, when her italian-moroccan 'boyfriend' called (i used the term loosely, he was a waiter at the restaurant that hit on her the night before)... he asked us to come to his restaurant to have wine and he would get off work soon to show us around.



so we stopped by to have wine. which was weird, because they chilled the red wine. BlueBirdy thinks it's to keep the bland house red wine 'good' for longer by chilling in the fridge. we waited until it was room temp before we had it. i also spilled all over the tablecloth trying to pour the wine (this was before i even had wine, so could not think i was tipsy, just clumsy as usual)

So the Waiter-BF came by, told us how much to leave for the wine (no discounts at all, cheap b-a-s-t-a-r-d!) and we walked out into the night. he wanted us to go back to his place for more wine, we said we'd compromise on staying out a bit later if we all head to a bar, he said it would be expensive. (we're thinking, how so, we're paying our own way anyway, not like he was BUYING us, or BlueBirdy, drinks). We couldn't come to a compromise, so BlueBirdy broke his heart and we left for our hotel....



------------------ Day 2 ---------------------------------



we decided to do Murano Island on day 2, BlueBirdy wanted to see glass blowing demostration, which one would imagine would be easy enough to find when Murano glass is world famous... however most places on the island are mere shops and display galleries, it took us some time to find a workshop that had real glass blowing demostration - i think it was the best 2 euros i've spent in Europe...

they made a glass flower for chandelier, a glass vase, a glass horse... BlueBirdy with her fancy camera took pictures... i just watch in amazement...

we walked through their gallery afterwards and I loved the new style chandeliers



besides shopping for Murano glass, the only other thing we wanted to do was to do a Gondola ride...

so we did



Here's a pic of BlueBirdy with a sly grin on her face, we think we got the best looking Gondola driver that day...




we had to negotiate a price for the gondola ride. when we got off the ride, BlueBirdy asks the gondola man 'so, how much would this ride be if your shirt was off?' - at first the guy didn't get it, then she repeated it and you see the slow spread of comprehension on his face as he got it, but he didn't reply... oh well.
nice move though, BlueBirdy!








------- The screaming match in the Train Station -------

BlueBirdy's blog has always been full of interesting stories.
Interesting in both the good and the bad ways sometimes... I never really believed the frequency of these interesting stories that happen to her to be totally coincidence - i guess i always thought her imaginative writing talent is partly what makes these incidents so interesting.

after a whole day in Venice and Murano, we were buying our train ticket to Mestre to pick up our luggage to get to Bologna. It was much later than we had planned, but we were so laissez faire about it so neither was stressed (i love travelling this way...)
we were in the train station, trying to sort it out on the ticket machine - BlueBirdy was manipulating the touch screens so we can pretend-see what the itinararies would be and such...
before i knew what was happening i saw an unfamiliar arm in front of me. All the stories and warnings have kicked in and my instinct was to immediately clutch my purse closer to my body.
A split second later I tried to comprehend what's going on, it seems that these 2 guys (early 20s) were buying tickets at the next machine - well the less drunk was. The really drunk one had come over and reached in front of me to extend a silk yellow flower to BlueBirdy - and wavered it alarmingly close to her face.

A roar of wrath washed over her, and she told him in a very loud voice 'Back off! go away!'. He was shocked and it took him a moment to comprehend what she said (cognitive skills slowed down by the massive amount of alcohol in his bodily system). He staggered backwards toward his friend, but felt 'wronged' and mumbled 'YOU back off!' back to BlueBirdy. He also staggered forward again to be in her face...

Now BlueBirdy really let it rip, she yelled "F-off! get that out of my face NOW!" and took the strand of silk flower from his hand and threw it - violently - across the train station lobby "F-off!" she yelled at him. He yelled back "F-off!" a few times to her, the friend was half distracted but still trying to buy their train ticket.

I stood frozen, not quite in fear but trying to understand the situation. my brain said, ok, he's not trying to rob me, and it took another moment to realize what the yelling was about.

BlueBirdy continued "If you don't back off I'm going to kick your butt, I'm so going to make you wish you were never born" (at least, i think she said something to that extend - i'm paraphrasing but i think i caught the spirit of the conversation)

At this point the guy was also yelling "You back off, i'm going to kick your butt...."

at this point, BlueBirdy was lunging at him, about to pounce. Then she looked and saw me between them on the side, shocked expression, slow realization, confused look (i'm good at those)... and I said to her "let's just go, this is not worth it..." (without really realizing what it was she might have really done to him)... so she and I just walked away as the friend pulled the other guy back.


of course we laughed about it, but what a crazy random out of the blue thing to happen at the Venice train station at 11pm...

and i have absolutely no doubt she would've kicked his butt. i'd put money on it.