Ciao!

I'm back, kids.
I never even heard of any workers strike. Then again, I didn't hear much of anything, with no phone (no mobile, Andrea's place had no landline and I didn't really need/want a phone card)
or internet (coulda gone to library, but never did, coulda gone to cafe, but rates were lame)
no english speaking radio or tv. Except music vids.
No Thanksgiving! Just fresh air, nice people and breathtaking sights.
Thus my blood pressure dropped considerably.
We DID have TV at her place and would try to understand what the news people were saying ( some of whom look like their wardrobes and hair were furnished by the Salvation Army).
For an NPR, Email junkie like me, all this lack of new information coming at me every hour was something to adjust to.
But it was easy. Venice is a living museum. "As it was, where it was" is their motto as far as the buldings in the city.
So, except for the TV anttanae on the rooftops, walking the streets or taking the watersubway (the vapperetto) you really are walking in a 15th century city.
Not one car in sight. You walk or you take a boat.
Every view from everywhere is a breathtakingly beautiful vista out of an old painting. The sreeets you walk are narrow and windy.

A.D. was a fabulous tourguide. I referred to her as "Sarge" after a couple days of marching us this way and that. She knew the city very well and had a story for everything we passed. It was so nice to see her and see her so taken by her surroundings.

But it was cold. As cold as here. But no rain or snow that we saw (the mountains got some). I bought a hat.

Is Venice alive? In a tourist sense, yes. But is there any evidence of time having passed since 1450? Obviously yes, but you do have to look for it. But really, one could see it as an enormous outdoor museum, filled with touristy shops of overpriced stuff.
But A doesn't dwell on that, so this visit was seen through the eyes of an architectual expert.

Museums by day (saw The Thinker! Saw an original Calder, Ning!, walked through a church crypt from the 9th century and a jail from the 14th century) and great restaurants by night.
Sprizz (white wine, campari, club soda) all through the day interchanged with macchiatos (espresso with milk). It kept us going.
I did not see one record store.
Food was amazing.

And we watched a lot of videos at night after dinner+drinks.
The big ones over there, and the only evidence of it being 2005:
1) Hung Up-Madonna (awesome. samples ABBA's Gimme Gimme Gimme)
2) The Darkness--a funny song with a gross video about the dangers of too much cocaine)
3) Franz Ferdinand
4) The Kaiser Cheifs
5) about 6 other bands that look and sound like 3)+ 4), thus are indebted to the Jam, XTC and Gang of Four (1978-82), big time.
6) The Prodigy--a disturbing video. How surprsiing.
7) Green Day. There's this 10 minute mini opera with a video. Do they show that in the US?
8) several anti-war songs with anti war videos, that I'd bet they don't show in the US. Like Le Tigre.

Lastly, 3 good movies I caught up with on the flights:
Charlie+Chocolcate Factory, Wedding Crashers and War of the Worlds.
So I experienced summer '05.
And I was so grateful for no puritanical US crap on Air France. No deleted scenes or words.

And I read "A Long Way Down", the new Nick Hornby. Only after I finished did I remember that he's a Mulcahy fan.

Right. That's all for the 8000 miles I've covered in the last 5 weeks. Now to get down to business.
And paying the heating bill.