The Colors of Venezia

Venice is unbelievable, as if one of my crazy notions of an alternate world has come to fruition. Of course, everyone has heard that Venice has canals and not streets, but it's quite a difference between knowing that such an oddity exists and actually traipsing through the giant maze that is Venice. I bought a map, marked with useful notes from the hotel clerk--where to find the best gelato, and so on. But it was useless; the scale was never quite right and the streets never connected in the optimistically neat way they appeared on paper. And so, I wandered, meandered, lost my way and then found it again. Although to be fair, I never knew where I was going, so was I really lost?

Then there was San Marco, and the hordes of pigeons: plump, fluffy miscreants who owned all of the pavement, the airspace, and every ledge of every building. It reminded me of second grade when my teacher put jelly beans in a jar and had us guess how many there were. 273 then, exactly 1292 now. The strategy is the same--take a small area, count how many there are, multiply by the number of areas that fit into the whole, give or take a prime number to give the appearance of randomness. It was insanity.

I took a tour to the other islands around Venice as well. To Murano, known for its glass making. To Burano, full of vibrantly colored houses--hot pinks and burning oranges that clashed horribly, yet lived side by side in harmony. And to Torcello, for its...one church, and the one house that I stumbled across, with two peacocks and a turkey in the back yard.


I never quite knew what to think of Venice. Do I like it? Dislike it? It exists purely to challenge my conceptions of normal words like 'bus' or 'street.' And there were the giant hot pink alligators, for no rhyme or reason at all.