The Best of Times

Where was I? Oh, right! I should mention that after I had booked our hostel and whatnot that first night for the trip, my companion decided that she wanted to spend an extra day in Rome and thus spend only one day in Venice. In hindsight, I should not have assented, but I thought "Why not?" I checked the train times and discovered that the cheapest one from Rome to Venice at the end of that extra day would cost us each $42 and would deposit us near Venice (not even in Venice) at around 10:30pm. Aside from being more expensive than the other tickets we had planned to get, we also would have needed to forfeit about 40 euros for the night that we would have spent in Rome and it was impossible to book a hostel for that night in Venice, as they required that you check in by 11pm. In an alien city, there was no way we could have managed that. This meant that we would have to spend one night outdoors in Venice. I looked up from my computer and explained the situation to my companion. "Are you still sure you want to spend another day in Rome?""Yeah."
"You sure? We're going to have to sleep in shifts in Venice and it's going to be colder there. You okay with that?"
"Yeah, I'm fine with it." I shrugged and made all of the arrangements. To me, spending the whole night awake in Venice sounded like fun! I thought that we could stick to the main, well lit streets and tour the place in the dark to stay awake and warm while also killing time and perhaps experiencing the mystique that the city is famous for.
The extra day was a bit of a disappointment. We had wanted to get into St. Peter's Basilica, since we had spent all of the previous day in the Vatican and hadn't the time. When we arrived, however, we discovered a line of people that stretched from the basilica's entrance, wrapped all of the way around the square, and poked into the street while a new sign stated that the basilica would close at 1pm. Unless we had arrived at perhaps 7am, we would never have gotten through and thus decided to head straight to the Pantheon and other miscellaneous sights.
We boarded our train without difficulty and I volunteered to take the first shift staying awake while Eleanor (I'm sick of calling her "my traveling buddy") caught some Zs. I had intended to work on my application to Chapman University, but found my eyes drawn to the passing landscape time and again. I'll probably never get another chance to see this, I thought, so why waste the view when I can put this application off for another day? When Eleanor awoke at dusk, I curled up on the seats and let the train's sounds and rocking lull me to sleep. That is until another four people stepped into our compartment about ten minutes later. Fate had decided that I was not to sleep during this trip. I returned to editing until we departed at the Mestre station where I made a point of not showing anything valuable considering the plethora of *ahem* shabby people hanging around and sleeping on cardboard mats.
I was excited when we reached Venice, late as it was and tired as I felt. The city lay in a soft darkness, as streetlamps stretched out to brush the buildings with light and touch the water. We had hoped to sleep in the train station, but were kicked out around 1am when we discovered that the building closed down until 4am. Thus without a place to be, I encouraged a rather bushed Eleanor to wander as I had planned earlier. Grumbling, she agreed until we crossed the first bridge about one hundred meters from the station, at which point she refused to go further. "I want to stay in a public place where there are people and lights," she said looking at the bus station we had arrived at. Her logic was practical and I saw the sense in it, but I still wanted to go about the city. Still, she refused to budge from the wall where she had deposited herself, so I joined her. I tried to make conversation to no avail and my jokes and banter were met either with silence or bitter remarks. When I brought up the Donner Party and discovered that she didn't know of this incident, I couldn't help but chuckle. Everyone I know in the US has at least heard one joke about the Donner Party (a group of pioneers on the California Trail who became trapped in the mountains, due to snow, and resorted to cannibalism).
"You seriously don't know about the Donner Party?" I ask, still chuckling.
"No, and you're making me feel stupid and it's not cool."
Christ, I thought. Sorry I opened my mouth. Deciding that I should just leave Miss Not-Quite-Sleep-Deprived Grumpy Pants to herself, I pulled out my copy of All Quiet On The Western Front and started to read. After about a page, she decided to start talking. I joined in, but her end of the conversation soon dropped again and I resumed reading. Then she resumed talking. This cycle must have repeated itself four times with us checking our watches all the while to see when we could return to the station. Around 3:00, with Eleanor complaining that she couldn't sleep, was cold, and had nothing to do, I revisited the wandering option. This time, she agreed! She agreed to wander back over the bridge we had crossed earlier and to "wander back to the train station" where we were to sit  for an hour before the doors opened. Well, we got there and 4:00 came and went, or so I thought. Eleanor was again sleeping, leaving me to stand watch, and it slowly dawned on me that, oh happy day!, we had gained another hour due to daylight savings time. Eleanor slept straight through it, but I felt every single minute press down on my shoulders as the boredom and fatigue set in. In short, the station reopened, it was still freezing inside, I slept, awoke shivering to discover that Eleanor had dozed off on her shift (nothing stolen), and then began to wander Venice around 6am.
I was elated to go out at first light, as the city was permeated with a dense fog that I wanted to delve through. We bought a map of the city for five euros and, trust me, it was the best investment we made on the entire trip. Aside from not being able to see a hundred feet ahead of me, Venice has no rhyme and little reason to the street layout. The names have been known to change over time (some of them are renamed almost yearly) and I don't think that Venice has even heard of "Urban Planning," nor has it decided whether or not it wants to be like a city or a mouse maze. I, however, love mazes and almost never turn down a challenge. I must say that I was glad for my years with the scouts, to be sure.
Wandering the streets and doing my best to ignore Eleanor's apathy, I forgot my fatigue as I raced down narrow alleyways. Blind corners divulged hidden wonders glimpsed between the buildings. I could be running through a trench of brickwork and glimpse down an alleyway to discover a church spire, standing alone and defying the clutter of buildings below. Some bridges that I crossed spanned massive canals in great arcs of architectural wonder, while others were barely a meter across and lent both a sense of relief from the crush of buildings and a sense of intimacy as I stood above the water with both shores just an arm's length away. Paths that I struggled to fit through would explode out into great plazas dominated by churches and monuments. Best of all, no matter where or when I wandered, be it with others or alone, I felt safe. I was always on guard, but the only time I felt the smallest prickle of apprehension was when three swindlers toting fake designer handbags walked toward me in a deserted alley and they hardly glanced at me.
What was even better was when Eleanor, exhausted, turned into our hostel around 4pm where we discovered that it cost another five euros each to get some sheets and blankets for the night. Deciding not to pay, we settled Eleanor, both griping about the lack of sheets, before I took off again. I left my bag behind and, unencumbered, felt revitalized! I was a free man! To top it all off, I managed to rendezvous with the German girl that I had met in Rome and we spent a couple of pleasant and fun hours together. In a city that complicated with only a map and a compass in hand, I was in my element and thus readily and shamelessly showed off. Night fell and, after a time, we parted ways at the Canale di San Marco.
Venice transforms at night. During the day it is either a mist-shrouded or sunlit mosaic of color and architecture. At night, I witnessed again the lamplight touched buildings and water. Now, however, the clamorous sightseers had turned to romantic couples while the swindlers all about cast spinning green and blue lights into the air in Saint Marc's plaza. The lights would drift down, twirling in the gentle breeze and shining amongst the few stars that pierced through the subtle ambient glow. I stayed there for I know not how long, watching the people come and go before turning to the side streets again, buying a bottle of wine, some cheese, and more grapes to bring back to the hostel.
On my way back, I got a message from Eleanor. "Hey Matt, can you come back as soon as you can? Some guys were in here earlier and took the couch. They gave me a bad vibe and I swear there is one of those hustling Indian guys." I told her to lock the door, but she couldn't because I had the keys (duh). "They're all outside my room talking now." I told her to move the bed in front of the closed doors and, since there was no lamp in the room or any convenient rocks, I told her to grab one of the stone and metal models of the Coliseum that I had picked up in Rome and keep it hidden as, just in case the guys did break in, the model would be a more effective weapon if they didn't know about it. Anyhow, frantic and in a part of the city that I had not yet visited, I made a series of short sprints, stopping after every other alley to navigate, and trying to keep the wine from tearing through the plastic bag in my hand. I happened to pass a few guys walking down the street carrying a red couch that looked suspiciously like the one from the hostel, but I saw no unconscious, chloroformed person on it and pressed forward to find a very anxious Eleanor safe and sound in the room. We locked the door and, at this point mostly to ease her nerves, drank the wine as we watched "Zoolander" on my computer and feasted on the groceries. The long day finally over and with about half of a bottle of wine in each of us, we were both ever so grateful for our sheet-less beds while we drifted to sleep in my favorite of the two cities.