padova, giotto, and venizia at high tides.

Padova-

after leaving milano, i headed east to padova to meet up with teresa. i somehow managed to talk to her on the phone in italian. she remembered who i was, remembered offering me a place to stay, and was happy to host me for a couple nights while i visited venice.

she spoiled me. first of all... i LOVE padova!- padua. it is a smallish city that seems full of italians. it isn't really a tourist spot as much as the other places i have visited. and it is FULL of incredible sights. on Drago's orders, i headed to see giotto's frescos.

i met up with teresa.. and shortly after making me at home in her little place, she took me out on the town. she wanted to show me the historic site. now she REALLY doesn't speak english. a lot of italians i have met say they don't speak english to be polite but really know some basics. teresa and i spent the night laughing and sharing a bag of roasted chesnuts from a street vendor as she showed me around the fabulous city and we tried to communicate about a few things. she is TINY. jokingly on the farm we called her little teresa. "teresina." calling her up has been one of the best decisions i have made. she is so sweet... and so welcoming. she made me wonderful dinners, gave me a set of keys to her apt., and wanted to look at an atlas with me to see where i am from.

VENICE: venizia , acqua alta. high tides.

so i had a grand plan of all the fantastic sights to see in venice. i only had a day, so i was going to be efficient. when i got off the train, i was a little surprised. i saw lots of people with plastic bags over their legs, thse funny little plastic skippers- plastic bag shoes, people barefoot with their pants rolled up over their knees, business men with no shoes on... and when i got out the front doors there was a HUGE crowd of tourist staring at the canal. apparently, it was a high tide. but i later learned that this was an unusuall high tide to reach all the way to the station. after an hour of standing with the crowd and skirting the lakes filling the streets i bought a pair of cheap skipper. i had watched every other person wearing them dump them out. but i bought some ice cream and put on some skippers and started wading through the streets with the locals. i made it to the academia... and it was closed for high tides. i decided i wasn't really going sight seeing- but checking out hilarious scenes of people dealing with the water.

everything was flooded. restaurants, cafès, prada and gucci, ... all the plazzas were lakes almost up to my knees. i made it half way across town to San Marco. it felt kind of like a pilgrimage... i stood in the middle of the lake infront of the grand cathedral and laughed about how hilarious the water was. it was really cold.. .and by this time my skippers were leaking. i had taken off my shoes and gone barfoot inside the leaky pieces of shit. but it was worth it... and quite an adventure. it was almost raining all day. local students were racing around taking pictures of the tourist- myself included- all of whom looked rediculous.

it was fabulous.