"Was that a six-legged, fire-breathing dog?"
You'd think that travelling through Italy for work would be awesome. And it was...for a while, during my first visit. My boss was nice and let me go a few days early to enjoy myself before the work part started. My choice was Venice (Venezia). I wanted to see it before it becomes swallowed by the sea. I was alone but I never felt nervous about it. You know how most people would tell you that you shouldn't walk down dark alleys at night by yourself? I guess they didn't consider Venice, which consists of nothing BUT dark alleys at night. The only thing you can do is choose the slightly wider, slightly better lit, more pedestrian-travelled alleys.
As with all of my travels, I packed it in. I saw Piazza San Marco, the Rialto Bridge, the island of Murano, as many museums as I could pack in (my favourite was the Doge's Palace), and I became an expert in the vaporetti system along the Grand Canal. No, I didn't take a gondola for two reasons: 1) it's STUPIDLY expensive, and 2) it would have looked horribly, horribly sad for me to be in a gondola by myself.
The most fascinating aspect of Venice stumped me until my last day in the city. I couldn't figure out why there were so many heavy tables stacked up in the middle of the streets. They got in the way and increased the congestion on the busier routes. At first I thought they were used for street markets on the weekend or something, but it didn't explain why people just left them there during the week. It wasn't until I saw them all over Piazza San Marco that I realized why they were there. Parts of Venice are flooded at least 100 days out of the year, including the Piazza. The tables are set up so that people can walk on them, above the floodwater. Given that it was November, it was probably prime flooding season. Luckily, it didn't happen while I was there.
From Venice, I went to Bologna, which is where our equipment vendor was located. I didn't know much about Bologna, other than the fact that it's the origin of the deli meat (the proper name is mortadella) and it's where they make the awesome meat sauce for pasta (ALWAYS tagliatelle, NEVER spaghetti), but it's an incredibly interesting city historically. The oldest university in Europe is located there. The arches that are found all over the city started off as a method of property tax evasion, and then became a mandatory building code. The wall that once surrounded the main city centre is gone, but the 11 gates are still standing. Plus, their regional pasta is the tortellini. I tried every version, from tortellini to tortelloni to tortellaci (monstrously huge).
I took a day trip to Florence (Firenze) to meet my colleague and to see one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The art and the architecture were mind-blowing, and far beyond my capabilities to appreciate properly. I had to take a moment when I sipping a cappuccino, sitting in an outdoor patio in the Piazza del Duomo, staring up at the iconic Brunelleschi's Dome of the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore. I couldn't believe I was there. Unfortunately, our shortage of time meant that we couldn't go to the Uffizi to see the masterpieces of the Renaissance, or to the Galleria dell'Accademia to see the real David, but we were able to check out numerous churches, and the Ponte Vecchio. We even saw a bunch of fake Davids, like the one on the back of a truck that moved from place to place, and the gigantic one at the top of the hill at Piazzale Michelangelo. So I can't say that I'm done with Firenze just yet. It will have to stay on the list for now.
Back in Bologna, it turned out that our equipment wasn't ready for us yet. So for two days we were treated to guided tours of Bologna and Ravenna, which is renowned for its mosaics and was an important city in the Byzantine Empire. Who knew? At the end of the trip, it was determined that the equipment was not acceptable. The vendor was going to spend two weeks to fix it, and then we'd come back and try testing it again. What? Come back to Italy in two weeks?
During the second trip, it was a little less like fun and definitely more like work. It was a little unnerving how much I was getting used to staying at the hotel too. I was able to take one day off...but there was little choice in the matter since it was a bank holiday and our vendor was closed. I managed to get a little work done before heading out for an unsuccessful attempt at shopping. For some reason, I wasn't as enthusiastic about it this time around. I guess it's because during the first trip, I fulfilled my goal of obtaining a quintessential Italian item: a Gucci handbag. I may have had to travel to the outskirts of Florence to get to the outlet mall, and then subsequently got soaked up to my knees during periodic downpours (cobblestone streets create the deepest puddles when you're not paying attention), but it was worth it.
I'm sad to say that the second round of testing didn't go very well either, and my co-worker had to stay behind for a few extra days while I went home and promptly got sick (it turned out that he did too, which was even more brutal since he was working every day, even on the weekend).
So in total it was a pretty decent trip personally, maybe not the best trip professionally. I also certainly gained an unknown number of pounds, but was able to increase my alcohol tolerance back to university standards. I think I came out ahead in the end.
And the six-legged fire-breathing dog is the logo for an Italian gas station. Take from it what you will.
"Do I have to tell the story of a thousand rainy days since we first met, it's a big enough umbrella but it's always me that ends up getting wet"
