trip day 13

 Trip Day 13:  A really beautiful day in Venice

The alarm woke me at 5:30 am.  Our apartment was pretty open and I didn't want to bother people so I turned it off immediately.  Pat and AJ were our roomies.  I stayed with Pat on the trip 2 years ago and he's wonderful.  AJ proved to be just as cool.  Great roomies.  Pat knows I get up early to run and he's usually awake.  He's usually ready for the day when I get back.  Our plans took us to the Accademia today so I ran in that direction this time.  

After a shower and a coffee, we met the group at 7:30 to walk to the vaporetto stop.  We got off at the Accademia and moved through that museum.

The older stuff was spiced up with some Picasso...

and we were promised Matisse, but I only found this one.  It was a good one, though.

I also learned a lot about De Kooning.  We only studied his abstract expressionist paintings in school.  I learned he made some more personally interesting work and also created bronze sculptures.

After we finished with the Accaemia, we had some time to kill so we took our little group on a gondola ride.

Violet was no fan of boats but she seemed to enjoy this one.

Our gondolier was cool and he got a good photo for us.

 

We then explored the maze of streets around the area.

It was still pretty early in the day and we had to wait for some commercial galleries to open at 10 am before we could go in.  I had to check out the butts.

Especially when I realized they were made up of tiny little butts (and fronts).

We got an early start on the Peggy and this is always one of my favorites.  I love the modern and contemporary work in the collection.  

We caught the tail end of a talk being given by one of the interns.  We gave her an Italian "you are beautiful" note.  It's funny to see the reactions to these little pieces of paper.  Some people smile and show appreciation.  Some act like they don't want it and look at you like you're a leper.  She was appreciative and kind.

Kristina and Magritte.  We started to notice that Kristina, Georgia and Georgia's mom moved through the galleries about the same speed as us.

I will be forever 12 years old about things like this.  It made me feel better that everyone in our group got such a kick out of this too.

One of my all time favorite artists is Calder.  It was cool to see Violet with him.

Then we had a crazy idea.  After finishing what would normally be a day's worth of art viewing, we decided we still had time to do the Biennale Arsenale.  If we did that today, we would have tomorrow as a totally free day.  I was down for the challenge.  Our first stop was this cool exhibit just outside of the Arsenale.

I tried to keep my phone in my pocket as much as possible.

Another of my top two Biennale highlights was meeting Danielle Freakley and being challenged by her performative exhibit.  She gave everyone these ribbons to wear.  The ribbon would identify you as a person willing to participate in her "Please Say" activity.  I don't want to mess up the explanation so please visit www.freakley.net/ps to get the actual info.  As she put a clip on the ribbon and gave it to viewers, she explained that it was a way to initiate playful conversation by essentially asking someone to say something.  This could be as light or serious as you chose.  After getting the ribbon and letting the idea sink in a little, I needed to go back and try something.

I waited for a lull in the line and went back through.  I held up my ribbon and said, "Please say, take a selfie with me."  She looked at me for a second, smiled and said, "take a selfie with me!".  Then she stepped down off her stool and smiled.  It was really cool to not only get an opportunity to interact with strangers, but also to interact with the artist.

It felt similar to my goofball idea of handing people silly little drawings with "you are beautiful" on them.  I was out of sticky notes by this point but I did tell her I loved the idea and thought it was beautiful.  When I did, she smiled really big and told me she had a gift for me.  She reached over and handed me a small bag with her signature charm on a chain. 

That night, I made her a personalized note, though I couldn't get back into the Biennale to give it to her.  I was able to let her see it through Instagram.  I hope it made her smile.

We finished the Arsenale and saw some other very cool things.

And we honestly felt a little free now that we had done all of the art things.  We had a few hours left in our day and a whole free day the next day.  We walked around and explored with no agenda before finding an out of the way place to have a slow dinner.

One of the things I love/hate about European dinners is the slow pace.  The waiters are in no hurry.  They don't work for tips and they don't care how long you stay.  I'm all about getting things done so sometimes it kills me to sit there so long.  Still, I try to enjoy it and relax.  This afternoon it was nice to take it slow.  While we were there, basically eating in the street, I watched the people next door who were hosting one of those wine and paint situations.  This young lady had a noticeable style and she was one of the leaders.  I watched her paint on a canvas and drink wine and offer help and words to others.  I really wanted to go over and participate in some way, but I also didn't want to pay and it was clearly a business.  I found a compromise.  I tore my brown paper napkin and got my pen out.  I drew a skull with bangs and pig tails with cats for eyes.  I added "You are Beautiful" in Italian.  It was a pretty cool sketch.  Of course, I didn't think to take a photo of it.  I got my courage up and walked over to her and handed it to her.  She was shocked and clearly taken aback.  I told her I had been sitting and watching them work and I wanted to give her the portrait.  She was so appreciative.  She told me that she loved it and she could tell it was her.  She loved the cats for eyes and she told me that her cat had died recently and that this would be a happy way to remember.  It's so cool how the Universe lines these things up.  

This was about the time we decided to make stretch our meal out a little longer.  We had drinks and some snacks at this place but then decided to move to a new location in search of good desserts.  When we moved, we saw a cool lady walking behind us and she had a ribbon!  We quickly discussed what we should do and we ended up turning around and sort of pouncing on her.  Poor lady.  We scared her a bit but when she saw our ribbons, she laughed and relaxed.  I said, "Please say take a selfie with me" and she obliged while laughing.

All during our second dinner, we did this.  They would spot people walking out from the Arsenale with ribbons and I would jump up and run towards them holding my ribbon.  It was funny how we didn't even need to share a language to interact in this way.  I got selfies with tons of strangers.  Then we finished our desserts and headed back to the apartments knowing we could sleep a little later.  

This day was absolutely filled to the brim with great things.  Not only did we do several days worth of activities, we also got to interact in beautiful ways with beautiful people.