Venice to Vienna
Greetings to all from an apartment in Berlin! I like writing these updates on trains; I wrote most of this on the way to Berlin. I have the time to sit, think, and reflect and when I've been writing for too long I can just look out the window and watch the landscape for a few minutes. I haven't been moving quite as much as I've wanted to in the last few weeks: that has to do with a complicated visa situation that I'll outline below. But that did give me the opportunity to be in Vienna for two weeks, meeting family I had never met, seeing places related to my family history, and sinking in to the culture of a city in a more real way. Also letting me have the time to breathe, as I did in Naples.
Here's what I've been up to:
VENICE, ITALY - MARCH 18-21
I have been to Venice before, about six years ago, and my mom lives in a houseboat community, so the idea of a city on water wasn't as totally mindblowing to me as it might be to many people. I had already hit the tourist sights in my last trip here so I decided to try to see the "local" things if possible. Back in November, when I was in Durham, North Carolina, I met a man who was born in Venice and who is now doing his PhD in History at Duke. He described Venice to me as "European Disneyland." It's hard to say why exactly that's right, but it is. People don't really live in the city center anymore. Every menu is in at least four languages and usually in six or seven. It's all a large tourist attraction. The two most distinct sounds I noticed were not sounds, but lacks of sounds: a lack of traffic noise (thank you boats!) and a lack of spoken Italian. I heard German, Spanish, English, Japanese, and Chinese, but hardly any Italian at all as I walked the streets.
Highlights include:
- The location of my hostel, on an island only accessible by vaporetto from the main islands. Initially I thought this was a detriment because I had to pay to get to and from the city center, but it meant that the restaurants and bars on the island were not frequented by tourists. They were the local spots I was looking for! I found a cheap watering hole nearby where I spent a few nights.
- Seeing Piazza San Marco flooded to knee-height.
- Meeting Matt, the Canadian who I met in Florence, again. He happened to be in Venice at the same time that I was and we spent an afternoon walking around together.
- Eating pasta with a sauce made of squid ink - a Venetian specialty!
GRAZ, AUSTRIA - MARCH 21-22
I had a night in Graz as a stopover between Venice and Vienna. I asked an Austrian friend if Graz was worth two nights or if I should spend three in Venice and one in Graz. She responded unequivocally that Graz was only worth one. She was right. I didn't have time to see the castle, which I'm sure would have changed my impression of the city. In fact, most of my impression of the city was the "hostel" I was in and my roommates in said "hostel."
Higlights include:
- Having to learn some German again! My brain tried to speak Italian when I first got in to Graz and I realized that I was certainly not in Italy anymore.
- A nice bowl of ramen. I tried to order in Japanese as I had done in Bordeaux but the proprietor couldn't understand me. The ramen was good though!
- LOWLIGHT ALERT: The A&O "Hostel" that I stayed in. It was a hotel masquerading as a hostel. You had to rent bed sheets. There was no common area. There were no young people. All in all quite disappointing.
- LOWLIGHT ALERT: My roommates were two fifty-year-old men who went to bed at 9 and got up at 4:30 or 5 to begin work. They didn't even leave the room to work, but instead just typed away on their keyboard starting that early. One even took a phone call! The hotel was already definitely not a hostel, and they made the experience even worse. Luckily I got out after one night.
VIENNA, AUSTRIA (and surrounding areas) - MARCH 22-APRIL 6
A little background: my grandfather fled Vienna from the Nazis just after the Anschluss. He has family that still lives there, and I was going there for the 60th birthday party of my second cousin Peter Huber. Some more recent background: back in August, when I was getting ready to leave on this journey, I went to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco for my visa. They said that because I was getting to China so far from then, I should aply on the road. I went to the Chinese consulate in Vienna (to apply on the road) and they told me in no uncertain terms that I could only apply in my home country. So I had to send my passport back to San Francisco along with a completed visa application and have my parents bring it to the consulate for me (THANK YOU SO MUCH!). The process of sending it, processing it, and sending it back took about two weeks, so I was in Vienna much longer than anticipated. I got a chance to really get to know this side of the family, especially my cousin Larissa, who is an artist. I'm glad I stayed so long so that we could make a real connection.
Highlights include:
- Meeting my cousin Larissa! She showed me really cool parts of Vienna and we had some super interesting conversations about the role of art and the artist in society. I'm not often able to talk in such detail about those things with members of my family. It was a unique experience to be able to do so. She's coming to California in about a year. I can't wait to host her and repay her for her kindness and hospitality.
- Meeting Isa and Matt again; I met both of them in the hostel in Florence for the first time, and saw Isa again in Rome and Matt again in Venice. Matt is Canadian and Isa is Viennese. She had a birthday party near Vienna on March 31 and we all planned to meet in Vienna for it back when we were in Florence. And the plans came true! Meeting people in three cities provided some continuity that otherwise doesn't happen much on this trip.
- Deewali, all-you-can-eat, pay-what-you-want Pakistani food.
- Peter's craft beer tasting party. They don't only have pilsners in Austria, who knew.
- Peter's birthday party. I met much more of my extended family and was recruited to play guitar for a version of "16 Going on 17" (titled "60 Going on 70") that we sang for Peter. I wasn't really told that the song was happening until just ten minutes before, and spent those ten minutes learning it in the stairwell outside from a YouTube recording.
- A city tour of Old Vienna.
- Getting drunk walking around a carnival with Matt and Isa. I made my first joke in German! Isa laughed! Go team.
- Seeing 4 am on 6 occasions in 10 nights.
- Seeing the old family farm outside of Vienna and the old restaurant (gastehaus) right in the middle of the city. I was not expecting to be as moved as I was. I heard a church bell ring outside the old farm and wondered if it was the same church bell my grandfather had heard and got goosebumps.
- A day trip to Salzburg. I sat in a park and wrote for two hours, walked around the cathedral, and saw two men playing life sized chess in a plaza.
- Isa's birthday party. There were many Austrians there, and me, Matt, Matt's friend Kelsey, and another man from Budapest. Everyone was talking about how the party was so international and I realized that that was because of *us*. Go team!
- Easter with extended family. I have managed to have Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter with family on this trip. It's a blessing.
- Walking the Danube with Matt on Easter Monday, seeing all the families barbequeing and hanging out and making music. I got a black fly bite on my arm that day, though... It swelled up to almost the size of my hand until I started putting tons of cortizone on it.
- Getting my Chinese visa!!!! I got it! I have my passport again! I'm not an undocumented immigrant!!! Life is good.
I've been gone for more than six months now. Recently I have kind of forgotten what it's like to have roots, to see people every week, to have continuity. I wrote a song about it. It's called "Can't Much Remember." I hope you like it.
Much love always,
Tennessee