Il Mercante di Venezia

To start from the beginning is usually a good idea. So for now we will start at the beginning of my last trip to Italy and then retrace our steps back to Scotland and Ireland over the holidays.

The plan was this: Stella was coming to London on Friday night. We would spend two days in London and hit some of the sights, markets, etc., then take an overnight train up to Edinburgh to arrive for my Monday morning interview at Napier University. Spend the day there and then board a plane in Edinburgh headed for Rome that afternoon. Stay in Rome for a day or two, then take a train up to Florence for a while and eventually end up in Venice, from where we would leave on Friday morning back to London and then Stella would catch a flight from there back to Hong Kong. A little rushed, yes; a little hectic, definitely; this plan really left no room for improvisation or mess-ups. Therefore what happened? A big, ugly mess-up.

Though we tried and tried, we could never find just what Stella was looking for in London, a great open market, such as in Notting Hill. We went at the wrong days at the wrong times. London was not as fun or fabulous as it could have been, but still we forged ahead. Hoping for better luck in Scotland we left later than we should have and therefore missed the very last overnight train by about five minutes. Not able to go by train, we looked at flights. But they were all too expensive and too time consuming to get to the airport, etc. to make them feasible. We abandoned that part of the plan and my interview. I called to inform the university that I wouldn't be attending. There was no chance to reschedule. But there is another job there for which I applied to that sounds better.

After a night of disappointment and moderated yelling, Stella and I finally got some sleep and awoke to adjust our plans for the last few days of her visit. We refunded our train tickets and called the hostels in Italy to reschedule our reservations, switched the time and place for the flight from Edinburgh-Rome to London-Rome for Tuesday morning. Then we spent the rest of Monday going around London a bit more and I got some fashionable digs from Covent Gardens.

Tuesday morning arrives. We find our way to the airport with little problems and get on board for a five hour flight. Getting into Rome at about noon, we spend the afternoon finding our hostel, checking in and getting settled. By then the only thing we could do is walk around Rome as everything else was pretty much closed. We went to the Roma Termini bus station and got on the number 40 bus which took us through the heart of the city. We got off about half way through the ride and walked down the street window shopping until we finally happened upon the river and a great view of the castle on the bank. After filling ourselves and our cameras with the view we wandered on down to the castle, crossed back over the river and made our way to Piazza Navona. There we found some beautiful fountains-and Rome is full of fountains-as well as a a Chinese lady who wrote my name in characters for only 2 Euro. Stella and I then had a proper pizza and Italian wine and enjoyed the beautiful night.

All else we saw of Rome was Il Colloseo, the Collesium, which we spent much of the next day exploring. We met a nice American guy named Joe who is studying in France for his MBA and happened to be traveling around Europe during his school break. Stella and I meandered around Il Colloseo and the Forum with Joe who was a welcome break from our mutual company (not that we don't love each other, but the wounds were still festering from our ill-fated beginning). Finally it was time to depart on an evening train to Venice. We missed the 5pm train (our bad luck with trains continued through from the Scotland fiasco) but we managed to get the 6pm train and finally got into Venice about 11pm that night.

We found our quaint hostel down a few hundred metres from the Santa Lucia train station, hidden in a little courtyard. It was a beautiful setting which finally set our minds in the frame of holiday-makers. We spent Thursday first by walking down to San Macro Piazza, then in a failed attempt to find Stella's parents the perfect set of fountain pens. Winding our way through the vias and calles of Venice was the best part of the trip, though at the time we were both dead tired and simply wanted to finish our quest and go home. Filling up both of my camera memory cards on the views from the piazza, we gave up the search for gifts, boarded the number 1 bus that would take us all the way back up the Grand Canal and bring us back to the train station. We walked back to our hostel and relaxed for a bit before we went back out into the cold to have dinner with Dan, a friend from high school and college.

For my birthday dinner, there was no cake, there were no songs or candles. There was simply a lot of pizza, a bit of strong wine and at the end of the night, the best present of all. Stella and I finally had overcome our mutual people-culture-shock (the shock and awe of two friends who have been growing and changing thousands of miles apart from each other for months and upon finally meeting again realize they are quite different people) and returned to being good friends who could talk all night about any and everything. We talked until midnight when the wine took hold and we both crashed to sleep. The morning we had a bit of trouble getting to the airport as I forgot to have enough cash on hand to pay the hostel bill and in my rush to run to the cashpoint and back I lost my hat. But eventually the bill was paid, we got to the bus station then to the airport and finally on the plane itself.

The last day was spent as all the days before should have been, by relaxing, watching downloaded episodes of Charmed and talking about things. Stella's trouble was still far from over for when she tried to get on standby for the flight home, it was full and there was nothing more to be done for the whole night. Apparently all of Heathrow and for that matter London itself basically shuts down by midnight, unless you want to go clubbing, which was far from our minds. We opted for the faster and easier but more expensive option of taking a taxi back to my place and got some sleep before we tried again for standby in the morning. Finally Stella had to buy another ticket but she made it home, and we parted as we did when she went to Hong Kong in July, as close friends and sisters. So that's all there is from Italy, except of course pictures and the souvenir of my name in Chinese characters.