Sagra

Sunshine tops the crenelated brick walls in Campo S. Simon Grande. I leaned back on a wooden bench next to a Korean couple to watch it all go by on the grand canal. Trash, trash boats, private taxies, vaporetti loaded with suitcases and their owners.

The freight boats had a little bit of a thrill out in the canals on Friday night. Ah, the Redentore. Instead of fruits and vegetables they carried shirtless twenty-somethings, rack after rack of beer and hours upon hours of electronica music. Now, paint-chipped and sun-stained, they took up their old life, usually under the command of some kind of balding, browned old man in a fisherman's vest.

Less famous is the feast of San Giacomo, which appropriately takes place in the campo of the same name. Not by chance, I'm guessing. The Sagra is what they call it. I shuffled shoulder-by-shoulder through a thick crowd of hungry Veneziani toward the barbecue kiosk's counter. I leaned over, taking in a healthy dose of greasy, salty smoke. The grillers and waitresses drank a beer between orders, smiled at the hassled customers, balancing plates of sausage, chicken, and white polenta. On top of that we ordered a dish of bigoi in salsa, a kind of pasta in fish sauce, and two plates of the saltiest fries I've ever washed down with a Beck's.

The whole night, the locals stacked beer cans next to their kids' legos. They talked, gesticulated under the festive string-lights which their children blew bubbles and a band of 40-somethings sang out in an only half-comprehensible Venetian dialect.

Two tables down , I recognized this girl by her hairdo. It was swirled and flipped up in the back, a little frizzy in the summer air, and held in place elegantly by a pair of chopsticks (she studies Chinese). Next to her, a girl I swear I saw earlier that day as I rattled my suitcase over the cobblestones, up and down the olympic-sized Ponte degli Scalzi. Her new glasses were a graduation gift, obsidian-colored and wide-lensed. I exchanged a quick word and a friendly kiss with each of them. Then the streetlights were extinguished, and that sent us home.

Festa.
-a

Granita? or Slushy?

Let's see, what we got today?

Hmm, I've learned since getting here that there's a wrong way to spread Nutella on a piece of bread. Apparently I've been screwing up for several years. But I may be getting the hang of it now. So look out, breakfast world.

The real trick is using a little spoon. With the knife, you'll break bread in a very unholy way. I dropped a piece on the terrazzo floor in the kitchen, and it blended in perfectly. I've never seen bread pull a camouflage trick like that. Poof.

Through the sweepy see-through curtains in the kitchen, I can see and hear the passersby shouting ahead at each other. It's not as good as taking a shower, but it's better than the TV. Which I've watched.

Alice and Silvia and I ate lunch together today while watching "The Bold and the Beautiful." The climax of the episode involved a photo-shoot and two cougars (one, a large cat, the other, a woman on the older side agewise). Italians prefer dubbed television and movies. As a once-active Godzilla fan, I highly approve.

I ran into a Brasilian girl on the way back to lunch. She asked me the way to the nearest vaporetto station, and I told her. She seemed new around town, because she asked, "A vaporetto. Now is that a bus or a boat?" She had pretty cool sunglasses though.

The price of silk ties has risen one euro in the past year.

Alice showed me Campo San Simeon Profeta, which is, according to her, "the quietest campo that looks out on the Grand Canal." I think it's true. I had a gelato, she had a granita. Basically, a granita is a slushy. But let's be real, what sounds better? Granita? or slushy? We talked NFL and NBA.

My friends from Treviso, Laura and Laura, came to visit. We spent the time in Campo Santa Margherita, where I pointed out British accents and Minnesota Vikings jerseys.

New phone number: (+39) 347 090 8321. Gimme a buzz should you randomly happen upon Italy.

With aficion, let's hope.
-a

Italian Crossword Puzzles

Here's a brief profile of my friends I'm staying with. Anna, a bubbly and irreverent brunette hooked on Grey's Anatomy, and Juliana, an sweet blonde who'll kill you with her affection. Both are spoiling me at their apartment in Venice. I do what I can to repay them.

My favorite part of this place: I close myself behind the shower's wobbly doors and uncoil the shower head from the wall to the music of campanile bells and a mother reprimanding her child in the backyard, sounds that filter through a colorful layer or two of hanging laundry.

Traveling in vaporetto: I didn't forget the sound of one of these bus-boats pulling up to a stop, or the image of the sailor lasooing the dock and twisting a knot probably passed down from generation to generation. I don't think I ever will, either.

Today, at Lido. Perfect sun, chilly water. I love digging through my pockets and having to distinguish between Eurocent coins and shells.

In the vaporetto on the way to Lido, I helped Anna with an Italian crossword puzzle. Meaning she taught me several new Italian words and completely ridiculous definitions for them.

On the beach, we played volleyball and Italian tennis-badminton. I fell asleep in the heat and had dreams I couldn't remember. After which we ate lunch along a sidewalk, spending as much time watching the people pass as enjoying our tramezzini. And of course, gelato.

I'm here for a pretty long haul, but when I get bogged down I just read more of "The Sun Also Rises" and it's better. Instantly. Here's what I hit recently: "You're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil. You get precious. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see? You hang around cafés."

Tonight, I did not hang around cafès. I ate sushi for the very first time. This was in Mestre, the city on the mainland right outside Venice. The place was called "Sushi Wok," and was an all-you-can-eat buffet. Needless to say, I feel like an elephant seal right now. One nice thing about Italian restaurants is that you don't tip. I know you don't like that, Matt Maerowitz.

Juliana went home to Pergine for the weekend. So at the sushi place were me, Anna, her boyfriend Giovanni, and four of his friends that he studies Japanese with. So cute going to a sushi joint with your Japanese classmates. They spoke fast, and this is only my second day back in this lingual world. I got issues. I thought, what would be easier, following this conversation, or doing Anna's crossword puzzle by myself?

All the Blockbuster stores I ever knew in the United States have gone out of business. Today, I saw one in Mestre. There were both lights on and people inside. Blast from the past.

Do I feel American? Absolutely. Do I care? I don't know. All I know is when I indulge my friends and speak English, it sounds about as weird as "Deliverance" dubbed in Italian. Which I haven't seen.

This isn't really a sightseeing blog, is it?