Feeding the pigeons

Day 8

We drive to Venice, and visit the Doges Palace along with St. Mark’s Square. Venice, for those who didn’t know, is a city completely surrounded by water. A bunch of Italians founded it while they were trying to run away from Attila the Hun way back then. The city’s streets aren’t based on a grid system, so they’re very confusing. The roads are narrow, and they twist this way and that. It’s extremely hard to find your way through the city without a map. We were given a very brief tour by a local guide whom we hired, because it turns out that our tour guide Judy wasn’t permitted to guide without an Italian guide’s license, and if caught the fine was 1,000 euros. There were quite a lot of pigeons hanging around St. Mark’s Square, and the two pillars where the gallows used to be. You could be fined if you fed the pigeons anything other than a special kind of contraceptive corn kernels, which you could buy for one euro from a special vendor situated nearby. Funny things, those contraceptive corn kernels. I wonder what the market would be for contraceptive popcorn here in the Philippines. No doubt the new Pope Ratzinger would condemn them. The kiddies had a blast, feeding the pigeons and trying to get them to land on their arms and head.

Next stop was the Doges Palace Museum, where all the rulers of Venice used to live. Those Doges certainly lived in style, although their prisoners certainly didn’t. After wandering through the main halls and the courtroom, Ethan and I decided to go ahead of the group and head straight for the armory and the dungeons. We passed the legendary bridge of sighs, the connection between the Doges Palace and the prisons, where prisoners had their last glimpse of the outside world before entering the foul, dank dungeon which would be their home for the rest of their lines. The cells sucked. I could imagine it to be most unpleasant to live in. We grabbed one ham and cheese sandwich each, and headed to the place where we were supposed to meet for our gondola ride. For some strange reason, we were five minutes late and we just caught our families leave the dock on their rented gondolas. Desperately, we asked one of the gondola people how much it would be to rent one. The answer: 150 euro for two. We walked away. Another dude came up and said he would take us for 100 euro each. We continued walking. Finally, a third one came up and said it was 80 euro for both of us. I told him 30 euro a head, and he declined. 30 euro a head was the real price, but they all thought we were dumb tourists and that they could scam us. So we met up with our parents and ate the best tiramisu any one of us had ever tasted. Bumming around is what we did for the rest of the day.