Venice

It's raining in Venice.

I can hear it quietly pounding away on the stones outside our window, often masked by the sounds of the restaurant next door or children running in the street, shouting in Italian before being shushed by the matronly figure in charge. The rain makes a good backdrop for the musical scene that every Italian sentence creates to my ears. I love listening to the rising and falling of phrases, comparing them to the crescendos and decrescendo, subito pianos and marcatos to which I have grown accustomed.

The rain on the canal is a sight to see as well, each drop adding to the volume of water passing underneath bridges, supporting boats, docks, the city itself. I've heard that it's much prettier to take pictures of the gondoliers when there aren't deformed spheres of water falling from the sky, when the light from the sun can pass around the semi-crystalized lattices of water to reflect off the colors of the buildings, the small waves in the water, the paint on the boats. But this is more than likely the Venice I'll know, slipping with every step as I try to find a few of the many places of interest on the maps.

It's frustrating to know that this place, known for its beauty in the sunlight, is going to pass by me in the rain, while I'm still under the fog of a cold and distracted by the next steps on our journey. I need to play catch up, typing up stories from buildings now far distant, but my attention is caught by the sounds outside my window, as it has been for the past two weeks. In short, this city, with its many churches, canals, buildings, shops, stories, people, will become a footnote on the journey of my summer, more than likely the place where I'll complain that the internet was sketchy and the weather was worse.

But quietly, internally, I'll remember the walk in the cold rain that started in the afternoon, jumping over the quickly growing puddles to slide on the stones of the wayward streets of a city that will, for these years of my life anyway, remain a mystery to me. I'll remember the alleys that deadend in a canal, the open space that leads to the river and a view of the other islands surrounding this place, this city on stilts above the Po river, feeding Italy with the water flowing beneath houses and homes.

Ah, Venice.

[Edit: It was actually quite nice the next day and we went to St. Mark's Square and I saw the basilica and then I found the church that they used in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and I took quite a few pictures which will soon be on Facebook. And then it rained again. The end.]