Venice is flooded when we emerge the next morning. The ground is damp
near our hotel, but then as we get closer to Piazza San Marco (the famous
square), we see a lot more evidence that Venice is sinking. This did make
for some stunning shots of the flooded piazza, and made for a different
experience of the city than we had had the previous day.
We packed up and headed South. We had such a good time in Bologna that we
decided to return, this time a bit earlier in the day (in time for dinner,
of course). We found another hotel, parking for the car, and then looked
for some food. In a refreshing chance of pace, we were a bit too early
at our chosen place, and went shopping across the street to kill time.
The clothes were cool . . . though we were completely mystified by a
sweater that was like one of those university team sweaters, for some
"Kingston University" in Kingston, Ontario (Canada?).
Dinner was excellent. Though it was never really a personal goal of
mine, I have now had spaghetti bolognaise in Bologna.
And of course we would go out again. This time, we start at an English
pub with a very happy Happy Hour, where we learn of yet another pub that
is having an international students night. We figured this would be worth
checking out, especially for Brian and I who are hopeless in the Italian
language.
We met up with a German girl and a table consisting of a couple Belgian
guys and an Irish guy, all three law students. One of the Belgians wanted
to know about Canada, as in where did it come from. I don't think it was
just the many beers; I could not remember the name of the famous battle in
Quebec where the English finally "won" and that shaped the subsequent
history of the country. I learned from him that Belgium essentially
exists because, though it was fought over all the time, was too hard to
hold and so France and Germany just kind of gave up.
I will ask you to remember this point in the story as a marker for later.
Sufficiently boozed up, we head for a club that is to be much less sketchy
than the other night. Actually, this place was great. Quite full, not
too huge, and people were friendly. The three of us got separated, only
to meet up every once in a while, but we all agreed it was a great time.
I did pretty well with just English (and the occasional French).
The return to our hotel was complicated by the fact that the map had
somehow become very difficult to read. But after enough attempts in the
narrow streets, we made it.
We would only find out in the morning that Brian didn't remember this
excellent club or the walk afterwards . . . in fact, his memory ends at
that point in the story I flagged above. Too bad; that place was fun.
Also, we will never really know what he did there for that long.