Wednesday 15/2/2017.
Today we decided to head to St Mark’s Square – Piazza San Marco – and the Doge’s Palace. We ended up taking the same route we had last night and eventually found our way using a combination of map reading and guesswork. We remembered to look left this time. St Mark’s Basilica is stunning.
We wanted to do a tour of the Doge’s Palace, but we’d read at that midday, an acrobat jumps from the bell tower in St Mark’s Square, and as it was 11:30 a.m., we decided to hold off on the tour until the acrobat. He didn’t show. We went to the Doge’s Palace. The security guard took one look at all the metal on our outfits and laughed. We are security’s worst nightmares. He didn’t speak much English, but did manage “sexy.” Grazie, Signore.
Bad Timing
Once inside, we couldn’t decide which tour to do. We wanted to see the dungeons and the cells where Cassanova was kept for hitting on the magistrate’s girlfriend. And we wanted to see the torture chamber. You know, wholesome touristy stuff. We didn’t ask our friends which tour they wanted to do. This was our birthday trip and we’d organized the entire thing, so we got to pick. We suspected it was the secret itineraries tour we wanted, but the last one went at 11:35 a.m. So we wasted half an hour for an acrobat who didn’t show, and missed our tour. Yet another wasted day. Wasting time and days on holiday cranks our rage level up to Apocalyptic Fury. It was San Francisco all over again, but without public transport drivers trying to kill us.
Furious, we decided to visit some haunted places so our day wouldn’t be a complete disappointment. We walked across the water front and stopped at a pizzeria so we could finally get some wi-fi. Well, the others wanted food, we just wanted the internet. Priorities.
News From Home
Sarah video called us with exciting news: we have a new guinea pig! He’s black with a white tuft on his head, he’s two years old and is called Shadow. We’ll change that because we’d already had a cat called Shadow and we don’t repeat names, which is difficult when you’ve had over 100 pets in your lifetime. Yes, we remember all their names.
We called him Dr Knox, as our other two piggies are Burke and Hare. His owner was about to give him to Cefn Mably Farm because he and his cage mate kept fighting. We we got to see him on video, along with our duck, Peking, one of our cats, Ripley, and Bandit, who was very excited to hear us. It’s much nicer than his usual response, which is to ignore us. Bandit shows the same level of emotion and affection as we do. We’re kindred spirits.
Hand in Marriage
We made our way to the island of San Pietro and San Pietro church. It was in a lovely, quiet part of Venice. That’s the great thing about incorporating haunted stuff into your holiday – you get to see parts of the place you wouldn’t normally see. This area obviously didn’t receive many visitors, so it was interesting to see true local life, with clothes hanging on lines above the streets, no souvenir shops and no touters trying to flog selfie sticks.
San Pietro is apparently haunted by a ghostly bride, who wanders the church looking for her missing hand.
Fiendish Feet
We made our way back to our apartment, and en route we bought ourselves a flail. Typical Venetian souvenir. We ended up by the Fondamente Nove, which is haunted by the girl who was never buried. We returned to our apartment to soak our aching feet in saucepans of cold water and write in our journals. It’s not normal to be in this much pain when walking so we should probably see a podiatrist. Or maybe we should buy better shoes. Friends we travel with wear trainers, not the gothic boots we insist on wearing. Maybe it’s time to do the same.
No. Trainers ruin our gothic outfits.
We refuse to be easily identified as British because of our footwear.
Food Fight
After an hour and a half’s rest, we headed out for food. The others chose a pasta place. We’ve never tried pasta, but it looks rubbery, and we only have to look at sauce and we want to vomit. Our ARFID means that most food looks, smells and tastes disgusting to us. We’re so used to carrying food everywhere we go that we forget that it’s not normal. It’s only when we’re with other people, particularly people we don’t know well, that we become hyper aware of how odd we are, and we become self-conscious of it. But at least we never go hungry.
Our friends ordered pasta dishes and Prosecco. We tried our best to explain to the waiter “vegano” but he couldn’t speak English and our Italian was appalling (this was in the days before Duolingo). Pointing to the chips and saying “vegano?” does not translate to “are your chips cooked separately from the meat/fish and are they cooked in non-animal fat oil?” In the end, we did what we usually do in these situations – we didn’t eat.
Socially Awkward
We shook our heads and waved our hands above the menu, indicating we didn’t want anything. He was so affronted that we dared to take up breathing space, that he slammed our menus shut and stormed off. We glanced at each other, startled. He returned, brusquely snatched up our glasses, plates and cutlery and stormed off again. We covered our mouths as we have a habit of laughing at inappropriate times, and this was definitely an inappropriate time. Calm down, Signore. We’re not eating. We haven’t slapped your mother. Tom and Amy were mortified. We missed Neen. She would’ve been wetting herself in hysterics then taunted us about this for the rest of our lives. Like the time we had a meltdown in the Canongate in Edinburgh when we couldn’t find a shop that sold cold Red Bull and nearly trashed a shop in the process. Good times.
We often prepare ourselves by reading up on the correct etiquette in social situations. Being Autistic feels like everyone else was born with an inbuilt manual on what to say and how to behave in social situations, but yours showed Error 404: File not found. Is not eating in an Italian restaurant deemed rude and insulting, even though our friends were eating?
Chips Away
We decided the best option was a swift exit to save our friends’ further embarrassment, so we went to Chips Amsterdam then went to one of the vegan gelato places on our list. We had the cherry/vanilla. It was even listed as “vegano.” This is what we like to see. Is it really that hard to add “vegan” to a label? The chips and the gelato were definitely one of the highlights of our trip. The chip shop usually salted the large metal funnels they use to scoop the chips up and swoosh them around in, but we hate salt, and after only one visit there, they recognised us and didn’t salt the funnel before serving us.
The Devil’s Forest
We returned to meet the others then walked to a pub we’d seen last night – The Devil’s Forest. It turned out to be an English pub. Which meant it had football – Real Madrid and Naples – on TV. We didn’t come all this way to come to an English sports pub. It was crowded and noisy, and we wanted to leave, but our friends wanted to stay, and after disgracing them in the restaurant, we owed them.
We endured chants of “Napoli!” from the group of Albanian men next to us as we tried to play a card game, “Million Dollars, But.” The guy next to Lynx kept knocking her and she was sorely tempted to punch him, but we’ve never started a bar fight and would like to keep that record clean. We don’t like strangers touching us, and we certainly don’t like them jostling us, which is why we usually avoid crowds. We decided it was best if we left, so we wandered the streets until we picked up wi-fi from a closed café, so we sat outside with our laptop, uploading our photos in the dark and the quiet.
Read Day 1.
Read Day 3.