You would not believe the weekend I had.
It all started Thursday, when I flew into Venice to attend a conference for work. Yeah, that’s right, for work. I’m writing a story about fashion for the magazine I work for, and this software company claims to have revolutionized the way the big fashion houses do business. So, naturally, I was intrigued. They invited me to attend their conference, promising all along the way that I would get to meet and interview reps from Prada, Gucci and Jean Paul Gaultier. And, before you ask, no, you cannot have free samples – they’re for me! Actually, truth be told, these wonderful people didn’t show up to the conference, but I’ll get to that later.
So, the PR guy who invited me on this trip met me at the airport around 12:30 pm, along with two other journos from the UK, and we were off to Venice. Right away, I thought the weekend would be a complete muck-up. We were flying Ryanair, and for those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s the discount airline here. So basically, the flights to Venice for the four of us cost 100 pounds (altogether). Of course, there’s a reason why it’s so cheap. We flew into Treviso airport, which is a good one hour and a half from the islands. After we landed, we stood around for half an hour, waiting for a taxi. Finally we gave up, and boarded the land bus to the boat station. One hour later, we arrived at the station. Then we tried to find a water bus to take us to the hotel. We couldn’t find one, so we took a water taxi instead. What a rip off. Good thing I wasn’t paying for it!
Anyway, my hotel was different than the one the others were staying at, because my flight to return to London was set for Sunday, not Friday (like the others). Fine by me. I disembark the water taxi by myself, and am given the wrong directions to the hotel. Fantastic. There I was, dragging my overnight bag through the deserted streets of Venice. I asked a few people for directions to my hotel, but they had never heard of it. This was not looking good. I was really worried about the kind of place I would end up staying in. Finally, this nice woman at the art gallery gave me the right directions. I checked into my hotel at 6:30 pm, and was amazed.
The porter, Roberto, showed me to my room, which cost 330 euros a night. My jaw fell to the floor. My room was bigger than my apartment in Toronto. There was a little foyer with a closet and some shelves. Through the double doors, you find the bedroom. In the centre of the room was a huge king-sized bed. Behind the bed were controls for the sound system (which played classical jazz, rock and news) and the lights. Beside that was the cabinet where the mini bar, TV, and safe were hidden. To the left was a balcony, and an electronic blind. To the right was the greatest bathroom I’ve ever seen. The door to the bathroom was a floor-to-ceiling mirror. The interior of the bathroom was white and silver. There was a bidet (pretty common in Italy), a futuristic-looking scale, a huge mirror and sink. And then there was the bathtub. The bathtub had jacuzzi jets, and a dual shower head. There was a switch by the door to heat the tub, and another to heat the towel rack. Yes, the towel rack. What a great idea. Heat your towel while you’re in the shower, and it’s nice and toasty when you get out. I want one of those for my dream house. Anyway, there were terry cloth robes under the sink, and a shaving mirror above it. And, just when I thought things couldn’t get any better, I saw it: the Lush bath products by the bathtub. I was in heaven.
I didn’t have much time to relax though, because I was being picked up at my hotel at 8:20 pm for a gala dinner at the Westin Europe hotel. I had just enough time to freshen up, put on a nice sweater and my FM boots, and jot some notes down for the interviews I was told would follow the dinner. Before I knew it, it was time to go. So, I made my way to the lobby, where my guide waited. We took a water taxi to the Westin Europe, and I found my friends (ie. the other UK journos and the PR guy). Right away I was handed a glass of champagne. This went straight to my head, since the only thing I had eaten since having lunch around 2 pm was a clementine. Before I had finished my glass of champagne, I was handed another, and told to drink up. So I did. By this time I was feeling a little woozy. Dean, a journo who looked almost exactly like Greg, was complaining about dinner – or rather, the lack of it. The last time he had eaten was 12 hours ago. And then, when we thought we were going to pass out from hunger, we were led into the dining room. It was 9 pm. But it wasn’t time to eat yet. We sat around for another 20 minutes, and drank some more because hey, it was there. Around 9:30 pm, dinner was served. What followed was the most exquisite eight-course meal I’ve ever eaten for free :) Typically, we started our meal with an antipasto dish, which was really good. I can’t remember all of the dishes, but we had fish, polenta, beef, sorbet and other Venetian specialties. The dessert was a tiramisu that is second only to my mom’s. Seriously, it was that good. Most places try to make real tiramisu, but end up failing horribly. This time they had done a very good job, and they even used real marscapone. Mmmmm… tiramisu. I wish I had some right now… anyway, by the time we finished eating, it was close to midnight. By this time, I was slightly tipsy and was making fun of the other people at the table with Dean. It was pretty funny.
I got back to my hotel at 12:45 am, and even though I was exhausted, I took a bath. I had to take advantage of the Lush products, the jacuzzi jets, and the other perks. So, I put on one of the terry cloth robes, cranked up the jazz music, and had a bath. I almost fell asleep in the tub, but it was worth it. I finally went to bed around 1:30 am.
I overslept, and missed breakfast, which I’m sure was fantastic. My guide was meeting me at the hotel Friday morning to take me to the conference at 9 am. So, I made my way to the lobby to check out. Again, we took a water taxi to our destination. The conference was being held at this beautiful historic site: San Giorgio Maggiore. If you’ve ever been to Venice, or read about it, you probably know what I’m talking about. If not, here’s a brief description: it was a church and monastery that was built between 1559 and 1580. The church houses two major works of art, The Last Supper and Gathering of the Manna, both of which were created in 1594. Benedictine monks used to live in the monastery, and you can tell when you walk through the halls lined with their paintings. The buildings and the grounds were absolutely stunning. Again, I was stunned. We were there for a business conference, not a history lesson. But I’m not complaining; it was beautiful.
The morning was uneventful, and in fact, boring. I was hungry, and couldn’t wait for the coffee break. Finally it came, and I stuffed my face with Venetian cookies and coffee for 15 minutes. When the conference resumed, I was led to another room to interview some of the software guys. This wasn’t what I was there for, and so most of this was useless. One of the Italian software guys looked just like my uncle, and I immediately felt a kinship. It was pretty funny. Anyway, when it came time for lunch, I was pretty excited. We had been fed so well so far.
We found a table near a window with a great view of the water, and had some wine. The lunch was laid out buffet-style, but this wasn’t a typical buffet. The food was fantastic. There was tortellini with cheese sauce, veal, polenta, spinach, salad, rice and fish. It was so good. When the dessert came out, there was a rush to the table. There was a chocolate mousse, and a fruity cheesecake. Guess which one I had ;)
After lunch, we had another group interview scheduled. Again, this was a waste of my time. I was not there to write about this new software, and the PR guy knew that. The problem was that the people I was supposed to interview (ie the Prada and Gucci people) didn’t show up. So basically, the conference was a waste of my time.
At around 5 pm, we snuck out. The day was scheduled to end at 5:30 pm, but I had had enough. I got on a vaparetto (water bus) and made my way to Lido, the island where my new hotel was. It took me a while to find this hotel after I disembarked at the boat station. When I finally got there, I was exhausted. I had had a long day. So I checked in, and read some magazines until it was time to meet Shane. His plane arrived around 9 pm, but he missed the airport shuttle boat to the island. It comes once an hour, so he didn’t get to the island until 11 pm. By this time, I was starving. I had not eaten since lunch time. So, I met Shane at the boat station, and we went to a local bar to buy sandwiches. They were really good, partly because I was starving, and partly because they warm the sandwiches up. Mmmmm, so good.
When we got back to the hotel, Shane was so excited. He’s never been to Italy, and it surprised me at how proud I was to show him around. No matter what, they are my peeps :) We called my parents, and they gave us some advice on what to see on Saturday. Then we turned in.
The next day, we woke up really early, and headed down to breakfast. We stuffed our faces with brioche, cereal, rolls, coffee and juice. Then it was off to the boat station, where we could catch the vaparetto to the main island. We got off at St Mark’s Square. As soon as we got there, I remembered the trip I took with my family when I was eight. It’s funny how seeing something can release so many memories. Anyway, we took lots of pictures of the people feeding the pigeons, went to the basilica, and wandered the streets. We took a water bus around the Grand Canal, and felt pretty good about our trip in general. Even though it was freezing in Venice (we were wearing our winter coats, scarves and gloves), we enjoyed the boat rides. We went shopping, and bought some really nice stuff. Shane bought me a little murano glass cow. When it started to get dark out, we decided to head back to Lido. We went back to the hotel, dropped off our purchases and the camera, and went to an authentic Italian pizzeria for dinner. This place served an entire pizza per person. It was great. We sat there for hours, eating pizza and drinking wine. Then, for dessert, we had some tiramisu. Again, not as good as my mom’s, but still pretty good.
The next day we had to get up early to catch the boat to the airport. Since it comes once an hour, there’s little room to move. We had to catch it at 9 am, or miss our plane. Thankfully, we know how to haul ass when we need to, and made it to the airport with 45 minutes to spare. The plane started boarding almost as soon as we checked in. It was great; no waiting. We bought sandwiches before boarding, and encountered the rudest English people I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting.
This couple ordered some sandwiches, and took their purchases to a table to eat. Less than one minute later, Mrs. Asshole comes up to the counter and tries to return her sandwich because she “wanted something warm.” Now, the woman behind the counter didn’t speak English very well, but she spoke enough to get by. She told Mrs. Asshole that she couldn’t take the sandwich back, because she had touched it. But Mrs. Asshole was insistent. Then she started to get mad, and started yelling at the woman behind the counter to throw the sandwich out. Mr. Asshole then showed up, and started swearing. A woman standing in line behind us told him to calm down, and that there was no need to swear. He basically told her to fuck off and mind her own business. What an asshole. Anyway, the woman behind us started to explained to the sandwich lady in Italian why Mrs. Asshole wanted to return her purchase. The sandwich lady replied that she couldn’t heat up said sandwich because it had mayonnaise in it, and that she told Mrs. Asshole that when she bought it. She even gave Mrs. Asshole the opportunity to exchange it for something else right away. But Mrs. Asshole took the sandwich. Anyway, these people were causing such a scene and being so rude, you would have thought they were Americans.
Shane and I just looked at these people with disgust, and left to board the plane. We both wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it. Good thing too, because Mr. and Mrs. Asshole sat beside Shane on the flight.
The flight was something else. There was turbulence, and visibility was poor. We were almost diverted to Gatwick. Thankfully, our pilot was excellent – although the man puking behind Shane probably wouldn’t have agreed.
Anyway, when we got back to London, it was raining. Sigh.
That’s it for now.
S.
