Forza Gialloblu & Venezia

What we talked about in class this week was about the Amanda Knox case, and the book we had to read about it. Murder in Italy: the Shocking Slaying of a British Student, the Accused American Girl, and an International Scandal. From what I previously learned about this case before this class, I always assumed she was guilty. I didn't really know anything other than reading about the proposed sexual theory. From going over this case and reading this book, I learned this sex orgy game gone wrong was pretty much the invention of Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini. From what we learned this case has like zero evidence linking Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito to the scene of the murder, and the third person involved, Rudy Guede has tons of evidence linking him to the crime from his DNA everywhere and other evidence. This book also showed how crazy the Italian and British media basically crucified Amanda before the trial even began and was full of such bullshit. William Randolph Hearst would be so proud of the yellow journalism displayed in their headlines. The Italian police and court system is such bullshit compared to the American system, and it's unbelievable that there's no sort of European Union standards for judicial proceedings. This Justice Mignini guy should write screen plays because this guy has some wild ideas and theories or he should be locked up for saying lie after lie. I don't understand how Italians can deal with the news they get, but it's basically as if the Onion and that silly Newspaper sold at 7/11 with ridiculous headlines like "dogs take over Mars" were taken seriously. Thankfully the evidence used to convict Amanda and Raffaele has been deemed not good enough to be used as evidence for a crime, so hopefully the Italian justice system releases them, and Justice Mignini goes to hell. It's ridiculous that Rudy could get out in six years for good behavior when he clearly was present at the crime. He got rewarded for agreeing to a story suitable to Justice Mignini's. We talked about immigration in the other class. 7.2% of the registered population in Italy is made up of immigrants, there is probably about 2 or 3 percent more that our unregistered. They come from the Balkans to Africa to South America. I like the Bossi-Fini law which forced immigrants to prove they had an employment contract before they could come to the country, rather than come to Italy and sell fake bags, overpriced beer, and really stupid laser toys that stupid tourists waste money on. It's interesting that some immigrants pay hundreds of thousands to old Italian ladies to get married and divorced too so they can become citizens. What was interesting was there was some Egyptian guy who got beat up by a Dominican guy in Milan which led to the Egyptian community rioting versus the Latin Kings gang. Of course the Latin Kings beat the shit out of the Arab Egyptian community. I like that in Lucca their are no Kebab shops and every restaurant must sell a dish with Luccan cuisine. It's interesting that the Chinese community in Prato is like the one group of immigrants who refuse to learn Italian and stuff. 50 percent of Italian youth view immigrants negatively, it doesn't sound like they commit much help to the country, and I think we will see more hardline stances against immigrants in the future especially with the rise of Islam in Italy.

Friday-Our trip started out with a bus ride to Verona. The bus ride there was whatever, what was cool was seeing all the Roman ruins, especially the walls mixed in the current buildings. We got dropped and off and met near the Roman coliseum. This coliseum is the third biggest in Rome, next to one in Rome, and the one in Capua. I didn’t go inside it, but was intrigued by it. Verona is a very easy walking town. We then walked to the Castlevecchio and got there in less than 5 minutes, again we didn’t go inside the museum but you are free to go to the Courtyard and see the castle walls. After this we were given a map with points of interest and just tried to hit as many of them as we could. Another awesome part about Verona is that they have these portals from where former Roman entry ways were. We got to like the main tower in Verona which is a big square with caffes all around. Then we looked for Romeo’s house, which you can just see the exterior. After this, we saw the Scala tombs, the former rulers of Verona. Then we walked by the San Anastasia Church and the Duomo. The façade of the Duomo is pretty awesome. After that we walked across the bridge to see the old Roman ruins of the theatre. I then walked to another church to check out the façade and to another portal. I went back and got some lunch in that popular square and walked to Juliet’s house. It was crazy pandemonium there, there was like 2 tour groups there, a hundred tourists in this cramped courtyard. I could see the balcony from the outside so I didn’t have to go in, or rub the statue of Juliet’s breast for luck. The tunnel to get in there is loaded with people trying to write “so and so” forever. After this I walked by more churches, and another portal, Portal Leone, and I headed back to the meeting spot near the coliseum. I never found a Chievo Verona (local soccer team) store so that kind of sucked, but Verona is a cool town if you’re down to see some random Roman ruins.

-Venice Day One-We got into Venice around 4:30 ish, it was like a 1 ½ hour bus ride from Verona. We pulled off to where all the day trip buses were parked, and there was a shit ton. We then walked over a bridge, passed the train station, and ended up at our hotel. We were the top floor, but didn’t get the balcony, the room over did. The room was decent, just sucked that the beds were pushed together, so me and my roommate for the trip, Mark from San Diego pushed them apart. The weather in Venice is awesome compared to the blistering heat that was Florence for the past week. We were given a 48 hour vaporetto (water bus) ticket to use. We walked across a bridge to go find a further out vaporetto stop then the one near the train station, and we took Line 52 to Lido. Lido is a 12 km long island south of Venice, so it was like a 40 minute vaporetto ride. It was pretty chill though, just seeing the islands, the Adriatic sea. In Lido, which is a beach resort (but we didn’t go the beach), we found some random restaurant. I had a Würst Pizza, but it was huge. It destroyed all the pizza that I had ate in Florence. And being close to Austria I guess, they had Austrian beer, Austrian sausages, Austrian dishes. We ate dinner and then went to San Marcos Square. It’s pretty cool over there, we saw the Basilica, the Doge Palace, the Campanile (Bell Tower) at night and then we found like the oldest coffee shop in Western Europe. We then went back to the hotel, tried to find a bar, which there was none on the island, and went to drinking in one of our classmate’s rooms with beers we bought. All the stores/restaurants closed at like 11 PM, totally different from Florence.

-Venice Day Two-We started the morning off with a crappy Italian breakfast of prosciutto and cheese and some fruit and some bread. We then took the vaporetto to San Marcos square. This route didn’t go through the Grand Canal so we could see all the different Cruise Lines docked in Venice. These were some behemoth ships compared to the boats next to them. After we got there, we ended up meeting right by the Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs connected to the palace or the church. This was like the only art piece I actually knew of from Art History. It was definitely cool to see it in person, and how the oblivious person walks by it. Hell, I missed this completely at night the day before. We then went on a walking tour of San Marcos Square, going by the Palace, the Basilica, the Bell tower, the clock tower and then we went on a walking tour through Venice going by some churches like the Church of Moises, some other churches, a famous theatre, and then through some local areas nobody really cared about and to the Rialto bridge and back to the square. Our guide was a former professor who looked like he woke up with a hangover, or just liked to drink in general since he kept making references to whisky. After the tour we were free to do our own thing for like 6 hours and we started off at the Hard Rock Café in Venice. Our waitress was very eccentric but look like she loved her job and it was probably the best burger I had on our trip. Plus they offered free refills, unbelievable! We then waited in line to get into Basilica di San Marco which goes by very quick since it cost money to get into the treasury, the sanctuary (which houses an awesome silver screen filled with thousands of gems and offers a close-up view of St. Mark’s tomb, and the Museo which houses like the original Gold horses. Since I was with a bunch of people who wouldn’t spend money to see any of these things, it kind of sucked but whatever. We then went to the Doge’s palace which was huge, the Court of Justice rooms were especially gigantic filled with portraits of the hundreds of Doge’s during the time of the Venetian republic. The prison was also pretty big, and the bridges of sighs looking out into the dock before the criminals were hanged between the two columns. I then checked out the other museums on our pass like the Museo Correr which showed Venetian art and history from Roman times to the Republic. It connects to the Museo Archeological and part of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana. Unfortunately we could not see the ground floor where Indiana Jones discovered a clue to reach his father. I cruised around this part of the island to the exterior of the Arsenale, or naval shipyard. Then we had a free dinner through AIFS. The owner recommended some nightlife areas and we found a good bar near the Rialto Bridge. I had some Paulaner Munich beer on tap which was excellent, I now know why you wear that shirt, dad.

Day Three-We were free to explore today, so we started out at the Jewish ghetto in Venice. Apparently this is like the original ghetto and has been there since the 1200s. It’s also the spot where the Germans rounded up the Jews and sent them to Auschwitz. After that we took the vaporetto to the Venice Academia and saw all the famous Venetian artworks there. Leonardo’s “Vetruvian Man” is here, but it only goes on display every couple years so it wasn’t on display this time. Saw some interesting artwork here, I don’t know Venetian art because my Art history class never made it this far so it was kind of just like looking at interesting art and knowing nothing about it. After that we went to Lido and walked to the beach which looked packed but nice and cool, but I had shoes on and couldn’t get closer to the water and then we just ate at a snack bar on the island. We caught the vaporetto back and tried going to a church near the Academia only to find out my stupid guidebook was wrong and that churches weren’t open on Sunday’s like my guide book said they were. So we walked around and eventually found an open church called the Santa Maria della Salute. After this we tried going to another island called San Giorgio Maggiore but could not figure out a boat that would take us there. Then we just cruised around San Marcos square a little bit more before we took the Vaporetto back to the water bus stop near the hotel. We had a fast train going from Venice to Florence to Rome, which I wish I stayed on for.

My final reflection of Venice is that it’s a city that needs more than one day to explore. I think that is why my roommates hated their day trip to Venice. It can be walked through all the parts of the island, but the water bus is a huge help. I managed to walk through most of the island without using the vaporetto. San Marcos square is definitely a site that needs to be seen, there is less pigeons than I expected there to be. It’s cool to see the water at night float onto the land and stuff. I’m bummed I never got to go see all the churches in Venice since some of them seemed really cool, or the glass-making island Murano. I never had seafood there, went to the beach resort island twice and never went to the beach and those are probably my only regrets. This trip was definitely worth it, I think traveling by Gondola is a waste of money, but if you have money to blow by all means go for it. I also wish I went to the Casino since it was like two stops from our hotel. It didn’t smell that bad like everyone was insinuating but the canal water is polluted with sewage, my late night public urine, and their tap water comes from the mountains in the Dolomites. Rome > Venice. I wish I knew more about the Venetian republic, but I never took a European history class so I didn’t know much.