All of you who just heard 80s synths in your head, I apologise.
Back in Austria, sitting in big blue things in the courtyard of the Museums Quartier with free WiFi again.
The rest of Venice was fabulous, not least because just as I was about to leave town and was walking to a café to say goodbye to Fabienne and James who’d just arrived, who should spot me from the wall she’s sitting on but Catherine! Wild screams, hugs, turns out she’s been trying to SMS me all day but I didn’t get the messages. She and her two friends Mel and Brigette jumped on a train from Firenze in response to my mail. Frantic checking of my ticket to Vienna: yep, valid for two months, I can put off my journey and stay an extra day.
So, we all troop off to the bar and the next day we head for the islands Murano and Burano that I haven’t seen yet. Murano is where all the gorgeous glass is made and Burano has really amazing colourful houses. I find a wedding present for my sister and we take lots of photos. It’s also a kind of strange day for me because I don’t feel like I’m really a girl like other girls, and the whole running-around-shopping thing is very different from any other day I’ve spent on the trip.
Venice was odd like that. Also ‘bumped into’ Janine, old Sunday Life colleague now living in London (she says hi, by the way deepskin. How, in a world of 6 billion people do you just bump into someone you know on a vaporetto? Also overheard some camera people talking, went and spoke to them, they’re from 60 Minutes. Can we swap cards? Of course. Hang on, says one, are you so-and-so’s daughter? I live two doors down from your parents! Your mother’s involved with fighting the council with us. Bizarre.
Train to Vienna. Markus is very ill so I’m staying with David instead. Last night we went to a lecture on nomad time which was interesting (the bits I understood. I have used every skerrig of my language skills on this trip; I’ve now spoken in Spanish, German, French and English and learned please, thank you, goodbye and do you speak english? in a bunch of other languages.) The lecture was at a cool art tech space called One Smart Space. I had to take photos of the toilet: yellow light, metal fittings and a clear perspex seat; art text on the mirror.
Vienna is big, imperial buildings and 18th century statuary on the sides of everything. I like the gardens, but I figure I’ll choose here to get some work done. Of course, instead I LJ and check mail, but we’ll see.