By wink of water

I spent the last week in Italy, first at Paganello, a beach tournament in Rimini, and then in Ravenna and Venice. Paganello is a very big European tournament, with four divisions (mixed, open, women, and juniors), and around 100 teams total. Taking place every year on Easter weekend, it is expensive but incredibly well-run. The schedules are organized and game scores are updated regularly; fans can easily follow the action at the fields or online. And amazingly, lots of locals come out to watch the games – chic Italian women in heels, carefully stepping along the sand into the stands.

My team, the Yellow Submarines, has been playing together for nine years, but has never made the trip across the Atlantic to this premier tournament. And in our first time, we placed second! We played a total of three games in the arena, which was the showcase field with stands, and there were hundreds of people watching. It was an amazing experience, “best weekend ever”, and I was so glad to be there with my closest friends.

After the tournament, I traveled with Schmucker, Emily, and Dave to Ravenna to see mosaics, and then up to Venice. I wish I’d taken more time off and spent the next few days with them, because we had a lovely time. The mosaics in Ravenna are religious art pieces from the Byzantine era, created around 500 AD. It was incredible to think of the age of the Christian religion – these are of course pre-Renaissance, pre-Middle Ages, and they feel very old and unusual indeed. But Christianity was already an old religion then. Not to mention Judaism; for this reason, I’d really like to visit Jerusalem sometime.

And then, Venice – what a spectacularly unique place. There are no cars, only tiny, winding streets and water everywhere. It seems crazy that anyone would think to build on these islands, but of course there was more land 2000 years ago, plus they had to escape those barbarian invaders. The city is lovely and decaying, and it seems an almost impossible proposition to save it. It is sinking into the Adriatic. Mold attacks everything, and the buildings are all very old, much older than those in Paris. The Italians also seem less able to maintain their buildings than the French; for instance, on the big Plaza, soot mars the white facades. In Paris at least, buildings are constantly undergoing restoration, and this sort of damage is not common. Venice is also not the bustling city it once was; its primary industry these days is tourism, and that gets quite tiresome after awhile. Still, we stayed in a lovely hotel, had a fantastic dinner (with great, cheap, local wine), and really enjoyed our trips along the Grand Canal in the water taxi. It was all too brief; I came back to Paris after spending less than 24 hours in Venice. I hope some day to return.

Here is a video I took from the water taxi of Venice, and below is a gallery of images from my trip; click to see a larger version.

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