{"id":5436,"date":"2016-10-21T01:15:32","date_gmt":"2016-10-21T05:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/?p=5436"},"modified":"2016-10-21T01:15:32","modified_gmt":"2016-10-21T05:15:32","slug":"october-19-2016-robert-a-heinleins-accidental-tourist-in-a-strange-land-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/?p=5436","title":{"rendered":"October 19, 2016 \u2013 Robert A. Heinlein\u2019s Accidental Tourist in a Strange Land, Part One"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I am an ugly American. I\u2019ve traveled to a foreign land and have such a pitiful understanding of the language. At least I\u2019m not raising my voice constantly under the misguided impression that English spoken at a higher volume is instantly translated and understood, the universal translator as chronicled by amplification.<\/p>\n

My basic knowledge of Italian comes from Olive Garden commercials and Robert Benigni Oscar award acceptance speeches.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve landed in Venice and it\u2019s amusing to me how such things taken for granted when in one\u2019s comfort zone\/home base take on the stuff of Herculean legend. Simply navigating out of the airport to the bus stop seemed like a victory worthy of at least a few lines from Homer. As is seemingly typical of European countries, the public transport is quite good\u2026 although it\u2019s a bit confusing and overwhelming BECAUSE it\u2019s so prevalent. There are seemingly various disparate companies that run different lines and services and although I prepaid for a 7-day travel card, I quickly discovered it\u2019s only for a certain company. Sure, sure\u2026 they seemingly offer a variety of modes of transport and routes all over, but I still got yelled out in Italian and dismissively motioned to another bench to wait for ACTV versus whatever company this gentleman was with. The bench by the way was three feet away.<\/p>\n

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Riding the bus from the Aeroporto\u00a0to Mestre Train Station supposedly involved 27 stops along the way\u2026 or so Google Maps told me. The process brought back memories of the time I convinced Mom to take TheBus in Hawaii out to the Dole Pineapple Plantation. It was a two-hour trip with about a bazillion stops and each one announced by a passenger pressing a button prompting an automated sing-songy voice intoning, \u201cStop Requested.\u201d You hear \u201cStop Requested\u201d a bazillion times and you may never fully recover. I hear that voice in my nightmares sometimes.<\/p>\n

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\nBut there is something perhaps worse than hearing \u201cStop Requested.\u201d And that\u2019s no indications of when and where stops are happening save for the slow roll of a bus and the occasionally \u201cWhoosh\u201d of the hydraulic doors opening and closing. I thankfully had an offline screengrab of the GoogleMaps route information and so could occasionally puzzle out where I was. A quick glance at a street sign and a check of the 27 stops listing, coupled with the ETA of a 26 minute ride to my stop meant I could run the numbers and sorta see where I was on the list. But I had no idea how to request a stop \u2013 the bus didn\u2019t stop unless someone outside flag it down or someone inside, I don\u2019t know, stood up and waved to the driver? I couldn\u2019t puzzle how the driver knew someone onboard wanted off.<\/p>\n

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I would scan the road signs for indications of which direction \u201cMestre\u201d was and I noted the bus kept taking the turn offs indicated so I was confident I was on the right track. And Mestre is one of the chief transport hubs so I figured the bus would HAVE to stop\u2026 but there was still a nagging sensation in the back of my head, like, \u201cHuh\u2026 I could be like that guy in the Kingston Trio song about the MTA \u2013 I may never return.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twice I thought I might be at Mestre but it was sort of a feint. The station was 5.5 miles from the airport so I could conceivably walked\/run there were it not for my overly bulging and therefore overly burdensome bags. I\u2019m also still struggling with the SpaceRock Trail Half Marathon tumble I took. Of course, contorting one\u2019s body into an aircraft seat for hours on end probably didn\u2019t do me any favors. Perhaps a good night\u2019s sleep will help.<\/p>\n

The good news is I did find Mestre and from there I did discover how to get to the other side. I\u2019m apparently staying on the wrong side of the tracks\u2026 not that the area is any worse than others, just that the bus dropped me off on one side and I couldn\u2019t see how to get across. Eventually I found an underground pedestrian\/bike tunnel that featured enough graffiti and smells that it would\u2019ve ben right at home in early 1980s New York City.<\/p>\n

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I dropped my bag at the Hotel Mondial for a 1 euro charge awaiting my 3 pm checkin and I grabbed what was supposed to be a light lunch\u2026 turns out my plan for the fast lunch 10 euro special proved anything but. The salmon was good and I even dug the tiramisu but it was way more food than I needed. I\u2019ve got two hours to kill \u2013 I may just wander the neighborhood around here rather than trying to get in some sightseeing in Venice proper. I\u2019m awfully jetlagged and tired and bedraggled.<\/p>\n

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***<\/p>\n

I\u2019m clearly staying in the wrong part of Venice. Having walked in ever expanding concentric circles for the last few hours trying to kill time before check-in, I have yet to see a single canal. Maybe tomorrow when I travel into the heart of the city but as of now, Venice is apparently a lot of industrial park areas and alleys with squat apartment buildings. My hotel, billing itself as conveniently located for the business traveler or tourist, is accurate\u2026 if one is in the industrial park game or if one loves seeing urban development commingled with urban housing.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

I have every confidence I\u2019ll see canals tomorrow but for now, it\u2019s an early, light-ish dinner and an even earlier night. I grabbed two-plus hours of fitful napping to try and restore some lost time but I feel a little worse after waking up. So now I\u2019m an ugly American through and through \u2013 I already was having a bad hair month post non-Shaman barber cut, but post-transcontinental and transatlantic flight, flophouse bedhead \u2013 well, it\u2019s the stuff of legends all right. Medusa wouldn\u2019t be able to face me\u2026 so, success?<\/p>\n

And so as the sun sets here in Venice\u2026 or I guess I should say Mestre\u2026 I voyage into the land of dreams….<\/p>\n

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Incidentally, this is how the day started oh so many hours ago…<\/p>\n

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I am an ugly American. I\u2019ve traveled to a foreign land and have such a pitiful understanding of the language. At least I\u2019m not raising my voice constantly under the misguided impression that English spoken at a higher volume is instantly translated and understood, the universal translator as chronicled by amplification. My basic knowledge of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}