"Therefore without attachment, do thou always perform action which should be done. For by performing action without attachment, man reaches supreme" -Bhagavad Gita
These are words to live by. In my life, I've learned that nothing is forever and everything is impermanent. This applies to material things as well - including money. That being said, it took everything I had not to be super pissed when we got pick-pocketed by a little old lady in Venice.
Let's start from the beginning, shall we?
Venice is awesome. I've been there before and was super excited to return when I hopped on a trip with my friends last minute. The shopping is great, the surrounding water is beautiful and the maze of endless streets makes Venice unique (and would ultimately be our demise later on). My friends Claire, Kaitlin, Catie and I all rented a car and made the quick 5 hour drive to Venice to spend a few days eating pizza, slurping gelato and hunting for the perfect Venetian mask. We decided to park our car in the Tronchetto parking garage and take the water taxi into Lido, where we were staying. Lido is southeast of Venice, but only a quick ride away.
The morning after we arrived, we ate a delicious breakfast at our hotel (review to follow) and set out to explore Venice. After spending a cool 18 euro on a 24-hour water taxi pass, we took the boat from Lido to San Marco (St. Mark's Square). St. Mark's Square is tourists galore. People come from all over the world to see the Basilica, climb the bell tower and people watch...or even pigeon watch, since there are hundreds in the square waiting for an absent-minded tourist to drop a piece of their sandwich. We took pictures and explored a bit before heading into the maze that is Venice to do a little window-shopping. Almost every street that connects to St. Mark's Square has a ton of shops, so we picked one and went with it. Predominantly, the shops sold glass and masks. Venetian glass is very colorful and beautiful - you could buy jewelry, plates, wine stoppers, and anything else you could imagine being made out of glass. I bought two glass pendants and a small plate as souvenirs.
Wait, where is the juicy story about the pick-pocketing you ask? Well ask and you shall receive...
After we made a few small purchases and explored a bit, we passed a souvenir shop that sold postcards. The four of us stopped to have a look at the postcards that were outside, then decided to go inside to see if there were any more. Two older ladies followed us inside the small shop, presumably to have a look around. I was looking at some postcards when Claire suddenly bumped into me from behind. Without turning around, I asked her what she was doing. She replied that the lady behind her was pushing into her and looking at something behind the counter. Claire and I stood close together and waited for the lady to leave. After about 10 seconds, she and her friend left the shop in a hurry. We continued to look at postcards, and after a few minutes we had all picked a few out. Claire got into her purse to pay for the postcards - and no wallet. She searched her purse, checked the pockets of her coat - nothing. We figured she may have left it at the last shop where she bought some earrings, so we set down the postcards and quickly backtracked, checking the ground just in case she dropped it. The man at the shop hadn't seen her wallet, and we slowly came to the realization that it could have been stolen. But where? When? How?
I looked over at Claire, and I could see her putting the pieces together. She informed us that her purse was unzipped, and when we were in the shop the lady pushing into her could have easily stolen her wallet. We decided that the lady was not trying to look at something behind the counter, because there was nothing behind the counter to look at! She was stealing Claire's wallet, all the while the two of us stood there and waited for her to finish her criminal mischief and vamoose out of the shop.
I said, "let's find this bitch". So we backtracked again to the shop as quickly as we could, and then went the way we saw them leave. Unfortunately, this is Venice. Like I said before, Venice is a maze and one could get lost easily - or hide easily. Every corner you turn has a corner for its corner, and there are endless doors that lead to courtyards to hide behind. After about an hour of searching, we knew that her wallet was gone forever. She had lost her drivers license, her military ID, debit cards, credit cards, 250 euro of her money and 80 euro of mine (I don't have a purse so I asked her to hold my money for me). If I were Claire, I would have been an inconsolable heap on the ground. Between clenched teeth she said that she "wanted to throw something", but otherwise held it together very well. We went to the police station once we knew our search was useless, and Claire spent an hour explaining to a man who didn't speak english what happened.
After our police station excursion, Claire prayed that the little old lady took only the money out of the wallet and dumped the rest in the water. We decided that the only way to console Claire and ourselves was to have some wine and pasta. Unfortunately, our meal was subpar (Osteria Nova - don't eat there), but the wine was good. After our early dinner we decided to get more wine to take back to the hotel and a few pastries to satisfy our sweet tooth. Kaitlin and I split a chocolate cannoli and walnut-rum cake. They were both delicious. And our trip got better too...but that's for my next post. I will leave you with a picture of our scrumptious pastries to tide you over until Venice, Part 2:
Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lido_di_Venezia
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