Hotel Introspections

SANTA MONICA

07/2017

YOU’RE NOT IN COLOGNE ANYMORE

No way, the mattresses are made by the same guy. I form an ersatz bed at the foot of the one in which I was supposed to be sleeping. Half a dozen towels and a couple of those flimsy and superfluous things they ram austerely over the top of the actual duvet. Pretty rough and ready but it assists in my empathy for the scores of bums we will later see strewn between the pier and Venice.

Before all that, a quite magisterial incident, – an inaugural swim in the PACIFIC. Who could not appreciate that? And it felt different, less salty than the Atlantic and purer than the Med. The waves were huge but powerless. We floated in the aquatic chaos and laughed at the ten year old kid who kept shouting – shark!

Venice is as mad as one would hope and expect. Wolf T-Shirts, street performers (borderline muggers) and Service Dogs aplenty. We observed amputees skateboard. One particular girl, with no legs (yes) and possibly of South American descent, hurtled and grazed herself across the craters. I winced with every harsh contact; she just smiled vaguely. And persevered.

The top topic over here? MONEY. From the panhandler to the tech ogre, people unashamedly want it and will add-on where they can. Tipping, at first a cultural minefield, becomes something we keep to a minimum. The cost of eating out is inexplicable and to think 18-25% is anticipated on top of that...One of the few times it is deserved we have so little cash, it probably comes in at about 7%. Sorry Jamie (yes she was cute).

Our helpful barmaid at the hotel (12%) informed us that the Venice Freak Show had been evicted by Snapchat. Let’s assume that is true. It explains why the geeks behind that particular venture have devised such an unscrupulous bully-weapon.

By now the irrelevance of Europe is in sharper focus and better understood. This part of the world is about the Pacific; there is nowhere in Europe where Latin Americans and Japanese are indigenous and pronounced minorities. Yet to see a hybrid of those two groups; cross-pollination seems rare, but what a sight she could be. The whole melting pot is augmented by gigantic Pacific Islanders, Korea, the Philippines and China. Citizens of that other econosaurus seem to be here working (spying) in Tech. I observe a mutual apartheid. No-one really mixes. At the Pier Blacks, Asians, Mexicans, Caucasians et al meander around each other; as indifferent as the glazed rich families that step over the bums .