"Without streets and vehicles, the uproar of wheels, the brutality of horses, and with its little winding ways where people crowd together, where voices sound as in the corridors of a house where the human step circulates as if it skirted the angles of furniture and shoes never wear out, the place has the character of an immense collective apartment, in which Piazza San Marco is the most adorned corner".
Henry James, The Aspern Papers.

So much beauty of the island has been carefully cultivated and maintained so all eyes that gaze upon it would be entranced by its beauty. I came to Venice as a weekend getaway, a splurge from the month-long trip abroad I spent mostly in Rome. In going to most places, I find myself fascinated by the rich culture, the new foods, and try my best to blend into a new and fascinating culture.

I realize that the timing of my visit was during peak season—a period in the summer where tourists from all around the world decide to travel and cause trouble of their own—but I wanted to get as much as I could out of my weekend visit, and to embrace the rich culture I’ve read about in books.

In history, Venice is known for its music, fashion, and festivals. The city's peak was during the Renaissance period when the festivals themselves bloomed and became what they are known as today. (Read more here.)

The second I walked out of the train station with my weekender bag and roommates, my jaw dropped. The Grand Canal, bridges, gondolas, and perfectly cultivated buildings covered the landscape. As I walked, I couldn’t stop looking up. This island seemed proud of its appearance, flaunting its vivid colors and vibrant potted plant life. Eventually, I found myself looking down.

A pit grew in my stomach as I walked through the streets and found myself stopped by the crowd time and time again—tourists pausing in the middle of the street to capture the perfect photo on their iPhone before continuing along the path with a zombie-like gaze in their eyes.

I found out quickly that this city, this entire island, was filled much more with crowding, rude, American tourists than Venetian locals. And these locals didn’t offer the open arms as Roman locals did. Waiters were aloof, vendors rough around the edges or matter-of-fact about their product…a husk of the culture that used to be here. And what was worse was that it seems like nothing will be done about this… Tourists will continue to feed into this city and suck out the remaining soul of it. Food will become more flavorless, Venetians will be faked more and more to satisfy the overflowing amount of consumers wanting instant and cheap gratification rather than to pay for the real thing. Seagulls and pigeons will grow fatter and fatter off the litter left behind by those too lazy to throw things out or too gluttonous to order the right portions of food.

But all the same, I fed into this culture, or seeming lack of it, due to the consumerism that the island has become based around—but I didn’t hate myself for doing it. I had to overlook the idea that I was contributing to the concept of consumerism and that I too was a tourist and an alien in this unfamiliar world that I was trying to grasp a hold of and to understand. My biggest spend of the trip abroad was traveling from Rome to this island and I was going to make the best of it no matter what it took.

I visited “the world’s most beautiful bookstore” and took lots of portraits for practice, and even went shopping during the nationwide sales. I enjoyed myself because I chose to and didn’t want to let something like a culture being eaten away by the overwhelming amount of tourism get in the way of my weekend getaway--still enamored by the beauty of this island and the care that was put into it to maintain it-- even simply so that tourists can indulge, take pictures, and spend more money than they had planned. And I refused to hate myself for it.