Marco told me that there was an ugly, industrial area on the mainland near Venice. The implication was that I shouldn't visit there. So of course I had to see it for myself.

Every 5 minutes a train runs between Venezia Santa Lucia and Mestre train station. It was 1.30€ and took about 15 minutes to arrive. The view of la laguna, its use by rowing teams and kayakers reminded me how locals adapt a tourist attraction to personal interests. Mestre has the feeling of a suburb, or really an anywhere–European city. The visible difference is that the people on the streets didn't look like tourists and and didn't look like the stuffy Venetian locals: Asians, Africans, Caucasians; the periphery of diversity. The buildings were larger and looked from the 1960s or 1970s – occupying between 30 and 50 percent of a modern city block; they were taller than the Venetian structures by three or four stories. The roads were wider. And there were basically no canals; I saw only one channelized river, the Riviera Magellano, in the historic center. The prices of everything were several euros less. A caffe, 1€. There were school children, motorcycles, and many shopkeepers didn't speak English. For 1,30€ one could arrive to Italy for Venice.

We walked up via Piave to Via Giudosue Carducci and then over the historic center. I realized that this was the equivalent of the suburbs; I felt the air of possibility there, which was suffocatingly absent in Venezia. The latter is the Time Square of Italy; the former, Cornellà de Llobregat. Venice is determined, dense, and layered in history. It's been a tourist destination for centuries. It's the playground of the rich and cultured, the nouveau riche and uncultured, those who have traveled the world, and those who have avoided it. Mestre is land: fertile, potent.

I fantasized about starting a small, early to mid-career arts colony here; a Lower East Side or Bushwick, a potentiality to the achieved and the supported; a proximity to the arrived. An industrial zone where the young and curious and dig and the shins of the grayed and bored. Where imagination can fabricate during the two years between the Bienniale; a haven where the prices of the Island can be avoided and where the issues that concern real artists today–gentrification, urbanism, environmentalism, social justice, grass roots movements, the virtual, the verge–can be taken off the shelf of the Giardini or Arsenale and lived, tried and experimented with in situ. And of course, by doing so, the world and the community would be changed.

The one element that makes Venice seem "inauthentic"–the corporate chains, like Gucci, H&M, and McDonald's–makes Piazza Erminio Ferretto feel authentic. We spotted a Lupo Negro off the square where blue-collar workers were leaving, which is always a good sign of decent food in Europe. Inside Lupo Nero we sat near a monochrome watercolor of a large wolf, staring at me. One of the many wolf-themed works in the restaurant. I order the lunch menu: spaghetti aglio e olio and vegetables, zucchini, carrots and potatoes. Vanessa had scallops and spaghetti with mussels. I realized that the service, which is stereotypically classified as "bad" is actually just oriented to delivering food to customers over closing a customer's bill.

Osteria Lupo Negro is located off of Piazza Erminio Ferretto, named after the anti-fascist insurgent who fought against Franco and later undermined the industrial production for materials headed from Italy to Nazi-Germany. His nom de guerre was "The Venetian." [1]

In the evening we returned to Santa Lucia and walked over the island back to the hotel to wait for dinner. We walked down Piazza San Marco to Harry’s, the alleged birthplace of the Martini. Inside, a man was holding the entire bar for his colleagues, who were arriving. The waiter rudely tossed us the menu and said the entire place was booked. I glanced around and saw only single woman, advanced in age, seated at the tables, alone, watching the group of young men cluster inside to their friend, and us. 24€ for a martini? We turned around and walked out, catching a grimace from the bartender. Wandering around on the northern shore of the island, we unsuccessfully found a place for a night cap, before making our way back to the hotel.

[1] Storia della Resistenzia veneziana
http://resistenzaveneziana.blogspot.com/

Puntigamer is the local beer. At 5.1%, it tries to distinguish itself from Heineken with a slightly darker shade and beautiful blue insignia that is readily found around the town of Graz. Gösser and Murauer are the other two local favorites; only Murauer has any flavor or body to it. The pilsner version has some hops and flavor. But there is a growing market of craft beers–Forstners for example–that vigilantly fighting against the Reinheitgebot. I had one beer infused with chili that was excellent. The general beer market here is a decade behind North America, in regard to the scenario of walking into a bar and getting exclusively good, flavorful beers on draft. After the first week of trying the local beers here, I realized why Austria is really known for its white wine.

After the interview, Werner Sprung stated that Styria is known for a wine called schilcher, which is best drank with meat in the hills. I first thought the invitation was empty but when he suggested that we drive 40 minutes outside the city, I realized he was serious. Iris excused herself with an ailment, which left me to journey with Werner and his daughter Eva, to a buschenshank near his home in Lannach. Making small talk I learned that Eva studied sociology; similarly Werner's wife worked for the state dispersing social welfare benefits. I wondered how different these factions fighting over the Speicherkanal really were.

Our Buschenshank had a large wine corkscrew sculpture in the driveway. The vineyards were dormant for the winter. Fog held the hills in ransom from the sun. 20 meters away was another Buschenshank. Beyond that was another. The institution was once a farmer’s house that people could visit and eat from whatever was being grown there at that time. It was the original farm to table, or rather person to farm, model of eating. Today, they are mini-hotels where mostly Austrian tourists come to “getaway from it all” and eat food, drink, and buschenshank-crawl to the neighboring building. In the vicinity I counted more than a dozen. The traditional food is a variety meats – salami, sausage, pate – with cheeses and horseradish. Bread. No chlorophyll. Werner ordered me a large board and a half for himself. Eva had only glühwein and schilcher. Our entire bill was around 20 €.

For the following weeks, I related this experience to people I met in Berlin, or Germans in Graz, and each was horrified by my experience. I didn’t get it. They would ask me how I was let in, whether there were women there, or if I saw Nazi flags. I was totally confused and suspecting this was some sort of Germany stereotype of Austria. It wasn’t until my final week in Graz that Iris corrected my experience and distinguished the two words. Whenever I mentioned my trip, my brutal pronunciation of ‘Buschenshank’ was misunderstood as ‘Burschenschaft’ and a conversation about Neo-nazi influence or genealogy of certain fraternities would evolve.

Pre-Christian iconography holds steadfast in Central Europe with the winter tradition of Krampus and Perchten. Krampus is a monster with goat horns that terrorizes children, acting as an anti-Saint Nicholas. Instead of giving gifts he scares young children who have been bad, or warns them of their folly. In the crowd along Herrengasse, Krampus rams toward the metal barricades and then poses for the smartphone pictures. He gives the kids on dad's shoulders a hi-five, then runs to the other side of the parade wall. The parade is supposed to occur every year on December 6, but cities has a weekend for this reason. I was told by Werner that actually Perchten was not celebrated in Graz until more recently. The culture continues to evolve; I saw the devils posing for selfies with the children they were assigned to terrorize.

20181122: Venezia | Mestre

20181202: Buschenschank | Perchten