We are in Venice! Minus Joy, because she is still waiting for her passport. Public service announcement: If you need a new passport, imagine how long each stage would normally take and double it. This part of the State Department is so understaffed, or whatever, that it’s not even possible to get an appointment in a passport office anywhere in the United States right now. So Joy is in New York, at least, enjoying the opportunity to be there and see friends.

The Munchkin and I arrived late last night. There’s so much we could do and see here. We’re right by or in the old Jewish ghetto, which, if not the first such place in the world, was the one that gave us the term ghetto for a neighborhood to which people are confined. Nowadays the methods by which we keep people in their place are a bit more subtle, which enables the people outside the ghetto to tell themselves that if anyone is still stuck there, it’s their own fault. So we could go to the Museo Hebraico. We’ll go to San Marco and all its accoutrements, of course, but in the hopes that Joy will join us within a few days, I want to hold off on going to Murano, the island of glassblowers. We’ve seen a bunch of posters for the Biennale, and I’d like to go into some of those exhibits. The moment I was awake this morning, Munchkin (who had already been out and about) asked if I wanted to climb a spiral staircase to a great view, and I said yes, but the first available tickets are tomorrow at 11:30, so we’re going to go then: La Scala Contarini del Bovolo, a late 15th-century palazzo. Apparently, it was made famous to the rest of the world when it featured prominently in Orson Welles’s movie of Othello.

The main attraction of Venice, though—the reason it was top on my list of places to go this summer—is just the city itself. I wanted to wander the winding streets and cross canals and soak up the centuries-old architecture. In our two hours of meandering and getting some food, I was confirmed in my conviction that I could be very happy here without going to a single “historical attraction.”

For example: This was the view out my bedroom window this morning.

The building in the distance on the right has a Pride flag hanging out the window, third window from the right.