Mr. Grumpy-Pants

June 4, 2007

I had visited Venice in the summer of 2005 with a group of fellow Millbrook High graduates. We were there for an afternoon, hitting St. Mark's Square and cruising on the vaporetti. I remembered the city fondly, and couldn't wait to return.

I could have waited.

After a long day on delayed buses and trains from Sansepolcro to Arezzo to Bologna to Venice, we stepped off the train at the Santa Lucia station at almost 9 pm. The lady at the information desk helped us buy a map and showed us where our hotel was on there, and we headed out into Venice proper. A canal sits right in front of the station, with a large white bridge arching over its green waters and gondolas and vaporetti lining its sides. The ancient buildings were beautiful, their facades slightly dirty but still splendid in their elegance.

We stepped over the bridge, darting past pushy men who tried to sell stolen Louis Vitton purses, and headed for our hotel--problem was, we couldn't find it. After perhaps half an hour of wandering Venezia's confusing streets, we called the hotel manager and let him know we were lost. He promptly began yelling at us and telling us to stay put, that he would find us a bring us back. Excuse me?! Four girls, tired and alone in a confusing city, with a strange man looking for us--we'd never seen him, he'd never seen us. This didn't sound like a smart plan.

He had told us the hotel was not five minutes from where we were, but he didn't show even fifteen minutes after the phonecall. Feeling mightily abandoned, we ended up asking some waiters for directions, and we found it tucked away in a back alley. The hotel itself was absolutely beautiful, but there was no hotel manager! Turns out he HAD gone out looking for us, but our paths never crossed.

We went back to the mouth of the alley to wait for the mysterious concierge, and a tall, lanky, older man in a powder-blue jacket came upon us. His long face was made longer by his scowl, and he spoke to us sarcastically, presuming that we had tricked him into coming to look for us. He then proceeded to curse us in Italian and, after letting us into the hotel, BERATED US! EXCUSE ME, I don't remember signing up for this!

He growled at us about "obligations" we had failed to perform about (1) calling to let him know we'd arrive after 8 pm--which we did; (2) printing off the map from Venere.com to find the hotel--which never showed up and our printer didn't work if it had; and (3) staying put until he found us--which is just creepy in a city after dark, and he didn't find us!

He FINALLY let us into our room and promptly told us that he didn't stay at the hotel at night--we had it to ourselves. Sketch or WHAT! We found dinner and came back for bed, and I was out by 10:30 pm. Even though Mr. Grumpy-Pants was awful, the hotel itself was wonderful.

I didn't enjoy the experience at the time, but how many people can say that they have been yelled at by their hotel concierge? Yeah, hindsight stories are pretty awesome.