Ash and Small Bear go on an adventure!

Missing pre-script: In which our heroine explains how she decorated a Yugo to look like the Croatian flag, spent a few days in Austria with soccer hooligans, saw Bob Dylan play the harmonica, rediscovered her faith in humanity, and hopped a midnight train to Venice.

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My favorite cities are the sleeping ones, blue and pink and still, curtains closed against the eyes of prowling midnight cats and the promise of sunlight. Dawns beautiful as children, great emptinesses all possibility and stone waiting to feel new footsteps, to watch the first whispers of new lovers and the arguments of arrogant men. Twice this week I met new cities while they slept, wandered their playgrounds alone and wondering ‘what creatures will come out of these houses?’ In Austria the creatures turned out to be thousands of uniformed, uniformly drunk soccer fans. If someone could harness the energy they gave off it would easily have powered the city – they drank and sang and danced for 48 hours straight, and for a while I tried to keep up, but I just don’t really want another beer at 7 am and I can only remember the words to one of Croatia’s patriotic songs (of which there are hundreds). Now, in Venice, the streets swell minute by minute with people from anywhere but here, pudgy children in gondolier hats clutching desperately their huge ice cream cones and dodging the feral pigeons. They look so strange against the stone angels and rows of darkening archways, but so does everything human. The city should issue tuxedoes and ballgowns at the entrance of the Piazza San Marco… it’s the first time I’ve ever wanted to dress up to compliment the architecture. And perhaps I will, tomorrow, when I go out again to walk with the dreaming city, to watch the first light fill all the canals with rose petals.