Bond18 – Around the World in 90 Days: Days 3-4

Posted by Bond18 | Filed under Bond18

Venice Italy, May 2^nd – The human body was not made to withstand 36 hours of constant travel paired with massive time zone changes. To say I was tired when I went to bed last night would be dishonest; I was exhausted to the point of being comatose. The moment I hit my pillow at 5PM, I was out cold. I woke up a little before midnight feeling so hungry I could barely think straight. I went downstairs and approached the night manager hoping he’d understand my English.

“Uh hey, bonjourno.”

“Bonjourno”

“Uhhh, is the hotel bar still serving any food or anything?”

“No. No food.”

“Anywhere around here I could find some?”

“Goa down towardsa San Marco square. Some still open.”

“Thanks.”

I set out into the Venetian night. It’s very easy to get lost in the streets of Venice during the day, and with little in the way of street lights, it’s even easier at night. Obviously, I didn’t bring a map because that would mean I’d have to run back upstairs. I stumbled through thin alleyways in search of anything that might be open. The city had mostly shut down, but after 15 minutes of searching, I found a sandwich shop that was closing up but still willing to serve me. After I finished, I wandered half-lost through the dark Venetian night until I found the hotel again. I killed half an hour in the lobby with my computer until the night manager informed me they were closing at 1AM. I had three options:

Do nothing – Nod in agreement then sit there on my computer and hope he didn’t bother to enforce the rule.

Play it cool – “I’m getting tired anyway, have a good night.”

Keep it real - “Closing? CLOSING? How the fuck does a lobby close? You realize this room has no doors and is connected to several other rooms? How can it close? I don’t see anything that requires any upkeep here. Are you going to stack these antique chairs on top of each other, then pull a metal grate down to keep people out? That kind of closed?”

I went with option 1 since I needed a little more time on my computer to finish my work and he didn’t seem particularly zealous or interested. I finished my typing around 1:15 and packed up the computer. I assumed the night manager just wanted to get drunk during his dull all-night shift without having anyone catch him, and I went back toward the room. He apologized for having to kick me out on my way as he sat in the small restaurant area with his shoes off doing nothing. When I got back to the room I wondered what I was going to do to pass the time, then realized I was feeling tired again.

I didn’t wake up until almost 10AM, meaning I’d spent the better part of 17 hours unconscious. I still felt tired as I dragged myself out of bed, but knew it was necessary. Bondgirl and I spent the day wandering about Venice and doing some shopping.

Venice is a beautiful yet awkward city. On one hand, the buildings and architecture are breathtaking and the mere concept of a city that seems to rise out of the water with no roads is amazing in its own right. On the other, Venice is, at this point, entirely geared towards tourists and somewhat devoid of its own heartbeat. Shops appealing to them clutter the bottom floor of almost every building as well as the stands that line the streets. I cannot even begin to fathom how many Venetian mask shops there are in the city, not to mention the dozens upon dozens of jewelry and random tourist trinket shops. These three varieties of stores must make up something like 25% of all shops in Venice, and there are too many shops to possibly count. Selling masks is to Venice as gambling is to Las Vegas; inescapable and apparently essential for survival.

After we finished shopping and yet again getting lost wandering the city, Bondgirl and I head back to the hotel to take a load off. We lay in bed reading for a brief while, but the exhaustion began creeping up on me. It was again about 5PM when I put my book down and told her “I’m going to take a short nap, wake me up in a couple hours.”

That never happened. Again I lay comatose until I stumble out of bed somewhere around 7:30 in the morning. Jet lag can go fuck itself. I did wake up once during the night to the sound of Italians outside my window. They weren’t yelling so much as they were “talking passionately” as they tend to do. I couldn’t see them, but I felt confident they were saving their arms and hands around in the air as they spoke, gesticulating more than a runway controller on speed.

Around noon we checked out of the hotel and ordered a water taxi to take us to the cruise liner. There were three vessels docked at the maritime station, and our intended one, the MSC Poersia, was easily the largest. We unloaded our luggage at the pier and made our way to check in. The process was quick and painless, and not long after we were settled into our “balcony state standard room”, or so the information I have printed out tells me. I decided to go to try and find Timex and Pacman, and naturally assumed since we booked the last few rooms they would likely be next to each other. I stepped out into the hallway and knocked the room right to the next to mine. If the person who opened the door was someone I knew, well then perfect. If not my intention was to look at them befuddled, blurt “You’re not Timex! But hey, that’s cool. My bad, carry on” and walk off. Nobody answered. I then tried the room left to the next of mine, only to get the same result. I stepped back into my cabin

“Nobody home in either cabin. Hrmm.”

“Why don’t you just call reception and ask for his room instead of bothering people?”

“Why do you have to be so smart?”

I called down and got his room number, which as it turned out was two my left. I went over and knocked, and this time got an answer. An unknown woman answers the door.

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Is Timex here?”

“What?”

A voice calls from the back of the room.

“Oh hey, Bond, come in here.”

It was Timex. I’d found the sugar daddy.

I went in to find Timex, Pacman, and who it turns out was Pacman’s girlfriend, Eden, with Will ‘Cutiepi’ Ma in the bathroom, apparently trapped. A brief rundown of who’s who:

Michael ‘Timex’ McDonald: It’s hard to say what Timex is most famous for at this point. At first it was his backing operation and having pieces of players like Gobboboy and Will Ma when they made their huge scores. Then there was becoming a self-made millionaire before the age of 18. Now there’s his win at EPT Dortmund for what works out to 1.4 million US dollars and being third on the CardPlayer player of the year rankings despite being too young to play in half the major tournaments of the year. God I hate him.

Will ‘Cutiepi’ Ma: Best known for his win last year in the 10K euro event at the Aviation club in Paris. Will is one of those guys whose not only unchanged by success, but chooses to basically hide it. After winning last year he came home and told practically nobody. He hadn’t even told his low-paying job where he was going or why, and told nobody there what’d happened when he came back. Up until recently he was considering skipping the chance to defend his title to attend a meet of a math team he coaches back in Canada.

Aaron ‘Pacman’ Coulthard: I met Aaron last year during the WSOP when he was staying with Steve Ambrose. Aaron is another one of those guys who’s so modest about his accomplishments it’s hard for me to say what exactly he’s even done or currently does. I think he plays fairly high cash games online (around 25/50) though I wouldn’t be able to know for sure since unless you corner him and ask about it, he won’t bother telling you.

Eden: Pacman’s girlfriend who I just met and am assuming doesn’t have an online handle. Eden was also a garden where naked people ran around and ate forbidden fruit, leading to sin and eventually the gambling we all know and love. But wait! The bible never actually says gambling is a sin or not allowed, so unless you’re a cock-sucking, agenda-pushing, freedom-hating piece of shit hoping to manipulate the “Christian Right” like Bill Frist, you shouldn’t worry about it.

We decided to grab some food at the welcome buffet then spent some time wandering about the massive ship. At 5:30 there was a player’s party which we showed up fashionably late to at around 6:15, only to be informed the party had long since ended. Of the remaining stragglers, I ran into tournament director Matt Savage with wife Mary Ann. He informed me that the expected field for the main event was currently at 170 players, though more interesting is that we’re only playing about five hours a day. They’ll be time every morning to explore the port of the day, and poker won’t be starting until 4PM or 5PM, with a dinner break around 7PM and play finishing around 11:30pm.

This cruise is beginning to look more like a vacation than any serious work, or perhaps I just picked the right profession?

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