Dawn of the New Year

By guest-contributor Alison Kelman

At 7:00 a.m. on New Year’s Day, 2012, the streets of Venice are silent and empty. Just a few hours before, these streets were packed with thousands of visitors lucky enough to spend New Year’s Eve in the Piazza San Marco, host of the LOVE 2012 New Year’s Eve celebration and the renowned communal kiss. Surrounded by couples in lip locks and rogue packs of 16-year-old Italian boys, we five female travel companions counted together the last seconds of 2011. “Tre, due, uno!” The crowd erupted with slurred shouts of “buono anno!” while a bearded South African man in a cape planted rough kisses on our cheeks. Above us, hologram snowflakes floated down the brick wall of the clock tower, and behind us fire crackers lighted up the Byzantine mosaics on the face of the 1,000-year-old Basilica San Marco. Eventually the crowd dispersed, so we made our way home through Venice’s cobblestone streets, weaving through alleyways as fireworks from the San Marco basin explode overhead.

In a way, our New Year’s Eve was very typical. We celebrated in a crowd of people drinking and dancing but, here, the stroke of midnight was the least exciting part of the trip. At home, after the ball has dropped and the initial chaos is over, I am disappointed at how similar I feel to the person I was five minutes before the new year. But now, I am in Venice—the floating city, Europe’s most romantic city, arguably the “most beautiful city built by man”—and this night makes up for a year of lost time.

Four hours after we return from the celebration, I roll over in bed, wide awake at 6:30 a.m. Light is just starting to push through the curtains. I should be hung over and exhausted, but lying in bed suddenly feels like the biggest waste of time. I throw on some pants and a coat, run a brush through my hair and sneak out the door.

I make a left and head towards the Zaterre dock and the waterfront. Of the dozens of friends who gave me tips and suggestions, my cousin Bill’s was the most enticing. “Get up at dawn,” he told me. “It is the most spectacular light you’ll ever see.” I watch the sun rise over the domed roof of the Basilica del Santissimo Redentore, the light so pink and orange. For a second, through my jet lagged haze, I forget if it is sunrise or sunset. Minus a few disgruntled dog walkers clutching early morning cigarettes, I am alone. At this very moment, my friends home in Boston are settling their outrageous bar tabs or desperately waving down a taxi.

At 8:00 a.m., the bells in the clock tower ring. They will ring every quarter hour throughout New Year’s Day. I watch the hazel water lap against the stone steps and walk until the last drops of my first Italian cappuccino go cold.