Day 1

Wow.

What a day! I have had so much information thrown at me today that I don’t really know where to begin telling you!

I shall start from the beginning..

The day started badly with me being late! Who would’ve thought that my commute in Venice would be disturbed by roadwork’s and traffic! (they were digging up the pavement down one street so I had to go the long way around and people in Venice walk ridiculously slow!) And in my rush I embarrassingly tripped up when I was going over a bridge in front of a lot of people.

So already embarrassed, I finally arrived at the Guggenheim 5 minutes late and everyone was already there when I walked into the room. And to make matters worse I did the stupid thing of sitting in the only chair which I thought was free which turned out to be the director’s chair so I had to move when he walked in!!

As I got up I noticed a free chair which had my name on and some books and a information pack with it.

Told you it wasn’t a good start!

But it got much better after that J

Dr Rylands is the director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and was a friend of Peggy’s when she was alive so he has been working for the collection since it opened.

He’s such a lovely man. He went around the room knowing shaking our hands and seemed to know all about us as soon as we told him our names which I thought was very nice.

He opened his speech to us with a thank you for being there and taking part in the internship program. I was quite amazed at how many people said this to us today. Surely we should be the ones thanking them? But it was very nice and made us feel appreciated and that we weren’t just randomers who came and went.

After Dr Rylands talk we had a little tour around the collection and then we went to the cafe to have breakfast at the cafe (interns get 75% discount which is pretty awesome) and so we could meet our fellow interns.

There are 12 of us newbie’s, 10 girls 2 boys. Most are American, one Canadian, one Frenchy, one from Bulgaria and two of us from London. There is also a Venetian girl who I sat next to which was amazing because I have always wanted to talk to a native Venetian because I had lots of questions! Such as, can you drive? Yes she can because she lives on the Lido. Although unfortunately because the Lido is so small it takes 10 minutes to get from one end to the other and there is only one traffic light. She goes to university in Padua though so she commutes from the Lido to there by ferry.

I also asked her about the Carnival in February (the one with all the masks), the Regatta, what does she do when it floods etc.

She has promised to help me with my Italian J

After our little breakfast we had the rota explained to us by the Capi (the intern coordinators who are ex-interns). It is the most complicated thing I have ever seen! It took ages to explain and I don’t think anyone really understood it but they said they will help us so hopefully we will cope.

I have Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off :D

Then we had lunch and we headed to the cafe again to eat some more discounted food (I had some very good ravioli with asparagus).

From 2:30 to 6:30 we had every single member of staff come to greet us. We had the Education Department, Publications, Corporate Development, Events, Marketing, Finance, Art Handling, and Conservator (who worked on the Sistine Ceiling!) There were a few others but I can’t really remember.

Everyone was extremely nice and they had obviously been reading up on us all because like Dr Rylands, they seemed to know a lot about us.

The last talk we had was from the head of Security to tell us all the important things like what to do in an emergency and how to lock up etc.

He spoke only Venetian. Not Italian, just very fast Venetian which turns out to be very different! All of those who could speak Italian couldn’t understand a word he was saying so I really didn’t have any chance!

So after that lovely talk, we met up with the ‘old’ interns (there’s about 15 of them) for spritz on the bridge outside of the Guggenheim so we go to know all of them too!

Then me and 5 other girls went to enjoy some pizza in Campo Santa Margherita which was very nice.

I then came in and had an Italian lesson from Marina, the lady I live with, and she said my accent is very god and my numbers are perfect so maybe there’s hope for me yet!