Acqua Alta on the Page and in Real Life

I've got a bad case of Spring Fever.

I'd love to pack up and hit the road. Or the skies.

Venice is a place I've never been and for some reason, it's been at front and center in my mind over the past few months.

Hubby and I keep talking about going there. But when?

I must have been musing on Venice in a recent conversation with a friend of mine because she recommended a book called Acqua Alta.

It's written by Donna Leon and is book three in a nine-book series about a detective who lives in Venice.

Why, of all the books in the series, she recommended that one, I don't know. I didn't ask. But last week, I picked up the book and gave it a go.

It didn't occur to me until I was already into the book, that "Acqua Alta" means "high water."

The waters are rising in Venice throughout the book, adding an underlying sense of foreboding to the mystery that is going on in the forefront.

However, the rising-water theme was also playing out in reality, adding a strange sort of flood-obsession to my life last week.

The flooding Red River in Fargo-Moorhead has kept me riveted to the evening news for many nights now. I attended college in that town and have friends who live there still.

I had several "flood" dreams last week and I'm sure it's because I spent entirely too much time reading about floods, looking at friends' flood pictures on Facebook, watching news accounts of floods and surfing the Internet for video footage of "acqua alta" in Venice.

Here's a You Tube video I found of rising waters in Venice. Amazing. I just can't fathom that this water comes up like this, and people just go about their lives.

And while I think I'll try to avoid Acqua Alta, I still want to go to Venice.