Ah, Venice, that quaint, quiet jewel of the Adriatic…well, folks, it’s proven to be a little more rowdy than previously thought.

Uni has been quite demanding of late, what with exams, research projects back home and upcoming assignments. My friends and I have found our favourite spot in the library, with a direct view of a canal, so when you’re absentmindedly chewing on a pencil and staring out the window, the passing gondolas remind you to get back to work.

After each day in the library, when I’m in study-mode, it’s nice to come home to a routine: cooking dinner, exercise, shower, reading in bed, etc. At least, it has been nice, up until the last week, as I seem to have recently acquired new neighbours.

Picture this: after a long day slogging through complicated literary theory, I come home and perform my evening routine as usual. I make dinner – tofu and vegetable stir fry, nothing fancy – I go for a run and do some yoga, I shower, and I climb into bed, settling in with my book.

About five pages in, I begin to hear a strange sound coming from the ether of the apartment complex. Now, I live in a converted flour mill from the 19th century; justifiably there are strange noises inside the building all the time, not to mention the revving boat engines or war-cries of overly large seagulls outside. So I don’t think much of it, and I return to reading.

But the sound continues, and increases, and by my tenth page, I’ve established that there is no conversational context so interesting in this world as to justify the overly emphatic agreement coming from the female on the other side of my wall.

So, dragging my duvet with me, I head to the couch with my book, and shut the door behind me. After half an hour, I deem it safe to return, and I crawl under the covers, staunchly ignoring the giggles I can still hear.

The next day, after another confounding eight-hour foray into the world of palimpsestic literature, I come home, and go about my usual activities. At the end of the night, I cautiously return to my book, my ears pricking up at each odd sound. As I’m drifting off at 12.30am, eyemask on, no doubt attractive strings of drool forming at the corners of my mouth, I begin to hear a faint vibrating noise, giggling, and a collection of sounds I do not really have any desire to describe to you. I sit bolt upright in bed, and, once again, grab the duvet and head for the couch.

The morning after, I am, somewhat understandably, a little cranky. Sleep, good, live sex show, bad. This particular Wednesday is Italy’s Festa del Lavoro, or Labour day, as it’s known to us Australians, and the library is closed. In fact, the library has been closed a day a week for the past three weeks – these Venetians sure do love a public holiday. So I’m working from home, and around 7.30pm I stop to make dinner. I’m lying on my bed replying to emails, waiting for my pasta water to boil, when I hear those bloody sounds coming through my wall again.

I roll my eyes and begin to get up from the bed, when I suddenly feel a modicum of outrage, and I think to myself, no, I am twenty fucking three years old and I will not be banished from my room by the overly embellished sounds of one woman faking an orgasm. I refuse. So, instead, I decide to have a little fun with the situation.

I connect my phone to my portable speaker, and out pour the lyrical sounds of Lily Allen’s ‘Not Fair’, blasting in my room, and, no doubt, into the apartment next door. If you’re not familiar with the song, look the lyrics up. The noises stop rather suddenly.

To make sure my point has gotten across, I queue up a variety of tasteful tunes to be played, including Trey Songz’ delightful ‘Neighbours Know My Name’, Big Sean’s calming ‘I Don’t Fuck With You’, Missy Elliott’s poignant ‘One Minute Man’ and, towards the end, Nicole Millar’s ‘Gimme a Break’. My fun lasts about forty minutes, and I turn my speaker off when I hear the front door of the neighbouring apartment slam. Win, win.

I plan on repeating this deterrent as often as needed – – song suggestions welcome.

My exams finally finished a few days later, and thus began the self-induced alcohol poisoning that the student lifestyle demands. Walking along the Zattere promenade at 3.30am in the pouring rain through a collection of outdoor modern art, having to have people drag me away from puddles I wanted to jump into may give you an indication of just how inebriated I was. I think there was prosecco? I know there was tequila.

A day later, once my friends and I had resurfaced from our collective hangover hell, it was time for some exploration.

It started out just like any other Friday adventure. J and I visited San Simeone Piccolo; your average Italian church.

We had a look around at your standard frescoes, shrines, etc:

When, out of the corner of my eye, I saw an unassuming sign which read ‘crypts’. When in Rome, I thought. So J and I approached, and the caretaker gestured for us to hold out our hands. He lit some candles, placed them into little pots, handed them to us, and we were sent on our way.

The first indicator that we had made a grave error was this next sign:

As we walked through the doorway, we entered the pitch-black darkness of a 9th century cemetery. Frescoes lined the walls, showing various types of religious misery (Christ being crucified, women crying, etc). It didn’t help that J and I were alone, in the darkness, with the flagstones echoing through the crypt every time we stepped on a wobbly one.

We got to the final chamber, and I made the mistake of rounding the corner, holding my candle up, and seeing this:

There may have been some shaking and/or muffled screams on our part.

When we came back up into the light, the handsy Italian caretaker asked us if we wanted to see something interesting. He ushered us into a private room with a shrine for the priests. We ooh-ed and ahh-ed for a few minutes, at which point he asked us if we would like to ring the bells.

We looked at each other incredulously and nodded, as he led us to the rickety wooden ladder. He sort of just disappeared after that, so J and I navigated the steep, splintering planks, which looked/felt like artifacts themselves. We got to the top, and in amongst the piles of carelessly stacked paintings with golden frames, marble crosses and dust, we pulled the ropes and listened to the bells ring out across the lagoon.

Once we ran out of the church, giggling at our luck, we headed to the Rialto markets, for a calming glass of wine and some cicchetti:

Afterwards, we journeyed to the Libreria Acqua Alta, a bookshop that has tackled Venice’s frequent flooding with an innovative idea:

We sat next to stacks of ruined books, reading whatever we could get our hands on, in whatever languages we could understand:

We only had time for a quick gelato in the Italian sunshine before the next bout of drinking began.

It is a sad state of affairs when your alcohol consumption does not fit into one blog post. Nevertheless, it is a team effort — me and my hangover shall persevere.