We would like to start off with an official tourist recommendation, courtesy of John, er, uh, Juan, and Nicole. That is:
If you visit Venice, spend the extra €20 or €30 per night and get a good hotel. The place we are staying is quite clean and looks very nice, but they apparently got the mattresses from a prison. And the pillows. They seem like they are intended as punishment, not comfort. The only thing it's missing is a nice set of nails. It is an inexpensive hotel for Venice... somewhere in the neighborhood of €60 ($77) per night. But if we had the chance to choose again, we'd spend a little more to get a bed that was intended to allow the individual to actually rest.
So the first thing we decided to do today when we left the hotel was buy some new pillows!!! Seems silly, but if you had to sleep with your head on a stack of newspapers in a rough cotton sack, you'd know why we did it. Fortunately, we found a shop with a very nice shopkeeper who helped us buy some nice, fluffy soft pillows.
I (Nicole) did get a little confused, though. She brought two bags out of the back of the shop. One held a nice, fluffy pillow. The other held what looked like an inflatable plastic pillow. I opted for two of the nice fluffy brand. It took some major explaining by her in Italian .. and then even by John ... for me to realize that they were one and the same. When you cut the bag and allow in the air, the 'deflated' pillow becomes fluffy. I argued very confusingly that I didn't want to inflate my pillow -- I wanted one that already had air in it.
Ahem. I also learned how to apologize and say 'sono lento' which means, 'I'm slow'. Sigh...
We were thinking that since this list goes out to so many people -- including people that each of us might not know -- that we should tell you folks a little something about ourselves. Today, we'll start with John. Er, Juan.
John has come a long way since his days in the trailer park.
Maybe I should back up here a little bit. John was born and raised in Missouri (that's in the middle somewhere, I'm told) and went to college in Columbia, Missouri (1996). He spent some time living 'inexpensively' in a trailer park to save money for beer. Or books. Or something.
The trailer was a 1972 'deluxe edition' brown (tin) siding single wide. Apparently, ground in Missouri is too valuable to place a trailer on. So they found a cliff and stacked cinder blocks up the side. The front of the trailer was sort of on the ledge, while the rest of the trailer rested on 2 stories of stacked cinder blocks. This was to ensure the safety and stability of the trailer so that the valuable Star Trek memorabilia (belonging to John's roommate that John was NOT allowed to touch) would be safe from things like raccoons, possums (or is it possi?) and tornadoes...
Fortunately for John, after a brush with death (aka tornado when one lives in a trailer park), his parents realized that perhaps it wasn't the safest place to live and helped him into an apartment built on actual land.
Today he still lives on land in Southeast Portland, Oregon.On with our tour today...
It was a bit cooler in Venice today. We decided that, since we were both still a bit sleep-deprived, that we would take it easy. Also, it's my birthday (il mio compleanno), and that's what I wanted to do so we did.
We started off in Venice's Ghetto. Whenever you hear the word, ghetto, to describe a 'poor area' of town, it doesn't really capture its true meaning. Venice's ghetto was the first. It was the small island of land inside Venice where the Jews were made to live during the fascist occupation of Italy in the 1930's and 1940's. From this place, they were made to board trains and sent to concentration camps in Germany.
It is not a large part of town. There was a bit of a shortage of places to live, despite the number of people. Instead of being able to grow outside the boundaries of the Ghetto, they instead built up, on top of the existing buildings. So the buildings inside the ghetto are quite tall.
Today there are small, somber monuments to its history, but it is now called the Ghetto Nuovo, or New Ghetto. They try to reinforce the hope of the present and future, while also remembering their past.
Though so many tragedies have befallen the Jewish people, their culture remains incredibly beautiful. Seeing it all here together with the joy and friendliness that they demonstrate made us wish we were entitled to that depth of tradition.
There are many shops that feature art and works of skilled hands. One such shop featured some very beautiful, colorful works of art that portrayed The Creation, as described in the Torah (Old Testament of the Bible). For my birthday, I chose one of these paintings to take home with me. I can't wait to have its beautiful colors and ancient intent in my home.
We would like to say a big 'you're welcome' to the people of Venice and all of Italy, really. It rained today for the first time in a long time. Until today, Italy was the fourth country on a list of those suffering from lack of rain. NO MORE! We brought a bit of Portland with us. :)
You're welcome, Venice!!
You would think, coming from where we do, that we'd know better than to leave the house without an umbrella. We heard on the news that it would rain. We saw the clouds. We even asked somebody if they expected rain and they said yes. We chose to wear cotton sweaters.
So we pretty much spent our afternoon running from doorway to doorway, or standing under the occasional (thin) tree. Well, John could get away with it (I mean he's not as robust as I). I stuck a plastic sack on my head.
After the rain calmed and we found a comfortable cafe, we decided to people-watch to get a grasp on Italian fashion and culture. We found that:
1. Anything goes! There was no style unrepresented. (including mullets)
2. Men wear the most colorful and most extravagant clothes. Today we saw a burly fella wearing pink pants. Another wore bright gold (sparkly!) tennis shoes. All of them walk like runway models. (John and I tucked our giant white tennis shoes under a tablecloth.)
3. Even the geeky guys wear Dolce & Gabbana belt buckles. Large ones. With rhinestones.
4. Shoes are an ultimate style accessory. We saw a rather Rubenesque woman in four-inch heels. The tip of them was VERY pointy. So pointy in fact that her little toes were popping out the sides. Despite her obvious discomfort, she shuffled over the cobblestones with painful pride (and lack of grace).
5. There are also no limits on hairstyles. Any color is acceptable. 50- and 60-year-old women wear bright red hairdos, ratted out as far as their shoulders. Cher's and Phyllis Diller's hairdos would be considered frumpy in comparison.
6. Women are loud. Very loud. Women are an empowered sex here in Italy.
Well, that's it for today, friends. We will continue with our relaxed day. Tomorrow we take our first train ride to Florence, home of the Medici family, Michelangelo and even Leonardo DaVinci.
Caio (for naio)
Juan and Nicole
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