The Events of Thursday, March 10, 2011

                The lovely melody of birdsong drifted through the window. The heavy sun-baked forest green shutters had been thrown open letting in the soft light that tiptoed its way across the floor. If there ever was a way to wake up at 10:15 a.m. in lovely Venice, Italy, this was it. Our brightly colored bedcovers were thrown across our oddly shaped mattresses and suitcases and backpacks were scattered around the room. After putting our contacts in, Ben, Abby, and I lay on our newly made beds, read our Bibles and wrote in our prayer journals listening still to the birdsong and the muffled sound of Caitlin showering. Once we had all showered in the exquisite Italian shower, we sat down to a breakfast of an Italian version of Honey Nut Cheerios or a fiber flake and chocolate chunk cereal (which is surprisingly good), or leftover bagels and cream cheese, and sliced oranges. Then, Daddy and Mom helped us pack three backpacks with our lunch, or maybe dinner, extra layers, and other touristy stuff like cameras. So, after visiting our beautiful flowered toilet, and not the bidet that sat next to it, yes we do have a bidet, we left our red Venice villa and started our day the Venice way. Taking a walk.

                It seems to be the custom here to have a late morning walk. As we strolled along the narrow cobblestone streets lined with gates draped with ivy and flowers, surrounding extravagant houses (that are borderline mansions), we saw several older men and women taking walks alone, with friends, or with their dogs. According to Rick Steves’ Italy travel book, the average “Gio” or Italian is ‘43 years old, has 1.3 kids, and will live to the ripe old age of 80 (one in five Italians is older than 65).  Every day, he or she consumes two servings of pasta, a half-pound of bread, and two glasses of wine.’ We must have seen nearly 20 Italians walking and pretty much all of them were older than 65. The older women that walked by us this morning all looked mostly the same to me. They had shortly cropped hair, usually curly with a short knit hat perched on top and very long, dark colored coats. The older men we saw all had very comical hats, some derby style and some like English top hats. Not a single elderly man I saw was without a hat. We saw very little of the younger generation until we reached the ferry station.

                Daddy spent virtually 45 minutes trying to buy us each a 3-day pass for the ferry. The woman who was our cashier looked very annoyed that she couldn’t get her point across. There was a discount rate for 14-19 year olds, but not a special rate for children under 14. So in the end, we purchased four 14-19 year old passes using our passports to show our ages and two adult 3-day passes for the ferry for €146,00. The ferry was just taking off as we arrived at the dock, so we had to wait another ten minutes for the next one, during which time I got another chance to people watch. The swaying dock was crowded with people yelling Italian and waving their hands, babies crying, men smoking (bleh), and newspapers flapping. Now that they were in public, the citizens were decked out in their Sunday best. All of the women, old and young, were in heels and long fur coats. If the coat was not entirely made of fur, it was lined with fur and if it was not lined with fur, it had fur on the collar, hood, and/or cuffs. I guess Italians like fur. The men dressed mostly the same as they do walking the streets of their neighborhoods, with the exception of the ferry crewmen. They had on uniforms, but had relaxed the starched coat with rolled up sleeves. When the ferry pulled up, a ferryman threw a rope around a rod attaching the boat to the dock. There still was a gap in between the dock and the boat, but as people leaped across the gap onto the boat, I remembered this was not America and they were not going to waste time putting up a ramp.

                We managed to get two rows seated together and trying to ignore the stares clearly directed at our casual wear, looked out the window or read the ferry’s English version travel brochure. We got off at the San Marco Square stop and were greeted by a wave of chaos, crowd, and beautiful sites. We had to hold onto each other and push our way off the boat to get off. These Italians are stubborn and if you don’t push, they won’t move. We were immediately engulfed by the crowd and fought to find our way. A large white stone building loomed above us. The windows were gothic style and the carvings on the walls were amazingly beautiful. “Doge’s Palace,” Daddy shouted above the crowd (that’s not very hard for him since he is 6 foot 4 and a half); “we might get a tour of that in the next few days.” (A palace for the duke. The duke was the top dog in Venice and the surrounding areas until 1797.) We had seen several abandoned stone grey palaces when driving through France yesterday, but this one was the most beautiful I had seen yet.

                Suddenly, a pink rose was thrust between Caitlin’s and my face. “Desiderate acquistare una rosa, signoras??” I shook my head ‘no’ and Caitlin said, “Grazie, no.” We rushed on, dodging the fearless Italian pigeons. Another building came into view. The San Marco Basilica has once golden onion shaped domes and its balcony was crowded with viewers. On our left was the bell tower. I remember going to Italy at Disneyworld’s Epcot Center and seeing their replica of the tower. I had asked a worker what it was and she had told me, “The bell tower in San Marco Square in Venice.” And here I was. Soon, we were weaving through columns and around the white and red striped caution tape surrounding a large area where construction crew was cleaning up the leftovers from Venice’s version of Carnevale. Confetti filled the cracks in the sidewalks all over the square. After getting information at the tourist center from a woman who shouted every word, we walked back to the dock to catch another ferry to tour the islands. The woman at the desk had informed us that the ferry workers were going on strike tomorrow, so we decided to ride the ferry today, visiting the surrounding islands, sightseeing through Venice, and traveling up the Grand Canal.

                Our first stop was at the island of Murano. The island is filled with shops that make and sell the world famous Venetian glass. We started at a shop that gives free demonstrations. The man first created a clear glass vase and then a very detailed rearing glass horse. The detail was excruciating and he did it so quickly that it took me a while to realize it was over. For those of you, who don’t know how these beautiful pieces of glass are made; hold on, I will go into detail very soon. (I also took videos which will be uploaded to our photo page soon.) We window shopped along the shore of the island and then, passing the ferry station, continued up the island along a side canal. We passed on a shop that charged three Euros for each person to see the glass be made, but allowed free admission into the shop and continued on to another.

                This shop was very spacious and warm. As we came in, the glassmakers were just starting a piece and so we stayed to watch the whole process. One man had a pole stuck in an opening were we could see an orange glow from within. This was the furnace. On the right side of the furnace, one man would stick a long pole into an opening. When he pulled it out, the pole had a clear bulge of hot liquid glass. The other man took the pole to a flat table and rolled it into a cylinder shape. While it was rolling, it had cooled and so the first man stuck it back into the furnace, this time on the left side, to heat it up. Then, the second man took the pole and rolled it out and blew into it to create a shape like a vase. But, he didn’t stop there. After it was heated again, he opened the vase’s mouth until it was a wide circle. He swung it around in the air to perfect the shape and by the time it cooled, the shape of the lampshade was complete. After heating it once more, he rolled it in glass beads and then swung it around, reheated it, rolled it, and reheated it until the colorful glass beads had melted and blended into the glass lampshade, making it look as if it had been painted with many different colors. Then, the man who had done most of the work shouted in Italian, “Finire di fare qualcosa.” And then in broken English, “All done. Finish.”

                We left and walked further up the canal looking in the windows of the shops. Some favorites among the blown glass art pieces that we saw were the clowns with large, round bellies and big red noses, small birds perched in a tree, ladybugs crawling on a log, bracelets and necklaces with glass beads, and little characters being teachers, nurses, policemen, and gondola drivers. We crossed over a bridge that curved over the canal and saw flowers in the windowsill of a salmon colored house. But as we drew closer, we realized that these flowers were actually glass flowers. We pulled out the cameras and then walked back to the dock and waited for the ferry. We got fairly good seats indoors near windows, which was a plus. The ferry took off, recklessly bumping into the dock as it went. After the ferry stopped at some other stops, (it is like a waterbus complete with long advertisements above the windows like on Muni), enough people had left that we were able to sit together near the windows. This was perfect timing, for after the next stop we entered the Grand Canal. We rode all the way up and then started working our way down, with Daddy reading descriptions from his Italy guidebook.

                “The Grand Canal is Venice’s ‘Main Street.’ At more than two miles long, nearly 150 feet wide, and nearly 15 feet deep, the Grand Canal is the city’s largest, lined with its most impressive palaces … Venice is a city of palaces, dating from the days when it was the world’s richest city. The most lavish palaces formed a grand chorus line along the Grand Canal. Once frescoed in reds and blues, with black and white borders and gold-leaf trim, they made Venice a city of dazzling color … Many of the grand buildings are now vacant. Others harbor chandeliered elegance above mossy, empty (often flooded) ground floors.” We passed many of these palaces, very ancient looking ones. Many of them had the winged lion of San Marco (or St. Mark) incorporated into the exterior design. We reached a part in the canal that was the most common place to see a gondola and ferry collide. Thankfully, we didn’t see this happen. As we reached the mouth of the Grand Canal where it opened up into the Mediterranean Sea, there were two churches with onion domes on top. The sun was just setting and it was so peaceful with the water lapping and the orange shine of the setting sun glistening on the waves. I almost forgot to take a picture.

                We rode the rest of the way to Lido just looking out. Once we reached Lido, we got off and walked a short distance home. Mom and all of the kids made dinner while Daddy napped (he had gotten up much earlier than the rest of us and was tired). We woke him up for a dinner of leftovers from last night’s Italian dinner out, baguette bread and Mom’s spaghetti made entirely from Italian store bought goods (meaning that all of the directions on how to cook everything were also in Italian). It was quite an enjoyable meal. Then, we brought out the frozen Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies that Mom brought over the Atlantic to share with us (quite a generous offer on her part) and had a taste of America after all of this foreign food. We stayed up a little later than usual, typing up blogs and planning ahead for future countries. Then, we headed to our colorful beds, with the odd shaped mattresses and the extremely firm pillows, but despite the strangeness of our sleeping situation, went right to sleep after a full and exhausting day.