On food, family, friends, and running

Ever had a salad with Italian dressing? In our experience, a salad with Italian dressing means a salad with no dressing. Oil and vinegar are generally on the table, but nothing like the Italian we get in the good ol’ U.S. of A. Actually, I really like the plain lettuce. The food here is amazing, no surprise there. However, it really is kind of all the same. There’s really good pizza, pasta, sandwiches (which are pretty similar to what we had in Spain… what is it with Europeans and ham??), and, of course, gelato. But really, there’s not much else. At dinner tonight I overheard the British ex-pats one table over lamenting the lack of variety. The lady was saying that there’s no variety in food or people or something else that I can’t remember. But she was right—while you can definitely tell who the tourists are and can DEFINITELY tell who the American tourists are, pretty much all the people here look the same. A little variety in how much time they’ve spent at the beach, perhaps; some blonds, some with darker hair; but really not much else. And the food is good everywhere, but it’s also basically the same menu everywhere. I could really go for some beef lo mein right now. All of you back in the US, our melting-pot culture (or anticulture, according to a book I finished not too long ago) is far from perfect, but appreciate the variety we are blessed with. More on what this lady was saying in a later post.

We have been traveling as a family of five now for a week. There are some huge differences between traveling with two and traveling with five. We are sleeping much less, eating much more, and spending a lot more time doing each thing we do. The third explains the first, and a college student budget explains the second. As far as the time we spend, it is most obvious when we have to use the WC—I think a linear addition to the number of women in line leads to an exponential increase in the amount of time the whole process takes. (I was on the math team...although I had more scribal duties than solving duties, right, Matt?)

We spent Saturday in Venice. We’re actually staying on Lido, another island right next to Venice. The main island of Venice looks like a fish, and Lido looks kind of like a lid that is set on top of the fish. Lido is apparently where locals come to go to the beach. The whole place seems to be set up for spring break. So Saturday we went into the main island, mostly. We visited Murano, the famous glass-making island, and watched a really really cool glassblowing demonstration. Of course, we tourists were just amazed as this man crafted some beautiful vase out of molten glass, but he was probably bored out of his mind. Funny how something so ordinary to one person is so incredible to another person… kind of like how one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, I guess. Anyway, we met my friend Liz from Northwestern on Murano! She is studying Italian at a university in Urbino (I have no idea if that’s how it’s spelled) for the summer and trained up here with a friend for the weekend. It was so good to see her. After the glass factory we took the vaporetto (bus-boat) back to Venice and just wandered around for the afternoon. We saw San Marco, of course, and let’s be honest; you wouldn’t want that many pigeons in the entire world, let alone in one piazza. We had a couple of interesting pigeon experiences today—one watching probably fifty nasty, dirty birds basically swarming a boy who was not much taller than a pigeon himself, the other Sarah’s reaction to a pigeon pecking her foot: punting it. Can you blame her? Pigeons are so temptingly football-shaped.

On a separate note, running! In Venice I saw more runners than probably just about anywhere else... doesn't that seem strange? They were all in a park, though, not in the typical canal-filled area that you would normally think of when you think of Venice. We sat in the park for a while, and ate dinner a block off it--a cute little neighborhood, called San Elena I think. Anyway, it made me miss running! I didn't even bring tennis shoes, because they would take up way too much space in my pack, we walk everywhere so we get plenty of exercise, Sarah didn't want to run with me and I didn't want to try to go running in strange cities by myself... plenty of reasons. Plus, once we got here, we found that Europe is definitely not runner-friendly. The streets are narrow and full of cars and bicycles, not to mention often being cobblestones or very uneven pavement. So that's one thing I'm very excited to get back into once we get home.

Our time in Italy is almost up; we head for Switzerland in just a couple of days, and Mom, Dad, and Marie will be gone just a few days after that. Sarah and I have been in Europe now for three weeks. It’s hard to believe that it’s been that long, but three weeks really isn’t that long at all. We’re flying through each day—experiencing a lot, taking in a lot, and probably forgetting a lot. It really has been interesting to experience these other cultures, even if tourists are their own subculture. I think, looking back over these three weeks, it’s safe to conclude that (a) I love traveling, (b) I love traveling in Europe, (c) I love traveling and living in the cities the most, and (d) I would not want to live in either Spain or Italy. Even with that tiny summary, I know I have learned a lot.

Ciao!