Kate: I haven’t read what Kevin has written since we left Maine. Let me make sure to clarify a few things: first, despite any complaints he may have made about the flight (and there were many to make), he ate not one but two of the chicken entrees—we were amazed.
We love Italy so far. Venice is a walker’s dream and we explored much of the city—most of it unintentionally. Spent our first morning there celebrating La Befano Day which includes a regatta where all the competitors are dressed as old women and they race to the voices of a choir singing Venetian songs. Luckily, you get to enjoy all of this while drinking mulled wine and hot chocolate. We then went to St. Mark’s Basiico and wandered into a high mass with more priests than I’ve ever seen in one place…both transporting and terrifying. Kevin and I believe there is only one manufacturer of church incense since it smelled exactly like our own memories. By chance we wandered into the Vivaldi museum which Fin loved because they had mandolins and lutes from 700-800b.c. on display.
I suspect others in the family will talk about my problems with the bathrooms (I’ve had some trouble distinguishing between the men’s and women’s-with some embarrassment) and my attempts to mingle with the locals ( I thought quite well; Nell and Fin think otherwise
Kevin: Part of exploring Venice today involved refinding “La Zucca” Venice’s own gourmet health food restaurant. We had made reservations to celebrate Kate’s birthday but and had the address. However, addresses , like maps, are meaningless here. Arrived a bit late with the help of a couple who assured us that the restaurant was indeed “straight ahead.” We forced ourselves to eat like Europeans and the meal lasted two hours from Proseco to cappuccino. Not by design, we took an innovative and ,well, leisurely new route home to the hotel.
Nell: Let me first say that it will probably take the Venetians that came in contact with our family a lot longer to forget than most. Yes, as Mom mentioned, she’s taken to peeing in urinals, and using hand gestures with shop keepers ten minutes deep into conversations where they have proved themselves quite fluent in English (how would you gesture “glass blowing”?). Dad, in a fit of photo madness, stepped directly in the middle of wallets for sale that were spread out on the ground in San Marco square. The men to whom those wallets belong were still laughing about it when we walked by again half an hour later (so was I).
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