parte uno: Life on the Grand Canal

Day 1: August 22, 2010

Despite my non-functioning personal screen on cross-Atlantic Newark to Heathrow flight, I arrived at Venice Marco Polo without too many hitches meeting up with three other students to jump on a water taxi that would take us right to our dock at Casa Artom! As I attempted to tackle both of my overweight and overly cumbersome bags we began the 7 minute walk along towards the docks to find our first Venetian tour guide. The 30 minute ride was incredible as we passed by Piazza San Marco which was the only recollection I had of Venice when I visited for a day nearly 10 years ago! When we arrived at the house we were ushered to our various rooms and began the tour of Casa Artom! Upon our arrival we were introduced to our film studies and Italian literature professor Dr. Lubin and his wife. Mrs. Lubin and our grad assistant Kim prepared dinner for us after we got unpacked and settled in. We dined on insalata caprese, prosciutto and of course pasta! We sat on our upstairs terrace for a few hour getting to know the whole group until we lost all light. We went out for the typical Italian treat, gelato (and sorbetto for me) passing by the Peggy gugenheim collection (our neighbors) and returned to collapse into bed.
What I learned - The population of Venice is ever decreasing as it can no longer be classified even a city due to the dramatic decreases in amounts of people. Ornate villas on canals, such as Casa Artom, are widely becoming abandoned as they are either considered an investment alone or are too expensive to maintain for daily use. I noticed, just as my pal Rick Steve had explained, that when we went out that first night there was about a third the amount of people on the island as tourists hop back on their cruise ships. 


Day 2: August 23, 2010

Orientation Day! After waking up we decided to venture to Billa, the closest grocery store to the house and had our first real encounter with Italians in their daily environment. We all got mainly breakfast and lunch foods but soon realized that we had chosen the worst time to hit up the grocery as mid morning is when all the locals frequent Billa. After nearly an hour of "permisos" and "scusis" we figured out how to weigh the produce to print out the price. I finally gave up attempting to convert kg to lbs and then euros into dollars and attempted to locate soy milk composing a rough sentence of butchered Italian with a high concentration of Spanish verbiage. Back at Casa Artom we got to meet Laura, our program director, and her assistant Roberta as well as our art history professor Chiari, who is apparently an Italian countess. We all set in the parlor and shared a light Italian style lunch together. Professor Lubin related our experience this semester to a Wagnerian operatic works, as it should be the culmination all of our traditional classes, visits to local art museums, travels, and much more that will serve as our true education. We embarked upon a walking tour of Venice following the reception with Roberta and Laura and journeyed to the Rialto Bridge and Piazza San Marco. Our task was to find our way back to the house stopping on the way at Pizza-Al-Volo for a slice of 1 euro heaven which they make without formaggio, garlic and sauce! The crust was the perfect happy medium between thin and thick crust. After regrouping at the house, we went out to Campo Santa Margherita to taste our first spritz, a Venetian acquired taste I might never acquire.


Day 3: August 24, 2010

We journeyed to the Santa Lucia train station and met up with Roberta and Laura again where we would explore another end of the city. We passed by the area of the Venetian ghetto and ended up at the cafeteria of the university where we were given our first taste of the Italian collegiate cuisine. I was served pasta con verdure (veggies), tacchino (turkey) and green beans. We stopped on our way back and purchased our vaporetto or water bus card which is simply the Venetian version of a metro card to reduce the cost of each ride. During the half hour walk back we ended up stopping at Punto in Santa Margherita to test out the other grocery store and returned home to finish up our homework for class tomorrow. 


Day 4: August 25, 2010
First Day of Class!