Photo Recap: Day 3-4, Venice (Europe 2008)

One of the highlights of our trip; an amazing two days and one night with Silvia and her family. We met Silvia at the Hofbrauhaus in München on our October 2006 trip and kept in contact ever since. Going to Venice was a last-minute change to our trip but the best decision we've ever made!

I still can visualize meeting Silvia at the train station, walking through labyrinth-like alleys and streets to find their 200-year old house, petting their beautiful cats (Tommy, Lady, and Tommy II), eating Oreccetta and drinking wine for lunch, enjoying grappa in espresso, the special tour on their family boat, walking through the streets and hearing Silvia's papa singing somewhere in the distance, drinking amazing Cappuccinos, a foggy walk in the morning, pizza with Silvia translating back and forth, hearing "Trinque, Trocque, Balokey" which is used to say "etc, etc, etc" but sounded like she was making fun of Ryan's slavic background, seeing the market full of locals, watching Silvia and her papa saying ciao to others, having Silvia's mama grab my head and say beautiful Italian things that I didn't understand to say goodbye (then hearing it again on the cell phone the next day, "ciaociaociaociaociaociao"), learning how to curse at Berlosconi with our hands, climbing into Silvia's upstairs on a winding wooden stair, seeing groceries chilling on the windowsill outside, walking through crazy alleys to find the beautiful staircase............a dream.



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p.s. This is my 201st post! Thank you for coming along for the ride!

Tschüß!!!

Orecchiette

The afternoon we arrived in Venice, Silvia and her mom made the most delicious lunch I've ever had - it was simple, tasty, and beautiful on the table. I got the recipe from Silvia two nights ago and made it. So good, so beautiful, awesome. The pasta is called Orecchiette and it has broccoli, a bit of butter, some pasta water, and ricotta cheese. Simple. Let me know if you want the details.







Tschüß!!

Day 4 - Venice

It's lunchtime and Silvia's mother already prepared lunch for us. (She left for work at 7, came home on our lunchbreak and made lunch, then left to go back to work. She is amazing.) Last night was fantastic, we ate homemade pizza with homemade tomato sauce and chatted for hours with Silvia's parents and friend, Lele. Poor Silvia had to work double-time to do the translation back and forth, and at some points I think everyone wished we could just all speak the same language! You sort of feel dumb that you can't understand someone who is absolutely smart and intelligent...and you know they feel the same way. But after a while, you kind of get what they are saying by watching their eyes and gestures and tone...although sometimes you can get it totally wrong. (i.e. the Ticky, Tocky Balocky comment I mentioned earlier.)

We went to bed around 11:30 and slept sooo well...didn't stir until 8:30. Took showers and went for a walk around a foggy, mystical Venice. It's so neat to take random alleys that lead to different Campos (squares), with beautiful picture opportunities at every corner. We have already taken 250 pictures of our trip plus about 30 minutes of video.

Continuing our tradition of yesterday, we hit some more Cappuchino bars (haha I went to pay for our last round and asked the wrong person so they were about to make 3 more until Silvia corrected me...lol). There are no tourists in the early morning. Lele works security at the airport and says he sees no Americans coming to Italy. Even flights to NYC are full of Italians and barely any Americans. I like that because I don't really want to see anyone else that is speaking American English but from an economy perspective, it is not very good for Venice. They rely on tourists.

Silvia took us to a cute shop to buy some Venetian glass souveniers...real Italian glass made in Italy, not the Made in China crap that a lot of places sell. Terrible, eh? But we have become pretty saavy at spotting the touristy places from the honest storekeepers who want to offer a real experience.

Oh, forgot to tell you the pizzas last night...one was Mushroom and Mozzerella (fresh mozz that comes in a plastic pouch) and the other was Speck and Gorgonzola plus a little Mozzerella. Speck is more smoky than Prosciuotto (sorry for the spelling in the blog, I am not able to spell check on this italian computer).

Ok, Silvia says that I better go eat lunch! Ciao!

Venice pictures

From yesterday

Venice pictures

From yesterday...

Cat and Ryan reading the ads

They have wine for €0,99!!!!

Computing in Silvia's house

Ryan is chatting with Lele, who we met last night at dinner, in
Venetian. Yup, it's different than Italian! Silvia's papa is always
searching for MIDI song files for his band that he sings in. I will
have to find a YouTube of him singing...they are out there!

We leave for Ljubljana in 2 hours and I will be sad to leave...

Venice through the back window

From Silvia's guest room window this morning.

Silvia, Scott, Ryan

Day 3 - Venice

When you picture the most ideal day in Venice - playing by our rules, of course, which means being more of a local than a tourist - what do you picture? Maybe the sweetest local person, a third generation Venetian that actually speaks Venetian (it's different than Italian) comes to pick you up and offers you to stay in her house with original Terazza floors? And walking in her, mother is cooking fresh lunch (Oreccete) with bread and wine on the table. And you are greeted with kisses on the cheek? And what if her mother's cousin worked at a local espresso bar, who teases you while gifting you espresso (with a shot of grappa of course) while chatting like a regular?

Sound good? That's the past 7 hours of our life. And it got better...

After that, we jumped in their private boat and took a private tour of Venice! The Grand Canal, peeking through tiny alleys, while being serenaded by an official gondolier singer...her father...who wasn't really meaning to seranade us but he just always sings. He is sitting on the couch singing something right now as I type on Silvia's computer.

We then walked for hours upon hours through tiny streets, saying Ciao to various friends of Silvia, checking out supermarkets, joking, learning Venetian and Italian and having an amazing time!

A friend of Silvia's has been invited over and along with her parents we are going to do homemade pizza. Haha, I was just trying to converse with her mother and apparently we were talking about how she loves Salzburg and they say that it is a mini-Venice.

Rick Steves would be proud. Actually, he would pee his pants with excitement on how surreal and cool this all is...all because we sat next to someone at the Hofbrauhaus two years ago and started to talk...which turned to sharing a Struedel...

Time for snacks, then more touring in the morning, and then we leave for Ljubljana at 2:55 tomorrow for another first...Slovenia.

More on Venice later.

Tschuess!