A very Wet New Year

I've always wanted to go to Venice. I've been dreaming about it for as long as I could remember. I knew that I was already too late to see the "real" Venice and that it was just a touristy amusement park, but I wanted to go anyway. Venice is unlike any place in the world. And it was basically just a touristy amusement park, but it was great anyway.

We arrived in town on the evening of the 30th and found our hostel- a big, real, hostel with dorm rooms and shared bathrooms and a cafeteria full of backpackers- set aside on an island just a few minutes by boat from St. Marks Square.

On New Years Eve, we decided that we were a bit museum-ed out and that we wanted to do something a little different so we planned a trip to Murano- the Venitian island famous for it's glass. I fell in love with Murano glass. If I was filthy rich, I would decorate my house with it and buy a full set of dishes. As it is that I'm not rich at all (filthy or otherwise) I had to make due with a few necklaces. We went to the glass museum and saw the progression of glass making in Italy from before the Roman period to modern day. Glass really is an amazing substance. Especially impressive were perfectly preserved blown glass bottles and jars over 2000 years old. We then wandered around the island a bit before having a rushed dinner and heading back to the main part of town to get ready for the evening.

New Years in Venice is WET. Winter in Venice is wet and the tide is highest in the middle of the night. When we got to the square it was full of people in gum boots and plastic bags splashing around in the high water. While my hiking boots are waterproof (the most waterproof boots I've ever had in fact) they only cover my feet and as soon as water goes over the top, it's all over. We found a place out of the water on some steps to watch the craziness. As midnight neared, the water rose, the excitement rose and we got ready to give the world a New Years kiss. At midnight I shared a few sips of champagne with an Italian (who was of course horrified that I lived in Albania) and then made a dash for the dock to get a glimpse of the fireworks. One thing that Venice doesn't have to worry about is the fire danger of the fireworks. With wet feet we made it back to the hostel (after a bone crushing crowd to get to the boats) and slept contently into the new year.

On New Years day I had planned on trying to go and see my friend Marcos who is stationed nearby in the Air Force, but the plan fell through and Connie and I decided to just wander around Venice instead. Walking around Venice was fantastic. We walked on raised walkways trying to avoid the now receding high water. We shopped for letter openers and necklaces. We walked over bridges and along canals and just wandered. We stopped for coffee and tiramisu. We got lost and then found ourselves. We saw a sign advertising a Vivaldi concert and found the church. We had a wonderful salad people watching in a small square. We went to the concert and sat with a couple from Oregon and enjoyed as beautiful violin music washed over us. We walked back to the hostel barely able to believe that it was our last night in Italy . . .

Italian food

When I got back to Albania, Jan, my Peace Corps mom, asked me what the best food moment of my trip was. This really got me thinking about the food that I had in Italy and actually how disappointed I was. Here's the problem: while I know that there is truly incredible food in Italy, I just didn't get much of it because it was way out of my price range. As we've already established, everything was really expensive. First, unlike on other trips, I was unable to conference crash, couch surf or be a groupie on the tour bus, so we had to pay every night for a hostel. I am really proud of myself for my hostel finds, actually. They were all clean and well managed and none of them tripled in price for the holidays. But staying in the hostels meant that about half my daily budget went to that and that we had to eat out almost every meal (the hostel in Florence had a restaurant downstairs that we ate at once and the place in Venice served breakfast of a roll and juice/coffee). I found that there were basically two categories of food available to us that we could afford: sandwich/pizza/street food and mediocre sit-down fare. Of the two types, I actually enjoyed the fast food more in general- the sandwiches were made with really good fresh ingredients and the pizzas were really good (the cheese makes all the difference!). What I was most disappointed with was the standard sit down places. We went to several places in which a plate of pasta cost an average of 7-12 Euros ($11-18) and was no better (and sometimes worse) than what I could make at home. I worked in an Italian chain restaurant for 3 years in which the prices were pretty comparable - I didn't think I would ever say this, but the food at the MacShack was much better. Our biggest disappointment was in Venice on New Years Eve. We went to Murano Island to look at the glass there and by 4:00 were starving. It seemed that most of the places were closing down, so we ducked into the first place we saw that was open. The staff was anxious to get out and were not happy to have last minute customers and so hovered over us as we ate. On top of that, the food was terrible! I don't think I have ever paid more for a plate of bad spaghetti. I won't say that I love the food in Albania most of the time, but at least it's cheap!

I don't want to make it sound like we never ate well. I found several surprise moments of goodness, like falafel in the Jewish Quarter of Rome, Suppli (Roman rice balls sold for 1 Euro), wonderful salad at a cafe in Venice and the food highlight of the trip: wine tasting held at the hostel in Florence.

Since we only had a few days in Florence and knew we wouldn't have time to go into the wine country, when we saw that the hostel was having a wine tasting we decided to go for it. Both Connie and I were really glad that we did as it was one of the best parts of the trip. One of the hostel staff (who is in culinary school) and a wine maker from the nearby Chianti region were our hosts. We tasted 5 wines (all excellent) and paired with simple fresh foods like cheese, meat, bread, honey and olive oil. We learned how to smell the wine and taste it slowly, about the wine making process and the differences between the different varieties. It was great.

Like I said, I know that good food is available in Italy, but unfortunately most of the affordable places in touristy areas are overpriced and awful. I need to go back to Italy when I have the money to really enjoy the food there.

Florence is much more of a manageable city than Rome. In Rome, we spent 5 days, walked A LOT (and had lots of adventures on the metro and buses) and I still only feel like I scratched the surface. Florence, however, in just two days, I fell like I really got the feel of the city. Florence also seemed more calm and refined than Rome and had the art to go along with it. In addition to seeing David (you just have to, you know), we also had a truly wonderful intimate opera experience when we went to see Carmen performed in a small church. Unlike the giant opera house in Rome, this performance was simple and didn't have elaborate staging. The actors were literally just a few feet away from us.

We also had a bit of a scare in Florence when our hostel room was broken into in the middle of the night. We spent a rather sleepless night up with the hostel staff and the police, but we are happy to report that the intruder was caught thanks to the wonderful staff of the hostel and their superior security system. Caught on video! No doubt! Lesson learned- always lock up your stuff, even when you feel pretty safe . . .