It’s been a week since I returned from Venice.  The trip was magical, and touched me in a very deep place.   It gave me a glimpse of the strength I have.  How I’ve picked up, and moved along when I wasn’t enjoying the life I was living, and gone to explore new things.  It also made me yearn to share the experience.

When I returned to my temporary home in Fornaci, I was deeply pensive, and more than a little withdrawn.  A couple of medical issues with pets and family at home made me wish, with tremendous force, that I was there.  Which made me examine the choices I’ve made.  And that made me more than a little unhappy with myself.  I didn’t want to examine my choices!  I wanted to be happy, damn it!  Who was I to ruin my own fun – again?!

Truthfully, I don’t know the last time I was so upset.  I thought I’d found a new path.  One that would allow me to live more freely and examine myself less (I can be a little rough on myself).  Funny thing is, even when I’m in a beautiful, amazing place, it’s still me who is here.  Even the magic of Venice can’t mask that, it seems.

Like anyone, I’ve gone through periods of self-reflection, and questioning.  They can be tough and usually last quite a while – grey periods of wondering what I’m doing with my life, how I’m making a difference in the world, or how I’m improving myself.  Usually I work through them in the context of career and relationship and whatever else I have to distract me.  One of the great gifts of being so far away from everything I know is that I’m stripped of the usual distractions.  I can’t hide from myself.  I can’t use humor or intellect or team sports, or anything really.  It’s a great gift, and a new challenge.  It’s something I asked for when I took this leap, for sure.  But, now that it was here, I realized that I hadn’t expected it to be so hard.

This period of reflection was black.  Not Grey, black.  I cried so hard I couldn’t see when I woke up the next morning.  Cried so hard I gasped like a child, hyperventilating in my self-examination.  It sucked big time.  I really worried it would go on for the duration of my trip, or that I’d have to pack it up and leave early.  Or that I’d stop leaping.  But I have friends here, too, loving friends who sat with me while I cried, and rubbed my shoulders.  And it passed.  Two days after it came, I woke up, and it was gone.

I know now that I won’t stop examining myself.  I’m not sure I’d want to.  It might be that, now I’ve taken a leap and put myself in a new context, these periods will be dark.  More intense.  But maybe they’ll be quicker.  Maybe I’ll be able to learn from them more easily.  I mean, maybe not.  Maybe they’ll just suck and I’ll end up crying alone in a crappy hotel room.  Who knows, but this time it passed quickly.  And I’m still here enjoying myself.  I’m still here loving what I’m doing.  And I’ve shed the unreasonable, irrational belief that, by changing what I’m doing with my life, I will stop examining it.  I’m still the deeply-flawed person that I was when I left, but I’m finding ways to make peace with those flaws.  And I’m having far more light days than dark ones.  Maybe for right now, that’s enough.

As a new friend of mine said to me this week, “a beach in Hawaii or Australia isn’t a bad place to ‘find yourself'”.  I couldn’t agree more.

My recommendation is that, when visiting a new place, read what you can about it.  If you have a guidebook, especially read the highlighted sections.  The ones the author has gone to the trouble of putting in a box.  They might have helpful information.  For example:  Rick Steves’ chapter on Venice has a section on “Floods.”  Most likely every guidebook has a section on Venetian floods.  There’s a reason for that.

Walking through Venice the night before I left, in the rain and wind, I saw a couple of warning signs that the water was coming.  I did not, however, realize what the platforms that were set up running through the middle of the streets and piazzas were.  I thought they were vendor tables for a street fair or something.  If I’d read the section on floods, I would have known that they were elevated walkways, placed out by the city the night before an imminent flood.  As it was, I went to bed blissfully unaware of what I would find the next morning.

When I opened the shutters the morning of my departure, I smiled at the quiet day.  The night had been rough.  It was really windy.  So much so that I had to close and secure the shutters that had been banging on the stone walls.  I pulled out my camera to take a last pic of the view from my window.  And then I realized that something was different.  The sidewalks were part of the canal.

Where was that damn guidebook…

Evidently, this is rather common for Venice.  Not surprising, now that I considered it.  However, there was nothing in the guidebook about how to get yourself from your hotel to the train station.  So, I consulted my wardrobe, chose thermal underwear and quick-dry travel pants for the journey and rolled them up to my knees.  Wondering if the Montin had a flood-blocking door plate, I headed downstairs for some breakfast and to check out the scene.

Yes, that’s water at the bottom of the stairs.  The dining room was totally flooded.  In fact, the front door stood open, and several people were sitting at partially submerged tables.  They were all wearing high rubber boots.  (The guidebook said nothing about boots.)  I stepped into the water and watched the eyes of the locals widen.  “Coragea.”  No, I wasn’t brave, just hungry, and wondering what else I was supposed to do.  The frigid sea water rushed into my waterproof shoes and up over my ankles.  I walked to the front door and looked out.

“Just wait.  This will be gone in about 5 minutes.”  “Really?”  This guy was a local, but I couldn’t see how this was going to clear that quickly.  “Maybe 10.”

There was no breakfast this morning, and I was beginning to think it might take a little while to get to the station.  I turned to the man behind the desk and asked if the trains would be running alright.  He assured me they would, but warned that the boats might not, because the height of the water made it such that they could run aground – and into houses.  Okay, well that ruled out a vaporetto ride.  I’d be walking it.  I sloshed back upstairs (waterproof shoes work both ways.  Water can’t get out so much, and I’m pretty sure the “ventilation system” wasn’t designed for Venetian floods) to pack and get underway.

When I hit the streets, it was clear it would take longer to walk across town this time.  The water was deeper on the street than in the hotel.  The locals were walking slowly, making sure the water didn’t splash up over the tops of their knee-high boots.  I had no such concerns.

I trudged along, smiling at the folks in the streets as I went.  As if Venice needed anything else to make it seem any more strange.  The streets had become canals.  I was no longer able to tell which was which.

The water seemed to be getting deeper.  People were walking seriously slowly now as the water was about an inch below the top of their boots.  Men in hip waders were starting to appear.

After about 20 or 30 minutes of walking in really cold water, I came across a little bridge to a point where I could actually see the ground.  I think I thanked the saints a little.  It didn’t last long though.  A couple of blocks later I was back to mid-calf water.  It seems that Dorsoduro is one of the lowest parts of the city.

When I crossed a big bridge from the neighborhood, I hit dry ground.  And found lots of people wearing ridiculous fluorescent plastic boots.

For some reason, these were being sold in the one area of town that was dry.  And that’s where people were wearing them.  Insanity.  I really could have used some of those boots about an hour earlier.  It was alright, though.  The water in my shoes had finally warmed to the temperature of my feet, and I was having a grand adventure.  I found one of the very few shops that was open (I’d had to abandon my hopes of shopping on the way to the station), bought some breakfast, took a last look at the city as I walked the span of the newest bridge over the Grand Canal (that I had read about in the guidebook) and found a place to empty my shoes.

I’d made it out.  No boots.  Just me and my awesome shoes.  Which now smelled like the Mediterranean Sea.  Only 6 more hours on the train.  I smiled as I took my seat and pulled out dry socks.

It rained my last night in Venice.  Hard.  I seriously contemplated eating in the hotel again.  But it was my last night in Venice.  Earlier in the day, I’d stopped by Trattoria alla Madonna, a restaurant in the Rialto neighborhood that my Friend Frank had recommended.  I talked with a waiter about the menu as he shouldered an armful of plates bound for a table.  Yes, they had pastas I could eat, and a whole table of vegetables that he waved at like a spokes model on the Price is Right.  They opened at 7PM, and didn’t take reservations.  That was good.  I don’t really like making reservations.

I left the hotel at about 8PM, after a quick shower and an incredibly long day.  The 20 minute walk to the restaurant took me past some now familiar sights, dramatically lit as the rain started to fall.

Venice is a strange place.  Beautiful, but strange – as if it’s another world.  This night, I saw two or three different men in different parts of town – wearing capes – like it was totally normal.

I honestly think they were probably meeting to raise a glass to “the boy who lived”.

Finding anything in Venice is a challenge, and finding something after dark in Venice is a special treat.  Fortunately, the Trattoria had a big sign, and huge, green lanterns placed at the entrance to the little street it inhabited.

While the sign is enormous, the door to the restaurant is totally understated.  The sign actually hangs over the kitchen door, confusing tourists.  The actual door to the establishment was identifiable by the occasional man in a white coat that would dart out to somewhere across the little street, and then dart back in, laughing and talking with passersby (mostly confused tourists looking at the sign).

I spent a moment in the street practicing the Italian phrase that would help get me a seat.  But, when I stepped in, I was virtually swept into the restaurant by one waiter who was on his way to deliver plates of food to diners.  I’m not sure I even got a word out before I was seated.

The dining room was a bright, tall room with chestnut-beamed ceilings, filled with families, couples, and the ultra-efficient wait staff.  There was an army of guys in white coats bustling around:  delivering food to tables, taking orders, deboning fish on a side table.

My waiter looked at me and asked a one word question:  “Italiana?”  Unfortunately, I answered with “hum?”  And that triggered “Inglese?”  Too late to recover.  He reached into the drawer of a nearby hutch and pulled out an English-language menu.  One glance around the dining room and It looked like there were at least three, color-coded menus.  Mine was pink.  It served as a big pink flag to the waiters that I was an English speaker.  And, though I thought that at least I wouldn’t have to translate the menu, I was wrong.  I still had to ask.

My waiter and I got through the usuals – dining solo, don’t speak Italian well, vegetarian, etc. – and we found something for me to eat.  I’d been looking for gnocchi, but it was listed on the English menu as “potato dumplings”.  Of course.  So I ordered a plate of gnocchi with pomodoro sauce and a plate of mixed vegetables.

I swear to you, I sat no more than 5-7 minutes before the gnocchi arrived.

They were good.  And they were big.  I’m pretty sure that what I’ve had since I’ve been in Italy are gnochetti.  Little gnocchi.  These were the real deal, bigger than my thumb and with a substantial mush to them.  The almost melted in my mouth.

While my waiter prepared the vegetable plate, I did a little people watching.  Venice seems a good place for that.  There were no men in capes, but plenty of swooning lovers and English-speaking children.  I think the people next to me might have been speaking Russian.  I wonder which menu they used.

And then the veggies arrived.

Unlike almost all the other places I’d eaten in Venice, these were cooked in butter.  Mmmm.  Butter.  And there was nothing on the plate even remotely related to ham.  Bonus for me and my curly-tailed friends.  I would like to take this opportunity to disagree with anyone who thinks that vegetables aren’t comfort food.  The carrots were perfectly done and sweet.  The spinach was simple and tasty.  The peas were meat-free, the zucchinis entertaining, and the tomatoes were as sweet as the carrots.  It was perfect food for the stormy night.

I powered through the plate, enjoying every morsel and wondering if I’d have dessert here, or at a gelato shop on the way back to the hotel.

My waiter ran through the list of dolce.  I had only one question, “che fatti en casa?”  I’m pretty sure the sentence structure is incorrect, but the question almost always gets good results.  He smiled.  “Tiramisu e buono.”  He didn’t even wait for a response.  He virtually jogged to the dessert table, scooped  out some tiramisu and presented it proudly to me.

It looked good.

It was good.

I waited for the alcoholic punch that I’ve experienced with other tiramisus.  It didn’t come.  This was pure, unadulterated yum.    Excellent.

Leaving the restaurant, I took my last nighttime stroll through Venice.  I noticed that there were a lot more of the water-blocking panels that are placed in shop doors at night.

And I got just a little worried when I saw shops that had removed EVERYTHING from the floors.

But I didn’t think much further about what that might mean for me.  I just continued through the city, noticing the beautiful scenes, and (with a bit of annoyance) the way I felt.  Somewhere along the way the old fears and twinges of doubt had crept back in.  That pissed me off a bit.  Here I am on this great adventure, and nothing has changed.  Nothing has changed…

And then I saw my shadow.

On the glittering streets of Venice.  And it made me laugh.  Okay, maybe things have changed just a little.

Warning:  This was a very long day.  You might want to take a nap before reading.

The day started on a good note.  At breakfast I discovered “delichoc,” little containers of a nutella-like substance.  They were hiding among the little containers of jelly.  Suddenly, the nice rolls on the breakfast table became fantastic!  I found myself wondering if I could smuggle some of them, along with the delichoc, out in my shirtsleeves.  Trying to remember how I’d done just that in the college cafeteria, I had to abandon the plan as other guests walked in for breakfast.

I walked out of the hotel into my first sunny day in Venice, and found the sun doing lovely things to the city.

This was my last full day here, and I had a lot left on my list of things to see.  I had planned my day carefully, and hoped that I could use everything I’d learned to keep myself on track.  I tried first for a traghetto ride, but found the stop closed because it was Sunday.  No problem, I knew how to walk where I wanted to go, so I struck out on foot.  They city had a nice surprise for me.  It took me right past the firehouse.

I found the municipal boats of Venice an amusing novelty.  Seeing the firemen scooting around on a little boat was totally entertaining.

When I reached the Rialto bridge, I saw a sign that read “Rialto, the heart of the city.”  “It’s a sinking heart” I thought to myself.  Little did I know…

The first site on my list was the island of Murano, famous for its glass furnaces.  I’d have to take a vaporetto ride out and back.  So, I walked up to the top of Venice, bought a ticket and hopped on a boat.  The ride itself was beautiful, taking me past the dramatic island cemetery.

Murano was a sleepy island with wide canals, interesting public art, and glass everywhere.

I followed the other tourists down the row of formal glass furnaces and shops, across several bridges and to the glass museum.  I spent an hour or so moving through floor after floor of glass exhibits.  From seriously ancient pieces to really old ones, they were all exquisite and fascinating.  But, I had at least three other major sites on my list, and needed probably 30 minutes to get back to the city.  Plus, I had only consumed one coffee, and it was pushing noon.

After a hasty macchiato and a vaporetto ride, I was back in Venice proper, and headed over the Rialto again.  My plan was to visit the Ca’ Pesaro to see its Modern and Asian art museums, before visiting the huge collections at the Correr Museum and then, hopefully, the Accademia.

The bar where I’d grabbed my coffee was so insane that I abandoned hope of trying to get something to eat.  Now I was seriously hungry and beginning to panic.  (Honestly, the only times I panicked in Venice were when I couldn’t find food immediately.  I was in full-on panic.)  I found Ca’ Pesaro – which was in another damn foodless part of town – and went in search of pizza.  There was no pizza.  I walked for at least 20 minutes before settling for a fancyish-looking bar, where I picked up something that looked like a twisted piece of pizza (sfizzaforno, I think it’s called).

For some reason, it took like a zillion years to heat it up.  I stood at the bar the entire time thinking it would come out of the little oven at any moment, and dodging the stares of the barista who was probably wondering why I was standing there with a panicky look.  When it finally emerged from the oven, it was hot – I mean hot.  Still, I shoved half of it in my mouth before I thought to take a picture.  It was tasty, I think.  One caffe later, I felt human enough to try another museum.  I relocated Ca’ Pesaro.

I don’t know if I saw everything in the museum.  I tried.  I think I saw all the great modern art, but the Asian art went on forever.  (And I love Asian art.)  According to the signage, it was originally the personal collection of a guy who became an enemy of the state or a war criminal or something.  The 30,000 items were seized, some were sold, and the rest became the museum.  It was overwhelming.  The swords, armor, guns, saddles, scrolls, lacquered bowls, pots, jade and ivory seemed never-ending.  Unlike other Asian collections I’ve seen, this one was a collection of a single person, and reflected his tastes, as opposed to featuring “culturally significant” works.  The experience was very interesting, but exhausting.  This is where I think I might have missed a couple of rooms, given my state of exhaustion and hunger, and the poorly-marked walking route.  Even so, I saw a lot.  A LOT.  And I had two huge museums left.

Now, I know that it’s best to visit cities like Venice with the thought that you will return.  And it’s not a good idea to pack so many exhibits into a short time, but I really wanted to see the archeological museum at the Correr (which was free to me with the museum pass I bought earlier in the week), and the Leonardo exhibit that was advertised all over town.

So it was back to St. Mark’s piazza where the Correr museum is.  I saw important rooms of a library (I don’t remember which one) and the archeological museum.  This was great.  Lots of ancient sculpture, ancient coins and the machinery to make them, and several galleries of antiquities housed in vacuum-sealed rooms.  And beautiful views of Venice from the gallery windows.

I might have missed some of the rooms (I was still hungry and the routes were confusing to me in my stupor), but I didn’t really care.  I closed down the museum and staggered out to continue my search for pizza.

This time I stepped into the first bar I saw with pizza in the window.  It was thick-crusted, and very different from the other pizza I’ve had in Italy.  It was good, though.  And kept me from having a full on melt-down on my way to the Accademia.

When I bought my ticket at the Accademia museum, I was super-excited to find that it was discounted.  I didn’t ask why, but the 1.50 would buy another piece of pizza, so I was happy.  Inside, there were galleries of great collections.  Series after series of paintings commissioned regarding specific topics.  They were enormous works filled with religious scenes.  The most interesting to me was a room filled with huge paintings of scenes depicting the miracles of the relic of the true cross.  Strange scenes of exorcisms and priests swimming in the canals of Venice were even more interesting as my head started swimming from everything I’d seen that day.  Helpfully, the exhibits had excellent English-language explanations, which was nice.  I was able to give my brain a break from the non-stop translating that it undertakes each day, and just lean back on the padded benches to enjoy the paintings.

About halfway through the museum, I found the reason for the discounted entry.  A couple of the major galleries were closed.  Frankly, I was relieved.  I was tired.  But there was one last thing I wanted to see before I ventured out into the city in search of dinner.  Leonardo.

I’d seen posters for the exhibit all over the city, and wondered what, exactly, the exhibit would be.  When I first stepped into the tiny room housing the special exhibit, I was a little disappointed.  There was just one piece in the darkened room.  One little sketch.  This is what all the fuss was about?  And then I stepped in front of it.  The posters weren’t just using the “Vitruvian Man” sketch as an advertisement for Leonardo, they were advertising the exhibition of the piece itself.  (I learned later that the sketch is actually housed at the Accademia, but is rarely exhibited.)

It was remarkably powerful.  And beautiful.  The rust-colored ink on the camel colored paper was bold and clear.  Everyone in the room was silent.  Absolutely absorbed.  This was a nice surprise to end a long day of art, much of which will run together when I look back on the day.  Of the thousands of objects I saw, this one will stand out.

I knew that with certainty.  And I knew something else, as well – I was hungry again.

I never made a reservation for dinner while I was in Venice.  I’d just pick out one I liked based on a guidebook or a friend’s recommendation and head there to check out the menu.  If I liked it, I’d check for availability.  Tonight I was going to try for Casin dei Nobili, a place I’d passed virtually every day as I set out from the hotel to explore the city.  After the short walk, I examined the menu.  There was really nothing on the regular menu in the way of vegetarian fare, but at least one of the dishes listed on the specials sheet (entitled “Lo Chef Consiglia” – “the chef recommends”) had promise.

This place was clearly family run.  The grandmother behind the counter was a good indicator.  They had a table for me, but I’d have 90 minutes until they needed it for the next reservation.  Okay.  That should be doable.  Three courses, 30 minutes each.  The only thing that worried me was the phrase “slow food” placed proudly in the menu’s Italian description of the restaurant.

My table was in the corner, practically WITH a couple that appeared to be honeymooning.  The waiter pulled the tables apart about 4 inches to give us each some privacy.  I mean really I didn’t want these people listening in on my conversations with myself.  I put my little dictionary in my lap, and checked the time.  The race was on.

After the initial “hi, how’s it going, I’m sorry I don’t speak Italian well, and I’m a vegetarian” my waitress and I got underway.  Yes, there was something that I could eat.  Yes, the item on the chef’s recommendations (Girella di pasta in “cocot” fatta in casa con ricotta e spinacetti) was vegetarian – so long as I ate cheese.  I assumed the ricotta in the description was the cheese she was referring to.  I was blissfully wrong.

The moat of bubbling cream and cheese was what she was referring to.  I don’t really know what this was, other than pasta, cheese, spinach and more cheese.  It was brilliant.  The thin maccheroni noodles had been laid flat, slathered with spinach and ricotta, then rolled, shaped and cut into sushi-style pieces, before being baked or broiled, or something, in the creamy cheesy mixture.  I was just a little disappointed that there was no parmegian on the table.

Next came the mixed vegetable plate that I’ve become accustomed to ordering as a secondi.  And tonight, I added potato croquettes.

The plate of vegetables was beautiful.  I’d been eyeing up my neighbor’s plate of peas, so I headed for these first, plunging my eager fork.  And stopping.  Pancetta.  Darn.  Ham is not a vegetable, people.  Even if it’s part of a vegetable dish.  Not a vegetable.  So, I pulled out the little bits, and thought of all my friends who would be yelling at me for leaving the salty, bacony pieces on the plate.

I ate every last piece of the vegetable plate, and wiped up the remaining oil and balsamic with the croquettes (fried, mashed potato sticks).

I checked the clock.  I still had 45 minutes to order and eat dessert, and to pay.  It was doable if we all worked together.    I looked around for my waitress.  She assured me she’d come back with a dessert menu and then talked with the couple next to me, telling them about the desserts in Italian.  I will know that I have mastered the language when I don’t have to have someone bring me a menu so that I can work it out with my little dictionary.

The menu took some time to arrive, but I was glad to have it.  The menu had some additional items that the waitress hadn’t mentioned.  A cherry Parfle “with crunchy bits”.  Interesting.  I was expecting a parfait, you know, some kind of a layered thing with cereal or something.  I got something even more interesting.

I’m pretty sure this was some kind of ice cream thing.  It had a lovely frozen, pink, creamy inside, the drizzle of winter cherry, and was rolled in – PEANUTS!  I hadn’t fully appreciated how much I like peanuts until that moment.  Peanuts, which are used in just about everything in the US, aren’t used that often in Italian cooking.  I’m used to eating my should-be-famous cookies twice a day, every day, but I haven’t had a peanut in 5 weeks.  The peanut crust on this dessert made it seem exotic, compared to the torta, tiramisu, and pumpkin pudding I’d been eating.  And that made me laugh.

(Please note:  directly after writing this, I went to have coffee at a restaurant above the studio.  There were peanuts on the bar.  Evidently, that’s common for bars, just like the US.  Maybe peanuts aren’t so common in cooking, but they’re common as bar food.)

I scarfed this thing down.  I think I had it eaten before my coffee arrived, which was a good thing, given the time constraints.  Two mouthfuls of espresso later, and I was ready for the check.  The check.  This can be a challenge.  Unlike US restaurants, that usually want to push you out the door and bring you a check before you’ve even ordered dessert, pretty much all the restaurants I’ve gone to in Italy will let you sit forever and never bring a check until you ask for it.

So I asked for it.  There were 10 minutes left in my allotted time, and I was getting nervous.  Five minutes later I was downright worried.  So I gathered up my dictionary, coat and bag and headed to the front to pay.  A man who looked like the husband of the grandmother at the counter calculated my bill and I left with about two minutes to spare.  The 90 minute rush added a little stress to my dinner that I didn’t especially enjoy, but the plates of excellent food made up for it.  Another 2 minutes, and I was back at the lantern, wondering how the city would change my plans for tomorrow.