Welcome Home Sailor

This is the finish of my first week back in Venice. I have been studying Italian at a language school for 4 hours a day, I am immersed in the Italian language…… my head hurts. The funny part of this is, that when you are in an emersion program you have to speak the language no matter how badly, and the teacher has to answer you no matter your inability to understand her reply. This makes for some very comical situations in class. I have this vision of the teachers at the bar after school laughing until they are crying. I have been having fun creating opportunity to speak interactive dialogue. Many of the exercises we are asked to do, can be done at a Dick and Jane level. I chose to mix it up a bit so that I can get the most bang for my buck taking any opportunity to respond in such away that the teacher is taken back with my response contrary to ordinary to the point of replying “really? and why is that?” Upon entry to the program I was first tested, both written and verbal. I have no idea how I did on the written but in by verbal I did well enough that the teacher decided to put me in the second level. Although somewhat flattering, it is really similar to learning how to swim in the ocean or a rushing river. I have none of the foundation that the other students have from the 1st level class. I sound better than the rest of the class but they make sense! Oh well I have never been accused of taking the easy way. My Italian is far worse than I ever thought and now that I am aware of how badly I speak I am much more reticent too speak, my pronunciation has suffered and I think I must now be speaking as a three year old. I will be at the school for 20 days over 4 weeks, I feel I could attend for one year and still be crawling along. Oh well I am learning and my discouragement is not in anyway compromising my motivation, I am committed to leaning to speak Italian. I am living in the apartment of a
Young Italian woman in her thirties. The arrangements were made through the school. The apartment is very nice as is my host. She speaks enough English that we are not helpless and yet not enough that we can rely on it. This is all apart of the immersion program. Elisabetta is great and the apartment is great, close to school close to Postali
(my crew club house) what else could I ask for! The school is an excellent program, the teachers all good teachers, they are committed and happy they all love what they do.

In mid week we were offered an option for an extra activity, “dinner at Marina’s.”
This turned out to be the best experience yet, I will never miss one. We met at 5:30 in Campo S. Maria Nova where Marina rallied us together and escorted us to her apartment.
It is common in Venice for hosts to do this as it can be difficult to find an address. I have been to two previous dinner parties this being the third where the guests all rendezvoused at a bar for a drink or two before all walking together to the location of the actual dinner.
Six of us from the school found each other in the Campo very easily as we all look so, not Venetian. Introducing ourselves, we had enough time to chat and have a Spitz before Marina showed up to escort us to the dinner. Marina’s apartment was not an apartment at all but a Palazzo. It was huge! The entry hall was 30 feet by 60 feet with 20 foot ceilings. Murano glass chandelier ornate plaster moldings and marbolino walls. The floors were Venetian marble, and this was just the entry hall. This was my first time inside a Venetian Palazzo. Technically Marina’s home is not a Palazzo as it is does not occupy the entire building it is only one floor and therefore an apartment, regardless it was a Palazzo to me. We prepared the dinner together, first beginning with the pre-dinner finger food then the preparation of the items that needed to be baked. After filling the oven we all gathered in the library for Spitz and snacks. The library another story altogether, mosaic wood floors the same size as the entry hall but one of the narrow 30foot sides coved into a half round curved library bookshelf of birds eye maple…..stunning. The carpenter in me was drooling and the historian in me was jumping as a child waiting to see the latest Disney release. This Apartment as it is properly referred to was first built 400 years ago and then remodeled 100 hundred years ago and then 30 years ago updated with modern bathrooms.
I am not sure when she put the oversize Jacuzzi bathtubs in but I am sure it has been within the past 5 years they look like they were put in yesterday. The kitchen is still as it was first designed the only difference is that in the side rooms that were created to keep the ovens and the storage out of sight are updated with modern appliances. Dinner finally ready to eat we gathered in the entry hall that had magically been transformed into a dining room. We had……. I can’t do this I think it is enough to say the dinner was 4 courses, beginning with champagne and ending with grappa. After the second bottle of champagne one of the other students in attendance asked if we could have some more please, and Marina replied for the first time in the evening in English, “of course dear you can all the champagne you want……. We have rivers of champagne!!” I knew that the evening was to go into second gear and that it did. I left at 1am with Marina 70 years old four courses, eight hours, and God only knows how many bottles of champagne singing and playing the guitar.
It is wonderful to be back in Venice. The weather is cold and the mood of the city has shifted with the weather. The flowers are gone and the sidewalks thin, many of the outside dining tables have been put away. You can still find cafes and restaurants with tables outside but they are few and often empty. Yet still Venice welcomes me back with open arms such as a lover welcomes you home from a journey. My fiends are exactly the same, my friends, their warm welcome makes me feel very much at home. I love this time of year, easy to say, as I love all seasons. In some ways I see Venice through even more romantic eyes than this summer. Everyone is bundled up with coats, scarves, and hats. The restaurants and cafes welcome you to come inside to snuggle up to the bar or huddle at a table in the warmth of the candle lit room. The tourist season has calmed down a great deal as a result the streets are not so alive. Many of the Venetians who make their money from the tourist business have migrated elsewhere to winter, some of the population is in hibernation with others the life goes on unchanged season to season year to year.
This past week has been hell on me. The 36 hour trip from Thailand, arriving back in Portland and straight back to work, I barely had time to repack, then the 13 hour flight to Venice. The travel combination along with a slight fever and my first night with Francisco making the rounds connecting with friends wiped me out. Wednesday after class I returned to my apartment and decided to lay down for 30 min. for a short rest. I had a commitment for a meeting an hour later so I did not undress I even left my shoes and coat. The windows open letting in the cool autumn breeze, lullabying me too sleep. The next thing I knew it was 8 hours later and I had slept through 2 phone calls and missed my appointment. This is not like me at all, this is as exhausted as I remember being within my life. I am rested now.
I need to find away to sleep on airplanes. My plane miles have racked up enough that I am able to fly first class most of the time however I still have a hard time sleeping I have tried melatonin and other over the counter solutions, and I have tried staying up the night before in hopes that I will be so tired that I will sleep on the plane. This is the most ridiculous idea I have ever had but in desperation we can be forced to ridiculous options. I do not intend to stop or even slowdown my traveling any time soon so I need to find a solution. Maybe when I do there will be a how to book in it, a little point of sale thing that sells at the convenience counters through out the airport. Opportunity lay in wait at every corner.
Good ideas are like beautiful women.

Tonight I will have dinner with Serge at Taverna del Remer. Sunday night at the restaurant is very popular. The tables are all pushed together to accommodate the big families. Sunday night is family night in Venice. I will have a wonderful meal with a good friend in one of the warmest restaurants I have ever been in, welcomed by the owner Emilio and the Remer crew who treat me as one of the family most often pushing my money aside. Sitting by the fire being serenaded by Stefano on the piano he may even get me to play a few songs; and yet tonight I am lonely, I miss…………….

Missing nothing sometimes you must miss everything.