A Few Fun Things About Italian Culture

Hi guys,

Sorry I haven't posted much lately, we had a pretty slow week last week, mostly just classroom stuff, which would not be a whole lot of fun to write about or to read about. However, this weekend, I did take a nice walk down the front, which is the long path that follows along the edge of the lagoon. It's a really pretty walk, especially since it was a nice day. The only drawback was all the "purse guys" who were out. These are the guys who line the street, selling sunglasses, camera tripods, weird little dolls, and, of course, purses to tourists walking down the street. They're a bit annoying, because they try to talk to you to get you to stop and buy something, which would be fine if they weren't a little creepy about the way they approach you. What's really interesting, though, is watching the police, the carabinieri, pull up in their boat and then all the purse guys grab up their stuff and run. Apparently, this is because the items they are selling are not taxed properly, so it's kind of illegal. However, the carabinieri don't try to hard to catch them, they mostly just scare them away, wander around for about fifteen minutes, then get back in their boat and head off. About ten minutes after that, the purse guys have all set up shop again.

Another fun fact about Italian culture, a lot of the shops and some of the restaurants close down in the afternoon, usually somewhere between noon and five, so that people can go home for lunch and spend some time with their families. I believe kids in school also get an extra long lunch break, like an hour or two, for the same reason, so that they can go home for a family meal. Even though it can be a little inconvenient at times, like when you want to go to a certain store, still, I think it's a pretty nice custom.

Something else different in Italian culture, they don't say "texting" they call it sending an "SMS" which is actually an English abbreviation for "Short Message Service." Also, the @ symbol in an e-mail address is not called "at" it is called "chiocciola" (pronounced "key-o-cho-la"), which means "snail." Our Italian professor, Paolo, told us about both of these today in class.

Another fun fact, when Audrey and I went to the beach on the Lido the other day (it was just us because everyone else was going either to Florence or Munich for the weekend), there were actually some people in the water, even though it was November 5th and a bit chilly. We only went because I was talking about the beach for a paper for class, so I got some pictures, plus a video of the waves, just for fun, and we found some really pretty shells. I added the video to the bottom of this blog, it really just looks like any ocean, but I just think it's cool because it's the Adriatic Sea which, like I've mentioned before, continues down the coast of Italy on one side and part of Eastern Europe to Greece on the other and then empties into the Mediterranean Sea.

I'm not sure if I've talked about them before, but there are four cats that live on San Servolo, which people in our group have named Casanova, The Doge, St. Mark the Fluffy, and Ciao. They're always trying to come in the cafeteria and in the dorms, and actually, Caylen and Audrey have let Casanova into their room before, which apparently he enjoys. The cats also love table scraps, which Caylen makes sure to give them plenty of. I finally got pictures of them the other day, because I happened to have my camera on me when I was going to lunch the other day. The black one is Casanova, the skinny gray one is The Doge, and the fluffier gray on is St. Mark the Fluffy. I didn't get a picture of Ciao, though, because he prefers to stay on the other side of the island, near the cafe, rather than the cafeteria.

Finally, I only just realized the other day, that I don't think I've mentioned the fact that on days when the weather is nice, not cloudy and rainy, you can see the Alps behind Venice. There was one day last week when, right after it had rained and the clouds had gone away, the air was so nice and clean that the mountains showed up more clearly than they ever had before. They looked so close that it seemed, if you were only on the other side of the city, you could touch them. Naturally, this was the one day when I didn't have my camera on me. However, I've gotten pictures of them on other days when they've shown up, so I've added a couple of those here. In one, you can see a plane coming in to land at the Venice airport. I just think it's so interesting, though, because I know I never pictured Venice with mountains behind it, and it's hardly ever shown with the mountains in the background. I'm not sure why this is, because it's really beautiful to see.

So, I think that's all for now, I will probably have another post up this week after our night tour of the Basilica di San Marco (Church of St. Mark) tomorrow night. Then, this weekend, I'm going with Dane, Natalie, and Audrey to southern Italy, down into the heel of the boot, so I will definitely have a post up early next week talking about that. Until then, I hope everyone is doing well. Keep leaving comments!

Ciao,
Maria