Another productive day yesterday, with a trip to the gym in the morning and the afternoon spent working in quiet companionship, both at home and then in a small cafe we’d seen before in a park near our flat.

The cafe was beautiful — glass walls, small tables, and great coffee. We sat there and worked in the late afternoon sunshine, surrounded by huge magnolia and banyan trees, little old ladies walking their sweatered dogs, and an immense trellised cedar tree in the middle of the park that smelled like Christmas when we walked by.

The cafe even gave us small glasses with roasted chestnuts in them, which we’ve seen for sale on the sidewalks but hadn’t yet tried. They were delicious — crunchy and meaty, tasting more like bread than a nut.

We took in the sunset from “our” miradouro, then went home for dinner and a quiet evening. Life is settling into a nice routine here, now that I don’t feel the obligation to get out and explore the city as a tourist, but rather just to live here and experience it as a citizen.

Having written that post yesterday, I realized that the core problem I’m having is this: due to the language barrier, I can’t even get my minimum quota of human interaction for the day. I can’t joke with the guys at the grocery store like I do at Trader Joe’s, or ask my waitress how her day is going, or ask someone at the gym where she gets her hair done — none of it. All those little things that set people at ease, make them laugh or feel better about themselves — I’d never realized how much it means to me to be able to do that. And now that my ability to do so is gone, I’m very much feeling the lack.

I felt better after talking all this out with Gabe, although still fragile as we went into our separate days. I decided I needed to get out, do something, anything, just to be around people (you know I’m far gone when I actually feel like I need to be around people!) So I went for a walk and found a whole string of cafes outside the nearby train station — including a guy sitting outside working on his laptop. A good sign! Unlike at home, cafes are largely for socializing here, not for working.

I walked up and down the strip til I found one that looked appealing, and chose one where the owner was looking out at me with a kindly, inquiring expression. He greeted me as I came in, and I asked haltingly if he had internet. When he said no and told me where to go, I asked if for now he had black tea. He said no problem, and proceeded to whip me up a lovely spread of teapot, hot milk, and a teacup with an array of candy and sugar spread around the saucer. How civilized.

So I sat outside and drank my tea, reading my Kindle (for work, honestly!) and gradually feeling myself relax as I listened to the music from the cafe and the chatter of the people around me. I also enjoyed watching the little man take care of his regular customers, a lot of whom seemed to be attractive young women — when one girl sat down outside, he greeted her by bringing her an espresso. Clearly a regular.

I quickly figured out why, as he was quick, extremely attentive, and immaculately polite to all his customers. But his crowning glory as a restaurateur came when I at last went in to pay my bill. As I was doing so, he put his hand on my arm and told me that I was very beautiful, and he meant no disrespect, but he just had to tell me that I was lovely. It was said without any malice, and with such old-fashioned deference and clear appreciation, that it absolutely made my day. Between the compliment, his kindness and patience with my limited language skills, and the lovely pot of tea, I was about ready to start crying all over again. Or at least become a regular myself.

Much buoyed by the warm tea and the equally warm compliment, I went about the rest of my afternoon — fighting my way through the grocery store (which is always an adversarial experience), dragging my purchases home, then heading out again to my first Portuguese lesson in almost three weeks. Needless to say, what little I had learned before our recent adventures had largely vacated my mind, and I consistently drew complete blanks as I tried to carry on simple conversation with the teacher and my new classmate, a beautiful young Latvian woman.

The point of highest amusement for me was when we were doing our introductions — in Portuguese, of course. Apparently, the girl said that she was Latvian (the word for which I didn’t understand), and lived in Riga (which I also didn’t recognize, but figured was an area of Lisbon I didn’t know yet, or perhaps another city nearby.) I didn’t want to interrupt her by asking, so I just smiled and nodded, then a few minutes later proceeded to ask her where she lived in Lisbon.

My teacher looked at me like I was crazy, and said, “This is correct, but you can’t ask this because she does not live here. She just said that she lives in Riga.” I had to admit that I had no idea where this was — and to think I majored in politics! Wow I felt dumb. Clearly my brain yet to turn back on again after vacation.

The rest of the lesson was good, and afterwards I went to the gym for a yoga class, where I was greeted by and chatted with various people who work there. Of course even after this day of (admittedly limited) social interaction, I came home feeling much better.

So the lesson to be — very grudgingly — learned here is: even the biggest introvert of them all still needs to talk to people. Sometimes. Very occasionally. Especially when there’s tea and compliments involved.

On a much more cheerful note… although we’ve been seeing Christmas stuff in stores pretty much since we got here in early October, they’re now getting serious about their holiday decorations. Here’s some pictures I took on the way to and from class yesterday of the town prettifying itself for the Christmas season…

I spent the day mostly alone yesterday, which was a huge relief. For an introvert like me, after ten full days of constant companionship and crowds of people, solitude is a balm for the soul. I did all kind of responsible things: caught up on work, emails, studying, did more laundry, and tried to balance my bank account.

I say tried, because apparently the new security measures they’ve installed online didn’t like my “typing rhythm” when I entered my password, so it locked me out. Great. Gabe encountered a similar problem later on when he tried to request a doctor’s appointment online. In both cases, we ended up having to wait til after our dinner to make phone calls and remedy the problem. Aren’t computers supposed to make living overseas easier?!

It was a beautiful day out, clear, windy, and “cold” (by Lisbon standards anyway), so in the late afternoon, I headed out for a short walk and a trip to the gym. As I did so, I remarked to myself once again that my daily life here is little different from my life at home: my days are mainly spent at home, working, with a trip to the gym providing me with enough social interaction to get by until Gabe gets home. When he does so, he has spent the whole day around people, so we are both happy.

However, it’s been over ten years since I lived in a non-English speaking country, and I forget the extremely isolating effect of the language barrier. I did a quarter in France when I was nineteen, but even then I had been studying the language for five years, plus I lived with a French family and had daily classes or excursions with a group of American students from my university. And while I was both lonely and acutely homesick while at grad school in London, it was of course English-speaking and came with a custom-made community of people in the same program.

So the experience of being in a non-English speaking country without a built-in community is a completely new one for me, and tends to magnify my existing tendency towards isolation. For example, when I do go to the store or the gym, I don’t understand the majority of the conversations that flow around me, nor can I start one up without a great deal of effort. I dread that initial blank look that I get when people don’t understand me, the total lack of comprehension on their faces as I struggle to make myself understood. So for the most part, I spare myself that incomprehension and don’t even try, and instead stare at people with a hopeful smile on my face, like a little puppy wagging its tail.

Sometimes, I hate this isolation and get frustrated with my inability to express myself. Other times, like last night, I embrace it. As I stood in the locker room and listened to people’s conversations, I enjoyed the silence within me, the safety that comes with the knowledge that no one could understand me and I could not understand them. I felt like an island in a sea of senseless noise, quiet and self-contained, peaceful.

That feeling won’t last forever, I know. The isolation and my frustration with it will continue to come and go as I become more comfortable with the language and with living here. But last night, it was a relief to embrace it, to stop struggling against the language barrier for a short while and just be what I am: a stranger in a strange land.

Back to real life here in Lisbon. Yesterday was a nice break — as much a break as a day of working out, laundry, and catching up on news and email can be. Sundays are always dead here, which I’m starting to relish as a mutually agreed upon day of rest. But today is Monday, and the street outside is already busy with people going about their business.

So it’s back to real life, for them and for us… or in our case, back to creating a real life. Between my cold, Gabe’s medical emergency, our anniversary, and our trip, it’s been two and a half weeks since I did any kind of work or study. Since we’ve only been living here for six weeks, that’s a rather large portion of our time here!

Before all this happened, I was trying to establish some kind of routine or habit for myself, finding a place where I can go to work or study, hopefully meeting new people, etc. Now I’m trying to remember where I was in that process, and it’s proving difficult, especially since my mind is already turning to our trip home next month. I’m hoping this won’t be the pattern for our entire year abroad, just hovering here in between having visitors and taking trips elsewhere.

For now though, I’m finally caught up on reading both industry and world news and replying to most of my emails. The fridge is full, the first round of laundry is done and hung up, and now perhaps the decks are clear enough for me to start figuring out what to do next. Perhaps.

Back home after an amazing trip to Venice.

Funny how much this feels like home, too — nothing like going somewhere much more foreign to make the foreign place you’re living seem slightly less so. At least these are the differences I know and am used to, as opposed to the things I’ve never ever seen before. The degrees of foreignness do make a difference, it seems, especially when you have a nice, clean, new flat to come back to, one with all your stuff and conveniences in it. The one in Venice was really quite bare-bones, so it’s wonderful to back in our flat and surrounded by “our” things. It may only be a temporary home, but it’s home nonetheless.

Now I have a lot of catching up to do: blogging, posting photos, laundry, email, etc. I’m kind of overwhelmed by all of it, really, but will start one day at a time. I wrote blog posts every day, but couldn’t post due to our very limited connectivity. What we did have involved standing outside in the cold while waiting for Gabe to find the exact spot where the iPod would actually pick up the internet connection. So forgive me for not posting regular updates.

To avoid inundating you with everything at once, I will separate out the posts and photos by day:

Venice: Arrival — In which we travel to and arrive in Venice.

Venice: Day 1 — In which we provision our apartment and explore the city by foot.

Venice: Day 2 — In which we eat breakfast with an old friend, discover the vaporetti, and see some museums.

Venice: Day 3 — In which we discover the oldest ghetto in Europe and enjoy the sunshine.

Venice: Day 4 — In which we explore Murano, see a lot of beautiful glass, then attempt to buy souvenirs.

Venice: Departure — In which we travel back to Lisbon.

Our return trip went well, without any of the misunderstandings or mistakes of the previous one. Or the rain. We enjoyed the slow boat ride back to the airport from Venice, admiring our last vistas of that beautiful city (as well as some racing gondolieri!) and wishing all the way that we had arrived in the day time so we could have been greeted by that sight on the way in.

The flights to Madrid and Lisbon were both relatively smooth and uneventful, with one small mishap coming through security at Venice airport. The guy pulled my bag aside, asking if I had a yogurt in there. For once I didn’t, but I did have a pot of ricotta cheese that we’d had left over and were planning to eat for lunch, which I pulled out to show him. He was going to make me throw it away, but then decided against it, instead yelling to the person manning the X-ray machine, “It’s not yogurt, it’s cheese!” in a rather affronted voice, and apologizing for the inconvenience.

Only in Italy would they defend your right to bring cheese onto the plane, and then apologize for searching you. Cheese is an inviolable right, apparently.

Otherwise though we arrived home without a problem, and were overjoyed to step off the plane into balmy mid-60s weather, as opposed to the low fifties we’d been in all week in Venice. There is a reason we chose southern Europe for our sabbatical, and this is it.

We dropped our stuff off at the apartment and went back out for groceries, which I will say was something of a disappointment after the increased selection we found in Venice. I find it sad that a city built on an island, which has to bring everything in by boat, still has more food selection than Lisbon. It was also almost twice the price of what we pay here, but that’s beside the point.

It was an incredible trip, and one we’ll remember for the rest of our lives. I guarantee that during our time in Venice, we saw more of that city than about 85% of the tourists that go there, since everyone else seems intent on sticking to the touristy areas and the big sights. They are missing out, in my opinion, but they can keep San Marco. I didn’t mind having the rest of the city — its denizens and small cafes, its singing restaurateurs, floating bookshops, and shiny gelaterias — to ourselves.

This trip was the reason we moved to Europe, the reason we left our house and jobs and families for a year: to be able to do side trips like this, to have stories and pictures our children will never believe, and adventures we ourselves won’t believe in twenty years’ time.

But for now… the Venice portion of the adventure is done, and it’s time to return to the slightly less strenuous and exciting version.

Friday, our last full day in Venice, we made it over to Murano, the glass-blowing island. We took a walk through the small museum, which was included on our museum pass and at least got us out of the cold (the temperature had by then dropped again) and then set off to find us some glass.

Glass we found, in excess. We had hoped to see some actual blowing of big pieces, but apparently those shops are not open to the tourists. (I have a feeling that they’re open to the tourists who shell out money to the guys hustling trips to Murano on the docks near San Marco, but they also practically force you into buying their glass, so we weren’t inclined.) We did get to watch a couple of the small hand-blowers doing their thing, which kept Gabe fascinated while I perused the jewelry.

We made a few purchases, but pretty soon realized that every single store was unique, and there were hundreds of them. Once you realize this, the sheer effort of looking at all that beautiful, expensive, tempting glass become extremely daunting. Literally, we were overwhelmed by beauty, and eventually were just walking by the stores, pointing and going, “Ooh look at that!”

In this manner, we made our way back to the vaporetto stop, via a lunch to go from a small café nearby. This was consumed while sitting on the chilly dock waiting for the boat, watched avidly by hungry tourists and fat pigeons alike. The reason for our haste was that we wanted to make it back to San Marco in time to devote a couple hours to the city museum there, which since we were both curious about the history of this strange, improbable city, seemed like it could take up quite a chunk of this cold and blustery (but no longer actively raining, thank God) afternoon.

From there on out, our plans kind of went awry. The city museum was adequate but disappointing, in that it did display some interesting artifacts from Venice’s history, but didn’t talk much about the actual timeline of the city, its founding and might, its decline and the current day.

So we were disappointed on that front, and even more so when we returned home for a quick snack and saw how late in the day it had gotten. Gabe had hoped to make it back to a store we’d seen in the Jewish ghetto the day before that sold beautiful glass hannukiah, but realized at this point that it was Friday and any store run by an observant Jew would be shutting well before sunset on the Sabbath. So we left again after having a quick cup of tea to warm up, and caught the vaporetto back up to where we’d gone the morning before. Really, riding that boat never gets old, or boring. It’s such a wonderful way to travel.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t even find the store that we’d seen the day before, so it must not only have already been closed for the Sabbath, but also shuttered and locked up. We did however get to see all the religious Jews from all over the city hurrying on their respective ways to get to the synagogue or to Shabbat dinner, which they were holding at Bam Bam, the small kosher restaurant at the edge of the former ghetto. It was fun to see the community gathering in a way that was both familiar and yet very very different.

Our mission foiled, we turned to the next. We also wanted to go back to the mask store that we’d visited on our first day, so we headed back down in that direction. Along the way, our secondary mission was to see if we could find me a purse, since there were a million stores (all run by Chinese people) selling beautiful Italian leather purses for fairly reasonable prices. However, we took so long looking at purses (and not buying anything), that once we finally found the mask store, it had been shut for twenty minutes. Doh!

So we had nothing we’d set out to buy, not a hannukiah nor a purse nor a mask. How disappointing. But it is typical of us and our traveling style that this loosely formed mission led to all kinds of secondary adventures, which by far outstrip the satisfaction of having a Venetian mask on our wall. As Gabe says, travel is more about the experiences for us rather than the souvenirs.

By this time though, I was thoroughly and utterly exhausted, having not been home for more than twenty minutes all day. It was our last night in Venice though, and I didn’t want to miss out on a minute of it. So we decided to use our tried and true revitalization technique: stop to replenish calories. There was a small café just by the Rialto bridge that I’d noticed every time we’d gone by on the boat, and I suggested we go there.

It turned out to be lovely, with wine poured generously from small carafes, and a sweet Moroccan waiter who chatted with us during the late afternoon/early evening lull in customers and suggested some good restaurants nearby. He was definitely the authority, as he had worked at most of them! As Gabe talked to him, he turned around and told the owner, “This guy speaks Italian, French, and Portuguese – and he’s American!” That’s us, proudly dispelling stereotypes everywhere we go. As our family friend said the night before, Gabe is a very handy guy to have around.

We investigated our waiter’s restaurant suggestions, and eventually settled on a very touristy but reasonably priced one just by the water, which had a heated outdoor patio overlooking the Rialto bridge. Yes it was touristy, but it was our last meal in Venice, so why not? It turned out to be a great meal, very simple but delicious, with hilarious waiters that divided their time equally between sweet-talking the customers and soliciting business as people walked by. It was hardly the genuine Italian experience we’d had the two nights previous, but vastly entertaining and enjoyable nonetheless.

We walked home, with a few more last-ditch attempts to find me a purse, and packed up our stuff to leave the next morning.

Thursday in Venice came close to being the perfect day. It was beautiful out, no rain, and what’s more, it was actually warm – into the mid- and even upper-fifties, which is what we had been expecting, as opposed to the high forties and maybe cracking fifty in the late afternoon. Even so, of course I was still wearing the full complement of layers, but now I was actually comfortable as opposed to just above freezing.

And what a difference the sun makes! We had a marvelous day, walking until our legs were exhausted, then either hopping on a vaperetto to a different part of the city or taking a break to replenish calories before setting out again.

We started out by taking the vaporetto up and around the other main canal, which is far bigger and more industrial than the Grand Canal. It afforded us a behind the scenes view of how a city on water functions, with boats specialized for almost every function you can imagine: trash, construction materials, sewage, cranes, etc. Later on, we even saw a boat with two cement mixers on it! The technical operating procedures of running this city are one of its more fascinating aspects.

Eventually, we made our way up to what had been our destination the day before: the Jewish ghetto. This is one of the oldest ghettos in the world, and in fact was where the name ghetto was coined. Like all Jewish areas in Europe, this one had an air of sadness about it, not least due to the plaque in the main square apologizing for deporting the Jewish citizens of Venice twice during World War II. Seeing the gates where they locked the Jews in at night was also difficult, and made us both glad to be living in this era rather than an earlier one.

It was a beautiful area though, and quite different from that immediately surrounding San Marco, where we are staying. Hardly a tourist was to be found, and once you got off the main streets, there was almost no one around. The streets were wider and the buildings slightly newer, with long, straight promenades running along the canals in between.

Our first refreshment break of the day was coffee and a marmalade-filled croissant at a small café along one of the main avenues in the area. It was even warm enough (a relative term) to sit outside, so we sat watching the ladies with their shopping carts and the men selling fish at the market stalls that ran the length of the street.

We were at the northern edge of the island by now, and when we emerged at one point to look out over the lagoon, we were startled to see snowy mountains in the far distance. We soon realized that these were in fact the Alps, and we were looking at Switzerland. What a strange concept.

The beauty of the lagoon itself on this clear day was breathtaking, so instead of walking some more, we hopped on another vaporetto to take us to the promenade that runs along the north part of the island. The main attraction here is the hospital, which is massive and very modern, serviced by speedy ambulance boats that threw up giant rooster tails of water in their haste. It was also conveniently located across the canal from the cemetery island, St. Michele, and surrounded by florists and gravestone shops. One stop shopping, if you will.

At this point it was nearing midday, so we decided to turn back for home and eat lunch. As we did so, we stumbled across a bookstore (supposedly the most beautiful in Venice, according to a sign outside) that had stacks of old books and magazines piled ceiling-high in its tiny rooms – every single one of which were piled into old boats.

There was an entire gondola in the middle of the main room, filled with books; and the other room had rowboats and bathtubs to contain its kid’s books, comics, and fiction. The reason for this containment system became clear when you emerged into the second room to see the canal butting straight up onto the back door of the book store, so presumably when the high water comes, they want the books to be safe. It was hilarious.

So we came home for lunch, but because it was still beautiful outside, we wasted no time in going back out again. This time we ventured to the south side of the city, near where the Guggenheim museum is located. Our friend that we’d seen the day before had called it the Riviera of Venice, and sure enough, the long promenade there was surrounded by cute, brightly colored buildings and small cafes looking out over the southern canal.

All this was oddly juxtaposed by the gigantic cruise ship that had pulled in at the end of the island sometime after we’d gone by it that morning. It dominated the skyline, and was very incongruous compared to the small old buildings of the old town. No wonder there’s so many tourists around.

By the time we were walking down this southern promenade, it was actually quite warm, and we gladly stripped off a few layers and put on our sunglasses. We even decided that this was the day for a gelato, since every other day had been too cold to even consider it. So we found a small square with a church in the middle and bought our gelato at a nice, sleek-looking gelateria nearby. Instead of using the usual tubs to display their wares, this place had them in covered stainless steel containers, which made it look all the more enticing and fancy. We took our pear and lemon combination to the middle of the square, where we sat in the sun, looking out over the small canal and the church, listening to the American tourists arguing over their map and the Italian people living out their lives.

Continuing on, we explored the southern half of the island, which (not surprisingly) had many lovely galleries loosely centered on the Guggenheim. Our stroll took us back to the Riviera-like promenade just in time for sunset, which we could actually see for a change, and we celebrated that fact by having a drink at a small hotel that had a seating area right on the canal. What a perfect moment.

The day ended with a lovely dinner eaten with our family friend. The restaurant that her hotel had recommended was booked for a private party, but we found one nearby that was just as good. The food was excellent, the company superb, and the crowning glory of the evening – and perhaps the whole trip – was when the owner of the restaurant picked up his guitar and started singing loud, rousing Italian songs that had half the patrons singing along. He serenaded the beautiful blond girl at the table across from ours with a song that Gabe translated as “The Blonde Devil,” and sang duets with the two large Italian guys sitting at his table. They sat back down to loud applause and proceeded to eat their pasta – as our friend remarked, now that is singing for your meal!

We returned home at a reasonable hour, and we were glad that we did so, since it started raining again halfway through our walk. So ended another full and fantastic day, and even if it was the only truly clear and sunny day of our trip, at least we had that.

Wednesday morning was another early start, this time to meet a dear family friend of mine, who happened to be in Venice the same week we were. What a marvelous coincidence! She treated us to breakfast at her hotel, so we drank strong coffee and ate the yogurt, croissants, and a variety of cheeses on offer. I also stuffed my purse full of food, just to make sure we were getting the most bang for our buck. Yes, I am one of those people.

It was wonderful to see a friendly face from home, to feel grounded even in that strange and far away place. At the same time though, it made me all the more homesick to see her taken out of context, and to realize that while she would be going back to California, we would be going back to another strange and far away place for another month before returning home. I tried to just put all this aside though and enjoy the day, because why let thoughts like that ruin your time in Venice? I mean really.

She’s an old pro at Venice, so she introduced us to the vaporetti (which are a fabulous way to travel – pretty sure I could spend all day just riding up and down the river on those things.) We were aiming to explore the Jewish ghetto to the north of the city, but when a freezing rain started up while we were on the boat, and then the boat turned around and kicked us off before our anticipated stop, well… we thought maybe a different plan was in order.

So we hopped a different boat back down to Rialto, waved goodbye to our friend (who was sticking with the boats), and went back into the area where we’d had dinner the night before to explore a bit. We found a huge fresh fruit, veg, and fish market that we’d seen from the vaporetto, and the variety of produce available as compared to Lisbon almost made me weep.

By this point, I was absolutely freezing once more, and decided to take action. First we bought me a pair of cheap Thinsulate lined gloves at a street stall, far too big for my hands but affording much more warmth and protection than the thin fingerless gloves I’d been wearing. Then we set off to revisit a leather jacket that I’d tried on the day before, which I’d made myself walk away from at the time because I didn’t want to make an impulse buy motivated entirely by how cold I was. But a day later, I was still thinking about it, so we went back and got it.

Combined with the gloves, the addition of leggings underneath my jeans, and a beanie underneath my brimmed cap, I was at last slightly less than freezing when we went back out again after lunch. I was still cold, mind you, just tolerably so. Thank God.

The late afternoon consisted of a visit to the Doge’s Palace and the St. Mark’s basilica, both of which were fairly near our apartment. The Palace was of course vastly impressive, although I for one would never have wanted to be doge. It was an elected position for life, one with little or no actual power – completely a figurehead. What’s more, he couldn’t leave the city without permission of the council, and then only for a few days at a time. Strikes me as a bum deal, no matter how grand your house is.

We marveled over the huge rooms and paintings, grimaced at the weaponry displayed in the armory, and perused the three Heironymous Bosch triptychs in disgusted wonder. We also of course dutifully walked across the Bridge of Sighs, and then took a turn through the basilica, although seeing anything other than the main church cost extra.

We emerged from the church just in time for sunset (if there was one, through the clouds), and to witness the police saluting the Italian flag as it was taken down. This seemed like as good a time as any for some refueling, so we found a snack bar where Gabe could have a slice of pizza and I a cappuccino.

Much revitalized, we took the vaporetto up to the other end of the island, where another of our landlord’s recommendations awaited us for dinner. The vaporetto ride was our longest yet, taking us around the outer and more industrial side of the island instead of the more picturesque Grand Canal. It dropped us off on a long promenade running alongside the water, and we dove into the snarl of little streets alongside, eventually finding the restaurant we were looking for – which had one person inside.

Since we weren’t starving, we wandered around some more, and were rewarded by seeing some aspects of actual life in Venice that we hadn’t seen in the more touristy areas. A few minutes away from the restaurant, we saw a huge crowd of people by the water, all of whom had wheeled grocery carts. Turned out they were picking up their grocery delivery out of a boat filled to the brim with plastic grocery bags full of vegetables and other foodstuffs. What a fascinating way to get groceries! We never did figure out where they were coming from, but it was obviously a well-worn ritual and gathering time for the people in the neighborhood.

Once we returned to the restaurant, there wasn’t actually anyone new eating, just the same person. But we sat down anyway (in the thinly-enclosed outdoor patio, which was still freezing despite the heater turned on full blast right next to us) and had a delightful meal: spaghetti, a whole fish, and amazing tiramisu, washed down with red wine and a whole lot of sass and personality from the guy running the place, who spent the entire time speaking Italian/English with the Indian chef. What a mix. It was definitely an experience, and one we wouldn’t have found without a recommendation from a local.

We took the vaporetto home, through the lights and palaces of the Grand Canal, and had an early night of it.

After a night made exciting by an alarm going off next door just before midnight and all the bells in the city ringing at 7:30 AM, we woke up early, ate a limited breakfast (coffee and tea with no milk; oatmeal made with hot water), and left the apartment by about 9:30 to explore. And explore we did, getting thoroughly lost on the way to the grocery store, and stopping en route for a couple of gorgeous (and very pricey!) coffees to supplement our meager morning’s rations.

A few hours later, with two full bags of provisions in hand, we threaded our way back through the winding streets and over the bridges to our flat. At one point we got sidelined into the walkways going through San Marco square, which as one of the lowest points in the city, is obviously the most prone to flooding.

It was at least 18 inches deep in water that morning (although it drained by the time we got there later in the afternoon), and the raised walkways were crowded with tourists of all types, stopping to take pictures every five feet or so. Not the optimal situation when you’re laden down with heavy bags full of eggs, yogurt, milk, and fruit. So we retraced our steps and found a different, slightly less crowded way back to our flat.

We made lunch at home, which as far as I’m concerned entirely justifies getting a self-catering apartment over a hotel room, especially considering the price of meals here. Much fortified by having proper food, we ventured out again in the afternoon, this time aiming to get properly lost.

Our rewards for such a mission were rich. The highlight of the afternoon was stumbling across a mask shop in a little out of the way square, which unlike all the more touristy mask places, did not have their wares displayed in the window. This place spoke for itself, and the mother and son pair who ran it and created the masks were knowledgeable, friendly, and eager to show us their craft.

At one point, the woman put on a full mask with feathered headdress and a floor-length hooded cape, and it gave me chills to think of coming across such a fantastical, terrifying creature on these tiny streets. We left in wonder at the art behind these creations, which has survived for so many generations, and an irrational urge to return here for Carnivale in February.

Unfortunately our perambulations were somewhat altered by the fact that it was (for me anyway) unexpectedly, outrageously cold. I knew it was going to be much colder than Lisbon, but somehow packing after swimming and taking a hot tub on Sunday wasn’t really conducive to envisioning cold weather. So stupidly, I decided against bringing my thickest jacket, figuring that I’d bring a couple of thinner ones and just layer up when it got really cold.

Bad. Idea.

I’m never really one to deal well with cold weather (I can hear you laughing, Mom!), but after living in Lisbon for almost six weeks, my blood has thinned out even more. Most days a T-shirt or long sleeve shirt is enough, and I think the warmest thing I’ve worn since we got there has been a light jacket or a sweatshirt – one rainy day I even wore both together. But in Venice, it was cold, and it was wet, and we were wandering around outside for hours at a time.

Like I said: bad idea.

Needless to say, a large portion of the afternoon was spent looking at jackets and scarves and leather gloves, although I felt silly spending money on anything when I won’t wear them in Lisbon for months to come. Still, it provided a mission to our meandering, and gave us warm stores to duck into when necessary.

Other than the cold though, it turned out to be a gorgeous day, with the sun coming out in the late afternoon and puffy white clouds sitting overhead. We managed to time our meandering just right, and hit the Accademia bridge (one of the two main bridges across the Grand Canal) just at sunset. It was ridiculously beautiful, as was the rest of the day, and almost overwhelming in the sheer variety of things there were to see around every corner: buildings and stores and canals and plants and masks and restaurants and people and… whew! So much to take in.

Venice truly is an enchanting, magical city, with all the run-down old world charm of Lisbon but something… more. Somehow, the shabby buildings there look picturesque instead of neglected – it could be the canals, or it could be the lack of graffiti. Who knows. Either way, we wandered for hours, and continued to do so again later in the evening when we went back out for dinner.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t realized when we went out how tired I was, and after walking and searching for a restaurant for another hour, I quickly hit burn out. We ate at a small place up near the Rialto Bridge, after having found and decided against yet another recommendation from the guy who runs the apartment – almost all of which turned out to be very pricey.

The place was packed with people, a lot of whom were actually Italian. Regardless of either gender or nationality though, everyone in the room was riveted on the football (soccer) game playing on a TV behind us. Literally the young couple in back of Gabe both spent our entire meal watching the TV, with the girl turned right around in her seat to see. They take their football seriously in Italy.

Unfortunately they also take their seafood seriously here, which I discovered when I tried to order the fish soup. The menu said fish soup in both Italian and English, so I figured I was safe with my decision. But on arrival, there was not to be a piece of fish to be found, but rather a bowl full of oily, winey broth bristling with shellfish. I’m not a fan of shellfish at the best of times, but with my exhaustion that night and my need for something comforting to eat, this was far more than I could handle.

I attempted to send it back for the vegetable soup, but the waiter was so confused and affronted by this that I just gave up and picked out the shrimp from the bottom of the bowl in silence. As we learned to say in Croatia: these words don’t mean what you think they mean. It reminded me of the time that I ordered a fish salad in Dubrovnik and was proudly presented with an ornate cup full of fruit salad — for my main course. Alas. They were very good shrimp, at least, and Gabe very much enjoyed his arrabiata.

After getting thoroughly lost on the way back (and this time I really hadn’t wanted to do so), we finally got home, and called it a night after a successful and very long day.