There's so much more than Venice

On Friday I went to Venice and saw the Palazzo Ducale and Fenice (the old theater house) with a couple of the professors. Then some of my friends and I ran off to Lido for a few hours. Lido is one of the other islands. It’s mainly know for its beaches. (You Continentals will be pleased to know that I celebrated class and charter day on the beach and even got my friends here to join in…doesn’t take much persuasion to get people to drink with you.) There wasn’t much sun, but the water was warm.
The next day I went back to Lido for an actual beach day. I have seen some interesting things on the beaches here. Topless women and men in speedos only get me started. Today’s viewing consisted of what my friends and I began calling beached whales and porn shows. (Where-ever your imagination is taking you right now is probably a very accurate depiction.) So that aside the beach was nice. My favorite part is getting to and from the beach. You take the Vaporetto – which is a like a ferry boat for 30+ minutes around the islands.
Then later in the afternoon I took two girls with me to meet my Tandem partner Stefano in Murano- where he lives. Murano is another island, and its where all the glass is blown. Stefano was an amazing host and took us to see a demonstration on how the glass is made, and then to his favorite shops on the island where is knew the store owners. He taught us how to tell if the glass is actually from Murano or a knock-off from China.
I made an awkward mistake with the language in the store. Stefano was explaining to the lady that we were tandem partners, but while my Italian was very good, is English was very poor. I was like, no Stefano is actually very good. However, I used “buono” instead of “bravo.” You learn quickly that Italians have only three adjectives: buono, brave, bello. But they are all used for different things. For example, bravo is mainly used to describe people, and buono for food mostly. If you mix them up, they get what you are trying to say—but its not really the same. By using buono instead of bravo, I had kinda implied that Stefano was “good” …like in bed. The lady at the store corrected me and was like “he may be “buono” (and she winked at me), but you probably meant to say he was ‘bravo.’” Of course Stefano is standing right, along with other Italian customers, there so Im mortified to be called out in public. Oh well. It happens.
Anyway, then he took us to his home where we met his mother, father, sister and both of his grandmothers. Stefano is the third of seven children! There home would be considered very large by Italian standards, but its probably as big as mine – and there’s half has many people. The real treat was finding out that his brother-in-law owns a boat and let us take it out for a spin. I thought we’d put-put around the canales of Murano for 10 minutes, but instead we were out for over an hour and Stefano took us around all the islands surrounding Venice. It was amazing to see Venice from the sea. It looks so different. I even got to steer the boat for a bit. I had no idea all the islands were so big and that there were so many. Venice takes all the fame, but there is a lot out there.