Markets in Venice

This was a few days after the conference. I decided I needed to get to grips with my new camera all on my own so no one would get annoyed at me standing and taking 10 photos of a doorway with different apertures and shutter speeds! I let my feet take me on the natural route from Cannareggio towards San Marco and then decided to pop across the Rialto bridge and go to the vegetable market to take photos of food.

The Rialto Bridge with a strange beam of sunlight hitting the underside.

Hello little dog! Little white dogs always make me think of the Venetian painter Carpaccio, little white dogs abounded in his paintings. For example here is one in one of the paintings from his series Miracles of the True Cross in the Accademia, I took a sneaky picture because he reminded me of Hamish the Wonder Dog.

Always have your boat well carpeted.

Radicchio.

Asparagus, I love how the vegetables are beautifully wrapped. 

Beautiful oranges, I wanted to buy some just for the wrappers.

Nom nom tomatoes, by this stage I was starting to feel sad about not being able to cook anything.

Carciofi!

Next to the vegetable market was a second hand/antique market. The prices were kind of insane, basically think of the most expensive price they might charge and then double it, so I just took photos. 

 Sorry the head is cut off, I was sort of 'shooting from the hip' as the stallholder was looking askance at my camera. 

Murano glass mirror anyone? I would love this didn't even dare to ask the price.

Ugly paintings and brass plates abounded.

Glass pencils, ugly pink and gold bowl? I meant to take photos of all the ugliest glass concoctions but somehow I didn't quite get the pictures. This is nothing compared to the 1 metre high glass golliwogs for sale in Piazza San Marco, ugly and racist. Actually if the bowl had been under 20 euro I probably would have bought it.

 This one I loved.

I LOVED this bling table, I was ready to buy stuff till another lady asked the prices and they basically started at 250 euro. Eeeek. It was mostly quite fancy and seemingly original vintage stuff but eeek nonetheless.

Some Venice

These are from my first few days. It was very gorgeous weather, cool but not really cold, sunny and the days were long.

Waiting at Rome airport, I thought this was our plane, but it wasn't. At least it gives you an idea of what a plane looks like.

On the ferry from the airport. this is the best way to arrive (well unless you are rich and can get a fancy pants water taxi). You can see Venice slowly appear from the lagoon, first the campanile (bell towers) then gradually the rest of the city. This man was clearly Venetian, while the rest of us eagerly looked out the windows he slept as though arriving in Venice was something perfectly yawn-worthy.

Drinks with friends, I got excited an forgot to take a photo of my campari till it was nearly finished.Even these silly photos of drinks look picturesque with little bridges, walls of palazzi and canals in the background. Oh Venice, you are such a cliche.
This was on the Fondamente Ormesini, one the best places to get a drink in Venice. It is much quieter and you can sit on the canal and have a drink for virtually nothing, I think my campari was about 3 euro.

Drinking Amarone in some bar/pub place. It was near Tintoretto's house. I didn't spend all of my first day in Venice drinking, just half of it.

This was the next morning and Venice was being all shiny and Canaletto-esque.

More photos soon.

x

Lunch today

I probably should be blogging about churches and art and all that culturey stuff but instead I am going to write about my lunch today. We were planning to go to the Caravaggio show at the Scuderie but there was a huge queue again and it was in the sun so we just schlepped round some chruches and Trajan's markets (I had never been) and then we were starving and near the Ghetto so we headed to Suor Margherita. I'm not sure whath the dela is now but last time I went you had to join their 'private club' as they had lost their licence to operate as restaurant because they were so cramped and considered a fire hazard. Anyone could join. I still have my card but I didn't have to present it, which made me sad. I did have to front up to a big guy with a clipboard standing outside and ask for  a table, and wait while he discussed it with another guy and looked us up and down.

It is very cramped inside, you should have seen the acrobatics I had to perform to get into my chair, at one point I thought I would have to sit with my feet behind my head.

Wine from huge bottles, the choice is red or white.

I took a photo of the water too, it was delicious and pretty.

The main reason to go here in my opinion are the 'Carciofi alla Giudia' which are deep fried so the outside leaves become like artichoke crisps and the inside is all soft and melty. So good. I am obsessed with artichokes so this is pretty much food heaven for me.

Then I had fettucine with pesto, homemade and all chewy and thick.

M had some kind of chocolate tart thing, which was very good. (Yes I am guilty of the 'Oh no I couldn't possibly eat dessert.... can I please taste some... another bite please.')

And coffee of course ( I have been drinking so much coffee while here in Italy, hopefully I'm not addicted again, we will know soon enough when I get back to Melbourne and revert to tea).

  Before...

And 5 seconds later.

The menu. If you are going to Rome and you're nice to me I might even tell you where it is. x

Byee

Seems silly leaving a note saying I will be away when I am clearly hopeless at updating this blog. Off to venice today for two weeks and then Rome for one week. I ripped the old luggage label off 'Green Esmerelda' (my suitcase) and realised it is exactly two years to the day since I last arrived home from Italy. I haven't been overseas since New Zealand in July 2008, which is probably a good thing for the environment but not a good thing for my soul. I'm not sure when I will get to update. Venice supposedly has wifi but I am sceptical as to how well it will work! But I hope to be back with photos of bella Venezia.

Something to tide me over and make me excited!

I plan to do a lot of this looking intense in Italian bars.

Roma.

Office

Here is the office I work in at uni. I share it with mum. It is her office but she has two desks so I get to use one. It is ever so useful. I often get very distracted at home by stuff, like housework and the fast internet. And just feel less in the zone sitting in my lounge tapping away.

This is the plant - there are two begonias a flat leaf and a crinkle leaf. But mr flat leaf is dominant. It had lived on my kitchen table but didn't get quite enough sun. It loves the sun.

The crinkly leaves. They look like stained glass with the sun coming through.

These are our PhD Witches. They represent our progress. You will notice they are nearly at the top of the filing cabinet. Go us.

Mum's desk. Nice and tidy with handcreams and jurlique spray.

My desk: messy with abandoned plastic bags. But I think it makes me look pretty busy.

I even use the floor for storage.

The flowers outside, not sure what they are but in winter they chop them right off so there are no leaves and barely any branches and then they spring back into life and flower in late summer (I took this pic at the end of feb).