Jewish for the Evening-Day 81-March 31st, 2018

In an effort to make the most of the day, all three of us got up early around 7:30. We didn’t even need an alarm, we woke up from the lightning storm going on outside. We were hoping the forecast would be wrong, but it was raining this morning.

For breakfast, Nick cooked the eggs and sausage we had bought yesterday and made scrambled eggs. I don’t know if it’s because we are in Italy, but the sausage was really good. The eggs were pretty generic, but tasty as well.

Here’s a photo of Nick cooking this morning

After breakfast we all got ready and were happy to see the rain lightening up outside. We also saw this pretty cool snail outside.

Escargot

We headed to the waterfront and hopped on the boat to Venice. It was a shorter ride than yesterday and we got off at the San Marco stop. Our first destination was piazza San Marco and Basilica San Marco. What else do you do in Italy besides going to churches?

The Piazza and Basilica

The church wasn’t open at the moment, but we are planning on going to mass there tomorrow for Easter Sunday.

We spent around and hour and a half just exploring the area around San Marco. It is crazy how much the canals dominate the city. Walking and taking a boat are the only options to get around when navigating the city. I guess that makes sense since we are in Venice.

Here are a few pictures

Santa Maria Della Salute

A beautiful canal and gondola ride I can’t afford. 

My butt was wet after this photo

Nick embracing his Italian side in Venice

Our next destination was the island of Murano in Venice. This is the island known for glass making and many people recommended it to me. It was about a thirty minute ride to get to the island.

Murano from the water

Unfortunately as soon as we got to the island it started to down pour. We had plans to go watch some glass blowing demonstrations, but the rain got in the way of this. We decided to get lunch in hope that the rain would pass. We found a random restaurant called la Perla that had food reviews. It was similar to the last restaurant and we all ordered first and second courses. I got spaghetti bolognese as my first plate, and a chicken cutlet as the second.

One annoying thing about restaurants in Italy is that they charge you for the water and bread. Both were only 1.5 euros per person, so it wasn’t terrible. The food was really good and made up for it.

My Pasta

Chicken Cutlet

After lunch it was still raining pretty hard, but we decided to make the best of it anyway. We walked around and stopped in a bunch of glass art shops. It was interesting seeing how the prices compared between shops, especially when they were selling the exact same items. I saw a bunch of really cool and elaborate art pieces.

A Picture from inside of the stores.

A Cool Art piece made of glass

Some random structure I thought was cool

After a little while, the rain was too much so we headed back to the main island of Venice. We figured we could do some indoor activities like museums. While we were on the long ride back from the island, the rain miraculously stopped and the sun came out.

We were all a bit too tired for the museums, but wanted to walk around for a bit. We were going a Passover dinner tonight with Harry, and we wanted to make sure we knew where the dinner was before we headed over later.

Venice had a Jewish ghetto which is the oldest in the world. This is where the dinner would be and headed over to the area. Harry found the building and information about the dinner. We were all set and headed back to the airbnb to hang out for a bit. The rain started again on the way back.

We spent about two hours hanging out in the airbnb. The dinner was likely to go late into the night and we needed the short time to rest up.

Around 7:30, we headed out to the boats and luckily the rain had stopped. It was about a 30 minute ride to the restaurant where we found the restaurant. The lady running it was incredibly nice and glad to have us there.

It was in a restaurant that had a ton of tables setup with the special foods for Passover. Soon the restaurant was packed with Jewish people from all over the world. Nick and I put on the provided yarmulkes to disguise our Catholicism. We were put at a table with these two other English speakers. They were these two old men with long beards named Harold and Tommy. They were from Montreal.

Next to our table was a group of chaddim jewish teenagers from Israel. Harry said that sect was known for singing and dancing. This was verified shortly after by hearing their enthusiastic songs in Hebrew.

Also I unfortunately couldn’t take any pictures since phones and technology are frowned upon during Passover. This dinner was known as the Sieder.

Harold and Tommy were really nice and made for some good conversations.

The first part of the dinner consisted of reading various passages from the Torah while doing various things with the matzah, wine and lettuce. Everything had a tradition and technique. For example, when cups of wine were poured, you could only stop when it was overflowing and spilling.

Everything also had some relation that went back to the Jews beings slaves and escaping from Egypt. My favorite was when were repeatedly told by the book to chug our wine. This was done multiple times. We also had to wash or hands certain ways and break the matzah It was cool to see Harry speak Hebrew as well.

After about two hours we finished the portion with the passages and began the dinner part. We had several courses of fish; soup, chicken and potatoes. Before we knew it, it was already midnight and we were still far from the end. We decided to leave and got the okay from the lady running it. She was really nice and even gave us a a big container of food to bring back.

When we headed outside, we were surprised to see how flooded the area has become. The boat stop we had arrived at was now underwater. We had to walk for a bit to find a different station. So much stuff was flooded and I understand why people think Venice will be underwater in a 100 years.

We enjoyed a really nice boat ride in the dark back and went to bed as soon as we got back.

Views from the boat