First Day in Venice

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Scavenger Hunt!

Today we went on a scavenger hunt to get to know the city.

We were split up into two teams, 4 people on each. For our team, the the hunt started in the Piazza San Marco, the main city square and perhaps one of the most famous and beautiful landmarks in the world. In the center of the square, surrounding by tourists flocked by pigeons, we were allowed to open our instructions. The things we had to find took us throughout the entire city: travelling from the end of the Grand Canal, where it empties out into the Venetian lagoon, to its start at the Piazzale Roma and the train station where a bridge connects the hundreds of islands that make up Venice to the mainland of Italy. Some of the targets were popular city symbols: we had to take as many pictures of winged lions as we could find and the image of Saint Theodore conquering a crocodile/dragon or take pictures of the façades of the five ancient synagogues (which all lie within a block of one another).

This activity really gave us a chance not only to get to know the ins and outs of the city, but also to get to know our classmates. After the scavenger hunt, we all met back up in our classroom (in the historical ghetto nuovo) where we met Donatella Calabi, a scholar of Italian urban history, who talked to us about the first Jewish ghetto(s) and what life was like in these restricted areas for the earliest Jews. We also learned that although the term ghetto has become synonymous with persecution and poverty, this was not the case in Venice. The ghetto was a mark of pride and privilege for a community that often were not allowed to settle in urban areas at all. Also, not only Jews were restricted in their living quarters, rather all non-Venetian communities had particular places designated to them including Germans, Greeks, Armenians, and Turks.

Overall, the day was a lot of fun and I feel like I gained a good grasp of how to get around Venice after only having been here for 48 hours!

—Amanda Hasson

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Comments

[dad]

great picture son. looks like you're having fun. i'll keep checking each day. i love you..........dad.