Thanksgiving Day in Italy, and into the Venice alleys we go...

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Giving thanks, Italian style. A quick update on our thanksgiving here in Turin. I am long overdue fans, apologies! Life, teaching, and traveling has been getting the best of me but I am keeping my blog duties as promised!

A tradition is a tradition and this year, we were blessed to bring the tradition of thanksgiving to Torino, Italy. My host mother Francessaca treated thanksgiving like many mothers would, with panic, and control of the kitchen. We left school on Thursday at 430 with francesaca frantically saying to our students 'move! I have a turkey to cook!!!' It was the first whole turkey she had ever cooked in her Italian kitchen......outcome was a success! Also cooked in a butter-wine gravy sauce......delicioso! (Recipe was an entire bottle of wine.) Our thanksgiving family included mom, dad, Susanna, Davide, Jennie, Alessandro (jennies host brother), the other two teachers I work with at the Italian school, Alec and a friend of Davides, Luca. We had a full loving Italian table to enjoy our stuffing, potatoes, and pies. Speaking of pies, because it is difficult to find pecans here in Italy, I made a mixed nut pie instead. They also call pecans 'American nuts.' Italy doesn't have the right climate for pecans.... America does. Jennie asked what she should bring to the thanksgiving table to francesaca, and of course as any Italian mother would, she said nothing! We explained to her it was tradition that all guests bring a dish to share to the thanksgiving table! She allowed for us to carry on our American tradition. So, with a gobble gobble gobble, I am thankful to have many loved ones back home, (and here in Italy now) who I do miss and think of even though I am having an incredible experience here in Italia.

After eating too much food, and having a good nights rest, Jennie and I headed off to Venice for the weekend with a pact thst we would not push one another into the 'street' aka the water...true friends. The city of Venice...is something I only dream of visiting because it really feels like a dream or fairytale when you are walking down the narrow paths/alleys, and watching gondolas pass down the river as you hear music playing on locals guitars or accordions as you walk across the bridges. What our imaginations create in our minds for Venice, it's the truth. What's also the truth is that it's a tourists 'rite of passage' to get lost in the city. Our adventure once stepping off the train in Venice began when we walked up and down back alleys following the blue dot on jennies smart phone. It's a blessing that we had her Google Maps because the directions sent by the hostel via email were missing about 25 twists and turns through dark back alleys. We arrived at our accommodation, a bed and breakfast, which I would recommend to anyone looking for a decent, low cost accomadation,Ca' contorini.Speaking of accomadations.....We tried couch surfing for our weekend in Venice. Couch surfing for those of you unaware is a website created for a community of travelers who open up their homes to one another for a night or two, at no cost. I have never been a couch surfer but am open to it. We had the opportunity to do it for Venice but did not get the opportunity until less than 24 hours before we were arriving, and had already been charged for the bed and breakfast. So it's a real 'on the fly' type of accommodation....Definetley not for everyone. Venice focus. We got situated in our bed and breakfast, where we met our friend Hasan staying there as well. Hasan is our friend from Texas who thinks papa johns pizza is better than Italian pizza..... We have some serious issues to be worked out. The man at the hostel explained to us we will be getting 'a typical italian breakfast.' Jennie sarcastically replied, with a look of disappointment 'coffee and bread?' Italians are predictable in that way. The three of us headed to dinner to meet our other friend, Stephanie, at a reastarunt in the 'night life' part of Venice. For dinner I had spaghetti, beef, and chips (French fries). It was an early night in for us because the traveling had taken up most of our day....a nights rest was needed. Saturday morning was another day of relying on Google maps to navigate us through Venice. Without that, we would have taken double or triple the amount of time to find our destinations. As appealing as an 80 euro gondola ride was, a 24 euro pass for unlimited water bus rides was more appealing, so we went for the 'Rolling Venice pass.' We took the water bus out to Murano, the Venetian island which is known for glass making. The murano glass is sold is ships through out italy....in fact there is one I walk by daily on my walk to school. In Murano there were shops after shops of glass art from jewelry, lamps, vases, etc. We went into the glass museum, with hopes of watching glass blowing in action, but, turns out we paid to see just 50% of the museums (it was under construction) historical glass artwork. We already have a small interest in museums so this really put it over the edge. Murano was a beautiful, quieter island than the main Venetian island. A local man on the water bus ride there told us that all people on the Murano island know one another, and we were confirmed the truth when all people were waving hello and good morning to one another. It almost felt like we were walking the streets of a friendly and local Minnesota neighborhood! The afternoon on Saturday was spent walking around San Marco square, the main square in Venice, and than going to the island of Burano. There is a very beautiful basilica in the square, along with plenty of pigeons for the touirsts to feed. See video below for a strange tourist and pigeon feelings.... (I must admit this video was taken in Murano, but proof that the pigeons are all over Venice. at least the pigeons can fly away when Venice sinks...a little harder to move for those locals!)



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The island of Burano is know for its beautiful bright colored houses, but, sadly, we could not see the bright houses too we'll cause we arrived thre after sunset....little did we know the boat ride out there was close to an hour, including the switch of a boat. We headed to dinner again on Saturday night with the crew of 4 of us again, but this time to the neighboring reastaursnt of Friday's dinner. Sadly, the pizza was better on friday so I made the wrong pizza decision in Venice. I have bad luck with pizza when I travel through italy....but I always have to try it. So far the best was in Rome and here at home, in Turin. After drinking a liter of wine we decided to stay out and experience the night life of Turin a bit. We made some friends and enjoyed the evening at local pubs...we made some friends and went back to their hostel until we were kicked out for noise level complaints. Being kicked out did not stop us from dancing on the street to local ukulele players on our walk back home. Joys of being young and traveling. Poor Jennie was caught with a cold and had to stay in for the night 😞 Sunday morning Ofcourse began with another breakfast of coffee and bread. Than Hasan, Jennie, Steh and I enjoyed the view of the canals, bridges and plazas until it was time for some of us to depart. Jennie and I have found traveling on Sunday's sometime to be a bummer because many stores are closed on Sundas in ItAly. Luckily, most places were open in Venice. We spent the afternoon in the Jewish quarters in Venice. We went in the museum and also a tour which took us into three synogauges in the ghetto; a Spanish synogauge, French synogauge, and German synogauge all within the Jewish ghetto. The synogauges were beautiful, and a few of them now are just used at high holidays. In the Jewish ghetto there was kosher bakeries, but, interestingly enough only 3 Jewish families currently live in the Jewish quarter of Venice. The rest are spread throughout Venice.

Allora, (this is a common italian word that I have adopted into my vocabulary used as we in english say 'so') happy cyber Monday! I explaiNed both black friday and cyber Monday to the Italian students and they coudnt believe the tradition americans have in relation to shopping. Holidays are outrageously commercialized in American. Here, in Turin there are plenty of stores with Santa clause wrappers for chocolate, and christmas trees for sale. But also there is the deeper religious meaning behind the Christmas as a religous holiday. Americans are often 'wrapped' up!...with too many presents during the holidays.

It's unbelivable but just three more weeks of teaching at Calvino and Verde schools, and than Jennie and I are off to Ireland....holidays in the United Kingdom. It is going to to be some bittersweet next few weeks with the holidays (Hanukkah!), leaving the life and family I have here in Torino, and figuring out what's next.

Until next time, I promise I will try to post a blog this week about my school experiences. New York was an awesome state to teach about...I even wrote a quiz for the students, thankfully, my dad checked it for me Before handing it out to the students ...as he was a New Yoker.

Happy December everyone! Travel to the dream of Venice for a few seconds......

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