1. Sitting and consuming any food or liquids in Italy is a luxury that will cost you at the minimum 1.50€ every time you do it and in most cases will also double the price of your food and drink. Your other option is to "take away" and find a spot to sit to eat and drink yourself, without service, or to stand at their bar and drink/eat. Save sitting for when you just can't stand any longer.
2. The men here are able to pull of orange, yellow and sometimes bright green pants with the complimentary color shirt and sweater draped around their necks and still manage to look smashingly handsome. We are trying to imagine this on Patrick or Cliff and we just keep getting visions of their broken noses and black eyes for trying this out at home.
3. The eye glasses here are a work of art in and of themselves. We couldn't be more boring in this dept after seeing what the folks here are wearing.
4. Bathrooms...this really deserves its own blog but at risk of seeming terribly tacky, I snuck it into this list. The bathrooms in Italy are well hidden, usually disgusting when you do find them, very seldom have a toilet seat attached and sometimes cost you money. My favorite is the co-ed variety where men and women are coming and going from the same bathroom. And without a doubt, levetating is key to not walking away with more than one persons DNA on your body once you are through. The rare and random exceptions to this matter are museum and hotel restrooms. Anywhere else and all bets are off.
5. The men: Venetian's are shorter per capita than in Florence and Rome. Rome wins the percentage of handsome men award in that they are a solid 8 in 10 being complete Gods. Florence drops to a dissapointing 6 out of 10 but they had a larger community of accessible average Italians that made up for looks with charm. Venice picks up the pace with about 7 in 10 being gorgeous but the other 3 are likely to be filthy rich so in those cases we will overlook genetics and factor in the wallet.
6. Venice is trapped in another decade...perhaps the 50's or even earlier. The people dress differently, move about differently, etc. While it is like no other place on earth, it does feel very confined/isolated physically and in mentality.
7. Water from the tap is free and tastes great. In comparison, bottled water (Naturale or with gas) is about 1.50€ a pop.
8. The canal water in Venice is a creepy shade of green that looks like faux water used at water parks for the bamboo shoot rides.
9. Did we mention the maps? How bout the phones? They are both useless. Draw your own map and bring a big dixie cup with a long string connected to your house and you are likely to have more luck.
10. As advanced as the Europeans are, for some reason they only get up to the 80's in our music and television. We got into more than one cab with Journey, Aerosmith or Motley Crue. Funny to see the "Mario's" getting their jam on to "Don't stop believing".
11. Italy is as romantic and beautiful as you think it is, times two. Couples really do sit around absorbed only in each other and are wildly affectionate in public.
12. not all Murano glass is beautiful. See the octopus light that was in our room in Venice. It was a little scary to wake up that overhead each morning.
(Lisa)
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