I had a very fully day today. We started it off with a guided tour at 9. The tour guide was quite good, although she has some interesting opinions. When she took us through the Jewish Ghettos she told us very authoritatively that the Jewish were, and still today, make the best doctors.
We covered most of the city, saw some famous churches and learned a bit about the city. My favorite story was about the Germans. First of all, the iron bridges are the invention of the Germans, who brought the material over in the mid 19th century. But besides the metal they also brought a bit of their language. The Germans had quite a bit of trouble pronouncing one word and what they came out with was ghetto, which we still use to this day.
After finding lunch I wandered over to Venice’s huge bell tower for a view of the city. The view was pretty encompassing, I could see the edges of the islands, but unfortunately the buildings are so close to the water that I couldn’t see the individual canals
Once I had finished with this I met up with the group and went for an etching lesson! We got in a bus and drove to mestrict(mainland Venice) and learned how to use a press. Our teacher took us through all the steps, from putting varnish on, to heating the metal up, to etching the drawing, and to soaking the metal in nitric acid. After the metal had soaked for about 15 minutes we dried the piece off and put it through a press, thus creating a beautiful press. I drew a picture with several bridges and Gondola’s, which was loosely based off what I had already witnessed in Venezia.
At night we went with are two instructors- Stefano and Nadie to a grande pizzeria( il profeto). The pizza was great and I ordered the BOMBA, which included everything from artichokes to hotdog pieces. It was a very interesting night.
