Secret Garden update

Just about every morning Mike and I make a run down to our "Orto" to see what new developments might have happened overnight.  In the evenings we've been watering and weeding. Today I took a few photos so you can see the progress going on there.

 Melanzane!!!  We actually have 8 of these beauties hanging on the vine- ranging from about 2 inches to 5 inches. We want to let them fatten up a little bit more before we start harvesting, in the meantime our mouths are watering!!!  For what seems like weeks we looked at flowers on the vine, but nothing else, and thought sadly that we weren't going to get any eggplants at all. This was our very first attempt at eggplant, we had no idea what to expect, and to be honest were a bit disappointed when we saw tons of zucchini but no melanzane. About a week ago we started seeing little purple eggplants .... we have babies!!!

 Perhaps by September there just might be one ear of corn in the garden. We're just starting to see some silks appear, that's a good sign. We miss corn on the cob a lot, so we might be fighting over that one ear!!!

 There is a bumper crop of tomatos going on in the garden- lots and lots of cherry tomatoes, and these bigger ones, even some heirloom tomatoes and what looks like just one daterino plant. We've been pulling ripe cherry tomatoes off every day and popping them in our mouths right then and there. They don't have a prayer. They will never even make it up to the kitchen!

 Hot peppers, and lots of them. Have no idea what we'll be doing with them all. Any suggestions?

 This tomatoe is just about ready.. maybe a day or two more until it is nice and ripe.

This is yesterday's zucchini harvest. Last night we made 2 loaves of zucchini bread. Tonight for dinner we made fried zucchini in batter. Tomorrow it will be zucchini quiche. We're going to have to get pretty creative, cause there are new ones to harvest every time we go to the garden.

We're so lucky to have this special space, and even luckier that it had been a garden for years and years before us. There's something magical about vegetables grown in Italy, they just taste better. Must be the combination of that Italian sun and soil.  

Redentore - il giorno dopo ( the day after)

I wanted to try to share a little bit of Redentore with you. My firework photos aren't spectacular, I'm envious of some of the incredible photos I've seen on the internet this morning. I'm going to have to really practice with my night photography next year. For what it's worth... here are a few. Redentore fireworks are some of the best I have seen in my life. I just don't think anyone does fireworks better than the Italians do! 

This year we had a wonderful dinner on our terrace, then walked out to the waterfront along Sant'Elena to join the thousands of others who had already staked a spot there. Families had set up tables and chairs all along the water earlier in the day and had even hung lanterns and lights. By night, their dinners were over, everyone was ready for the fireworks. Others were on blankets on the grass in the park. There were young and old alike, dancing, singing, just enjoying the evening. 

 After the fireworks, most of the people who had gathered on Sant'Elena gathered up their belongings and headed home or to the Lido by vaporetto.
Sunday morning I headed off to Giudecca  island to Pesca di Beneficenza, a lottery type game to raise money for the church, held annually on the morning after the Redentore celebration. This has become a favorite of mine, and it's well known amongst my friends that I have no luck winning anything- except fly swatters!  I have quite a fly swatter collection now.  So--- Sunday morning it was more fly swatter time for Karen! I hopped on the 4.1 vaporetto and made my way to Giudecca.

Here's a little taste of Redentore, through my eyes......

 Here's how this works- you pay 1 Euro per ticket, hand your money over to the volunteer who is manning these bins of little rolled up papers. They pick out tickets from the bin and hand them over to you.

 I contributed 10 Euros this year, these are my hot 10 little winning tickets!

 You unravel the papers, hoping one of them is a good number!  They either have a word or a number on them. The lower the number, the better the prize.

This is a display of some of the better prizes. The motorbike was number #0001.

 And this is my stash of prizes..... a curtain and rod, a swiffer duster, 2 plastic flowers, 2 small glass dolphins, a little glass ring, a car air freshner, and a tiny little plastic keyring with a small container of playdoh attached!  No, I didn't even win a bottle of wine. And no, no fly swatter!!!!

 Here's a view of the Redentore church from the temporary bridge. Yellow paper lanterns are a tradition, lining both sides of the canal. I love the atmosphere on this weekend!

 The bridge is constructed from sections that are held in place by large pilings.

 Contributing to the party atmosphere are the nut, candy and balloon vendors stationed near the church. I always buy a bag of roasted almonds for Mike. It's become a tradition for us whenever there is some festa going on. Of course, a bag of nuts came home with me yesterday.

These are fresh , warm and delicious smelling.

And finally.....one last remnant of a special night in Venice... empty tables on Sunday morning along Giudecca canal waiting for their owner to come pack them up and carry them home.  

Getting ready for Redentore

I snapped a quick photo yesterday as the vaporetto I was riding passed by the votive bridge being constructed across Giudecca Canal for the Festa del Redentore.  Construction of the temporary bridge takes place during the week prior to the festival (always held the third weekend in July), with the last section pushed into place on Saturday morning. Once the middle section is installed, normal vaporetto routes on the Giudecca canal are rerouted up the Grand Canal for most of Saturday.

The whole city is busy today in preparation for the Festival, most obvious along the waterfront on both sides of the Giudecca, and also in Castello and Sant'Elena.  This morning as I walked through Castello people  were bringing tables and chairs out into the street and stringing lights from one side of the street to the other. On Sant'Elena, people had chairs and tables along the waterfront, and restaurants had moved all their tables outside and strung lights and paper lanterns. I passed people washing and cleaning buckets of mussels and clams for part of the big dinner tonight.   There is quite a party atmosphere in the air !

Festa del Redentore (Feast of the Redeemer) is one of the oldest and most loved festivals celebrated in Venice. It dates back to 1577 when the celebration began to honor the deliverance of Venice from the ravages of the plague. Back in those days, pilgrims crossed a bridge made of boats tied together to get across the Giudecca canal to attend a special mass. Today, the city constructs a 330 meter temporary pontoon bridge, which opens at 7pm Saturday evening when the Patriarch of Venice, the mayor and other dignitaries officially open the bridge with a blessing.  Immediately following the parade of people across the bridge is a special mass in the Church of the Redentore.

Thousands of Venetians and tourists alike will gather both in the lagoon in decorated boats, and along both  banks of the  Giudecca canal to eat and celebrate, waiting for fireworks to begin at 11:30 pm. Food plays a huge part of the Redentore celebration, with everyone eating traditional dishes including Sarde in saor (fried sardines in marinated onions), bovoletti (snails), tiramisu and watermelon.

In previous years I've crossed the bridge at 7pm and watched the fireworks from the steps of the Redentore church. Last year I had dinner with Caterina, my Venetian friend, her family and a few other friends at her family's squero (boat yard) on Giudecca. I've wanted to watch fireworks from a boat in the lagoon, but haven't figured out how I'd last several hours on a boat without bathroom facilities- so that one is still hovering on my "someday" list. And tonight, we are planning something a little bit different. We're going to be on the other side of the lagoon for a change, watching the fireworks from along the waterfront here on Sant'Elena.  

Armed bandits rob money courier boat near Piazzale Roma. 1.3 million Euros stolen!

Yesterday around 7am near the vaporetto stop at Sant'Andrea (in the vicinity of Piazzale Roma), a money courier boat was robbed at gunpoint. The three robbers made off with  1.3 million Euros cash, most of which was monthly pension payments on it's way to the Italian Post Office where pensioners pick up their allotments at the beginning of each month. Reports say the heist took around 30 seconds to pull off. I think the Italian government will start thinking about how to implement direct deposits of those pension funds from now on! Unbelievable! It's the stuff you see in movies! 

Secret Garden in Venice First Harvest!!

First crop of the season!!!  We picked- and immediately ate- these first two cherry tomatoes this evening. Delicious!!!

Looks like we'll have a decent crop of zucchini also. Not ready to pick just yet, we're going to let this one fatten up a bit.

And... our very first olive tree is going to have a nice crop also. We'll never have enough to press our own olive oil,but I think we definitely will be eating a few olives in early fall. Something  else for us to look forward to!

Keeping up with the news: Another terremoto this morning

At 10:34 am this morning another earthquake hit Northern Italy, and we felt it here in Sant'Elena.  I was reading a book sitting on my bed when I felt the bed move back and forth quite a few times. On occassion when a large cruise ship passes by our building will rattle a bit, but this was different. I looked up, and the glass chandelier above me was swaying side to side, side to side.

Wanting to know if others in the area had felt it, I posted a message on Facebook where I was sure several of my local friends would see it. Sure enough, others in Venice and right out side Venice on the mainland in Mestre had felt it also. Magnitude 5.2, depth 10 km.  The news reports some damage, no loss of life.   The epicenter was in the vicinity of  Massa and Carrera, located a bit north of Florence and east of La Spezia on the Ligurian sea below Genoa.  I waited for an aftershock but felt none, thankfully.

Later in the day I noted that there were aftershocks, LOTS of them.  Every few minutes since the first earthquake there have been much smaller shocks, most registering between 2-2.5 on the Richter scale. The latest one was just 23 minutes ago. We haven't felt any of those here. Thankful.

Veritas.(truth).... not really.

Yesterday in the mail I received our current trash/water bill from Veritas, the water utility company.  The bill was a harsh reminder of a recent, very unpleasant, visit I paid to the Veritas company. On the days when I feel even slightly like I am beginning to belong, some administrative nightmare jolts me right back to reality. No, I am not, and will probably never, fit in here. Does that stop me??? No, never.

Here's a recap of my latest adventure with the Italian adminstrative devils (opps, I meant darlings :) ).  When we moved into the new apartment back in October, one of the tasks to be done was have accounts set up at each of the utility companies.  The electric and gas companies were easy. I filled out the paper work and our real estate agent faxed all the documents over to them. The water/trash company, Veritas, wouldn't accept a fax, I needed to see them face-to-face.

I  had geared up for the visit, practiced all the Italian I might need to make myself understood, and made sure all of my documents were filled in properly, including the authorization form for them to deduct our payments directly from our Italian bank account. My visit went surprisingly smoothly. Perhaps that should have been a big red flag. I naively took it as my ability to communicate in Italian had improved dramatically.  The months went by. We received our electric and gas bills in the mail with no problem. We never received any statements from Veritas. I wondered if this was a problem, but figured, what the heck, those payments come directly from our bank account. Still I would have liked to have received a statement.

About 3 weeks ago, Veritas jolted me right back to reality.  Around 11 am one morning, our doorbell rang. Thinking it was the postman wanting to be let in, I buzzed open the front door. From downstairs came a yell, "Signora!!!!!".  The guy downstairs was summoning me to join him. Down I went, to discover this guy had a registered letter for me, from the water company. First bill I had ever received. He opened the letter in front of me, and explained that I had an overdue water/trash bill that must be paid in 24 hours or the water would be turned off.  He also explained exactly what I needed to do to make sure this was accomplished properly, which included paying the bill, then faxing a copy of the receipt to the water company. I should have listened to my internal warning bells. I KNEW something wasn't right!

I immediately walked down the street to the nearest Tabacci (tabacco shop. Yes, you pay bills there), and had him fax of the receipt for me. Step one completed, I could at least sleep that night.

The next morning, I paid a visit to the Veritas office at Piazzale Roma, armed with copies of all my documents. After queuing up and waiting an hour, it was my turn. I stepped up to the sportello (counter, in Italian- there's nothing sporty about this at all), and proceeded to explain my little problem to the girl on the other side of the desk.  When I asked if she spoke any English, just in case things got over the limit of  my command of Italian. She responded "Not much", but smiled and yelled over to Diego, down the row of sportellos. Diego, she told me, speaks pretty well. He's now my lifeline call in case I need him.   After a bit of exploration on the computer, she discovered what the problem was. Statements had been mailed, but they had been sent to my name at an address in Treviso, not Venice. She was perplexed.  She then went  to a back room and returned with an enormous red binder. She flipped through all the account folders in the binder, pulled out my account, and sure enough, the original documents submitted on the day I set up the account have the correct address in Venice on them.  Someone made a mistake entering data into the computer, thus the address of Treviso. That explains why I never got any statements. Also, the information to set up direct payment from my bank account was correct on my forms. It just never got done by whoever processes that stuff at Veritas. So there we have it. Nothing was done right. We discovered the truth- Veritas!!!

I was expecting an apology. None came. Before I left the office we verified that the address was now correct and that future bills would be mailed to me.  I crossed my fingers and sent a prayer to Saint Anthony- the patron saint of lost things and missing persons, and left the Veritas office.

St. Anthony, and Veritas, came through. The latest bill arrived just fine.

New Secret Garden update

Our secret garden had a milestone event today- I finished ripping out the thousands of brambles and all the remaining weeds! Finally, all the beds are cleared.  I have 2 gi-normous piles of crap still to bag up and haul out to the trash pile, but that's work I can live with.  Our "orto" has been planted. Now we'll spend the remainder of summer evenings watering and watching the crops grow.

 The zucchini bed. Lots of  tiny flowers already forming. 

 The pepper bed, with lovely little peppers. Eggplants, tomatoes and corn are all growing nicely. 

Next year I see more roses, and an iris bed or two. 

It's official- No more Venezia Official Store

On April 25 Venice celebrated both Festa di San Marco and Italian Liberation Day. Venetians had one more thing to celebrate- the completion of the renovations of the Bell Tower. Finally, after a few years of construction we would all be able to enjoy the square sans barriers around the Campanile.  Or so we thought.  Mysteriously  the "Venezia Offical Store", an unsightly structure of glass and metal, appeared at the foot of the Campanile.  The purpose of this structure was to sell tickets to the new Manet exhibit and tourist souvenirs.

Between that time and now the Venetians mobilized, organized a new Facebook page, via il Gabbiotto dal Campanile, and got a petition circulated online asking the city government to remove this gabbiotto (booth). The square is a UNESCO world heritage site, and as such, a modern (and quite tacky )booth isn't quite appropriate to be at the foot of the Campanile. Furthermore, it's not like we needed one more location to be selling tourist trinkets. There's plenty of that. I joined the Facebook page instantly, signed the petition and passed it along. And in doing so, I felt like I belonged. Finalemente!

It didn't seem as though the local government was paying much attention to the uproar  created on the Facebook page. Local newspapers were printing daily articles noting the increasing numbers of Facebook fans to the page, and the rising number of signatures to the online petition.

And then there was the article yesterday. What a surprise. A  pleasant one. I wanted to get up and start singing "Ding Dong, the wicked witch is dead!"  The gabbiotto beneath the Campanile is to be dismantled. Soon.  A much smaller one will make an appearance under the portico of the Doges Palace where tickets will be sold, and will be removed mid August when the Manet exhibit has ended. Only tickets, no trinkets.

I'm impressed that a movement of the people was the catalyst behind something good happening for a change. It makes me hopeful.

Biennale 2013 - The Encyclopedic Palace

As I mentioned in my last post, I now have my permanent Biennale pass, which allows me entry into any of the Biennale exhibits anytime between June 1 and the closing day, November 24.  With this in my possession, I decided to go spend a few hours soaking up some culture yesterday.  Mike still needed to get his pass, which required him to show up in person with his identification documentation. Off we went to  the Giardini ticket booths as soon as they opened at 10 am. Our plan to go early paid off- the lines were short, no one cut in front of us, we moved quickly. Before we knew it, we had a second pass in hand. 

We'd taken a look at the exhibition maps the other day and had already decided to begin our Biennale exploration at the Arsenale.

This year Italian born Massimiliano Gioni, the youngest curator of the Venice Biennale, chose the theme Il Palazzo Enciclopedico after Italian-American artist Marino Auriti's concept of a museum (the Encyclopedic Palace) to contain all the world's knowledge. The exhibition, The Encyclopedic Palace, housed at the Arsenale, includes works by 92 artists (hope that's correct, I counted the list) from around the globe.

The exhibition hall is huge, it's contents almost overwhelming.  My plan was to carefully view each exhibit, pay attention to which artist did which work, and to read whatever information was available for each exhibit. I took notes. I took photos. I looked. I learned. I liked. I disliked.

There were many exhibits that were videos, and in general these did not appeal to me. I can't even put my finger on exactly why, they just did. After watching a few of them, I found I was quickly walking past these after just a moment or two perusal.

Here's my list of likes from this collection, in no particular order:
Lin Xue, Hong Kong, 1993-1995 untitled scroll - ink drawings using bamboo pen, with incredible detail

R.Crumb , Philadephia,2009 Illustrated book of Genesis- a monumental number of illustrations depicting the entire book of Genesis, including who begat who, with Crumb's interpretation of what every person looked like.

Shinichi Sawada, Shiga Japan, clay figures and masks.

Matt Millican, Santa Monica California- collage on paper and cotton, Learning from that Persons work

 








Pawel Atthamer, Warsaw Poland, 2013 - "Venetians " - Polyethelyene Resin and metal sculptures . A collection of 90 scultures

Yes, I really enjoyed all the Venetians!

And for the winner of the Dislike category?  Here you go:

This is part of a series of works by Carol Rama of Torino, Italy, painted in 1939.  Each of the paintings were a bit disturbing to me. Can you guess what rating I might have given this?  You got it.

Following several hours inside this main exhibit, I visited the nearby exhibits of the Vatican, exhibiting for the very first time this year; United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Republic of Kosovo, Turkey, Kingdom of Bahrain and the Republic of Indonesia.

My favorite of these ?  Definitely the exhibition of the United Arab Emirates titled Walking on Water by Mohammed Kazem 2005/2013.  You enter a chamber surrounded by the images and sounds of a very rough dark sea. You feel as though you are lost at sea, and even though you are stationary, you feel very wobbly upon leaving the chamber. An interesting experience.

Outside the Biennale exhibit spaces, here in Castello you can't escape art. The latest installation  to arrive on Via Garibaldi- a line of blue tempra paint. I've witnessed more than a few locals having some choice words to say about the blue line.  After this morning's rain- no more installation!