I had to show you this window of sweets. These were the most beautiful on the route from our palazzo to the Rialto. Torrone is a nougat confection that is not too sweet. I had to buy the pistachio.
Other than my goal of getting to Venice with students and no longer just “imagining venice”, I can check off “sitting at Florian’s on Piazza San Marco in the evening.” Dr. Dru and I wandered around the Piazza and the Molo looking for places to stabilize the camera for night shots before sitting to listen to the music until eleven at night. It must be the pace we are keeping that has given Dru a cold. I am sure to follow her lead! We sent the students to Rialto market this morning to buy food for our family style Sunday dinner which I will be cooking with appetizers by Kelsey. I took some shots for future paintings. Every watercolor artist who comes to Venice paints the morning light streaming through the collonade. Those shots are on Dru’s camera and so if this post via iPad works, I will try to update more regularly. The previous days activities may just be out of order and we hope to get a student blog or two.
We arrived in Venice and have settled down in our fabulous palazzo; it’s about 11:30 p.m. and all the students are settling in, taking showers, and getting ready to get up bright and early to visit Saint Mark’s square tomorrow morning.
In this first photo, all the students (except MaryBeth, who left with Prof. Spehar-Fahey on an earlier flight) are at LAX, waiting around for our flight. The SwissAir flight went very well, and we arrived in Zurich a bit early.
Switzerland seems like a lovely country! We all wished we could stay a day and tour, but unfortunately we were out of there two hours later for a quick hop over the Alps — what a stunning view from the airplane window! — and our arrival in Venice’s airport.
In the second photo, the students are waiting outside the Alilaguna water-bus stop; it was a long wait through sunset for the next bus, and we ended up getting into Venice after dark. Terry and MaryBeth met us at the Sant Angelo stop and guided us to our palazzo, where we ate the apples, cheese, and meats they’d bought that day as our late dinner.
It’s beautiful here, and I can’t wait to show the students the city in daylight tomorrow!
Here we are all decked out for a night of revelry. Unfortunately, class met on Ash Wednesday instead of Shrove Tuesday. Revelry was reduced to taking the midterm. Oh well, maybe the professors will plan their schedule with Mardi Gras in mind when they next offer Imagining Venice. 
Terry and I had to love this answer to our midterm question, “Describe Doge Lodovico Manin’s reaction to Napoleon’s arrival in Venice”:
He’s shorter than I thought.
If only we gave out points for creativity….
Check out the newest blog that I have added under the blogroll. An architect in New York shares his experience of Venice with you. Wednesday is the deadline for arranging your travel plans for your return home. Make sure that Stephanie knows when you want to return to Los Angeles. Dr. Dru and I are staying beyond the 30th of May and I know some of you may also have plans to extend your trips. We are close to confirming the flights. Ciao tutti!
Ciao, tutti! Study Abroad has made reservations for us in Florence — we’ll be staying at the Hotel Lombardi, about 15 minutes from the Uffizi and the cathedral, according to its website.
Barring last-minute changes, the room division will be 5 twins, 1 triple (gentlemen, that’s probably yours….) and two singles (professorial dibs!). And best of all, it says it has wi-fi…!
And in case you’ve forgotten, we’ve rented the three floors of the gorgeous-looking Palazzo degli Angeli for the duration of our stay in Venice. Remember that it’s not a hotel but a bunch of apartments, so you won’t get maid and restaurant service while were in Venice.
Our next step will be to reserve the plane tickets and start buying museum and train tickets….
In our Imagining Venice class, we don’t plan to spend too much time discussing contemporary Italian politics, and our focus on social concerns will revolve more around the ways in which pollution and tourism are affecting Venice in particular. But with all of the fuss about Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi that’s been showing up in the media lately, I thought it was worth a quick mention.
The New York Times has published a quick rundown of the latest Berlusconi scandal, titled “Surreal: A Soap Opera Starring Berlusconi,” which describes the accusations that Italy’s prime minister, now 74, had sex with a minor (the now-18 “Ruby Rubacuore”), as well as a number of other women. Those of us who have been watching Berlusconi’s antics from afar over the years know that accusations of marital infidelity are hardly anything new, although the suggestion that he dallied with a minor has raised the scandal bar a few notches.
What’s startling to most U.S. observers is that Berlusconi has gotten away with so much for so long with so little objection from his constituency. The NYT article notes:
…[T]he full drama has been airing for the 17 years that Mr. Berlusconi has been Italy’s most colorful politician, playing to an audience shaped by the sensationalist television culture he helped create in his three decades as Italy’s largest private broadcaster.
No U.S. politician rocked by so many scandals — especially sex scandals — would survive his or her next election, but the voting majority of Italians have been forgiving, probably for several reasons: Berlusconi owns and controls a number of major media outlets in Italy; he’s rich enough to afford the best lawyers and spin doctors; he’s charming and full of jokes; the opposition parties aren’t well-organized; Italians (especially the men) tend to be more forgiving of their politician’s private peccadillos; and until recently Berlusconi’s government was quietly supported by the Vatican. In short, he has been likened to a feudal lord, above reproach, whose charm and wealth have kept his subjects faithful no matter what he does in his castle’s private chambers.
The Church’s recent criticism of his actions may be especially problematic for the prime minister, as it often was for those feudal lords, however. In addition, Berlusconi is still faced with running a country that has the euro region’s second-largest debt burden. He narrowly squeaked past a no-confidence vote in December of last year, however, so it seems that he will remain in power for some time to come.
We’re making a fun addition to itinerary! On Friday, May 20, we’ll be visiting the Goldoni Museum in Venice for a special screening of the film Carlo Goldoni: Venice Grand Theatre of the World (Bettero, 2007). This docudrama, which will be subtitled in English, was shot on location in France and Venice and includes fictional scenes, interviews with contemporary actors and directors, and footage from Goldoni’s plays.
Carlo Goldoni with his European theatrical reform was a forerunner of the French Revolution: he did away with the character masks of the ”Commedia dell’Arte” of the time and revealed the true faces and emotions of the middle class in the Age of Enlightenment. In those days Venice was at the centre of a clash between the tradition of the ”Commedia dell’Arte”, the works of Carlo Gozzi, and the new theatre of Carlo Goldoni, or the so-called “theatre of character”, which had done away with masks, improvisation, classical myths, the gods, heroes, stories of unreal or fantastic characters, in favour of characters taken from real life, such as the middle classes, merchants and commoners, brought on to the stage and made to speak the language of ordinary people.
Goldoni’s reform provoked envy and rancour. And the conflicts that derived from these, often bitter, culminated on the occasion of the feast of Carnival of 1762: Goldoni’s last in Venice, before his departure for Paris, where he spent the last 31 years of his life.
The movie will be screened for us at the Goldoni Museum, which is located in the house where Goldoni was born, and will cost us only the museum ticket price. (Watch a 2-minute museum preview video here)
I think it’s going to be a great way to spend Friday evening away from the maddening crowds, and when we get out of the film we can all go to dinner with our imaginations full of extravagant 18th-century costumes and settings!
We are still looking for interested students for Imagining Venice in Spring 2011. The deadline for application has been extended until mid-January. If you missed the prior deadline, please contact the study abroad office for an application packet or for further information. The course will be opened soon for those of you who have applied to enroll in the class. There is room for 4-5 more students on the trip, so please consider joining us. Happy imagining!