Venice Souvenirs...

Masks! Every time I go to Venice, I get a mask as a souvenir.



I went to Venice four times this year... I bought the pair of golden masks together on one trip. Let's see, the red one is from when Ross and I went to Carnival, the blue-green glitter metal one is from when I visited with Linda, the green one with the fabric trim is when I went with Ross and Mark and Mary, and then the golden pair is from when I took my sister!

I'm adding those to the one I from my first visit to Venice. I do think it's my favorite place to visit in Italy.

Saturday Evening

We finished up our Saturday morning by heading to the Duomo to have a little indoor tour. (Led by me, of course!)



Since it was Immaculate Conception day, there were lots of masses happening. We caught a good part of one.



We popped over to La Rinascente to finish up our tour from the night before.



We walked up to the castle to do a quick bit of catch up shopping at the street fair, and then headed back toward my apartment. We shopped at Penny, me for groceries, my sister for souvenir food to take home. It wasn't too crowded, luckily. We huddled up in the apartment, packing Vio's bag and having a few snacks, before heading to my landlord's for aperitivo and pasta dinner. It was a lot of fun, and a great, relaxing way to spend an evening.

Friday in Milano

Friday we took the train out of Venice, after a crazy hunt for a mask that Vio fancied. The good news was that our plot to obtain it went flawlessly, and we made it out of there with no problems.



We regathered our strength at my apartment for a few hours, then braved the incredible cold and snow to head to the holiday festivities. We went to Basilica Sant'Ambrogio to see the saint himself, and we ended up sticking around for mass. It was one of the pretty ones with a choir, and wasn't too long since they really pack them in on the holidays!



After we headed to Fiera degli Oh Bej Oh Bej and did some shopping. I bought some cool stuff, and Vio bought a few things too. We didn't end up snacking out there since it was so cold out there, we headed over to la Rinascente instead so we could sit inside and have cocktails and cheese. Lots of cheese.



Look at how much snow is falling! I know that it's not a lot by New England standards, but seriously for Milan that it pretty snowy for early December.



We made it home and even to bed at a decent hour. Thank goodness it's toasty in my apartment, my toes were chilly after that evening!

A Purchase This Weekend

I bought this painting in Brera on Sunday. (It caught my eye on Saturday... I'm happy I decided to go back on Sunday and look for it!) The painter is Claudio Di Costanzo. His wife was the one selling the pictures! Anyway, I wanted something to remind me of Milan when I go home.



This is a small painting, maybe 16 by 8 inches or so. If I had more room in my luggage... The larger paintings were really lovely too. I picked this one out of the smaller ones on display because I love the trams here, and there's just the hint of the Duomo in the background. Ah, Milano...

Dracula

Been having a good, busy weekend. My friend Stan was here for just one night, in the middle of a trip. (He's already in Provence at this point!) We had a quick visit yesterday and today. Stan's been here in Milan a lot before, he actually lived here a few years as a kid and has come back for visits every few years, so we didn't have to do the "typical" sights. After having lunch in Brera, we headed over to the Triennale. The latest special exhibit is on Dracula. It's a bit of an odd exhibit, not completely dedicated to one aspect of Dracula, but not quite a themed art show.

The first section was about the history and myth of Dracula and vampires, building up to how Bram Stoker broke through by connecting Vlad the Impaler to vampirism. This part had lots of informative text, and historic artifacts including old books on Vlad, on vampires, vampire charms, and Ottoman arms and armor. It talked about Stoker's research, portrayals of vampires in his day, and ended with the first edition copy he gifted to his mom. So that was a very factual (in the sense it explained where the fiction came from) part.

Next, some mixed media video installations. A "peephole" vampires' kiss montage, a vampire home with descriptive video, and a large multi-screen installation with a history of vampire movies.

Then, an exhibit on vampire costumes. This had an original Francis Ford Coppola Dracula armor set, and a pretty good video on the costume design of the movie with a lot of direct commentary from the designer herself, Eiko Ishioka.



This was followed by costumes for female "vamps" from theater, opera, and screen. There was also an odd exhibit of comic panels by a famous Italian comic artist that he had done for his own private collection of one of his famous heroines meeting Dracula.

I liked the exhibit overall, but I had expected more of a straight contemporary art show... After we walked around the castle.



We headed in toward the Duomo, and had a little shopping and light dinner at La Rinascente. Cioccolati Italiani for dessert!

Purses

I stopped by the purse outlet store in Piazza Bausan this week. There's one brand of purses that always makes me laugh, Braccialini. These are actually pretty expensive purses, though with all the appliques these look pretty goofy for an adult woman to carry around. (That said, Italian women can go for some whimsical stuff. It seems out of character.)



Some of them are actually quite cute, like this one of Romeo and Juliet, but I am still not sure I could carry one as a bag on the regular. If it were a throw pillow, I could go for it.



Of course, I probably shouldn't go into the purse store, because it's just temptation to buy stuff. I did work very hard over the last couple weeks, so a cheap cute purse was not an outrageous treat. I had been admiring this pattern of Coccinelle since the summer, when they had big beach totes with the flower pattern, both in this same plastic and printed on denim. I love this pattern, but nothing had struck me quite enough to get me to buy one.



However, this little pochette with the flower cut-out sides was perfect for me. It was tough to pick a color, between the purple and the teal, but I went with my old standby!

Lampadine

When the light-bulb in my bathroom burnt out, I stopped in to the small hardware store in Piazza Bausan for the first time. Everything here seems to be halogen bulbs. They didn't even have incandescent bulbs in this normal size at the hardware store!



The lamp was also quite difficult to get open, since it's high above the sink, but in the end I had success. I can read in the bathtub again!

Food Round-Up

I've been so busy that I haven't had the chance to post my usual boring food pictures! Even with all the excitement of late, I still have to buy food. And now there's additional excitement at the grocery store since the holiday food is starting appear! In the middle of that pile of groceries is a box of gingerbread cookies!



I am not sure how late in the year the farmers' street market will keep going, so until it closes for the winter, I'll keep using it to supplement my Penny purchases. The artichokes are out in force, and the green fractal cauliflowers are back as a regular thing in the stalls. Clementines are becoming a favorite for me.



I should not have bought that caramel corn, it was too good.



Oh, and I decided to give those pomegranates I picked in the courtyard a shot. The little one was a bit spoiled, so I tossed it, but the larger one was pretty good. A little tart. I plucked out the arils, and used them in a salad.



I think there might be a few more of those on the pomegranate trees in the courtyard, but most of them have already split and are too far up out of my reach, anyway. Gotta investigate...

Monday Night

Monday I had to go to work. Boo. Well, I guess that's normal, right? Heather and Konrad headed to the Duomo to head up on the roof. I still wanna see their pictures from that! They were super brave and took the stairs... I've always taken the elevator! They had a lot of snacks and did a lot of shopping before I met them by the castle. We headed toward Corso Como to get dinner. We saw a lot of weird window displays!



We ended up going to Ganas, a Mexican restaurant. We were there early enough for aperitivo. Wow, it was a hit for us! They had great frozen drinks. I had two frozen passion fruit margaritas. Usually I only have one drink at aperitivo (because you only have to buy one to get the free food, but they do give you a slight break on the second drink), but the first one was so good that I wanted another! And, also the aperitivo was good enough that we wanted to sit and eat more. The selection wasn't huge, but it was pretty good. My favorites were the fresh tortilla chips, and the smokey chipotle salsa. The food was actually spicy! I might head there for aperitivo another night, since the food was so different from typical aperitivo. OK, it wasn't "real" Mexican, but it was good!

On our way home we checked out the display for the Nautical Design Awards there in Corso Como. Heather and I geeked out about winches and movable keels while Konrad humored us. It was a good night!

Saturday with Heather and Konrad

Heather and Konrad came to visit me from Firenze last weekend. They took the train up Saturday morning. After dropping off their bags at my place, we headed to the center. First we headed to get snacks, passing through the Galleria on the way. Heather spun for luck!



There are new displays at the Louis Vuitton store!



We were on our way to Luini's and Cioccolati Italiani to grab quick and delicious snacks before heading into the Duomo. (I tried a new flavor of panzerotto, with onions, olives, and tomatoes, yum!)



After the Duomo, we headed to La Rinascente to shop and dine. We spent a long time in the basement Design Super Market.



Konrad let Heather and I shop our hearts out. We had dinner up at Obika, the mozzarella bar on the 7th floor. We split a really good apple and fig salad and the mozzarella sampler for two. Yum!



We headed back to my house a little early, since the rain was still falling and trying to melt us!

Istanbul Odds and Ends

I still have a few Istanbul things I want to share! First off, the evil eye. At our hotel, there were protecting eyes on the elevator plaques.



I bought a glass eye bracelet, to wear with my Rome bracelet! Linda, is yours still in one piece?



This is a simit, sort of like a sesame bagel. A popular street food in Istanbul.



Istanbul is full of cats and dogs. They don't seem to fight. The cats seemed particularly calm and confident. I saw this cat just sleeping in a shop window.



I also liked the ever-present ablution taps.



I think I am finally finished talking about Istanbul. I really enjoyed the city, and would definitely recommend it as a destination!

Thursday Spice Market

After Hagia Sophia, I ran into Martin and his friend Robert at the hotel, on their way to the Spice Market. They talked me into joining them, and it was great. The Spice Market was a manageable size and crowd level. And it did smell great in there.



Spices were popular, as were teas. All the booths had plenty of workers, and while they weren't shy to start talking to you, they weren't super aggressive.



Besides spices and teas, there were candies, jewelry, scarves and other clothes, toiletries, toys, and more. One of the coolest things we saw were natural sponges. Robert ended up buying one for his son.



We ended up at stall 54 buying spices. Martin and Robert both bought a lot of different things for their wives, which we all enjoyed tasting. I bought just star anise, and I think the price I got was alright.



It was a fun distraction from the conference!

Murano

No trip to Venice would be complete without a trip to Murano. Unless you're a guy. I kid! Really, the main reason to go there is to do the glass shopping. But it has its charms beyond that. The ferry ride over is not too long, and you get to get out of the canals and into the more open water of the bay. The island itself is pretty and has more of a wharf feel than Venice.

That said, we mostly shopped!



The island also has some impressive glass sculptures. I think some of them are new since I was last there, like this one of the sea birds.



On the way back to the main part of Venice, we we lucky enough to get outside seats on the 1 back to our hotel.



We made it to Acqua Pazza for dinner, it was as delicious as last time, though it was cold enough we decided to sit inside!



Artichoke pasta for me, lemony risotto for Mary. Both yummy!

Lux City

Saturday morning we wandered around Luxembourg City in the city center. Walking up from our hostel, it became charming really fast!



The city center is tiny. We were at the government center in just a few minutes of walking! The flag on two of those poles, the red, white, and blue one, is the Luxembourgish flag.



We sat down for overwhelmingly large slices of cake at Chocolate House. The cakes were delicious but neither of us came even close to finishing our slices! We got an impromptu tour of the chocolate kitchen from the bakery manager...



And then we did a little souvenir shopping. The Luxembourgish are quite fond of their royal family. (Ducal family? They're grand-dukes, not kings...) The postcard selection was quite large!

LV

They always have the coolest windows at Louis Vuitton...

Market Day!

Yesterday I headed to the street market in the morning. Wow, there were actually more stalls than ever before, I guess because it's peak summer time, right before everyone goes on vacation... Here's some of the stuff I bought! (This is all the stuff for me, I got some gifts too, so they will not be appearing!)

Squash, melon, zucchini, and shoes. It's the time of year that all these things are pretty darn cheap. Including the shoes. They are super cheap-o, 6 euros! OK, they are made out of terrible materials, the soles are foam I think, but I am wearing them today and they were very comfortable on the walk to school. They certainly won't last forever, but for a fun summer shoe... Part of the reason I went for them is the color, you know me I like that sort of turquoise blue for everything. The other part is that the sole is pretty think. You can't really see in the pick but even in the toe the soles are just over an inch thick.



I actually am not a fan of the sandals with really flat leather soles, and around here, your feet would get filthy fast. But, that's the style that the Italian ladies are wearing...

This is a zucca squash, as far as I know. I think the term means pretty much any winter squash, including pumpkins, but this one is like a turban or buttercup squash. This is what the picture of the zucca on my last box of ravioli di zucca looked like...

Sunday Shoppings

On Sunday Christopher and I strolled through the Giardini Indro Montanelli at Porta Venezia. Unlike the last time I was there, the kiddie stuff was in full swing. The little merry-go-round and train were running and lit up, and they were having pony rides!



It's a strange little park. There are a few ponds, a planetarium (which I will go to one day!), and a weird rocky rubble area along the northern edge.



We hit up the shopping on Corso Buenos Aires, where I bought some Kiko make-up and he bought a Benetton jacket. And then we were off to Ciu's Bar to meet up with Sina for aperitivo. Ciu's Bar has an amazing aperitivo, and the cocktails are huge...

Sicilian Foods

I mentioned earlier in my blog (many months ago) that most stores have paintings on their roll down doors, often representing their business. The one on the left in this picture is for a hair dresser... The one on the right is a Sicilian cafe. I actually have seen this symbolism for Sicilian food a lot. What the picture shows is a fried rice ball eating a cannolo (singular of cannoli). It always makes me smile!

OK, I Lied

One more post about Verona. As Verona is part of the Veneto, they have a lot of stuff you typically associate with Venezia, like masks and fans. I bought this little decorate pill box to use in my purse. It's tiny, an inch in the largest dimension at most!

Friday Downtown

After shopping we headed into town to start seeing the sights. First stop was going through the Galleria to find our gelato! For the first time I noticed the nautical details in some of the mosaics.



I made Miranda the traditional spin, she did a good job on it!



The Louis Vuitton store has arrows in the window displays, they are pretty cool! Miranda loved them...