Venice is more unusual than it is romantic. The buildings here are painted soft colors, sun orange, yellow, salmon and rich cream. The green canals wind everywhere, and the boats line the canal streets and houses like cars. There are no cars here, so all transportation, construction, public buses, mail delivery, etc, is done by boats. One of the first days here a few of us saw a boat carrying a huge steel sculpture, almost five times as tall as the boat is wide!
All the Columbia students have apartments spread all over the city. The one I am staying in is in a region called San Polo. San Polo is mostly residential and much more quiet than the tourist centers of San Marco and the Rialto bridge area. Our apartment is right on the canal, so we have to hang our laundry out to dry (Venice has washing machines, but no dryers) over the water. On the first day I lost a pair of underwear to our neighbor's windowsill below. The next morning, our neighbors had set my underwear right outside our front door. How embarrassing!
My favorite food here is the ice cream. Gelato places are plentiful, set on almost every corner of the city. Try the Tiramisu flavor, its amazing!
Also, one thing I did not expect to see a lot of here was graffiti, and a lot of dogs. Tagging makes up the majority of the street art, but I found a notable street artist who does do beautiful stencils. Two of the stencils are in the pictures below.
As for the dogs, It seems that almost all Venetians own dogs. Dogs are allowed inside stores, on trains, boats, and in cafes here. The translation from English to Italian to ask someone if you can pet there dog is not direct. There is no word for "pet" in Italian, you either need to use the word touch or caress to describe petting. Hopefully, you would want to touch a dog instead of caress it. However, if you say to an Italian, "Posso toccare il suo cane?" (Can I touch your dog?), they would think you would want to poke their dog. So, you need to ask "Posso accarezzo il suo cane?" (Can I caress your dog?).
Our school and studio spaces are inside and old church, check it out in the picture. Many of the students are inside a chapel area, complete with chipping Renaissance paintings and a marble altar. We have a beautiful view of the city from the second floor. As for the Biennale, we haven't received our passes yet but we will be going tomorrow to see the show. So far, Venice is amazing, and I am excited to see the Biennale and make work here!
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