The rest of the day and some random notes

We did takeout pizza for dinner tonight. I didn't feel like cooking and we're still avoiding restaurants whenever possible, not only for the expense (I don't think the 3 dinners I made in the apartment combined cost as much as one restaurant dinner) but because the whole act of going to a restaurant becomes tiresome. We've been gone 2 weeks now and the idea of sitting and looking at a menu is not attractive. Anyway, we had two wonderful little thin-crust pizzas, one with bufala mozzarella, which was delicious and very rich, and one with prosciutto and mushrooms which was as good as you'd imagine.

Italians are really nice people, warm and friendly even in difficult circumstances.

I have a favorite Italian beer, Nastro Azzurro. I'd previously thought they all tasted the same and they're all very light, but this one has a lot more flavor.

Everything I've seen so far backs up my contention that people don't really listen to each other most of the time. The usual response I get is that you can't get through the day-to-day without listening, but it's simply not true. I understand very little Italian and I am able to get through a variety of conversations with Italians who don't speak English just by virtue of context without having any idea of what they're saying. But just because listening isn't always necessary doesn't mean that it's not important.

I looked on Google Maps to see if you can drive to our hotel in Venice and it gives directions, but the last 3 miles are in the water. It took me a minute to realize it was saying there was a ferry.

The bathroom in this apartment is very peculiar. Behind the bed's headboard there's a room-length (about 15 feet) glass wall with sliding doors on both ends. To the right is the sink, in the center is the bath/shower and on the left is the toilet and of course the bidet. The only part that can be made opaque is the shower part, where there's a Venetian blind (maybe this one is actually from Venice), but the door to the toilet is clear glass. This is a bit more intimate than we're used to but we're making it work. We've had only one splat against the glass door so far. The shower has one of those inviting "rain" type showerheads, but there's almost no water pressure up here (I guess that's the downside of being so high up) and when I took a shower yesterday it was just a fast drip. I'm going to try again when it's not a peak water use time.