The streets are inevitably cobblestones, and the stones seem to be frequently marble. There are bridges where the handrails have been worn smooth by generations of tourists and Venetians. There are churches with simple brick façades, and churches with elaborately carved Italian Gothic façades. There are alleys so narrow that you can barely fit down them, and piazzas that are big enough to hold a rally for Mussolini.

The canal smells vary from fetid to benign with not much in between. When the tide is out, the boats on the small canals are beached. They all seem clean, well, as clean as any streets in any big city I have ever seen, but also seem to be a rather unnatural green color. The lagoon itself is that same color, and it must be a result of some mineral (Probably Calcium Carbonate) in the water.

There are many, many small bridges over the canals. They are all high, so that gondolas and other boats can pass underneath, and are about eight steps from the sidewalk level. The facing (kick plate) side of the steps is white marble, I assume so that you can see it at night. There are not many street (canal?) lights in the city, so being able to see the steps to the bridges is a good thing. On one bridge we walked over had marble footprints place on top of it – four of them facing each other. Doreen later read that this bridge is where they used to hold boxing matches, and the foot prints are where the contestants had to start! Her book said that once the fighters started bringing out knives that they had to stop that game.

The people here move at two paces – resident’s pace (walking briskly, knowing where they are going, on a mission to get somewhere) and tourist’s pace (ambling aimlessly, staring into the hundreds and hundreds of glass and mask shops that line the streets). The young men who are delivering material using handcarts are always shouting "Attenzione! Attenzione!" to try and hurry folks out of the way. I saw more than one person virtually run over by a handcart full of boxed goods.

The squares in the residential neighborhood have a much different feel than the ones in the tourist areas. (We can often fool ourselves for minutes at a time that we are not really tourists. We live here, you see, for at least two weeks. But I can also tell you that we walk at a tourist’s pace frequently, and we are often the ones about to be run over by a cart full of computer paper.) Our little neighborhood piazza has a water fountain, three small restaurants, benches and about 100 people who frequent the place as their nightly entertainment. From about 5:00 PM to dark, families sit in the piazza sharing gossip, kids play soccer, hide and seek, or ride around on roller blades. The local dogs keep strange new dogs at bay (There are two Chihuahuas that will challenge any dog, big or small, with an aggressive bark. They will also challenge PEOPLE they don’t like, too).

One man comes with his black poodle and they play fetch for the better part of an hour. Another guy (whom we dubbed, "The Sad Guy") sits on a bench with his dog seated under him, looking forlorn, perhaps waiting and hoping that a pretty girl will sit next to him and start a conversation. One little boy keeps track of his older sibling who has Down’s Syndrome – making sure that he is in the game, and having fun. The place is alive with laughter of old friends and young kids. Something that I can remember from my youth in the neighborhood in Appleton where I grew up, but something that I cannot really say I have experienced much recently.

The people here are generally a light skinned group – not the dark, swarthy look that you picture in southern Italy (Or in New York Italians, by and large, either). It seems that many of these people are trying to pull off a style that is achieved effortlessly in Milan, but here it is always about a half a step off base. You will occasionally see someone who looks as if they just came from a fashion shoot, but by and large people look like they could be from almost anywhere in Europe.

Walking through any neighborhood on the island, you are bound to see two things: Glass shops and mask shops. I guess that Venice is famous for its glass geegaws, and they must make them by the ton. It must also be the center of paper maché mask manufacturing. One shop had a sign in the window that said Stanley Kubrik bought the masks used in the movie Eyes Wide Shut there, and even had an autograph from Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise.

The glass shops sell anything and everything that could possibly be made from glass. Yes, even glass masks. Pens, ashtrays, lamps, chandeliers, just honest old glass art, glasses, cups, letter openers, you name it, they have it.

I will be getting into the main sights later, including an exciting encounter with a BIG bell in the campanile in San Marco Square. Doreen will probably tell her version of that story as well. I felt like Quasimodo, and it wasn’t because I had a chip on my shoulder…

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