I was really excited about the pasta and pizza, and Italy did not disappoint. I had fantastic pizza, and I ate really good pasta almost every day. I didn’t think I could ever get tired of pasta, but by the end of the week I was so ready to eat something without carbs that I was actually excited when they brought out fruit at the restaurant in Milan. The best thing I ate in Italy was the gelato. I expected it to be a little bit better than ice cream, and it exceeded my expectations. I ate gelato every day I was in Italy, and I am so glad I did.
My expectations about food were fairly accurate, but I didn’t know as much about the Renaissance as I thought I did. During this course I learned about the transition from medieval to the Renaissance, and I enjoyed seeing the evidence of the paradigm shift throughout Venice in the art and architecture. I knew the church disagreed with scientific advancements during the Renaissance, but I didn’t realize that they disagreed with anything that wasn’t focused only on God. It was blasphemy to do anything for yourself, which made it even harder for thinkers like da Vinci to work on advancements in every field.
I was a little disappointed by the gondola ride. It’s such a stereotype of Venice that I had to do it, and while I enjoyed it, it wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. I expected it to be fancier or to get some great views of Venice. It was underwhelming; we went through some canals and there were a lot of weird smells. As a tourist, I had to ride a gondola, but it wasn’t really worth it.
The only completely unexpected experience I had was at a McDonald’s. I don’t really like McDonald’s. I do my best to avoid them in America, but when I was walking around Florence with Sam we found a McDonald’s and decided to go in. I was curious if it would be different than in America, so I got a dessert called Sweet Temptation, which is gelato with chocolate syrup, granola, and whipped cream. It was so much better than ice cream at McDonald’s back home. This restaurant was also a lot nicer than any American McDonald’s I’ve ever been in. It even had a basement, and there were high school students doing homework there, which I have never seen in America. McDonald’s is something that feels very American. It was kind of surreal to see one in another country and notice all the differences and similarities. Although I wasn’t expecting to visit a McDonald’s in Italy, I’m really glad I did.
Meals are different in Italy than they are in America. In Italy meals take longer because they are more of a social event. It’s a chance to sit down, relax, and talk with friends and family. The portions at regular restaurants were roughly the same size as American portions, so that wasn’t any different. However, Italians also eat cicchetti, which are several small snacks that make up a meal. Americans tend to eat full meals. I had cicchetti the first night I was in Venice, and I really enjoyed it even though it was very different than what I’m used to.
I have never lived in a city, so I don’t know much about public transportation, but the transportation in Venice is much more reliable than it is at Purdue. The buses at Purdue are always running late, but the vaporettos in Venice are always right on time. However, not everything in Italy is exactly on time; the train the class took to Milan was very delayed.
Italians have pride and appreciation for their history the same way Americans do, but they have a lot more history to be proud of and to curate. Venetians have a saying “com’ era, dov’ era,” which means to leave it as it is. This means that when something needs repaired or replaced in Venice, they try to make it exactly the way it was before. This has allowed Venice to keep its architecture as it was because new buildings aren’t added. One of the strange things about London was the juxtaposition between buildings that were hundreds of years old and new buildings sitting side by side. Venice is much more cohesive, and it feels like it hasn’t changed in hundreds of years. Because it hasn’t changed, the architecture perfectly fit in with my expectations.
“Where there is no narrative, Croce said, there is no history” (White, p. 5). Venice is full of history, as narrated by its architecture, but also by many of its museums. The number of museums in Venice is overwhelming because there is so much history there to explore. These museums are fantastic examples of heterotopias because they are “indefinitely accumulating time” (Foucault, p. 26).
I’m so accustomed to my routine at Purdue that it feels strange to be a tourist. I don’t miss going to classes or having exams, but I normally don’t eat out very often, and now I’m eating out for every meal. It’s a little unsettling to have so little control over my life, even if it’s only for a week. Being a tourist in a place with so much history makes me feel very impermanent. I’ll only be here for a short amount of time, but Venice has been here for so long and it will last after I leave.
Sources
Foucault, Michel, and Jay Miskowiec. "Of Other Spaces." Diacritics, vol. 16, no. 1, 1986, pp. 22-27. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/464648.
White, Hayden. The Content of the Form. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.
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