Well, just got back to Riga this afternoon from the best birthday present ever. It was a wonderful trip. The weather forecast for our time in Venice was for thunderstorms the whole time. Well, someone made a big mistake, because not only was it not thunderstorming, we saw about one cloud a day. It was near 30C everyday. It was beautiful and wonderful and gorgreous! :)
Also, just before going, we'd heard from some people that their reactions of Venice were that it was crowded and smelly and dirty. Well, neither Joel nor I mind people, so although, of course, there were some crowds, they didn't bother us one bit. There were a couple of times that in our meandering walks we smelled sewer smells, but it certainly was no worse than Riga, or any other old city. And as for dirty... nah. Again, it's a historic city, and a tourist destination, so to some extent there was garbage and stuff, but our general feeling was not that it was a dirty city. In my opinion it was certainly more cheery than Riga, but, again, in my opinion, that's not hard to do. Of course there was all kinds of longed for things like customer service with a smile, people saying please and thank you, treating you like a valued customer, even if you are just a tourist, people walking around you in the street, instead of straight into you...ah, just a few of the small things...
As for the food... I found myself in the very unlikely position of not being hungry pretty much the whole time I was there. That kind of sucked. But, knowing that I would probably not be back in Venice, or Italy any time soon, I just had to eat some of the gorgeous food. Let me tell you again, that I love modern developed nations...everywhere we went there were choices abounding for a person like myself who eats a vegetarian diet. I had sandwiches (pre-made, deli style, just sitting in the window waiting to be eaten), I had pasta (Spaghetti pomodoro-just fresh tomato sauce...but you know what, it was GOOD, cause it wasn't and didn't taste like ketchup! Gnocchetti in a tomato cream sauce... YUM! Papardelle pasta in a mushroom cream sauce... again... YUM!), I had pizza (just cheese again, but oh so good! Oh and in my opinion it was more important to eat pasta than pizza most of the time, so I had this pizza in the airport when we were awaiting our departing flight...and it was STILL better than anything you can get in Riga!). So the food was good. Of course the gelato was yummy too. I only had it once, but I enjoyed every last lick. :) And the wine... I don't know anything about Italian wine as I usually buy Australian or South African wine... so while in Venice I just ordered the house reds... and they were all delicious! I was surprised that they were served cold...but, it didn't take away from the experience. I loved sitting in the outdoor cafes, watching people and sipping on some drink. I am a big fan of ginger...and at one afternoon stop off, I saw a drink called a Gingerino. I ordered it, and loved it. Now, I just have to figure out what you might call it in English/Latvian/Spanish and what is in it. :) Ok...
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