Chinese Leather

Venice is a shrinking city. The economy is based on toursim alone, and young people leave the city in search of careers elsewhere. People prefer to rent their properties to tourists rather than locals, making housing very expensive. The bakeries and butchers slowly close and glass and mask shops appear in their places. The city is slowly becoming Disneyland. This is much to the faultof Venetians, who have succombed to the ease of making money off of fake Murano glass instead of preserving the city's culture with authentic artisian boutiques.

A new and disturbing trend is the huge growth of Chinese-run shops and bars all over the island city. Just today I passed by what used to be one of the few toy stores in Venice, near the Rialto bridge, which has now become one of the hundreds of Chinese run stores that sells fake leather bags to unknowning tourists. I believe in the integration of immigrants. One of the things that I dislike most about Italians is that I find them to be very xenophobic and I think they should do what is possible to welcome and accept the new immigrant populations. Nevertheless these horrible tourist-trap stores are ruining the city, allbeit no more than venetian-run tourist trap stores.

For those of you visiting Venice, make an effort to shop in real boutiques, stores that make their own products or demonstrate that they sell real Murano glass. Try to find a bar or restaurant off the beaten path, that does not have pictures of the food on its menu. It is vital, for the future of this city, that both locals and tourists make an effort to support shops that cater to quality goods and that support the local population.

Armadio

One of the joys of living in Venice is the absence of cars. No car fumes to breathe in while walking around, less noise, less danger, prettier, safer, etc.. It makes the city very special and the advantages and countless. But today I had to move an wardrobe. I live in 32 square meters, and I am a total clothes horse, which means that the modest closet space that came with the apartment and the dresser I bought from the IKEA in nearby Padova just are not quite enough. My friend's grandmonther has recently been moved into a retirement home and he asked if I want to buy her wardrobe, so I took him up on the offer. The only problem being, of course, that he lives in Castello and I live in S. Croce. Today Giuseppe and I carried the four drawers on the vaporetto #51 and we will have to figure out how to get the 230 centimeter-tall frame to my house. They surely wont let us on the vaporetto and we dont know anyone with a boat! How can I have lived in Venice for three and a half years and not know anyone with a boat?!