La Dolce Vita

When he grows up, Ian wishes to live in Venice, or Veneese, as he calls it.  Veneese is a better pronunciation; like "Venezia", it puts the stress on the second syllable, and sounds a good deal more Mediterranean.

I asked Ian why he wanted to live there, but I pretty-much already knew:  the canals.  He wants to live in a town where the streets are really waterways.  I told him that St. Petersburg, Russia, has sort-of a neighborhood like that as well, since Peter the Great greatly admired Western Europe, and particularly Venice, and practiced that sincerest form of flattery known as imitation by trying to recreate it, with a limited scope of success, in his own new city.  Ian was very interested in this;  we're Orthodox after all, and quite slavophile, and I think he thought that St. Petersburg would be the best of all possible worlds.  Which, of course, it is, as you know if you've been there; a beautiful, mystique-laden, spectacularly European city that also reflects Russian culture, and has shaped it significantly.  Ian doesn't know all that, but I think he has the right idea anyway.

In fact, Ian already has in mind a very elaborate, very specific vehicle that he intends to use for all-purpose transportation once he takes up residence in Veneese:  a highly adaptable, amphibious vehicle, at once a car and a boat, which pulls up its wheels and stores them inside the craft in a very particular, as you move from the narrow streets into the canal/Autobahn and begin your joyride under the Rialto.  Ian described the transition from car to watercraft in great technical detail.

But since Veneese is in Italy, and we're Americans, Ian is having second thoughts about living there.  So now, he's considering Hawaii.

My opinion doesn't really count, but I think I'd much rather live in Venice, because it probably doesn't have nearly as many wealthy Americans searching looking to synthesize a tropical paradise on a stolen archipelago in the middle of the Pacific.  Not to mention the Renaissance, a rich culture, really good food, and top-notch coffee on the other side of the proverbial balance sheet.

Italian class begins Monday morning...

(June, 2013)