{"id":1063,"date":"2019-04-26T12:18:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T19:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imho.kileozier.com\/?p=1063"},"modified":"2019-04-26T12:18:09","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T19:18:09","slug":"the-venice-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imho.kileozier.com\/?p=1063","title":{"rendered":"The Venice Effect"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A hundred years ago, a student, I spent my sophomore year in Pavia, Italy; a quiet-ish town just 20 miles south of Milano. Possessed of the requisite number of churches, a cathedral, a central town square, covered bridge over the Ticino River and most of the streets paved in stone; Pavia was, for me, the perfect combination of town and village to host the perfect, first-time, expatriate experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The University of Pavia – one of the oldest Universities in the world (pre 825AD) – can name among alumni Christopher Colombus, Camillo Golgi, Antonio Scarpa, multiple Nobel Prize winners and famous names from philosophy, law and medicine\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026none of them related to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Effectively my first Fully Immersive Experience<\/strong>, I lived in Collegio Fraccaro<\/em>; one of two Americans among about two-hundred medical students, few of whom spoke English. This, alone, helped to transform the learning of Italian from academic to survival. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was a wonderful year, and has remained vivid ever since. I swam with and helped coach the city swim team, hitchhiked all over Northern Italy, Switzerland and Austria on weekends, went to the annual Sagra (Festival) in scores of nearby local towns and villages as each celebrated their Thing of Most Pride (usually edible: no problem) and met and talked with hundreds of locals as I became more proficient in the lingua.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the winter, I had dinner twice a month with a local businessman and his family. We\u2019d met through the proprietress of my favorite caf\u00e9\u2026I suppose she was my \u201cdealer,\u201d as that place was the birthplace of my lifelong addiction to espresso and strong coffee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deal was, at these dinners, I was to speak only Italian and he would speak only English – other than when we needed to correct one another. This was for him and his wife, but also for his kids – to give \u2018em a head start on learning English. That, and it sure didn\u2019t hurt me. The food was great and conversations would inevitably wax more complex as the evening progressed and the level of proficiency increased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But one such night stands out among them all: the night in February when I mentioned that in a few weeks, I was going to see Venice for the first time\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAhh, Venezia!\u201d he sang, \u201cIl cuore d\u2019Italia!\u201d <The heart of Italy><\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And with that, the English lesson was over as his passion took flight\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All appassionato<\/em>, his hands conducting an unseen orchestra, he began instructing me on how to approach and see Venice for the first time\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSenti!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n