Cappuccino

Cafés around Venice are a bit different than I have seen before.  The idea is to go in, order a cappuccino (comes in a tiny china tea cup and saucer), stand near a coffee bar (or sit depending on the crowd), then pay as you leave.  The cup is so tiny that you are done is just 2-3 gulps.  Then you do it all over again in another café about an hour later.  We learned this by hanging with some Italians while out and about.

Besides the typical coffee maker, we have a “Nespresso My Machine” in our faculty apartment.  It has capsules the size of thimbles to insert (much like the Keurig single serve coffee makers we have at our homes in the US).  Only one problem!  We can only find one place in Venice by the Rialto Bridge that sells the little capsules (a pouch of 25 for 9 euros).  Glad we loaded up last weekend!

I am sipping on an ice coffee as I write this post.  Horrors!

If you want to freak someone out over here, tell them you would like some ice!  Ice dilutes a drink and why would you want to do that?  Drinks should be room temperature, they say.  It is better for digestion.  Of course, we have always known that ice is not served in European drinks.  That’s why it was a big shock when we went to London’s Worrell House for the second time a saw that the students had been able to get an ice machine, as in the kind American restaurants have in their kitchens!  Well, whatever!  Page and I found a couple rubber ice cube trays that are so hard to use that we usually go without ice.

And if you are cold and want a hot chocolate, don’t.  This is a picture of me pouring chocolate “syrup” into a cup.  Too rich!  And because I was next to the Rialto Bridge, it cost 6 euros!