(Left) We like the salads and paninis at Bar Ai Nomboli. (Right) Accidentally ate this at a restaurant last night. It looked cool at the Rialto market but not so much on my plate later that night.

Finally, we’ve found a decent place to eat in Venice. If you ever visit here, check out the Bar Ai Nomboli on rio terra dei nomboli.

A few other random observations:

1. The Italians really like that atrocious song “Umbrella” by, who is that, Rihanna? I’ve heard it everywhere. We were in the grocery store buying wine yesterday and some little kid pushed past me with that song playing on his cell phone! Now it’s playing in the Internet cafe. I just can’t seem to get away from it.

2: The wine in the grocery store is yucky. We barreled through four bottles, and they were all bad! On the other hand, the gelato is yummy.

3: The Italian women are all beautiful and, in comparison, I feel very, very plain and very, very buttoned-up. There is cleavage everywhere. Beside them, I look like Anne of Green Gables. “Look,” they must be saying, “an emissary from 19th century America!”

4: There are few things more lovely than a sunset over Venice.

5: It is nature’s cruel joke to be lactose intolerant in Italy. But, lo and behold, we finally found a natural grocery store today, so I was able to buy some soy milk. Now when we go to cafés, I take my little box o’ soy and squirt it into my espresso. I know I don’t understand Italian, but that café owner is surely saying, look, cool American lady!

Off tomorrow to Cinque Terre, then Nice. If you have any suggestions of places to check out, let me know!

Off to find gelato.