David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Word count: 128 Step count: 13,708

The host at our hotel blamed her husband (“men!”) for failing to pick up yesterday’s breakfast things, the same (as yet unseen) husband who failed to write down the reservation, though it was her name on the confirmation email. I theorize that there is no husband; Madame and her “sister” are actually lovers and the supposed husband is, like our friends’ imaginary French maid Fifi who never, ever does any work, a nonexistent being whose purpose is to be blamed for things (nb: I do not really believe this).

Walked to the train station to get tickets for tomorrow’s train to Bologna. Wound up with a ticket from the machine, but not a reservation. However, a human being assured us there would be no trouble getting a seat. Hope so.

Proceeded from the station by vaporetto to San Marco (after standing in a longish line at the vaporetto ticket booth, along with throngs of tourists just arrived by train). There we used a trick we’d been informed of by our walking tour guide: usually after you wait in the long line to get into the basilica, if you have a suitcase or backpack you are shunted off by the guard to the bag check a block away, then you return and are let in. So if you have a backpack, you go straight to the bag check, check your bag, and walk in without ever waiting in line. Rick Steves also suggests this trick, and it works, though I’m a bit uncertain it’s ethical.

Once inside the basilica, we immediately turned right and went up the stairs to the balcony with the bronze horses (5 euros extra, and well worth it) before viewing the interior of the basilica itself; as we walked, we listened to Rick Steves’s basilica-tour podcast for some background info. The main body of the basilica was crowded, crowded, crowded with a glacially-moving horde of tourists, most of whom were ignoring the signs about no photography, but it was still very impressive. We left right at noon and, after flailing around together in a futile search for lunch, decided to split up for the afternoon.

I wanted pizza, and went to a nearby restaurant that was supposed to have good pizza, though my online sources couldn’t quite decide whether it was a pizza place or an Irish pub. It turned out not to be either, but I still got a quite nice panini with turkey, brie, and peppers. I still don’t know the name of the place; many establishments here have no visible name at all.

After lunch I proceeded to Palazzo Grimani for the Canaletto exhibit. They had several dozen pages from his sketchbooks, about a dozen paintings, and two of his camera obscuras — yes, he cheated, he traced his research sketches using a camera obscura. But he did design and build the instruments himself. This exhibit made it plain how much of a commercial artist he was, kind of like Thomas Kincaid in some ways; he painted what his wealthy clients (mostly English) wanted, and many of his paintings were nearly identical to each other. But I love his architectural details, and it was way cool to see three-hundred-year-old views of places I’d been myself just yesterday, not looking very much different. I stayed in the Canaletto exhibit until, to my surprise, the museum closed at 2:00, but I dashed through the rest of the palazzo on the way out and it was quite intriguing.

I headed off from there in search of the only penny-smashing machine in the city of Venice (there’s one other on the mainland) and, somewhat to my surprise, actually found it, at a shop specializing in Beatles memorabilia that I’d passed several times before, all unknowing. After I’d smashed a couple of two-Euro-cent coins for Janna, it had begun to rain and, after considering my options, I decided to take the vaporetto back to the hotel for a nap. I texted Kate on the way to find out where she was, and she said she was near the Rialto bridge. Just then the vaporetto stopped at the Rialto station and I got off, and through the exchange of many texts we managed to find each other. Kate took me to a very good coffee shop (Cafe del Doge) and pizza place (Antico Forno, Ruga Rialto 970/973) she’d found for an afternoon pick-me-up. Somewhat refreshed, we went off in the rain for some shopping, but I don’t think we wound up buying anything. We also passed by the Frari Church, for which we had another Rick Steves podcast audio guide, and stopped in. Glad we did — it was packed with amazing art and architecture.

We had an… unusual… dinner at a place called Taverna Capitan Uncino (Santa Croce 1501), where Kate had “pizza fantastica” (it was okay) and I ordered “tagliatelle alla Buzzara” which I thought the waiter described as “shrimp with brown.” I envisioned shrimp meat with brown butter, but what I got was tagliatelle with two enormous prawns in the shell and a half-dozen mussels likewise. On the principle of “eat the thing with eyes” I attacked the crustaceans with my fork and managed to get a decent quantity of meat out. The sauce was spicy and quite tasty, the tagliatelle perfect, but all in all that meal was more of an adventure than a satisfying culinary experience.

Back to the hotel around 9:00 for notes, writing, etc. Tomorrow we depart for Bologna. We’re not quite ready to leave Venice — there’s so much we haven’t seen yet — but I’m getting rather tired of seafood.

I just realized that I have been remiss in posting the names and addresses of the places we’ve been eating for others’ reference. Here’s the missing information, and I’ll try to do better going forward.

Our hotel (it’s been lovely): B&B Aquavenice, Rio Tera S. Leonardo 1371.

Thursday dinner (seafood risotto): Trattoria Misericordia, Fondamenta Misericordia Canaregio 2515.

Friday lunch (ravioli with pumpkin): Osteria da Carla, Corte Contarina San Marco 1535

Friday dinner: a variety of chicchetti bars including All’Arco (yummy eggplant thing), Do Collone (bacala), and ProntoPesce, Pescheria Rialto San Polo 319 (smoked swordfish mini-sandwich).

Saturday dinner (broccoli flan): Osteria Da Rioba, Fondamenta della Misericordia Sestiere Cannaregio 2552.

Sunday dinner (pistachio-crusted lamb): Anice Stellato, Fondamenta de la Sensa Sestiere Cannaregio 3272.

Word count: 199 Step count: 14,527

Got to bed at a more reasonable hour last night, then rose refreshed at 7:30 for an 8:00 breakfast before our 9:00 walking tour appointment. Alas, there were no fresh baked goods in our brekfast, due to the store not being open that early, but we got hot chocolate instead of the coffee, and also had yummy Greek yogurt (from Greece!) with honey and walnuts, which we’d bought at the store yesterday.

We walked and took a traghetto (stand-up cross-canal gondola ferry, 50c per person) to the rendezvous point for our “backstreets” walking tour, hosted by an expat American who escaped her crazed US lifestyle and now gives tours to fund her slower Venetian life. Interesting contrasts with yesterday’s Venetian native; this one knew less about the city, more about what we’d find different about it. Highlights of the tour included the original city center with its “pillar of trvth;” a gondola-building yard (the building looking rather Swiss, due to the shipbuilders all coming from the Alps where the trees are); St. Trovaso church with two nearly identical entrances, built to keep two feuding families apart; Ponte dei Pugni bridge nearby, featuring marble footprints where battles between those same two feuding families traditionally began; the canal Katherine Hepburn fell into in the movie Summertime, and the little shop nearby that featured prominently in that movie; erased family crests over the doors of wealthy families’ houses were ground off by Napoleon’s soldiers, but if you see a ground-off winged lion, that was a sign of participation in a coup and was removed by the families themselves; “aqua alta” (exceptional high tide) comes up through the sewer grates and floods the streets, but if there were no grates the flagstones would just come up instead.

After the tour, had a very nice lunch: I had an extraordinary selection of vegetable antipasti and very light “gnocchi gigante. We then toured the Accademia, which our guide told us is free this week, and saw some really extraordinary paintings (especially some Bellinis of amazing color and clarity), until we got overwhelmed by the repetition of the same Biblical subjects over and over. We took the vaporetto home about 4:30, for a change returning to the hotel before we were completely exhausted. The views from the vaporetto were really cool and distinctly different from what we’d seen on shore. After taking Kate to the hotel (we have only one key), I ran to the store for more yogurt, then came back for a nap.

For dinner we had an 8:00 reservation (we’d asked our guide on the chiccetti tour to call ahead for us) at the other restaurant that had been fully booked on Thursday, so we have triumphed completely over all the restaurants that taunted us that day. We split the following dishes: an assortment of fish and vegetable chiccetti, the highlight of which for me was tandoori-style tuna; tagliatelle with a sauce involving ground duck; juicy lamb chops crusted with ground pistachios; rosemary-roasted potatoes; sesame carrots; tiramisu (a strange, rather liquid version that our waitress claimed was especially authentic); and cappucino. Got back to the hotel at 10:30, where I wrote a couple hundred words on the novel and got to bed by 11:00.

Word count: 161 Step count: 16,140

Stayed up until midnight again — we’ve got to stop meeting like this — before a 7:30 alarm for 8:00 breakfast. Breakfast was the same as yesterday, but without the corn flakes (did they read my blog?).

Walked to Fundamento Nove where we caught a vaporetto (boat bus) to San Michele cemetery, a completely square island where all Venice’s dead are buried… at least for a while, until they are dug up and the bones interred in a common ossuary. Saw some interesting monuments in the Orthodox section.

From there we took another vaporetto to Murano, the island of glassmakers. First we visited the church there, which claimed a Bellini triptych which we never found (the light was terrible in any case). By then we were hungry and stupid, so we snagged a couple of panini, then went to the Museum of Glass, with a special exhibit of the work of the Ercole Moretti studio and many other beautiful pieces dating back to antiquity. What is it about glass that makes so many glass sculptures resemble sea creatures?

After the museum I spotted a little park and we rested there for a bit under a wisteria arbor. A kids’ birthday party was going on, with Blindman’s Bluff and other screaming jollity, under a banner reading AUGURI (“greetings”).

We wandered around, stopping into various glass shops, and bought some beads for our friend Janna and an Ercole Moretti plate for ourselves. At the Mazzega glass factory, we ran into our tour guide from yesterday, leading another tour. She told us “you must come upstairs to see Paradise” and unhooked a chain to let us upstairs to the private showroom, an area as big as the rest of the establishment put together and filled with marvelous glass… huge pieces, some probably worth tens of thousands of dollars, including three-dimensional representations of some Picasso pieces. Wow, what a delightful bit of kismet!

Very tired and sore then, we went back to our hotel (Google’s walking directions across a body of water included the usual “kayak across the Pacific Ocean” instruction, except that in this case the referenced ferry actually existed) with a stop at a fabulous-looking bakery for a lovely light piece of cheesecake (a nice bit of protein, given that a panini was the only thing we’d eaten since a fairly light breakfast) and a grocery store for cheese and yogurt to add to tomorrow’s breakfast.

Fell over for an hour, then headed out for dinner. The pizza place we’d had in mind got bad reviews on TripAdvisor; the next place we tried sounded great but was “closed for maintenance.” Then we tried one of the places that had looked wonderful on Thursday but was booked solid, thinking we might have a shot because it was earlier in the evening. They did manage to squeeze us in, barely, and we had a fabulous dinner: carrot, green apple, and leek soup; broccoli flan with Parmesan fondue and poppy seeds; five-color ravioli with prawn cream; and a very nummy vegetable lasagne.

Finally, back to the hotel to sort photos, do laundry, write, and blog. A great day.

Word count: 163 Step count: 18,572

Awake around 7:00 after 7 solid hours of sleep. We seem to be on Venice time, though still a bit tired and low on brain. I refuse to credit the homeopathic anti-jet-lag pills that our friends Bo and Don recommended (though I did take them), because I don’t believe in homeopathy even if it works.

We were a bit disappointed to find last night that there were no blinds on the windows. This morning I realized: we are in Venice, so there are shutters instead (they are green, of course). Also should have remembered before I did that the pull string in the shower that doesn’t seem to do anything is actually an “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” switch that triggers an audio alarm outside. I hope it was only audible in our room but, if not, I’m sure they’re used to it by now.

Breakfast was delivered to the room right at 8:30: coffee, steamed milk, croissants with powdered sugar on the outside and apricot jam on the inside, cute little crusty bread rolls, several kinds of packaged rusks, some packaged cookies (?) that we didn’t open, butter, jam, honey, Nutella. Continental breakfasts are not tidy; we wound up with powdered sugar and bread crumbs everywhere. There was also one small packet of corn flakes (though no bowl). I ate them in my coffee cup, with hot steamed milk, an experience I do not intend to repeat. There was also a largish clear plastic tumbler which is, I think, intended as a trash basket, and sugar in two varieties: “classico” (white) and “tropical” (brown).

After breakfast we wandered in a generally southeasterly direction toward an antiques-and-beads store Kate knew about, with many a diversion along the way. One highlight was the church of Santa Maria Formosa, where the portrait of kindly San Giovanni Bosco had offerings of cactus and amaryllis and plug-into-socket devotional candles (1 euro). At some other altars you could pay 50c to flip the switch on a preinstalled electric candle. S. Maria Formosa also featured an impressively large (adult-sized) baptismal font which we dubbed the “holy hot tub.” Every altar was decorated with many many ornate silver hearts with “GR” and other initials; no one could explain these. Morning snack: panini “club rustico” with speck (ham), mushrooms, cheese. Found a lovely little hidden garden between Piazza San Marco and the lagoon, with grass and trees and benches, an oasis of tranquility just steps from hordes of tourists. Nearby was a hotel(?) with a covered gondola dock and a drawbridge that obviously hadn’t been closed in years. When we did find the antiques shop it was closed, alas.

“Eat the thing with eyes” and “embrace not knowing” are our watchwords.

The famous Piazza San Marco was extremely crowded, with big lines to get into the basilica and campanile, but nonetheless we had to stop in. Then we headed to tucked-away-in-a-back-street Osteria da Carla, recommended by the “TapVenice” app, for lunch: cichetti assortment, pasta with zucchini & scallops, ravioli with pumpkin — yum. After lunch we visited Teatro Fenice (Phoenix), an ornate opera hall that has lived up to its name, having been destroyed several times, most recently by a 1996 fire, and rebuilt each time. The building was impressive, also the original architect’s model from 1790, but the audio tour was interminable, being delivered exceptionally slowly and with repetitious redundancy that repeated itself a lot. We theorized that the English-language audio was made exceptionally clear, so that it might serve for all those whose native languages were not covered, at the cost of brevity for native English speakers. Came out of the theatre to discover we’d missed a downpour (excellent timing!) and decided to head back to the room for a nap, with a brief stop at St. Stephen’s to view the impressive ship-like ceiling.

After our nap we met our tour guide for a private “chicetti crawl” we’d booked online ahead of time. Chicetti is basically Venetian tapas, an assortment of small dishes. We visited four or five different chicetti bars, sampling various small and delicious things on bread and drinking prosecco and “spritz” (a popular Venetian aperitif combining Aperol, white wine, and sparkling water), chatting with our guide about Venetian life and history on the way and finishing up with gelato. Had a bit of difficulty finding our way back to the hotel as the sun set, but being lost is just part of the Venice experience (and it’s an island, how lost can you really get?).

Word count: 161 Step count: 10,015

Stayed up until 1 AM the night before the trip dealing with various issues (mostly ebook-related… paper books weigh more, but they don’t crash) and woke up at 5:00 with mind spinning, so started this long long day with 4 hours’ sleep.

The good news is that we did this flight in business class on Air France. We cashed in every Alaska frequent flyer mile we had, and then some, to do it, but it was well worth it — long-haul upgrades are your best air-miles investment. On our first leg, from PDX to LAX, a fellow business-class traveler was Claire Coffee, the actress who plays the Hexenbiest in Grimm.

At LAX, getting from our Alaska gate to the Air France lounge took an entire hour (including a brief visit to Alaska’s lounge, bus to the other terminal, check in at the Air France ticket desk, and getting through security) which didn’t bode well as our layover in Paris, also involving a change in terminals, was only a little more than an hour all told.

Our five-hour layover in the Air France lounge went really quickly, mostly dealing with various computer issues and some email — including an agent rejection, alas. The agent liked the book but “I just don’t believe I could sell this. There aren’t really any YA editors with any understanding of hard-ish SF, and even if I found someone, I can’t see this getting through acquisition somewhere.” Argh.

On the LAX-Paris flight, I watched Mission Impossible 4 (silly fun), slept about 6 hours, did a little reading. Air France’s food in Business Class was actually delicious, and we made it across huge DeGaulle airport (1.52 miles’ walk, according to my pedometer), through passport control and security, and to our gate with time to spare. Whew! Hearing the babel of languages at CDG reminds me that travel forces us to question our assumptions (“of course everyone talks like me, eats like me, dresses like me, lives like me”) — you learn that there are other ways to do things that you had never even realized you were doing at all.

Another excellent meal (technically a snack – it was small and cold – but it had 3 courses and it was delicious) on the plane to Venice. We never did get looked at by Customs; I think I saw some guys in Douane vests talking with each other at CDG as we walked past. It was raining when we arrived, so we decided to take the bus (quick and cheap) into Venice rather than the boat (slower and more scenic, but not so nice on a gray day). The walk from the bus stop to the hotel was a bit of a slog, especially with wheelie bags over those picturesque stepped bridges, but WOW we are really here at last!

The hotel was a bit surprised to see us (our host muttered darkly about her husband not writing down our reservation in the book; I suspect those two will Have Words later) but they did honor our reservation and set us up in a charming little room with mini-fridge and bidet. We threw down our bags, brushed our teeth, and went out in search of dinner. We found several really nice-looking, popular restaurants but they were Fully Committed; most of the rest were either too touristy (multi-lingual menus, obnoxious touts) or too underpopulated or both, or else chicceti bars which we didn’t have the brain power to deal with. The good news is that the search gave us a lovely walk and I got to appreciate the way the character of the light changed minute by minute as the sun went down.

We wound up at a restaurant on a side street, with a multilingual menu but decently crowded and had a nice vibe, where we had a very nice dinner of tomato and onion bruschetta, grilled veg antipasto (Kate had sardines as well), seafood risotto (tentacles!) and a lovely assortment of fried seafood (Italian tempura). We did let ourselves get upsold into a pretty pricey dinner but still a lovely start to the trip.

Tomorrow, we tourist in earnest.

Last night’s SFWA Pacific Northwest Reading Series reading in Portland, the first once since I took over from Mary Robinette Kowal, went off smashingly. The crowd was a bit smaller than last time, perhaps because this one was on a Monday rather than a Tuesday, but those who attended had a fabulous time.

Tonight (Tuesday) the series returns to the Seattle area with another reading at the Wild Rover Restaurant and Pub, 111 Central Way, Kirkland, WA 98033. New York Times Best-selling author Kat Richardson hosts and reads, along with Ted Kosmatka and Shanna Germain. The reading begins at 7:00 and is free and open to the public. For more information and to RSVP, please see http://www.sfwa.org/for-readers/sfwa-northwest-reading-series/.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend the Kirkland reading this time, because tomorrow morning we are flying off to Venice!

We’ll be spending a month in Europe on what we’re calling the “Fallen Empires Tour:” Venice, Bologna, Vienna, several towns in the Czech Republic, Prague, Dresden, and Berlin. I must confess I’m a little freaked out that this is finally happening after so many months of planning, but I expect we’ll have a blast. I hope to blog frequently, with photos, during the trip, but that will depend on the availability of time, energy, and wifi. Take good care of the US while we’re gone.

On Thursday I was one of the judges for the Design A Martian Habitat Contest for students grades K-12. My part of the process was to look over each entry and provide a few comments as well as a grade from 0.0 to 4.0 for Originality, Feasibility, Science and Engineering, Essay, and Total. My comments and grades, along with those of the other judges, will be used in the final determination of the winners. At least two judges will grade each entry.

There were a lot of entries. I got through about half of the ones from the grade 5-8 section. Most of those were from grade 5.

I was very impressed. Almost all of the entries identified the most pressing issues for human survival on Mars and provided plausible solutions to those issues. Many of the essays were very well written and most were accompanied by a vivid and enthusiastic illustration of the habitat design. My hat’s off to these kids.

Even the best essays, however, contained occasional phrases that, for all their sincerity, made me laugh out loud. (And I must emphasize that some of these came from essays I graded highly.) So here’s a “greatest hits” composite essay with all the bits that were just too much fun not to share. Every sentence below came from an actual entry, with spelling, capitalization, and punctuation exactly as shown…

INTRODUCTION

Mars is the coolest place on earth. Mars is an amazing planet and we need to be prepared for Whatever its surface beholds.

Jonah is going to Mars. He brings food, water, air, metal, tools, spacesuit, more air, plants to make more air with, and his guitar. First, he goes to Phobos. Phobos is like rocks.

And off they traveled in to the unknown bounders of space only to find the planet mars …

AIR, WATER, FOOD, AND GRAVITY

The astronauts brought big, warm puffy coats and lots of blankets to keep them warm; they also brought materials that would make the bad air from outside turn into good air that they could breathe only in their air tight shelter.

Astronauts will gather water from the ice caps. They will collect the ice and bring it down to a vat of hot water. The ice will melt and the astronauts will have water. I would test it to see if you could drink it. I would take all the chemicals out of it.

They will get gravity by using the gravity box that NASA has lent them. They will also wear heated clothes that look kind of like a space suit but not as fat looking.

I would bring a food supply that would last years. I will need apples, water, meat and a refrigerator to store food. I would also bring beans.

Since Mars’s atmosphere is thinner than ours and since the UV rays and solar radiation would burn them bad I thought they could just wear thick hats and cloths and allot of sunscreen while their outside so they wouldn’t have a problem with that.

Because of the low pressure they have most of there things attached to the ground, they also need a (n) electric compressor.

Since low pressure can give u a headache they are going to have to bring allot of Aspirin. And since it can make your ears pop they are going to bring a lot of gum and gummy bears and gummy worms.

Jonah didn’t bring his friends. Sometimes it’s dark.

DESIGN OF THE HABITAT

There is no breathable air on mars. So after they finish the space station they will take bottles of oxygen and spray the whole building. All doors are sealed shut unless they are opened.

The astronauts shot electricity into the atmosphere to separate fhe oxygen from the other gasses. They store it in an underground tank. There is a plug with a rope attached to it that hangs out into the science lab. To release oxygen, you pull on the rope. There are strips of rubber strapping the plug to the tank, so if you let go of the rope, the plug snaps back into place. [I gave this one high marks. Low tech = reliable!]

There is going to be a cafeteria on the middle floor, and astronauts will have mini fridges in their room. There is a connection from the cafeteria to the food cellar where the cook can pull up food.

In the bathroom you have to Deposit your waste into a bucket, then poor it in to the waste shoot. Your waste then goes down to the burning room where it is burned. This produces heat for the Base.

Since I already explained about the bathrooms, the water, and the food I will explain about the beds. They are not bunk beds but they are just regular single beds. Every astronaut gets their own bed. In the morning they have to go all the way to the dressing rooms to get dressed. [I suspect the writer of this paragraph has to share a bedroom.]

I was thinking like in the airplanes have oxygen masks you could hang them every where in your headquarters. You would be safe wherever you walked!

They would do all of their experiments and more in their lab which is part of their home and they would aloes bring all the tools they would need for the experiments, like test tubes, spoons, gloves ext.

There is a door to the janitors closet ( for spills and puke etc. )

Jonah wants to talk to people on Earth. He wants to set up Skype because of his laptop. He will hook up to his solar panels. He will need a special antenna. He will have to build it. It will have to be really big. It will take Jonah seven days to build it. He will grow food and air from plants. He will go and get rocks and make dirt for the plants. Now he is ready to talk to Earth.

EXPLORATION

For science experiments, they could study the rocks. They would go out in their astronaut suits and grab a rock. When they got back inside they could study it.

This is special iron. Every time you hit it, it blows up.

the second thing they saw was the space ranger that they have heard many stories about but never dreamed they would see it in person but now there it was all dusty,

‘We need to see if we are not alone. So we need to go back inside and get more air for are tanks. “Then we can go and see if there is anyone else here on This stinking planit named mars.”

CONCLUSION

When astronauts go to mars they need to be prepared. Mars is a far away planet. But then again, not so far away.

My conclusion is that if you go up to Mars you should be prepared. This essay will make sure of that. If you don’t have all of these things you will probably not be happy. I hope you take this into consideration.

I’m off to Seattle (blogging from the train at the moment, actually) where I will be one of the judges for the Design A Martian Habitat Contest for students grades K-12. I’ve never done this sort of thing before, so it should be fun!

This will be a flying visit and I’ll be heading home tomorrow.