thanks to Evan for getting the Venice posts posted!  I messed up something, I guess and couldn’t get them on the blog.  

Monday, we went to our wonderful market to buy fish for a dinner party on Tuesday…and the fish stalls are shut up tight.  No fish on Mondays!  So, I went  back yesterday to get mussels for my famous steamed mussels.  They were wonderful.  We had Caprese salad first, slices of tomato and slices of Buffala mozzarella and fresh basil leaves on top.  Olive oil drizzled over the top and balsamic vinegar.  Oh my!  And if you think you have eaten tomatoes, think again…nothing tastes like a fresh off the vine Italian tomato!  I like buying the mussels from a sweet little old man who has a tiny stall…a fourth to a fifth the size of the other fish stalls.  He runs it by himself.  The others have from 3 to 10 workers cutting chunks of fish, filleting, counting out and wrapping.  I told the little man, in Italian that ‘I came yesterday and all the fish stalls were closed’.  He repeated to me in Italian, ‘ You come Monday, the fish stalls are closed’!  Friends, Liz and Lauren came and a good time was had by all!

Today, we went to the Oriental Museum, but unfortunately, the Tibetan exhibit was finished and they were in the process of setting up an Iranian exhibit to start on Saturday.  There will be a special event at 11am on Saturday.  The Iranian Cultural Ambassador and his Italian counterpart will meet to sign a cultural agreement, open the exhibit and refreshments will be served.  We plan to attend.  And, the exhibit will be free that day. After we left, we went to the Rome Quilt Store.  What a delightful surprise.  Lots and lots of bolts of lovely material for quilting. I will be returning, and hope to find a group that I might quilt with while here.  On the way hope, stopped for a slice of pizza.  It was a thin crunchy crust that I love, a green called rocket and huge slices of smoked salmon.  It was wonderful and I will stop there again.  Got home and rested before dinner.  Tonight we went to a brand new restaurant near our apartment.  The chef opened this evening and Andy and I were his first customers.  We are taking him an American dollar tomorrow that we are going to sign and wish him good luck.  His name is Vince and he was a chef in NYC for many years.  He serves Caesar salads – the only person in Rome who does!  That is what we had and it was delicious!  Can’t wait to try his other salads and the soup of the day.  Very different fare from all the other places around that serve the typical pastas.  And he won our hearts by sharing a Reese’s Peanut butter Cup with us!  A taste of home!  Any of you coming to visit…please bring a package of Reese’s, Milky Ways and Almond Joy!  A special request from Vince!  We hope he is a huge success!  

Tomorrow we are off to the beach.  Will report on that tomorrow night.