Saint Mark’s Square, Venice, Italy, photo by Rob Lee — Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic

I'm a Conservative Jew. Which means I eat unkosher dairy out, and when I'm alone in a foreign country on Shabbat I'm more apt to go with the flow (including not concerned whether there's an eruv).

I also know no languages other than English and I'm directionally challenged — meaning I can’t tell north-south-east-west and, when reading off a map, I tend to walk one block in the wrong direction and then figure it out and right myself.

A month or so before turning 21, having never traveled out of the country by myself, I went to Cannes (France) for the Cannes Film Festival as part of a program of my college. This doesn't exactly count as traveling by myself. I spent two weeks in Cannes and had to see dozens of films so I spent 99% of the time in the section of Cannes that looks like a cross between Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and Disneyland.

I had just taken a college course in Baroque art, and since I was already in Europe, I and my family decided it would be a good idea for me to go to Italy. My mom found a tour group (Contiki) for 18-30 years olds that started a day after the Cannes Film Festival finished.

Contiki was a bus tour and we were only spending a day in Venice — a Shabbat. I wanted to attend Shabbat services in the Spanish Synagogue, but as a tour group we were going to a Murano glass workshop, which I wanted to go to, and then to a lace workshop before we were on our own.

After the Murano glass workshop and the lace workshop, I knew services were over and mincha (afternoon services) was hours away. I explored St. Mark's Square, St. Mark's Basilica and the Doge's Palace.

I then walked to the ghetto, which took twice or three times the amount of time it should have according to the distance on the map. The three times the amount of time is because of my poor directional skills. But it really would have taken twice the amount of time walking as the distance appeared on the map. Later I found out the reason for this.

Venice is not a walking city if you have places you want to go and not just stroll around the city. The map of the land isn’t exactly accurate. If you want to get somewhere you take a boat which is like a bus.

I arrived in the ghetto. As far as I could figure out it was a large empty square. I went into the only open door. It was a small area filled with books and two men were studying.

In my bull-in-china-shop voice I asked loudly: “What time is mincha?” No response. Again: “What time is mincha?” One man looked at the second man. The second man came over to me. I explained that I was a tourist, only here for the day, and I wanted to go to mincha services at the Spanish Synagogue. The man said he didn’t quite know — he was Chabad — but he could find out. He then invited me to the Chabad house for food.

Whatever ideological differences I have with Chabad, I will always be grateful for Chabad feeding me in Venice. I got served meat and fish — served on separate plates. It was so wonderful to have real food — based on the places where we went as a tour group to eat, I was living on vegetables and a little pasta.

Hanging around the Chabad house was a young Italian Jew who was not Chabad but seemed to be amused at Chabad's presence in Venice and he hung around there. The Italian was the one who took me to the Spanish Synagogue when it was time for mincha.

There was an armed guard at the door of the synagogue and, while I don't recall if I had to show my passport, I'm sure I did. I do remember he went through my fanny pack and told me I couldn’t enter with my cellphone (which I had for emergencies). So I had to go back to the Chabad house, explain about the cell phone, leave it there, and go back to the synagogue.

Having grown up in an Ashkenazi synagogue and attended a Sephardic middle school (grades 5-8) with daily prayers — I am familiar with both styles of praying. Prayer in the Spanish Synagogue was some point between the two. Almost as fast as normal speed in a Syrian synagogue but much more melodic.

I was in a time crunch and had to get back to St. Mark's Square to meet up with my tour group. The likelihood of my making it back on land without getting lost was very slim. The Italian told me I had to take a boat. There was a stop a few feet from the waterside of the Chabad house. He said it would take me to St. Mark's Square.

I got on — and no one asked me for fare or a ticket. On one hand I felt relieved because it was Shabbat and I didn't want to spend money. On the other hand, it was hard to believe that Venice didn’t charge money for riding on the public boats.

The boat took me to St. Mark's Square. I got out, met up with my tour group, got back on the bus, and that was my time in Venice.
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Yael K. Miller (@MillerMosaicLLC on Twitter) is a 2005 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the co-founder of the Internet marketing company MillerMosaicLLC.com

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