When I was in high school, I used to work summers at a camp... It was more of a glorified day care, but I was a teenager, and it was easy work, and by the end of summer I'd saved up $1,500. Enough, as it turned out, to pay for a ten-day trip to Italy. I spent three days in glorious Rome, two jam-packed days in sunny Florence, and a day at the infamous site of Pompeii... But my favorite city on the whole trip was Venice. I was taken with the pride of the gondoliers, the beauty of the winding streets, and the sudden, unexpected artesian shop. One day I found myself standing outside a hot furnace in a glass-blower's workshop, watching him pinch-form a beautiful green-crested horse figurine. I was enthralled, the maliablity of the hot glass, the sure hands of the artist. I thought that I'd be more than happy to stay there for the rest of my life. Again, I was a teenager, and it was Italy... the canal-ridden beauty of Venice began to haunt me then. I haven't had a chance to go back yet, but judging by an International Herald Tribune article, I might find things a little changed. That glass-blower's workshop might not be there anymore. Turns out, some of the older traditions are being force out of the city to make way for touristy cafes and hotels. I ask you, who would rather spend the afternoon in a Starbuck's (SBUX:Nasdaq) than in a beautiful workshop? The plaza-side cafes have a long-established legacy, and I don't have a beef with them. But I can't even think of Venice without thinking of glass. It would be a travesty if the next generation of high schoolers can't lose themselves in the white glow of a small furnace and the hot breath of the glassblower...