Vacation

Waking up in Venice was a treat, in more ways than one. The weather was nice, so we slept with the windows ajar. Being that there were no screens on the windows, I was awoken by some flying insects that morning. The damp musty smell of the waterways next began filling my nostrils. I recall thinking “where am I and why am I being tortured like this?”. My dismay quickly turned to delight when I looked at the window and saw the astounding buildings and unique landscape Venice offers.
Once we all gathered ourselves we set out to explore Venice for the day. We stopped at a small café where I had an ‘American’ breakfast which consisted of a ham and cheese omelette which I enhanced with a croissant and a Coke Zero. At the café we spoke with a local named Andrea who gave us great advice on visiting the Tuscany region later on our trip. Andrea and Paul talked for a while back and forth in Italian and Andrea complemented him on his language skills.

Before our trip I had studied up on Italian so I could pick up some of the words being said. At one point, Andrea, Paul and myself started laughing which confused the rest of the group. Andrea had asked Paul if we were his kids, which Paul replied blushingly with, “No, no, no”.

By the evening we had hit all the major touristy spots in Venice. We got around by using the water bus which normally costs €7.50 per person per trip, but because we’re dumb Americans we rode for free, illegally. Navigating the tight “streets” of Venice is very difficult because of all the dead ends and bad GPS signal. Several times we headed out one way only to turn around and go back the same way because it was either a dead end or the entirely wrong direction. As the reluctant navigator I took a lot of harassment from the group for these antics. We learned words like sinistra (left) and destra (right) which didn’t help us navigate any better, but were fun to say.
Later we had dinner, I had gnocchi again, and this is where Mike became attached to the word limoncello which he said with a very humorous Italian accent.

After dinner as close to sunset as possible the six of us sought to find a gondola ride. Since this is a busy time of day for the gondoliers we had to wait for one to come available. I started dancing around like I had to pee and saw a public toilet sign not far from the gondola station. I quickly walked to the W.C. and was surprised to find that it would cost me €1.50 to use. I only had 10 Euros on me at the time so I turned around and sauntered back to the group. I found Mike and he lent me a one Euro coin to accompany the 50 cents I had in my pocket. Next I turn around and run back up the hill to where the public restroom was, and by this time I was almost ready to go in my pants. On my trip to find Mike and get some coin, the bathroom closed before I came back. I had no choice but to hold it for the entire 30 plus minutes of the gondola ride.

We all piled in the gondola in random order leaving me to sit in the front facing away from everyone. The ride was delightful and the gondolier was very unrevealed. We quickly noticed we weren’t going on the main waterways and found ourselves traveling down what we would call the ‘back roads’. I looked back a couple times at our driver who did nothing more than steer the boat, poorly, and duck under bridges as we approached them. After a while Mike and I started to smell a distinct yet familiar scent in the air. Each time it wafted by, we would look at each other and chortle. The gondolier’s phone rang and of course he answered it, but this led me to turn around again and glance his way. It was then we all noticed at the same time he was smoking a joint of cannabis. Mike and I laughed and abruptly my urinary pains came back. As we maneuvered through tight waterways, bumping into boats, our high-as-a-kite gondolier seem to have everything under control. All of a sudden we heard a loud thud and a splash. The boat rocked and we felt like we might go overboard. Looking back at our captain we see him half hanging off the boat, on his back, trying to keep ahold of his oar. Shortly after he regained his stability, apologizing, and saying that he is fine, we learned that he had failed to duck low enough to clear a bridge. The concrete bridge clipped his back on our way under and sent him straight to the deck. I think we were all laughing so much it was hard to breathe. I’m pretty sure, though I’ll never admit it in person, I urinated in my trousers a bit when our gondolier went crashing down.
Every bridge thereafter most of us shouted at our driver “Attenzione!” Which is a word we learned earlier when local delivery drivers would want us to get out of their way.
This was another thrilling end to another night of a long trip ahead.

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After we disembarked the plane, it was time to enter Italy through customs. We waited in a very long line with a lot of smelly sweaty people. When it came time for our turn with the customs officer, he either didn’t speak English or didn’t feel like talking because he said nothing. After a mumble, grunt, and a stamp, we were cleared to enter the country. Next we headed for the water bus and taxi area. The signs were both in English and Italian, but they still proved difficult to follow. We found a water bus to take us to the main island, bought tickets and 27 Euros later, we got in line. I’m not sure how many people the boat we were on was legally allowed to carry, but I feel like the passengers, crew, and luggage would have been over the weight limit. I was one of the last people aboard because I’m polite and let everyone go in front of me. They told me to sit on some wooden area that was clearly not a seat while everyone else got a padded area. I thought that it wouldn’t be that bad since it’s a short boat ride. I was wrong about that. Between not being able to see much and my lack of seat, the boat trip seemed to take hours. In actuality it was about 30 to 45 minutes.

We arrived near the Rialto Bridge bus station and started to drag our luggage through the small streets and over the hundreds of bridges. The first place we saw we stopped at to have a drink and some food. We had cappuccino and pizza at Gran Caffe aila citti di Torino. This was my first taste of Italian espresso and I was pleasantly surprised how good it was for not being a coffee drinker. Next we began searching for our airBnB which we had trouble getting to because of a lack of navigation or phone usage. Along the way we stopped at a TIM store to get local SIM cards for our phones. Because I’m addicted to the internet I decided that I should buy a one month data plan from a local provider. This turned out to be a great decision as I used over 25GB of data in two weeks and it only cost me 35 Euros. This is where we first got to experience Paul’s understanding of the Italian language. He translated what we wanted to the TIM clerk and we didn’t have any problems. The only downside was our phones weren’t active for another 30 minutes so we still could not use them to get around the city.

Eventually we found the area we were supposed to meet the host for the place we were staying. They were a really nice married couple who spoke pretty good English. They led us through the winding streets back some hidden alleys and we popped out at the place. It was a nice three bedroom second floor apartment with great views of the waterways. We all claimed our bedrooms and started to unpack. Later we headed out on the town to get dinner. We ended up at Dolfini restaurant which was basically empty. Being traveling Americans we had not yet adjusted our eating schedule so we were the restaurant’s first customers for dinner that day. I again payed close attention to Paul’s conversation with the wait staff as I was putting my Italian lessons of the past few months to work. We started with bread and some wine. I ordered gnocchi which has always been one of my favorite Italian dishes. It was dressed in a white alfredo-sque sauce. I ate it all very quickly and remember how delicious it was and how much better it tasted than any previous gnocchi I’ve had. Mike decided to be adventurous and order squid ink pasta. Basically pasta with black sauce all over it. By the end of the meal it had looked like he ate a couple bricks of charcoal; he had black teeth and tongue for a few hours after that. On the way back to our place we stopped at had some gelato, which became a staple for us on our trip. I opted for strawberry and cream flavor that was so buttery and flavorful I can still taste it.

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By this point most of us were tired, but I was determined to stay up to a normal bed time. I found a nice loveseat that I could lay on with my feet dangling off the end and started to browse social media on my phone. The next thing I know I hear a loud bell ringing noise. Not the sound of a phone ringing or church bells, this was clearly a doorbell. I sprung up off the couch, now noticing it was darker than when I last remembered, ran to the door and tried to determine if anyone was there. I eventually unlocked and opened the door to find nothing there. I then heard the ringing bell again and it was definitely intended to be a doorbell. I was still confused on what day is was and what happened, but clearly I fell asleep for some time. Shortly thereafter Stephanie emerged from the bathroom after a fresh shower. It seemed she was trying to find a light and she pulled a string that triggered the doorbell. This was meant as an emergency alert system if you fell or needed help in the bath tub. Lesson learned and mystery solved. After that excitement we went to bed shortly have the sun had set.

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