Regulations these days call for the gondola to be 11 meters in length, 600 kilos in weight, and made with eight different kinds of wood in 280 pieces. The only elements in metal are the "iron" of the head and the "risso" of the stern. The gondola is asymmetric: the left side is larger than the right by 2.5 inches. The asymmetry makes it inclined on one side, allowing the gondolier steering from the back end of the boat to be the counterbalance. The bottom is flat, so that the gondola can navigate in shallow water, only a few inches deep.
The iron of the gondola head, used to gain stability by counter-balancing the gondolier's weight, is a mini-map of Venice. There are six strips called "pettini" (meaning "comb") to represent the six "sestieri" or quarters of Venice: Santa Croce, Dorsoduro, San Polo, Cannaregio, San Marco and Castello . An additional long strip represents Giudecca Island, the double "S" bending represents the Grand Canal, on top is a stylized Doge's horn and, under that, a lunette representing the Rialto bridge. How do you like that?
The origin of the name "gondola" is uncertain: it may come from the Latin "cymbula" (little boat) or "cuncula", diminutive of "concha" (shell). It made its first appearance in paintings in the late 15th and early 16th Centuries in works by Gentile Bellini, Vittore Carpaccio, and Giovanni Mansueti. According to documents of the Serenissima Republic (the ancient state of Venice), the gondola was born in the early 1000s. With time, the gondola acquired characteristics that distinguished it as a boat designed for the private transport of persons of a certain rank.
The gondola was not only a means of transportation. A closed cabin called a "felze" placed in its center (not in use nowadays) offered both a shelter from bad weather and privacy for the passengers, who could enjoy reading, food, drink, conversation, or romance without being seen. The dark side is that escaped criminals and kidnappers favored the felze and were able to avoid detection. With open cabins, Venetians cooled off on hot summer nights ("al fresco") while showing off their finery on the waterways.
These days a gondola needs to be overhauled completely every 2 to 3 years at great cost to refurbish and replace wood, as well as re-varnish everything from tip to stern. To build one is a minimum of 30K - so it's no wonder they charge so much for a ride.
We made our way to Piazza San Marco to view the sights there and I took off for Giudecca island for a few hours to visit Mamma.
I came back in the early afternoon and did my office hours. While I was there Davide came up to me and asked me if I wanted to go for a drink after we were through working in the evening. Davide is a porter who has been working at the hotel for about five years. I thought he was Kenyan, but I was wrong. He's Mali by heritage but born and raised in Senegal.
Wanting to make sure he understood this was NOT a date, I told him exactly that. "This is just friendly, a drink and nothing more. There is nothing romantic that is going to happen. You know this."
"Yes, yes. Of course." Then I felt kind of bad - like I am such a hot babe I need to go around announcing ground rules. But you do. I've run into this problem a few times in my years here. A wedding ring doesn't mean much to people here.
I felt it was safe to go somewhere with him. I know where he works; he works with Marco, he knows all my friends in the bar. I've talked with him here and there over the years, albeit briefly. I agreed to meet him in the courtyard outside the hotel at eleven for one drink nearby.
I turned and looked at Aldo behind the bar. Smirky McSmirkerson over there. He said, "You must know that he likes you. He has asked me for weeks about how to come and talk to you about going for a drink."
Thanks, Pal. A little "heads up" would have been graciously accepted beforehand. I went back out into the lobby to find Davide and make sure (again) that he knows this is only a drink. "Yes of course. We will talk. I want to know more about you Kristina. Everyone is friends with you and I would like that as well." Okay. I felt a little better about it after that.
I went back to the apartment because I was making dinner for Marco and myself before I went back to the hotel for my evening office hours and he was working the graveyard shift. After dinner I was clearing the table and from around the corner I hear:
BOOM
*thud*
CRACK
"Ayyyy yiyi. Ow."
Marco hit his head on the doorway threshold to the downstairs restroom, spun and crashed into the wall, fell back and broke the plaster on the bottom step of the landing. And "Ow." He wasn't bleeding, but did need some ice, pronto. We left the icepack on his head for 30 minutes and left for work at the hotel at eight.
I hung out at the bar as per Frank's request, and read from my Kindle. The Belgians came in a actually steered clear of me. Don't touch my stuff. That is all. Aldo had apparently told Giorgio about Davide's "proposal" to me because he kept trying to tease me about it. I wasn't giving in to thinking it was a date, no matter what he was trying to purport.
At eleven I went out to meet up. We went to Caffe Torino, about ten minutes away, near the Rialto bridge. They were playing reggae music. Maybe Marco needs to come here for some dance lessons...
He doesn't drink alcohol. That was a tiny bit of a relief that wouldn't have to deal with language barriers, cultural barriers and comprehension barriers from drunkenness. He told me about how he came to live in Venice - he came illegally and was one of the sellers on the street for the fake designer handbags. They are locally known as "Vuoi Comprai" (phonetically, voo-com-pry) because most of the African immigrants speak French and use that phrase meaning, "Do you want to buy it?" as they are calling out the the passers by.
I have been fascinated by the street sellers for years and have tried to interview them on occasion in hopes of putting together a short filmed piece on them. I am not a journalist - just a fan of the 3 Minute Film Festival. Every time I have made a meeting with one of them, they get spooked and don't show up. And here I had a success story - someone who had worked his way out of the drudgery and had found a job in the legal circle and was now in possession of sponsored legal immigration status, with work papers and an actual visa.
Davide told me about how where the bags are made and how they get distributed (and yes, the Naples mafia is involved), what the sellers' cut of the sales to the tourists are, what it's like getting pinched by the police, being deported and making his way back here, the whole shebang. After getting deported the one time he managed to get a job washing dishes in a restaurant, which started him on the road to sponsored work papers.
I appreciated his candor and honesty with all my questions. I also asked him what his life was like back in Senegal, and in Mali where the rest of his family is. He has 23 brothers and sisters, as his father had four wives. He has siblings living throughout Italy (all are legal now) and in Paris, Marseilles and Geneva. Before coming to Europe he had played on the Senegal national Handball team and traveled the African continent playing tournaments.
It really was an eye-opener to put a face to the immigration "problem" in Italy. He did tell me that everyone he knows in the trade have always been honorable. They make enough money to eat, live in crowded apartments, and send the rest of the money home to their families. He sends his to his mother (who actually called during our conversation - so he took a ten minute call from her.) They aren't drug addicts and don't steal from the locals or the tourists. They are simply trying to get by. I believe that. Every Vuoi Comprai I have met has been honest, even though they are just trying to make money off you by selling knockoff handbags.
I told him it was time for me to get going - I needed to get to bed. We walked to the vaporetto stop and he dropped the bomb.
"I have been watching you for seven years Kristina. I have wanted to know you for that long. I would watch you when I was selling the bags on Calle Marzo XXII and you would go to the hotel."
Wait. What? Before he started working at the hotel? He could pick me out on my two trips a year at random, on the street... I don't believe this.
"You purchased a small black Prada bag from me. You were wearing a red scarf and long silver earrings shaped like a leaf." The ONLY time I purchased from a Vuoi Comprai it was on the street in front of the hotel (Calle Marzo XXIII) and it was a small black Prada bag for my sister-in-law. Oh hell. He does remember me. I still have those earrings and that scarf.
"I would see you walking late at night from the hotel. When I started working there I see you in the Tiepolo and know that you are friends with everyone. I know that you call and talk to Marco when you are home in America. I work nights with him sometimes. I tell him that he is lucky to have a sister like you."
I got a little uneasy at this point and reiterated that we can only be friends Davide, nothing more. I am a good person to have for a friend, but nothing else. "Of course Kristina." And then he leaned in to plant one on me.
Gotta go, dude. Goodnight.
I went back to the hotel and straight to the Concierge desk. "Um...say, Marco, Davide just told me he has wanted to get to know me since before he started working here. Do you know anything about it?"
"Yes. He talks about you a lot every time you visit." You think you could have mentioned something to me?
"No, it didn't concern me." Yes it kind of does - did you do anything to dissuade him from thinking he would have a chance with me?
"I did not think he would ever get the courage to talk to you outside of the hotel." Ugh. Argh. I felt like pushing him into another doorframe to whack him in the head again.
I tried this time. I have been semi-naive in the past in thinking that a man in Italy wasn't on the make because I don't consider myself especially attractive. I know my personality is my shining quality, not my looks. But there are a lot of men here who do find my looks attractive (I think they've got kind of a fetish going, but that's just me...) so I have learned to make sure to spell it out that I am only going for coffee or a drink, make the ulterior motives known please. It's not going to happen, pal. And what does it get me this time out?I find out I kind of had a stalker. No, not really, but yeah.
Seriously? Why can't a woman just be friends with a man over here? It took a while, but I have managed to work that out with Marco, and now he's just my goofy older brother, and I spend more time with his mother than I do with him.
This is craziness. Seriously.
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