I heard Luke & Charlene leave the house to go catch the 6:30 am train. They didn't takemy kindle, but Luke has been to Rome before, he should be able to show Char around just find. They both also have iphones so they could look things up in a pinch. Luke had said his plan was to buy tickets for the hop-on-hop-off open air bus, so that would easily transport them to the major sites. I know Charlene needed to go to Saint Peter's as her major sightseeing of the day and everything else would just be gravy.
My foot feels a little better, but I kept the menthol patches on it just in case. I had told the two of them to leave any laundry for me they needed doing and I commenced the washing and hanging laundry process when I woke up. Cleaned the kitchen and dining areas spic and span, got the bedding ready for Zoe to sleep on the fold-out in the living room downstairs, did a little bit of grocery shopping and waited for her call that she had arrived at the station.
I met her at the vaporetto and we talked for about an hour about how I came to be here in Venice and working in Italy in general. She's a librarian, wife and mother of two young ones (3 and 4) who lives in Charleston, SC and her husband is an engineer at Boeing. Wow.
She went out for a walk before dinner. I asked her to be back at 7 and I would have food on the table for us. Just before 7 Marco called and said he would be finished with work at 7:30 and he wanted to come over and show me movies he had taken on his Flip camera. Could I show him how to work the editing software? I told him to come for dinner with me and Zoe. He was confused – where are the others? They went to Rome for the day.
“Roma?”
Yes Roma.
“Roma, where there is the Colosseo?In Lazio? In the south?”
Yes, the same one. Capital of your country. That Roma.
“In one day?”
Yes, one very long day.
“You Americani. So crazy.”
Yep, we are crazy Americani.
Zoe called me not quite in a panic. She had lost her way in the streets and now that it was after sunset she really didn't know how to get back, but she thought she was close by. I had her tell me which bridge she was closest to, or the name of a restaurant or shop she was near. She said Taverna San Trovaso near Accademia Bridge. I kept her on the phone a few minutes while I gave her directions how to get back, she was about 7 minutes away. We rang off, and I waited. And waited. And waited.
I called her back and asked if she was okay. She had taken a wrong turn somewhere and didn't know where she was. I asked her if there was a restaurant nearby – go in and hand the phone to someone working there. She had somehow only gone about a block from where she had been before and had been kind of going in circles for twenty minutes. I almost told her to wait there and just have Marco collect her on his way and bring her, but she might think that odd that some guy pop in and say “Kris sent me, come with me.” I told the man on the phone at the trattoria to have her stay there I was coming. I put a note on the door for Marco in case he beat us back to the house.
I found her and we had a laugh about it, got back to the house and three minutes later the bell rang. Marco joined us for dinner of soup and pasta, which he likes to rag me about. “Krix, is two primi dishes, we do not do this.” I really don't care, it's a vegetable soup and a little pasta with tomato sauce and it's enough for me if I don't want to make a big meal. But to a traditional Italian it is blasphemy or something; no secondi dish means no protein. Even though there are beans in the soup and meat in the bolognese sauce, you'd think they were going to die from not having a dish of chicken or steak or fish twice a day. Oy.
“You want so much to be Italian, but you do not make a secondi.”
I don't want to be Italian; I'm Irish and German, so I can't “be” Italian. So there. You want a secondi? Go get yourself a pizza. I told you what I was making for dinner and you came anyway.
“I hoped you only forgot to tell me about secondi and you have a chicken in the ho-ven.”
I'm a terrible host Marco. Please forgive me for not being your housewife or your mother?
“Okay, one more time I forgive you. No more, ceci.” Jackass.
In the mean time, Zoe cracked up at our verbal exchanges. “You guys are comedy! But you are worse than me and my sister fighting as teenagers.” This sums up my relationship with the guy, and she nailed it in five minutes.
He is now calling my house “Locanda Ca'Kris” - Hotel Kris' House. I like having people around right now – I've been in the country for a month and planning for Luke & Char to be here for a week in the middle of my stay was brilliant. It's the energy shot I need to get me through the next half of the schedule. I need to plan for someone to come visit me mid-trip every stint, until I can get used to being away for multiple months at a time.
Marco found it very interesting that he was having dinner with two married ladies whose husbands don't mind them traveling alone. I am very happy to know that my hub-unit is not the only man out there who is okay with this. In Zoe's case it's a bit of a necessity for the time being. They had decided to each take one vacation alone and one together each year while their kids are still very young. This way it doesn't disrupt the kids' normal daily schedules and they still get to go somewhere they want to go without dragging disinterested or behaviorally challenged young ones. When both kids were at least seven they will start doing the longer family vacations, but until then, she gets to come to Europe for two weeks a year and see what she wants to see without the headache of compromising with the kids in tow. Brava!
After dinner and dessert (I was forgiven for the paltry meal because I had gelato, but of course) Zoe went out take a night cruise on the Canale Grande on the vaporetto. Marco and I booted up the computer and I looked at his movies. The guy is a Speilberg in the making, I tell you. Okay, maybe a well-known documentary maker then...
He made short movies of people in the Piazza San Marco and all their costumes. Asked them where they were from. In a few short days, just on his way to and from work he had taken 205 short clips of people in wonderful costumes – just regular people, not the professional Fantasie-costume models who don't talk behind their masks.
I showed him how to start editing out the extraneous - he just wanted a frame or two of the costume and the person stating where they were from and the costume again, then switch to the next. I wasn't about to edit 205 clips, but I showed him the tools and how to shorten each clip, then how to stitch it together. When he was comfortable and ready he could take on the whole task on his own. He seems okay with it, so now I know I won't be taking that camera home with me. I may not make a proper Italian meal 100% of the time to his satisfaction, but I can pick out a good gift. So there.
Zoe returned and we showed her what we were doing. She got very excited seeing all the costumed visitors, and said she couldn't wait until she was able to see them all herself tomorrow. She went to bed at 11:30, Marco left just before midnight, and Luke & Charlene came back at 12:30. I had a bottle of wine and glasses in my room for when they came home so we could talk about their day without disturbing Zoe to go get refreshments.
They had a blast. I'm glad they went, even if hearing their story of the day's events was exhausting. I'm glad I stayed home. It was a long day!
Tomorrow is Fat Tuesday and the end of Carnevale. Everyone needs their rest so we can stay up late for the midnight silent boat procession. Goodnight.
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