Sometimes the strikes are four hours, other times eight or twelve hours. This one is 24 hours: 7AM Monday to 7AM Tuesday. But the people of the islands not in Venice proper, like Murano, Lido and Giudecca, aren't completely stranded. There is a boat every four hours from San Giorgio Maggiore, to take people to San Zaccaria. There's also one at Lido to Santa Elena, whereupon the people have to walk from the southeasternmost point of the city to everywhere else. And one on Murano to Fondamenta Nove. They don't leave the residents absolutely stranded on the outlying points, which is a considerate thing to do, considering they are striking after all. I still don't understand the purpose of striking to prove some point of supposed contention (and showing how important the transit services are to a community) and then making a concession for the populace. Defeats the purpose in my mind. Anyway, on strike days in order to take this boat you have to have an abbonamento, the picture ID resident card, and thankfully I have one showing my part-time residential status, thanks to my “famiglia” letting me use their address as my “permanent” one even though I rent from various locales in town. At these stops they station a transit worker to turn away tourists, which of course baffles them. “Sciopero. Strike. Vaporetto for resident cards only.” Taxi boat drivers must love days like this as I'm sure they get a lot of calls from freaking out tourists who must get to their destinations and connections to get out of town, like the train station or airport. Rake in that dough. It's not really that inconvenient as a tourist, just walk everywhere. Venice is a walking city after all. But if you chose to stay on the Lido or Giudecca, better just explore that area on a strike day. Taxi boats are uber ultra way expensive, but you look so fabulous riding around in them, so there's that.
I left the apartment at 6:30AM for the 15 minute walk over to San Zaccaria to catch the #2 to Giudecca. I was cutting it close, since those boats run every 20 minutes, but as long as I caught that boat at 6:54 I was fine. It's just over a kilometer, so 24 minutes is plenty of time.
I caught the boat in plenty of time and made my way to Mamma's, stopping at the caffe bar down the street and picking up some pastries for us. She wasn't up yet but Marco was. By the time she was up I had set out coffee, yogurt, fruit and cornetti for her. No complaining about no church before eating was heard. She has accepted that she has to eat first thing in the morning, church or not. The priest would come around later in the morning to see her.
Spent the morning loading up my television shows onto the computer to watch later. Oh how I have missed being able to catch up. While I adore my “famiglia” I haven't enjoyed the stresses of the situation by a longshot. Relaxing with some mindless tv viewing is most appreciated. And so I loaded up a program from the pirate website, loaded up a few actually, while I sat with Mamma so when she went down for a nap I could view them with a headset so as not to disturb.
I made up a porcini risotto for lunch, with a side of grilled zucchini and eggplant. Of course Mister Man had an opinion – no protein? Shut it. Not every single meal has to have meat involved. Gah. He left to go do something elsewhere, away from where he could irritate me, Mamma went down for her nap, and I watched three weeks worth of NBC comedies. Yay for me.
We still had zuppa di zucca leftover from Sunday, so that with a roast chicken and carrots was dinner. No complaints from the peanut gallery at all. I left them a little before 9PM, expecting to be able to take the periodic boat for the residents, since the strike was still on, and waited for 45 minutes. No transit worker ever came to check on abbonamenti, no boat. Hmmmm. The notice said there would be one at 9AM, 1PM, 5PM, 9PM, 1AM, 5AM... and at 7AM Tuesday the strike would be over. Maybe they finally get the picture of what a strike actually is? I called Marco and told him I was stranded, no boat ever showed so I was coming back to the house. I would sleep on the couch or in the spare room. “Signor benedetto... ringrazie che non devo lavoro.” He was thankful he wasn't working the night shift.
Mamma called out from her room when I got back, wanting to know what was the matter. “Non e problema, non e problema, la stanza e libero.” Not a problem, the bedroom is ready. I had her get back to bed and once we could tell she was asleep, Marco & I drank a bottle of wine and ravaged the rest of the roast chicken. We were a little tipsy and I had to keep shushing him because he was singing along with the tv... the Italian version of “X Factor”, a singing competition show. Idiot.
For being “stranded” it wasn't so bad. Not like Robinson Crusoe stranded. Except for the warbling of my friend. That would drive me to find a desert isle.
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