Transition and Funny Stories...

There are a lot of ways to remember a trip and this morning we hit the jackpot. Our little villa was a bit more than a half hour away from the city where we had to drop our car and catch the first train toward our final destination of Venice. Well, we did have another stop on the way and that was to find a post office to ship 4 boxes back home. We had some extra things that seemed important when we left the states and after dragging them on/off trains they had lost their importance. And then of course there were ‘some’ souvenirs. We purchased boxes days prior and diligently had them ready to take on our final day trip from the villa. It seems, however, that all the Posts in smaller villages close at 1:30 daily. The best laid plans now left us having to post these 4 boxes before we dropped the car and got to the station. We have been mustering through for the past week with no GPS so we used MapQuest and had written directions. The problem is it is very difficult, if not impossible, to find the street signs. We found ourselves in the middle of rush hour on a rainy morning with a train to catch and we were hopelessly lost. Finally we found the station and from there John hired a cab to drive to the Post with us following and from there to the car drop and from there to the station! It was comical to imagine and Italian cab driver using his signals and driving slow enough for us to follow. It must have been agony for him but he did it.

We hought we were home free, but not yet. When we arrived in the Post Office with our 4 boxes and walked up to the counter we saw fairly quickly this wouldn’t be so easy. We speak only a few words of Italian and the staff spoke no English. I’m sure they thought we were crazy! We hadn’t written return addresses on the labels for which we were chastised and asked to go to the back and complete. Then we had the customs form to complete for each of the boxes. Finally after a small fortune Judy had hers done. Now it was our turn to step up. The lady continued to shake her head, reweigh the boxes, go in/out of the back and back to her calculator. John is getting tickled about this even though our time is ticking to get the car returned and catch our train. He told the lady….”it is ok”. She said “Noh…! And motioned him to step over to the scale, grabbed some package tape and motioned for him to help her as she bound two of our boxes together so tightly they could go around the world and back. Judy was beside herself with impatience and had to go to the car, John was working with the lady flipping that box over and over as she taped and taped and taped. I was in the back with a bad case of the giggles. Finally they were done and she proudly calculated the charges and was satisfied that it was better this way. When we were finished John said “Grazia Mille” which translates to “thank you very much, and now, she finally smiled a big smile and off we went! I’m sure they were talking about those crazy Americans the moment we left! After all this our cab was patiently waiting, we followed him to the car rental drop, John took care of the paperwork while the cab driver stacked our bags in his little car and off we went to the station with plenty of time! We will be recalling this story with a chuckle for a long time!

We caught our train from Arezzo to Florence and as luck would have it we found ourselves in a compartment with one young man who was a professional soccer player. He was born on the Ivory Coast and moved to Italy when he was about 5 years old and had a very interesting accent. Of course when we arrived in Florence and needed to change trains this young man asked if he could help us! What a God send.

We are comfortable on our two hour ride to Venice now and as I write, John is sitting across the aisle from me visiting with a man who is likely the most amazing looking man I have ever seen in my life! Judy has been noticing the good looking men all across the country but this one takes the cake ladies! Whew! No one should be quite that good looking. John thought it was important that he studied at UCLA for a time and is an orthopedic surgeon, but ladies.....it really didn't matter what he did. I won't even try to explain.

We arrived at the station in Venice and grabbed a cab (boat) for our hotel, the Molina Stucky Hilton. It was obvious that we were not going to tour the city any more this day so we settled in and went to the Executive Lounge for drinks and finger food which we planned to make our dinner. The Lounge provided a breathtaking view across the waterway of the city and the Prosecca was flowing freely for the three of us! It is usually me who is moved to tears, this time it was Judy’s turn to tearfully express how she was living a dream. It was wonderful to see her joy and so we ended another great day!