You’re likely to find lots of photos of the when and where–the seasons and the sights–in my blogposts, but less of the who. My kids don’t like to be plastered across the internet, and I’m okay with that, so I don’t offer many photos of traveling companions.
Sometimes that seems radically at odds with what my blog is all about. Nobody would ever mistake this blog for a travel guide or a treatise on “how to travel.” More often than not, it’s all about “the feels” for me. Did I laugh, did I cry, was I horrified or amused, or surprised or underwhelmed, etc, etc.
But “the feels” and the way they linger in our travels are just as much about our traveling companions as about where we went, what we saw or did. Right? No journey is just about the road you travel, the views you stop to marvel. They are just as much about the companions we travel with. It’s a simple thought, and it should be a simple post to write.
It’s anything but.
Ollie and Bebe– the dynamic duo.
Some months ago, our most loyal and loving traveling companion passed away, and I’d like to honor her in this blogspace.
Her name was Bebe, and she was a very bright light in our lives. She passed away at 15 years old, and she loved every moment oflife right up until the end.
Yes, it’s unbelievable!
She was a rescue dog who came into our lives when my daughter was just a toddler. Bebe was so full of love and personality– from the moment you met her it was clear that she was one of a kind. Even her questionable breeding made her stand out: she was a Mini Dachshund/Black Lab mix. Just let that sink in for a minute.
We used to call her our “pocket lab” — a 20 pound version of those gentle giants. She had no idea that she was tiny. In true Lab character, she chased every frisbee you threw, and (if you threw them low enough) she caught most of them expertly. Dragging them back to you was a little harder, as some frisbees were taller than she was. But she was young, eager, and very athletic . . . and we quickly discovered soft, flexible frisbees (easier to drag, so problem solved!).
Bebe was the first to kiss away your tears, the fastest to steal your breakfast if you weren’t vigilant (which we quickly learned to be), and the most eager traveler, always with her nose to the ground and leading the charge. On a trip to Rothenburg ob der Tauber (Bavaria), she sat at attention for a rickshaw ride and, I believe, enjoyed the experience more than our kids did.
It was inconceivable to us that she would ever not be in our lives and our travels.
But there is no life without death, and the unbridled joy of sharing life with a pet does exact the steep price of grief when they are gone. Unquestionably a price worth paying.
Bebe changed our family is so many ways, and all for the better. How did she change our travels? When she couldn’t join us on the travels, she gave us a compelling reason to come back home when the trip was done– instead of grumbling that our trip was over, we cheered to see our pup again. When she did join us, she reminded us to venture down each alleyway of a new town–and sometimes we’d find something unexpected and wonderful. She reminded us to run full speed ahead when there was something interesting in front of us. She reminded us to roll down the window and let the breeze greet us as we cruised into a new town, to stop in the parks and sun ourselves in the green grass, and to turn all of our senses over to a new place. If we were in the French countryside and grumbling that there was no wifi to check our messages, she’d drag us out for a walk, or stick her nose in the air to say “Do you smell that? There’s lavender, sunshine, and fresh baked bread– get up and let’s get moving.” And she’d be right, every time.
There was never any lack of joy or openness to new adventures with Bebe– she was our better natures in every way. We miss her terribly, but she taught us well. And she left us her trusty sidekick Ollie to continue the lessons.
Have dog, will travel. This is our motto.
I’ll leave you with photos of just a few of my traveling companions, past and present.
With baby in Zeugma, banks of the Euphrates in 2000 (just a week before the town was flooded by a new dam). Interesting place–see links below if you want to learn more.With kids in Lindesfarne, Northumberland, UKWith pups in Bremen, Germany 2014
Easy riders, in the Yucatan Penninsula 1988With our first pup, Teak, in Turkey. 1998
Chichen Itza, Mexico
Turkey, 1998 or 99
1998 or 99 –our neighbors, in a Byzantine era cave church in the Ilhara Valley, near Guzelyurt, TurkeyCousins in Edinburgh, at Greyfriar’s Bobby Memorial ,2007 or 2008Bashful travel companions, Salzburg 2015. My son came prepared to erase his identify from any photographic evidence–at 13 years old, he’s already a man of mystery.
*To read up on Zeugma–which I should get around to blogging about some day, it’s a fascinating place– check out these links
I feel like I’ve become an expert in the art of faux pas while living in Germany. Once I stopped grinning and waving at strangers in my austere German neighborhood, and being thought the village idiot (I was only being friendly!), I moved on to linguistic lunacy and, apparently, asked for foreplay (“Vorspiele”) instead of appetizers (“Vorspeise”) in local restaurants. Who knew?
There is a certain amount of idiocy that you can’t avoid when you live in a foreign country–whether because you don’t speak the language well or because you don’t understand the customs. I can live with that. I forgive myself these missteps, and the locals are usually forgiving of them too.
But sometimes you just do something stupid. We all do it. (Some of us more than others.) It’s especially awkward when you do something stupid and you are a foreigner. You see the eyes roll, you can almost hear the thoughts filling the heads around you, “Oh, those Americans!”
We’re heading back to Yorkshire for a visit in the days ahead, and we are considering a stop by Hemswell Antique Center, in Hemswell Cliff. We’ve picked up some interesting things there in the past and thought we’d take a look again, if we have time. If they’ll let us through the door. My last visit there, I was the person who sent eyes rolling, or at least squinting and watching me like a hawk.
But it wasn’t really my fault.
My husband and I had a big day planned. My mother- and father-in-law were in town and had offered to watch our children for the day while James and I drove a few hours away to the Newark Antiques Fair–it bills itself as the biggest in Europe, and it is a whopper! But we wanted to get there early and we had a stiff drive ahead of us, so we had to leave before dawn.
Our house in Ripon wasn’t a big affair, so we had to tiptoe around not to wake anyone. That day, we decided we wouldn’t make coffee or eat breakfast, we just planned to dress and get out the door quickly and quietly. But for some reason–I’m guessing a child that sneaked into our bed during the night–we even had to dress in the dark and tiptoe around our own bedroom. Which we did, and out we went.
Off to Newark and treasure hunting! We had a great day–it started off grey and maybe a little drizzly, but we wrapped up and it didn’t bother us much. Many vendors were in tents and we made out well– enough small treasures to feel satisfied, not so many as to break the bank. I will say my husband bought some questionable art, but he always buys some questionable art. At this point in our marriage, it would worry me more if he suddenly stopped that habit.
The day grew warmer and sunnier; our coats came off; our arms filled with loot; and we finally felt ready to return home from our adventure.
But, if we made good time on the road, we could just eek out a visit to Hemswell on the way home. Off we went!
The Hemswell Antique Center covers a lot of ground–many buildings and antiques of all kinds. It also houses a cute, but simple, cafe with a Royal Air Force World War II theme. (I think Hemswell may actually be an old, decommissioned RAF base, but don’t hold me to that.)
We knew we could only make a quick run through, so we took off at double speed. We zipped through this building, we zipped through that building. Then, in the final building, tired out from the day, I found myself slowed to a stop in front of a case of vintage jewelry. A few cases, in fact. As I stared sleepily into one of the cases, a fly caught my eye. He was stuck inside the case and trying to fly out of the glass. Repeatedly, he flew at the glass, only to strike it hard, and tumble back to the shelf under the hot lights. I am no friend of flies, but this little guy was struggling and I felt bad for him.
I turned around to see a salesperson close by. (In hindsight, I think he may have been hovering around me–a very suspicious woman.) I called out to him and explained the plight of this poor fly stuck in the glass case. I wondered if there might be any way he could free the poor animal, who was getting fairly panicky behind the glass.
The salesperson gave me a very perplexed, but gentle, look and said that, yes, he’d make his way over presently and attend to the situation. I slowly moved around the room and browsed some more. Two or three minutes later, I heard a voice call out from across the room: “You’ll be happy to know that the fly has made his bid for freedom!” I looked up, and the salesman shot me an amused look. I smiled and said, “Thank you so much.” He nodded and added, “That should send some good karma your way.”
It was a humorous exchange. As I left the building, the salesman and his colleague gave me a cheerful, if oddly watchful, send off. Clearly, as far as they were concerned, I was an awkward American, or maybe the nutty Zen lady. So be it–I can live with that.
I walked out into the bright sun of a crisp autumn afternoon, pleased with our day of high brow foraging. I dropped my tired body into the front seat of the car and began fastening the seat belt around me …. only to be stopped cold by what I saw. What I couldn’t have seen as I dressed myself in the dark that morning; what I never saw, as I apparently looked in no mirrors as the day progressed; and what my husband, in his own wide-eyed but sleep deprived frenzy of antiquing, had apparently never noticed. I was wearing my shirt inside-out.
I wasn’t the nutty Zen lady after all.
Oh no, it was much worse.
I was the utterly lunatic bag lady who befriended flies. Oh, those Americans!
My husband and I just celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary. By anyone’s standards, 24 years is a good chunk of change. It’s been two decades of perpetual motion, so it’s no wonder that I find myself reflecting on it this week in a blog named “Travels and Tomes.”
For all of the enthusiasm I have for the next few decades together, and all of the certainty that they will involve “settling down” soon, I look back over our past adventures and our many homes and travels and I think what a long, strange, and utterly remarkable trip it’s been.
Here’s the two cent version of that trip.
CONNECTICUT: This predates the 24–it’s where we met in school. Spring and autumn in New England were glorious; winter was long but happily punctuated by sledding on cafeteria trays. We hung out in coffee houses, bought cheap theater tickets at the Rep, frequented the Brew and View pub in the next town, and made the occasional trip via commuter train into NYC (where we splurged for a Broadway show once or twice, but usually used our pocket change to visit the Met Museum or Museum of Modern Art, or stroll Rockefeller Plaza at Christmas). We drove out to Cape Cod. It was a great start, tinged with a little wanderlust.
Our next stop was CHICAGO. These were our salad and frozen pizza days. We lived in three different apartments over 3 years and each one smacked of “Barefoot in the Park” in its own way. (Great play, and great movie with Redford and Fonda, if you haven’t seen it.) The first was at a fine address in the Gold Coast, but it was, literally, a closet. Literally. It was a temporary do.
The second was a coach house over a garage in the DePaul area. Charming. Until winter came, and we realized that there was no insulation. . . anywhere. Not in the walls, not in the roofing, and not under the floor. Cranking the heat did nothing but fill the apartment with gas fumes and heat the air in the middle of the room (as in, three feet up from the floor, three feet down from the ceiling, and three feet in from the walls). So when the owners raised rent, we went packing for warmer (and cheaper) digs.
Which we found in our third apartment, just north of Wrigley Field (home to the Chicago Cubs). We had a scant view of the top of Wrigley Field in the distance from our South-facing window, and an up close and personal view of a transient hotel across the street in our front windows…where we also had one bullet hole. During our stay, no more bullets flew, but our neighbors at the hotel regularly pulled their fire alarms at 3 a.m. (followed by a brigade of firetrucks), and on the rare occasion took firefighting into their own hands and threw flaming matresses out their windows. It was like having a front row seat at the theater each night.
In the winter this last apartment kept us warm, although ice crystals would obscure our view out the windows. In the summer, we would broil and spend our evenings walking through the grocery store and opening the doors on the freezer aisle, postponing the inevitable return home. Weekends found us wandering the boroughs of the city, eating in cafes and people watching–cheap entertainment, but always a good time. Each weekend, we’d walk a different neighborhood: German, Lebanese, Czech/Slovak, etc. We had no idea this would be good practice for the life of travels that was to come.
DC: A fast turn around — we lived there one year. Loved the city, hated the traffic. Great food, lots of culture, but far too much talk of politics. Some weekends, we’d storm the city for ethnic markets and museums, other weekends, we’d escape to places like Chesapeake, the Shenandoah river, or the Chincoteague shore–sand dunes, ocean tides, and wild horses. . . paradise.
TEXAS: Our Texas roundup:
Steak–never liked it until I lived here. A revelation.
Tex-Mex– again, no one does it like Texas.
Tumbleweed and Mesquite– lots and lots of tumbleweed and mesquite.
Our time in Texas wasn’t marked by a wanderlust or cultural broadening–it was more of “going deep” into a down home experience of that region. It was different, but it was delightful. And we left town with a secret recipe for salsa from our restaurateur friends Ted and Lena– a priceless gift.
TURKEY: Culture shock after moving from west Texas to the mediterranean coast of Turkey, but absolute love after that. If you’ve ever wanted to time travel, rural Turkey is the closest you’ll come. Hop on a mountain bike and take off through the fields of sheep and shepherds, or explore ruins of ancient cities on the coastline with only goats for company, and you’ll know what I mean. And the people of Turkey are the most hospitable people I have ever met.
In lots of ways, Turkey is where life “got real” for us. We hit incredible highs; we hit incredible lows. This is one way living abroad differs from simple travel–you’re not just there to see the sights, you are getting on with the business of living a life. In Turkey, we saw amazing sights: the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia and homes hollowed out of these natural structures; old frescoed cave churches, in disrepair, but still dotting the landscape in remarkable numbers. We also endured some tough times: a miscarriage and a strong earthquake that crippled much of the surrounding town and tumbled houses in the older section of the city (which was very old indeed), leaving people homeless. But life cycles back to joy, always: our daughter was born in our final six months there, and our family began its travels together. Have dog, have kid, will travel–that’s been our motto ever since.
Turkey: the memories are less fuzzy than the photos.
NORTH CAROLINA: Our return to my home state for 5 years didn’t involve a lot of travel, except to see grandparents in a nearby town. No, these were the days of total immersion in young parenthood. Puppies and children–we were dripping with them. Our daughter was six months old when we returned to NC, and our son was born a couple of years later. Both of our children were born at lightening speed. (I did make it to the hospital for my second, but didn’t make it into the hospital gown before he was born. I remember nurses RUNNING me down the hall on a gurney, shouting “don’t push, don’t push!”–but there comes a point when you really have no choice. . . just trust me on this one, men.) And so my husband insisted there would be no third child unless I was willing to move into the hospital at 8 months pregnant. He had no intention of delivering a baby on our kitchen floor. He had a point. No more babies. But we did adopt our sweet puppy Bebe in NC, and she was my furry baby for 15 years.
But, as I said, few travels of the suitcase variety. Loads of adventures in pumpkin patches and parks, on sleds and tricycles, etc. That’s how it goes with toddlers.
ENGLAND:
Oh, England. I love this place. For me, it combines new and exciting travels with the comfort of a culture that you understand intimately. It’s also the setting for so many childhood memories for my kids: dress up at the knights
Ripon Cathedral, view from the river.
school at Alnwick Castle (also home to many scenes from Harry Potter and Downton Abbey), being pulled onstage during theater productions of The Tempest and Robin Hood Tales, winning a contest for decorating the Queen’s Knickers (on Queen Elizabeth’s birthday), visiting with Santa at the local brewery . . . the list is too long. Every day that we walked into the market square of Ripon (pretty much every day!) was a treat for us. It was home, but it never seemed mundane.
As a home base, Yorkshire, England was a great jumping off point for Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy. We traveled by plane, we traveled by train, we traveled by car. We traveled. I had no blog then, so instead of posting travel notes and quips, I did send postcards from the road. That seems a little quaint and slow now, but there’s something solid and permanent about the postcard, isn’t there? It doesn’t say much, but it’s a tangible artifact of your travels . . .and it has the magical ability to fall out of a scrapbook decades from now and catch you by surprise with a flood of memories of a place and a time, of a holiday greatly enjoyed. I wonder if blogsites will age as well?
We’re traveling back to England very soon, and to some of our old stomping grounds in Yorkshire. It will be an absolute delight to walk the streets of Ripon, eat the scones of Ripon (!), and wander the dales of the surrounding countryside . . .but I think that it will be a little bittersweet too. We all have a soft spot for our old life there.
From this chilly scene in England
To a sunny backyard in Georgia
From England, we found ourselves venturing on to GEORGIA and ALABAMA. These states are next door neighbors, each with its own personality–please don’t take offense that I am lumping them together, but the truth is that this post is getting long-winded, so I’m picking up the pace. Do you know what struck me most dramatically about the South in our first weeks back? Tree frogs and cicadas! The sounds from the trees, especially at dusk each night, is fantastic. For me, it’s the sound of summertime and my childhood in North Carolina. About the time when you’d be out playing kick the can with the kids in the neighborhood, or with cousins at your grandmother’s house, the trees would come alive. You get used to the sound, you take it for granted, but once you’ve gone without for years, you really hear it again and it’s like a symphony. Give me a screened porch, a cold drink, a hot day, and tree frogs at dusk, and I am a happy girl.
And now we are wrapping up our sojourn in GERMANY. Time has flown way too quickly. There is no sense in listing out our recent travels here–you’ve seen many of them posted in this blogspace, and it will take me the next year or more to continue catching you up on the places, people, language struggles, and food (and how!), but I’ll do my best.
If these posts won’t have that magical ability to slip, pop, or leap out from a scrapbook at me in my dotage, reminding me of continents I traveled and tales I told, they do have another astonishing talent–sharing my thoughts and travels far and wide with friends I rarely see, and even some new friends I’ve never met. It’s like telling tales around a campfire that is surrounded with so many people–some out on the dark edges, beyond the glow, beyond my ability to know who is even out there.
This is the place where any self-respecting postcard would say “Wish You Were Here!” but it feels to me like you are.
Thanks for reading, and, if it’s not too much to ask, how about raising a glass for my husband and me– to another 24 years of adventures, big and small.
To my American readers, March Madness needs no introduction. To my European readers, a little explanation is in order. “March Madness” is the moniker given to the American men’s college basketball tournament–the national playoff tournament–which takes place in March each year. (Actually March and April, but “April Madness” sounds like rubbish.) Emotions run high, brackets are racked/stacked/bet on, parties are held, faces are painted, and sporting arenas are filled to capacity and shaken to their foundation. It’s a good time.
Every year, it’s a good time.
But this year, it feels especially good. As the whole world knows, it’s an election year in the US of A, and so far it’s been a grueling process that still promises months of gruelishness. (Is this a word?)
So enter March Madness– all of the rowdy, emotional, high stakes tournament, but with quick resolution and less character assassination. Oh how our spirits have needed this. Game on!!
So here I sit, in the Rheinland-Pfalz of Germany, drinking my beer and eating my pretzels and watching this American tradition. It’s a moveable feast, as so many things are for us unsettled, unseated, or expated folks. And that adds a layer of the absurd to the already frenzied tournament. Will I be watching from a face-plant position on my couch at 2 a.m., hollering for my teams between snores? Will I be sitting in a Spanish Tappas restaurant in a German village and fidgeting uncontrollably, wishing I was in a loud American sports bar with a thousand TV’s blaring out the ballgame? (An atmosphere I usually avoid, but would fly to like a moth to the flame during March Madness.) These are moments when your Americaness screams out –when the thin veneer of European posh that you’ve tried so hard to develop peels back at lightning speed, and you stand proud for the face-painting, flag waving American sports nut that you are. But ask me about the American elections, and I’ll once again glaze over and pretend, in my pidgin-German, that I have no idea what you are asking me.
I didn’t attend huge universities, but I often have a horse in the race. A North Carolina native and daughter of a rabid UNC fan, I always root for the UNC Tarheels. How do I feel about another North Carolina favorite–Duke University? Ugh. As UNC’s nemesis, I have a tough time with that one. But in these championship games, I’ll root for Duke unless I have strong feelings for the team they are playing.
Which brings me to Yale. Last night, Yale upset Baylor 79-75, in a game that was pure hustle from start to finish. And what a finish! The last 10 seconds were insane–Baylor only trailing by one point for a while, when Yale pulled ahead by 4 in about the last 3 seconds! But who can track the last few seconds of a game like that? Lungs screaming, head buzzing, it’s one of those epic moments when the world moves so fast and so slow all at once, you see every millisecond’s play, but later recall only a swirl and flow of arms, legs, net–adrenaline! Or is that just me? I saw every second but would be hard pressed to extract the moment by moment play from the emotion that clouds it all. And that, you know, is the sign of a great game.
But back to the facts. Yale won. Yale won. Yale won. And now Yale will meet Duke in the playoffs. Yale is out-ranked and out-sized by Duke. And the whole match has been much maligned and joked about as soon as it was announced. Twitter is lighting up with jokes, like this:
In a tournament that hinges on astonishing athletic prowess and grit, these two teams offer a lot of fodder for jokes–too academic, too preppy, too privileged. These schools have decidely ungritty images. To have them play each other–just too funny to let it go, right?
But look where they are! So, pelt me with rotten tomatoes– or funky bowties and textbooks– and let the preppy jokes fly, but I’m screaming loud and long on this game. Duke looks like the winner based on rank and size, but I’m a Yale Bulldog fan and looking for an upset on this one. If Yale takes it, you’ll hear me shout from across the ocean.
If Yale doesn’t . . . then my fickle heart will move on to UNC and I’ll profess my love just as loudly. (If all my teams fail me, I’ll reminisce about Davidson’s Steph Curry in 2009’s tournament.) It’s not really a fickle heart, it’s just March Madness.
If only we could wear our political loves so lightly.
*For my European readers out there who may need a full primer on March Madness, you can check out this video-–March Madness Explained.
To recap from Part One: “First, the water came up to meet us. . .
. . . and then we went down to meet the water. Or, at least, my husband did.”
Before we traveled to Venice, we did a little research. We knew enough to ask about the acqua alta, to ask if we should pack high boots. Not to worry, we were told by our hotelier, this is not likely to be a problem while you are here. And, truly, there was no problem with the acqua alta– it came, it saw, it retreated quickly without particularly hampering our plans or wetting our socks. Our hotelier did not steer us wrong. He wasn’t counting, however, on my particular family’s foibles.
And that is a long and perplexing list of foibles. . . so before explaining our second run in (or, dive in, as it were) with the water of Venice, let me pause to tell you about our lovely hotelier and his cozy villa.
We stayed at Locanda Ca Le Vele, a charming, small hotel in an old Villa, sat right on a canal and just 3 minutes walk from the Grand Canal. The best of both worlds, then: it offered quiet charm and a convenient location.
There were only six rooms/suites to the hotel, and breakfast was served in our rooms each morning. We thoroughly enjoyed the old world charm of the Villa, and would recommend it to anyone traveling to Venice.
Now, whether our hotelier enjoyed our company as well, I can’t say. We were, as we generally are, quiet and respectful guests. With the exception of one incident.
One hell of an incident.
After a day of walking and boating around Venice, my son and I headed back to the hotel, while my husband and daughter decided to stop for coffee before walking home.
They weren’t far behind us, and we’d just kicked off our shoes and gotten comfortable at home when my daughter came flying through the door to our suite in a frantic, wild-eyed state. She was bent over, gasping for breath, and trying to communicate, but the sounds she was making didn’t translate into any language known to man. In thirty seconds time, my blood pressure went through the roof . . . until she finally spit out the words, “It was the best thing that’s ever happened to me!” Followed by a barrage of laughter.
A few more gasps of air later, and Kate was spilling a few details– namely that her father had fallen into the canal and was standing outside of the hotel in dire need of help and in a sorry, soggy, and silty state. Unfortunately, she left out the adjective “smelly,” because that’s what I should have prepared myself for when I went down to meet him. The silt of centuries in the Venice canals also means the stench of centuries will cling to anyone who wallows in those canals.
Ugh.
The stairs to our suite.
But I didn’t know about the stench yet, so I left my daughter, who was still doubled over with laughter, and ran down the stairs to help my soggy husband out.
The stairs led to an open air courtyard and the front door of the Villa. I was moving at a fast clip, so the smell didn’t hit me until I had stopped in front of my soggy, muddy husband. (Dripping sludge from the waist down, and his face contorted in disgust, he looked less like my husband and more like the creature from the black lagoon . . .which he kind of was at this point).
My senses, and sensibilities, went into overload. I wanted to burst out laughing too, but the smell–good Lord, the smell! I began retching. Violently retching. I really expected to lose my lunch as James handed me his filthy, muddy boots.
This didn’t go over well with my husband. After all, HE was the one covered in the stuff and HE wasn’t throwing up like me. NOR was he doubled over with laughter, like my daughter. (In fact, it would be some time before he saw any humor in the situation, whatsoever.)
This wasn’t an argument I cared to join (even if I’d been able to stop retching long enough to utter a word.) So I pivoted on my heels, holding the muddy boots out at an arm’s length, and gagged my way up the stairs–passing the front desk along the way. I’m sure the man at the desk was disheartened by the afternoon’s procession: first, my daughter doubled over with hysteria; then me, hauling something muddy and disgusting and making all of the motions (and noises) of someone about to vomit; and then the centerpiece of the parade–my husband, wet and filthy muddy from the waist down, smelling rotten and looking not the least amused. (You can dress us up, but you really can’t take us far before something like this happens . . . it’s inevitable. Other than that, we’re a nice family.)
But the poor desk clerk wasn’t done with us yet. My husband got into the shower, clothes and all. Having no laundry facilities, he figured he’d start with the outer layers and scrub all the way down, bit by bit, sort of like a wet archeological dig down to the original surface–and he quickly realized that the mud was so bad, he’d need extra towels to scub it away. He explained this to me at high decibels, since I wouldn’t come into the bathroom with him (have I mentioned the stench?), but I would have to be the one to go get more towels while he continued the scrub down.
Jeans hanging out of our hotel window to dry.
So I went for the towels. An easy task . . .for someone who can communicate coherently . . . which I couldn’t at this moment. The hysteria that had taken over my daughter a few minutes before had now hit my son and me too, and we were all doubled over with laughter.
But I did my best to request more towels. I went to the hotel desk and, between fits of laughter and gasps of breath, tried to form coherent sentences about our situation. To a man whose English was sketchy to start with.
He probably thought we’d all taken a dive. . . into a barrel of wine. But he did his best for us, and handed me a large stack of newspapers.
Newspapers? Well, beggars can’t be choosers and hysterical laughter doesn’t lend itself to subtle communication–so I took the newspapers and ran.
It was something.
The scrub down continued in our room, and, eventually, we laughed just a little less and my husband fumed just a little less, and the full story came out.
They were almost back to our hotel when James decided that he wanted to see how far the water had receded from earlier in the day (when the acqua alta had spilled into the streets). So, he explained with psuedo-scientific precision, he went to the edge of the canal behind our hotel and began counting the stairs down into the canal. Apparently walking down them as he counted. Great idea.
“One, two, thrrrr…,” and, oops, down he went after hitting the muddy, wet third step. (Who would have guessed that a recently flooded canal step could be so slimy?)
He slipped entirely into the canal–waist high– while my daughter had continued to walk down the street. Hearing some commotion behind her, she turned to see her dad flailing. Of course, she ran to help doubled over in a frenzy of laughter, while two elderly Venetians, cigarettes dangling from their lips, pulled him out of the canal (all the while, he’s explaining loudly, “I slipped, I slipped!”–just in case they hadn’t noticed.) And there was also some detail about him trying to save the KinderEgg chocolate that had floated out of his coat pocket and was lazily drifting down the canal. Sadly, it was too far gone. (And, I’m asking you, would either of my children have eaten it with canal stench rising off of it? No thanks.)
With my husband cleaned off, the room beginning to air out, and his pants hanging out of the elegant window of our room to dry, we gathered our wits and called home to family. It was the American Thanksgiving holiday, and we had plenty to be thankful for. Not least of all, that James had made such a splash in Venice and “it was the best thing that ever happened!” to my daughter.
I feel like I’ve become an expert in the art of faux pas while living in Germany. Once I stopped grinning and waving at strangers in my austere German neighborhood, and being thought the village idiot (I was only being friendly!), I moved on to linguistic lunacy and, apparently, asked for foreplay (“Vorspiele”) instead of appetizers (“Vorspeise”) in local restaurants. Who knew?
Travels and Tomes: One Expat's Amblings and Ramblings 