Laundry Day

Sunday 10 July

Today was our last day in Venice *sniffle* and as we were running short on clean clothes I pack up the bag and left Bobbie sleeping while I found 1 of just 3 public laundries in Venice!  I had the opening time mixed up so on my second trip back I just sat down and waited for it to open.

A neatly dressed Italian man walked past and paused looking at me (I probably looked a right state as I hadn't even brushed my hair!).  He started speaking to me so I said I didn't speak Italian. It did not deter him.  He was obviously not in any great hurry as he continued talking to me for the next 25 minutes ... Language barrier notwithstanding!

After I tried to gesture and pronounce that the laundry was not open yet, He went through the finer points of pronunciation differences between English & Italian.  He explained the similarities with other latin based languages but made sure I understood it was hard for Italians to pronounce some English words.  We discussed how long I was staying in Venice and where else I had been on my holiday.  I apparently should have gone to the main square before doing the laundry because there are no crowds and I could get a very fine photo.  He was very excited to find out I was Australian and asked how long the flight was. He found it amusing that I am married with three children and I had left them all at home to go on holiday with my sister (who also had 3 children).  He was impressed I had been married for 17 years and proudly announces that his parents had been married for 50 (and it is a time for celebrating such an achievement). 

All this time I'm wondering why the laundry hasn't opened on time. There was someone else there waiting and when 7:45am came along he pushed on the door and it swung open.

I stood up to start the washing but my buddy wasn't quite finished .... He continued talking and then introduced himself (and I just can't remember his name - something like Renaldo) and when I said my name was Lisa, he got all excited.  He started singing ... But could only remember the first couple of lines "Lisa with the blue eyes!". Apparently it's not such an old song but somewhat modern.   It sounded a little Dean Martin-ish.  He finally said ciao and was on his way. 

I returned later to the laundry to collect our gear and was then met by a sweet little old lady who so started babbling to me in Italian. She got the idea I was struggling with comprehension and switched to English. She was a Venetian who had spent 50 years in the US and the last 25 in Venice!  She chatted away and told me how she had been looking for a laundry, told me about her brother in Rome and kept reminding me she was 78. When I left, she walked alongside me and continued chatting - I think it must have been a while since she spoke English because she was really enjoying the chat.

The rest of our day was just a case of ticking off walking over the Rialto Bridge and picking up some more gifts (Venice has given the wallet a beating!)

As we had to catch the fast train back to Rome, we popped into a pizzeria for a refuelling stop.  One of our waiters was pretty amusing ... Walking by us ... Announcing that Australia was beautiful, that we were beautiful!  At one stage Bobbie was hamming it up with him as he walked past with someone's meal bringing it dangerously close to Bobbie as a taunt only to have her make snapping actions for it much to his amusement.  As we left he shook our hands and then decided better of it.  He took our hands again and double cheek kissed us.  Italian kiss count up to 4 I think!!

.... And I've just realised I didn't have a gelati today.  WOE IS ME!!