From: Rainer
Subject: Rainer's Europe Trip 1998 -- part 29
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 02:13:07 EST

Thursday, 10/22 -- part 29

This morning there's the possibility of another nice sunrise.  The
clouds are there, but nothing spectacular happens -- it's a sort of grey
and fuzzy faded orange thing.  I don't have a saying for this one
because I don't think there's any word that rhymes with orange.

Vera get up early and I take her to the train station to catch the 8:05
to Varanaza.  She's a veteran Italian train traveller now and knows how
to read the schedule and how to validate the ticket at the little yellow
machine.  She even knows which platform the Cinque Terra train will
arrive at.  I have confidence that she knows what she's doing, but I
ensure that the has her passport along, some money, her Visa card, and
that she knows which train platform to get on when she returns in the
late afternoon.  Visions of the mother and her son from the previous
evening are in my head and I want to avoid that happening.

The train arrives on time this morning, but it is trailing a huge bluish
smoke cloud that doesn't look right.  She boards and finds her way to
the top of a two level, second class car.  I take a couple of pictures
and my attention is drawn back to the train people.  The are running
around near the next to the last car of the train where the smoke
appeared to be coming from.  By now you can smell the smell that all of
us who've left the parking brake on for too long while driving know.  I
don't understand Italian, but I bet they were yelling back and forth
about the brake lining being gone by now.  The train creeps forward a
bit and stops.  There's some more gesturing and yelling.  They must
think it's okay, because the train leaves.

I get the car out of the train parking lot a lot easier this time.  I
don't have the exact change, but the machine is able to dispense five
500L coins in response to my 5,000L note.  I get back to the hotel and
find Monika still asleep.  I work a bit on the journal until she wakes
up.  I take her for a scrambled egg breakfast at the Lido Hotel's
American Bar.  The meter maid that waved at Monika yesterday on the
hotel terrace walks by, seems to recognize Monika again, and waves
across the street once more.  The lady and her husband that Vera talked
to on the train platform yesterday morning also walk by the restaurant
and wave hi.  Time to leave.  We haven't found the dog poop places yet,
but this, too, seems to be a sign that you've stayed in one place too
long.  Just kidding.  This is a nice place and no one is anxious to
leave yet.

The plan for today for us two is pretty simple -- not much.  I know from
having had no plans before that the day fills up and that there won't be
enough time to do everything you would like to do.  The same will hold
true for today.  But if you expect it, you won't get frazzled.  And
we're looking forward to a day without frazzles.

After breakfast we scout out the 2 camera shops that the concierge told
us about.  Yes, one of them is right next to the Lido Hotel.  It doesn't
have what we want.  We walk a couple of places and find the second one.
The salesman sports a pony tail and tries very hard to speak a
combination of English, French, and Italian.  He gives us a terrific
explanation about the Samsung camera we pointed at in the window that
was similar to Monika's former camera floating around some where in
Italy.  One drawback is that the user's manual is only in Italian.  He
calls Milano and arranges for an English version to be special courier
delivered the following afternoon.  Monika is unsure if she really wants
this camera and wants to wait for Vera's opinion.  She'll get it, I
know.

We head back to the hotel and enjoy the terrace for a while, writing in
our journals and whatnot.  We explore the hill behind the hotel -- some
sort of sanctuary park.  We find the "lizard wall" with dozens of
green/brown lizards in the sun that seem to be able to change colors.
We also spot a what looks like a horned toad, but he slips away too
quickly for detailed scrutiny.

We have lunch at the hotel not sure whether we've gotten the point
across to the waiter that we only want a single pizza but to split it
onto two plates.  He understood just fine.  Then we try to find the post
office to buy stamps.  The post office, unlike everything else, is not
next to the Lido.  The post office is under construction and there's a
temporary one three pizzarias down the street and then left.  The
concierge also tells us that in Italy you buy stamps from a tobacco
store, not from the post office.  We try anyway.  The concierge is
right.  Even the post office lady tells us that we should go to a
tobacco store.  We find one of them right around the corner from the
Lido, wouldn't you know.  We buy some stamps for the European collection
that's been developing and then head over to explore the harbor a bit
more.  In the process we stumble onto a third camera shop very close to
our hotel.  People just don't know much when you ask them -- even if
they live/work here.  Before we know it, it's after 1600 and time to
pick up laundry and Vera.  The laundry and the train are on time, but
Monika and I are waiting on the wrong binare, platform, and don't get
the picture we wanted of Vera getting off the train.  She waves to us
across the platform and we meet on the other side.  She reports a good
day, but ended up back where we were yesterday because the climb out
of Varanaza was too steep and long just to turn around right away and
retrace.  She had a great time and her journal tells that story.

We visit the camera shop, buy the new camera with the Italian
instructions (told you).  We visit the lizard wall -- but the weather
has clouded over (sailor take warning but not quite yet?) and the
lizards finding no sun are all gone.  Monika took her sketch book along
and does a sketch of the palm/pine tree sanctuary while I take
silhouette pictures of the leave shadows against the grey, evening
clouds.

Dinner is okay; we have it at the same place we had it the first night.  It's
not as crowded t, and his time, but they still put all customers that are
there
into the same room.  The old man playing the guitar and singing Italian
pop songs is there.  He sings Volare, Finiculi/Funicula and a couple of others
then passes the virtual and and disappears for the rest of the night.  Same
performance as last time.  But everybody seems to like him.

After dinner we stroll along the harbor walking across the huge
boulders that form its border, play some crazy 8 in the hotel, and call
it a day.