Gelato, church bells and a fight at the Laundramat
Padua,
Veneto,
Italy
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Today I woke up early at 5:30 and went downstairs and updated the blog. The guy at the front counter made me a lovely coffee and than I went upstairs and lied down on the bed for a couple of seconds and I fell asleep again for about one and one half hours. I was really tired I guess.
After I woke up Jen got dressed and we went for another lovely breakfast. We saw the mother and daughter from North Carolina that we'd met the morning before and chatted with them for a bit and than Jen and I got ready and went out to do some errands. We went to the bank and than to the Post Office. It was crazy busy at the post office and they had these tickets you could choose from to get in line. We weren't sure which one to use because it was all in Italian but we just shrugged our shoulders and picked one which turned out to be the longest line LOL. Oh well. While Jen waited in the post office I went next door to try and see if they had some sunscreen and some hair conditioner. They did and the sales lady was so helpful and nice I ended up buying - sunscreen, aftersun, hair conditioner, toe nail acetone, toe nail polish and I got a free gift of wrinkle cream LOL. It was fun and they sure treated all their customers like VIP's. After I paid I went back next door and our number was called about 10 minutes later. We had to rush to the desk because they don't wait long before they call the next number. We got a box and some stamps and than went back to the hotel.
We lazed about a little bit and than decided be better go do our laundry. This turned out to be a fun and lively enterprise. We got directions from the front desk and walked the ten minutes to the laundry. It was so hot and we were melting by the time we got there. When I was putting one load into a machine and putting the laundry soap on it this young Italian guy came in and started saying something in Italina and pointing and gesticulating but I didn't understand what he was saying. After the machine was ready to go we discovered that none of the machines that gave out tokens to start the machines was working. More Fuori Servizio in Italy I guess. I went next door to ask if anybody knew what to do but they only spoke Italian. One of the customers spoke a little English so they came over and tried to help but it turned out that we would have to wait until the owner came at 4PM which was an hour and a half away. We waited in the muggy heat listening to our IPods and reading. Jen went for a walk to get a pastry and while she was gone the young Italian guy that was waiting as well came up to me and in halting English asked if it was okay if he was back in ten minutes. I was just shrugging and saying Okay, sure not really understanding why he was telling me. It turned out he was telling me because he wanted to leave his bag of laundry with me. After he left I'm thinking oh great what's in the bag and I'm all paranoid but than I decided if it was a bomb or something than he just would have left it before we got there. Anyway Jen came back and than he came back a little bit later and it was fine. Gosh I'm so weird sometimes. Anyway we waited until about 4:20 and the owner finally came. He was cute and sort of looked like Tweedledee in Alice in Wonderland. The instand he stepped into the Laundry door the young Italian guy started yelling at him. The other guy was talking back and than he went in the back and the Italian guy followed him back there yelling at him some more. Jen and I were looking at each other and trying not to laugh. The owner finally got mad at him yelling and started yelling back at him. Than the young guy put his laundry in a machine and patted the owner on the back of the head and left talking to the owner like he was a great friend. It was a huge dichotomy and very entertaining. Anyway we talked to the owner a little and with gestures etc. it turned out we would give hime the money for the tokens and come back at 7:00 and our laundry would be done. Okay we thought the other guy left I guess it's okay. We had a bit of disagreement with him when we were loading the machines though as he wanted to put our whites, darks and red all together but we manged to get the No point across' loaded the machines and left.
We walked back to the hotel listening to the church bells and saying how we were going to miss them. We only stopped for gelato which Jen promptly got on her bag, her dress, her shoes etc. Poor thing she was quite upset as it was her new bag and new dress. I washed them out when we got back to the apartment in the sink in the bathroom and hung it to dry. Hopefully it will be dry before we leave tomorrow. It was lovely though walking past the church eating gelato and listening to the bells clang clang for a little while though.
About 6:30 we walked back to the laundramat and lo and behold the owner was drying all the clothes in one dryer together. Oh well. Anyway the laundry was good and smelled great so I guess he knew what he was doing. We walked back to the hotel and lied down for an hour to cool down than we got dressed for dinner and took the tram to the area recommended by the front desk. We ended up at this cafeteria place that you could walk around and they made you fresh pasta or risotto or pizza and there was desserts and bread and beer, wine and prosecco. It was a cool place actually. Jen had some shells with and oil and pesto sauce and I had risotto and this coiled sausage which was really good. Afterwards we went home and read for quite awhile and than went to sleep. We didn't do any site seeing but we did experience a lot of Italian life. Tomorrow we leave for Greece.
P.S. If I did more than one entry in a day I only sent out the last entry so I heard from someone that they didn't know there were other entries so take a look and see if you've read all the entries or only the ones I sent out the update info about okay.
