Thriller

On sea days Moiya, Wyona and I are looking for something to do. 

In the ship’s daily newspaper called the Compass I read, "come and learn to dance the Thriller". 

On the list of things to choose that I call “Things I Might Not Do Otherwise”, that item was in the top three. Wyona and I were on the dance floor for the first lesson and Moiya joined us for the second lesson. 

We should have known something was unusual when the dance directors wanted to know our stateroom phone numbers and when we were handed out two pages of instructions about the dance moves. At the end of the second lesson they said that the Thriller dance number was going to be peformed before one of the evening events called the Quest, and that we would be getting front seats in payment for our performance. 

That is when Moiya and about 8 others of the dancers went to the side saying we/they were opting out. The cruise staff are adept at twisting arms and giving positive feed back: don’t worry, we will be in the front line for you to follow; no one will be noticing you through the smoke and strobe lights; people who have done this before on other ships have said the performance was one of their cruise highlights.

This didn’t seem possible to me. In the first place, I had been on a previous cruise and the participants that time had been given 5 hours of practise, not the 3 that our shortened cruise had assigned for the dance practise. I told Wyona the next morning that I couldn’t sleep all night, waking all night to practise in my mind all of the phrases I could remember – boogie to the left, boogie to the left, swim, swim, turn to the thriller pose, etc., imaging where my feet would be going. She laughed and said she was having nightmares – that she was mad at the cruise dance directors because they had changed the steps and so she had mutinied and got a group of the other dancers to agree with her that they would do it the old way ... against the wishes of the instructors. 

Jewellery compliments of Seattles Best Coffee Shoppe

In real life, Moiya was absolutely OUT – with every excuse in the world. She folded (but just barely) to group pressure and stayed in, if she were to be allowed the middle spot in the chorus line-up, – thinking that there she would be hidden the most from the view of the audience.

Alex came to the pre-performance practise – in the ice rink where a floor slips over the ice so that there is a place for dancing and for the quest events that were to follow. 

Alex filmed us on the video of Wyona’s camera – a clip worthy of u-tube.

Here is the problem for the three of us – we know no Michael Jackson songs – not even Thriller, nor have we watched the Thriller videos. 

3 of Royal Caribbean's Independence of the Seas most talented dancers

As Moiya whispered to me weeks later, “Why would I have the lyrics to any of the Jackson tunes in my mind. Twenty years ago I put that music in the category of wickedness that I should never listen to."

The three of us persisted on board, practising our moves in the cabin, pre and post breakfast, lunch and dinner. 

When we reached the point of the final choreographic touches to the dance (a place none of us thought the others would reach) Wyona was identified as a confident looking dancer and assigned a place in the back of the line – which at one point turns into the front of the line -- an assignment that made her shoulders slump and her feet stamp a bit and her head shake in disbelief, but what could she do? Look confident! The reward is front line billing – at least when the back line turns into the front and the front to the back.


“Nope,” she said. “We seem to be the only ones in the theatre that are hearing these words for the first time. We are listening cold. The rest of the audience is hot – look at them silently mouthing the words along with the singers.”

After the intermission we were changed. Perhaps it was the Pepsi we drank. But we were actually, entranced. I wonder at this moment what the word transmogrified means, for that word pops into my mind about us. The lyrics, the dancing, the miming, the band, the gymnastics, the costuming, -- magical moments on stage. A fantastic show. Following the audience’s wild clapping and cheering at the end of the show, the cast did a reprise – many more numbers – among them, the Thriller song and the moves that Moiya and I had learned on the boat. People in the boxes were standing, their bodies swaying, doing all of the steps that the cast was doing on stage. Moiya joined in, doing the moves we had learned on the boat, her feet stamping and her hands clapping – the deadman walk, the steps where the head and shoulder meet to simulate a tick, the lion pose – I was crying, I was laughing so hard watching her.

Image from Website

Moiya wants me to mention that Thriller is not really a show with a plot. All they do is play Michael Jackson songs which are both sung and choreographed. There is a child who comes onstage at first, singing one of Jackson’s earlier songs. And there is another figure that looks like Jackson as an older performer ... but no plot line ... just the songs.On the way home in the subway, we began to plan our costuming which is going to go over the top the next time we get on a boat and there is a chance to perform the Thriller dance. In fact, we were five long tube stops past the place we should have alighted to get the Northern Line home by the time we stopped our conversation and tried to think of how we were going to get home. Moiya was right. There is mortal danger in being Michael Jacksonized. 

Move on a few weeks – to yesterday. Wyona left Woodside Lane for Calgary. Moiya and I left Woodside Lane for downtown London, wondering which of the yet unseen West End Musicals we could add to our agenda. We slipped into the theatre where Thriller is staged, not believing that we would get a ticket since Wyona has been there many times and she had never been able to get tickets. But the stars were in alignment – we got producer tickets, right in the middle of the theatre, about 8 rows from the front for the very cheap price of £32.50. We warmed up to the ambiance we could feel in the crowd in the first part of the show, though we napped a bit. I turned to her and asked, “Moiya? Do you know any of the songs. Ever heard “Dirty Diana” or “Bad” before?”

Cruise to the Canary Islands

Don’t answer the phone after midnight.  That is what Wyona said to Moiya last night.  Wyona does her searches for good cruise deals after midnight.  I answer the phone after the twelve bells had tolled to hear her say, would you rather go on a cruise around England, stopping in at many ports, or one to the Baltic.  Going to the Baltic was a no brainer for me, I told her and that is how I woke up in the morning, going on my first cruise, and how I discovered myself walking along the streets of St. Petersburg, 10 days later.

Moiya had a similar experience.  She answered the phone after midnight, and was on a plane 24 hours later, joining us for our trip to the Canary Islands the day after that.  Steve had upgraded our room from an inside cabin to a balcony so that Alex could come along with us.  That opened up another bed and Wyona picked up the phone after midnight to ask Moiya to join us.

There is a sense of adventure in Wyona.  We didn’t take any of the port destination trips that are offered to passengers.  Instead we get off of the boat, Wyona finds someone who can speak English, asks them for a good local bus route to take, one that we can use to go to a destination and then walk back to the ship.  That is how we found ourselves walking along a small side street, Moiya and Alex in a grocery store buying pop, and Wyona and me strolling the avenue looking at churches, statues, the design on pavements, and the graffiti on buildings.  I had stopped to look at a quickly painted political statement on the side of a building about democracy, probably inspired by the trauma of the long dictatorship under Franco, and Wyona went back to see what was taking the shoppers so long.  When she didn’t come back, I, too, wandered back, to find her sitting on a chair, surrounded by 8 locals, all of whom looked worried, and a couple of clerks were standing there, one with a phone in her hand. Wyona was pale and disoriented. “Have you fallen again,” I asked.  “Oh, does she speak English?  We thought she spoke French,” said one of the onlookers. I looked quizzically at a small old woman who was standing by her own shopping cart and she looked back at me right in the eye, but speechless, though she was intoning the musical fifth, doh/soh, doh/soh, doh/soh, over and over, which lead me to believe an ambulance was on its way.

Having had a number of on-ship discussions with Moiya and Wyona about the high cost of medical treatment abroad, I said to Wyona, “There is an ambulance on its way.”  She put out her arms, stood slowly and said, “Look, I am OK.  I am OK.  Call the ambulance back.  I am leaving right now and walking down this street.  Thank you everyone for your help.  I am going to be OK. ”S he limped back up the street, the by-standers shaking their heads.

“Alright, Wyona, what just happened there?”

“I was going into the store and tripped over the step that leads up into the store.  I did a face plant.  The clerks saw me.  I got up and leaned on the wall outside, but when I did, I knew I was going down, so I slipped down the wall to the ground. I had taken a really hard fall. A clerk saw me and brought a chair and put me on it.  That is where you found me.  I needed to sit there for a bit.  There was no way I was going in an ambulance, so I got up and started walking, telling everyone I was OK.  Who was around me?”

“As far as I could tell, only Spanish speakers and you must have uttered a bit of French to them, for they thought that is what you spoke.”  Wyona can flesh out her story when she gets on the blog – sufficient to say her energy level dropped for a few days until some healing occurred.  She was back on her feet and into the markets again when Moiya missed a step going down reconstructed the same fall, letting her elbow and knee act as part of her 3-point landing that she bounced from, rolling into a position of being prostrate on the ground.  Suddenly I was on the outside of a circle of 10 people gathered around her, asking her if she was alright. What is wrong with this picture, I asked myself later.  I have my eyes on architectural details while my siblings are contending with each other for who can come away with the biggest bruises and contusions. Moiya has the perfect thing to say from the ground.  “I am fine.  I just need a minute to sit here and collect my senses.”  But everyone stands around for that minute to watch and Moiya isn’t in for that kind of spotlight and scrambled as quickly as she could to her feet, all the while someone saying, “I am not stalking you, I am helping, I am a nurse,  I am going to watch you for minute to see that you are OK.”  How sweet was that?   

So at night, when the shows are over, those two compare the colour of their bruises and the pain level of their stretched muscles, and I sit there determining to hold tight to the banisters on every staircase, and to keep my eyes more on the gutters than on the eaves troughs around me.

Wyona

Nose at the Window

Wyona made some perfect cruise bookings.  The cruise companies changed itineraries, gave her minimal compensation and we were left with an insane return flight schedule to Canada.  Instead of going London – Calgary, the sensible thing to do, we are going London – Berlin – Barcelona – Frankfurt – Calgary.  There is some sunshine lining every cloud.  Because of the change in schedule, I have seen Berlin – not on my itinerary, but there it was before me today -- grey and I didn't get out of the airport -- but my passport is stamped, "Berlin".   

As well, my nose was pressed to the airplane window for the 15 minutes while we flew over the Mediterranean along the coast of Spain.  The blue of the ocean was cut by the curve of the land, and then the deep violet of the mountains behind were set off by the pink clouds in the sunset.  I was shaking my head, not believing I was seeing such beauty.

We tried to have supper at the hotel tonight, but true to Spanish custom, the dining room doesn’t open until 8:30 pm – far too late for us to begin a meal.  While we were talking to the maitre de, he drew his elastic barrier that runs between 2 silver poles in front of us, as though we were going to bolt and get into his dining room ahead of time.  Wyona, Greg and I took a vote and decided to have a genuine German sausage breakfast in Frankfurt tomorrow, instead and to call our foray into Wyona’s candy stash, supper.  At first, we thought we would walk into the community tonight and find a restaurant, but he clerk at the hotel desk reminded us it is Sunday today – only downtown Barcelona stores are open.  As well, this week are two holidays – one on Tuesday and one on Thursday.  So, he said, most people have taken off Monday, Wednesday and Friday and are just making a week of it.

I am looking forward to the German breakfast.  This morning I had English mustard when I went with Wyona and Greg to the Star Alliance Lounge in the airport.  I thought I was adding regular French’s Mustard to my plane, but at the first taste of it, and after I had recovered from that choking pungent taste, more akin to a eating mustard plaster than to tasting Canadian home-style mustard, I decided to give a new look to breakfast possibilities – thus the journey of looking foward to a German breakfast tomorrow.  Ah, the sweet cleansing of the sinuses for today.

I am hoping for another eating surprise tomorrow.

Arta

The Captain's Lunch

“How did they get in without an invitation?”

That was Greg’s question tonight. 

The three of us received an invitation to the captain’s lunch – meant for pinnacle, diamond plus, diamond and platinum members.  A payoff for returning patrons.  Lucky for me, I have reached one of those categories because I tag along with Wyona and Greg and get to have my name put on invitations with theirs.

Before this first event for me, they would go off to hear the Captain talk – everyone in the room with a glass of champagne in their hands, or off to the Captain’s brunch or hors oeuvres with the Captain. Now this invitation had my name on it as well, and said in a kind way, in order to be admitted, the card had to be shown at the door. 

And yes, we were checked at the door.  When I went in, about five steps ahead of Greg and Wyona, instead of offering me that sanitizing cloth that everyone has to rub on their hands before they go in to the dining room, the one the woman was holding one in her hand, instead of putting it in mine, she held it behind her back and she asked me, “How could I help you today?” 

Now I had dressed up for the occasion (was smart casual) and my name was on that invitation. I had on my new cameo, the one I have been practising wearing, the one I wanted one ever since I was a child.  Older women would wear ones in the late 1940’s, ones that I would admire and in my 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, even 50’s, I would go by Birks and looking longing at samples in the windows, wondering when my time (enough $$$) would come to get one. 

When I was with Mary in Pompeii, I bought one and have taken to the practise of wearing it, since I have so many decades that I missed wearing one in and must make up for it to get the cost per wearing down.  Even that piece of jewellery was ready and on for the Captain’s specialty lunch.

“I am here for the Captain’s lunch,” I explained.  “My invitation is with them,” I answered pointing to Wyona and Greg.  The sanitizing cloth came immediately to my hand, along with a lovely welcome, though the invitation was securitized as they passed it to the gatekeeper on their side of the isle.

We were seated and soon another couple joined us in the MacBeth dining room.   

“How many cruises have you been on,” said Wyona and when they answered this was their first one, the rest of us handled the news with aplomb, not missing a beat but as Greg said, how did they get in --and asking them how they were enjoying it, would they take another and where were they from, what shows they had enjoyed onboard ... to which the answer was they were from Lutton and after the shows, the bars are so full they can’t find a place to get a drink. That is about it for how much conversation they offered. Greg worked hard for the rest of the meal, keeping the dialogue going, but he couldn’t get any information from them...about the man’s work, their family, what else they liked to do. 

We had seen someone turned away from the dining room the night before, miffed and loudly arguing with the person who had denied them entrance, but every Cruise Compass reminds people of appropriate attire: bare feet, shorts, tank tops and t-shirts are not permitted in the dining room.  This couple, however, made it passed the gatekeepers and the couple were wearing shorts and t-shirts and without a captain’s invitation, unlike me, dressed to the nines and still stopped. 

Events like these take a lot of time for the three of us try to figure out how that just happened.  Did they make it through because they were so old no one stopped them? Perhaps they are so deaf they didn’t hear someone telling them to stop which is Greg’s guess.  A good guess given they only nodded and smiled at him all dinner when he tried to get conversation going?   

Or did they accidently take their place in this dining room, since it is their usual assigned one for evening sitting and they just missed knowing which meal they were going to and came to lunch instead of supper?   

Who knows, but the whole incident makes the three of us burst out laughing when we talk about it.

A Sea Day

People laugh when I say that sea days are so busy that I don’t have time to eat.  Wyona and Greg don’t have time for it, either.  There is a destination lecture, a bridge lecture, a dance class, a lecture on historical events around the port we will be entering.  Then if I take a mile walk around the deck before all of this happens, and try to get to the evening entertaining – well, those days are exhausting. 

The Bridge Lectures are attended by the same group of people – the others meet again in the afternoon to practise their skills with duplicate bridge on each other. But Wyona and Greg go off to dance lessons instead. If Wyona does go to play, and Greg goes to dance alone, she ends up getting the high board points, but she claims the stress of having to do so well wears her out for the rest of the day. She comes back to the room, throws herself on the bed, and gives me strict instructions.  Vehemently she says, “Don’t ever let me go up there and play bridge again”.  Not believing I have that power, I have no idea what tools I am going to use to stop her.

Still, I am enjoying learning about the rule of 20, the rule of 15, the rule of 11 and the instructions on the four rules of what to lead should you get to play the first card.  “The gods of bridge will punish you if you don’t memorize these four leads,” the instructor said, looking up to the heavens. “And I mean it.  You will be punished.”

This threat scares me more than it scares Wyona.

- Arta

Naples, a Second View

The tune to which we sing, the ants go marching one by one, is the tune of the rally song that we heard from the unemployed, marching by us in a public protest.  We were trying to get back to the ship before it left, and while we didn’t want to retrace the path that had led us to the wholesalers street for the sale of scarves, that ended being the best way, when Wyona stopped a passerby to enquire, first, do you speak English, and then, which is the best way back to the port.

We parted with Greg earlier.  He went left to explore the older buildings of Napoli.  We went right to explore local markets.  Greg has a good sense of mapping each town we enter, and he set us off on a main street.  I am slower these days for two reasons.  When the city is new, there is so much more for me to be aware of: the right way to cross a street, the weave of the pavement, in the case of Naples, the disintegrating buildings, the laundry hung from balconies, the dry dusty smell of construction as wheel barrows are loaded with sand in the middle of the sidewalk, and pushed into the foyer of buildings that have been gutted and are being refurbished from the ground up.  The local pastries were layers of phyllo, loaded with fruit or creams or even meat fillings.  The median price point of the confections hovered at about one euro, the price at which I want to try buy five and take just one bite of each.

Wyona had passed by a street market where she bought a beautiful watch when we were in Naples with Mary.  Now we were back, and looking again for that market, but stopping along the way to inspect the goods that were out on the streets and to get a sense of what prices people were paying.  Ten euro someone asked for a scarf that we had bought elsewhere for five euro – and with that we passed on, but couldn’t find the street market.  Finally we saw people closing up their stalls and followed them, which was the right thing to do, for they led us to the wholesaler.

The Bangladesh retailer spoke only his own language and Italian.  My English and Wyona’s French were no good to him, but a friend of the retailer with limited English was hanging out in the shop and he translated for us – all scarves were 5 Euro, the right price.  We began to pick out new patterns we wanted to buy.  We asked the friend, “How old are you?”

“Thirty-four,” he answered.

“How old is the shopkeeper?”, we continued.

“Twenty-three,” he said.

“A mere baby,” we said.  We had watched him when some Italian customers came in.  “All Bangladesh are good.  All British and Canadian are good.  All Italians steal,” they told us in broken English

Wyona laughed.  “No, there are good people and bad people everywhere.”

“No,” said the young shopkeeper.  “I have to keep my eyes on the Italians when they come in for they will shoplift from me.  I had to keep my eye on both of the customers for they come in together, for one tries to distract me and the other puts stuff in their shirt pocket,” and he pantomimes how that is done for us. 

“You mean like this,” Wyona says, and she tucks some jewellery in her pocket, holding her pocket way out so he is sure to see, and making him laugh.  I ask myself the question, how does she keep doing this and never ending up in jail.

“And how old are you?” the guy with some English asked.

“Sixty-seven and she is the old one at seventy-one,” said Wyona, pointing at me.

“Jesus Christ!”  

I don't think the shop keeper was really swearing.  But the English swear words from his mouth rang between the shop walls expressing utter amazement at what he was seeing -- the two of us shopping as though we were 20 year olds.  Maybe it is a sign that Wyona and I should work at fitting the usual stereotypes, which we aren't read to do yet.

I expressed some anxiety about food this morning.  For two mornings in a row, I have been ready to eat breakfast, just at the 45 minute space during which the four large dining rooms are closed because they are getting ready to serve their lunch menu. The three boats have been different – but none of the other two every close the dinning

Bravo, bravo, brave, said three times.  That is what the captain says to begin and end the noon hour drills that occur for the staff.   I have seen cooks in their white hats, and plumbers in their blue jump suits going to their assigned stations when I have been on the ship at noon and this happens.

The passengers have their first and only drill immediately after coming on board and before the ship debarks.  We all go to our assigned stations without our life jackets, to get a feel for what we would do in an actual emergency. 

As well, I have watched them take lower the lifeboats and do obligatory drills with them.  Further, we used some of them to taxi us in from the boat to the port entrance when we were in Croatia.  But today ... things were different.  

... dummy on floor, successfully raised out of water with a big hook ...

“What is that out in the water, Greg?”, I asked.  “A boat?  It looks like a body, which isn’t making me feel all that good?”  We watched for a little longer, and the object floated closer to us – a dummy, floating in the water.  Then we heard the staff emergency drill begin with Bravo, bravo, brave and watched a lifeboat lowering into the water.  “This is what a balcony is for,” I thought, “to get to watch procedural drills that I never imagined I would see.”  

The dummy kept floating to the east.  The life boat began to speed to the west.  

Passengers from all of the balconies began to wave, yell, whistle and shout, “No, not that way.  Over here!  The dummy is over here.  You are going the wrong way,” all of us imagining now that we were that dummy floating in the water and that the lifeboat was headed away instead of toward us. 

The orange boat circled back around and someone with a long stick that ended  with a sharp hook reached out to bring in the dummy – it looked to me like if I didn’t die from drowning, I might die from infection  from that stick scraping against my body in the rescue.  The exercise ended when the captain cried out again, “Bravo, bravo, bravo.”  

I am not all that sure that the crew should have been congratulated in that way today, given that it took all of us in the balconies to help them find the dummy in the water.  And it never did get CPR -- which I am sure it needed!

Arta

Loading a Ship with Food at Civitavecchia, Italy

When the thrusters on the boat had quieted down this morning, and I was finally awake, I slipped out in the dark of the balcony to see what the port looked like.  Below me was a white van, the back of it already open and a dog was tied up to a fence nearby.  A local food vendor, I thought, getting the back and side of his van ready for a local snack to entice the first passengers who would disembark before they had breakfast onboard.  



I left and went up to deck 12, the walking track, and did my first mile and half of the week, since I haven’t been feeling that well this whole trip.  Five laps are a mile.  I walked eight and then checked out the hot tub, which I haven’t done yet either, finding out how to get a towel and which tubs were the jacuzzis and which, just hot tubs.  I had to sort out where the showers were, where to put my clothes – all of that--  kind of hard work for a newbie.  I picked up some fruit on the way past the restaurant to bring back to our new home away from home, and I wondered if I would run into Greg and Wyona before they left for Rome.  She was in the room and we chatted for a while, until I finally asked why Greg was taking so long in the shower. 

“He has gone into Rome without me.  I am just going to make my way to Civitavecchia on the shuttle for a few hours.  Want to come?”

... the police dog tied to the fence ...

Now this would be my first outing since in London.  I thought we would get out of the room faster, but Wyona had been leaning over the balcony as well this morning, longer than I and with a brighter mind.  She had figured out that the white van I had spotted earlier had nothing to do with food at all, but was really a police van; the dog, one that sniffs for drugs.  

By now I, too, had noticed that the 18 wheelers that were lined up by the ship, sometimes six deep, had to be unloaded and each palette sniffed by the dog.  

The policeman would slit the plastic wrapping with a knife.  The dog would run around the palette sniffing through the cut in the plastic, and when the policeman was satisfied with the cargo, he would slap a sticker on the unsplit side of the palette and another forklift would move it to the cargo doors of the ship.

...18 wheelers, fork lifts, ...
... lugs of food to split and check for contraband ...
... police dogs ...
... fork lifts at the 18 wheelers ...
... forklifts after the 18 wheelers ...
... fork lifts inside the ship ...
... passengers on deck 4, also watching ...

I have never seen so much food moved.  

I had to do the math again, since this was our first major loading of food since we left London.  

Three meals a day for passengers and crew – 3,800 passengers and 1,385 crew. 

No one was working harder than the policeman except maybe the dog.  Together they were at work with every load until 5:30 pm when the last 18-wheeler drove away.

This is the second time on this trip when Wyona and I have been near Rome on a Sunday, -- the day that the shops are closed down.  Three travel hours is a long way to go for the tourist sites, when we already spent 7 days, 12 hours a day at them last year.  A little shopping might have taken us there – but the Italians love their Sundays and close their smaller shop doors. And it is those smaller shop doors we like to enter.

The same is true of the street vendors in Civitavecchia, but the walk through these streets was only a 20 minute shuttle away.  Wyona and I strolled by old city walls, moseyed up the deserted main street, made our way up and down the aisles of an old five and dime store that held the cheapest line of every product possible, and where we could not find one thing to buy.  Oh, she ran into some baby-sized clothes pins, only good for a doll house and I saw a Pinocchio key chain, but both of us asked, “Do you really need either of these things?”
The best thing to be said about the store is that I watched a nanny with a crying five year old in her arms, bring her charge into that shop, put her on the floor and let her play with the merchandise in the shelves, which made the child stop crying.  Probably not that good for the merchant, but what a way to tend a baby!

Wyona and I had done a cost analysis on the gelato we wanted to buy in Rome.  Had we gone with Greg, who did take the trip, and made our way to our favourite gelato store by the Termini Metro Station, the cost of the gelato would have had to include the 2-way price of the three hour train ticket to go in and out of Rome, more than we wanted to pay for a cone – even if we have declared it Italy’s best gelato restaurant.  This idea of what the Rome gelato would have really cost us, freed us to stop at every gelato shop along the way in Civitavecchia, no matter what they charged, which was still cheaper than any touristic shop we might have stopped in, had we been in Rome.  I tried lemon and cherry but I am staying with pistachio as the most divine flavour. Wyona was looking for Amarino, of which there was none, but she tried a large scoop of darkest purple grape flavour I have ever seen.  About half way through the cone she stopped me on the street to show me that every small mouthful ended with ten to fifteen tiny seeds on her tongue which she had to get rid of.
“Aren’t you supposed to swallow those,” Greg asked her later.  I think the answer is, if you are running your tongue over the smoothness of the gelato, you are going to have a collection of them in your mouth whether you choose to swallow them or not.

The beach was full of families at play on the sand. Multiples of children were riding the two pink merry-go-rounds or getting their pictures taken by the two-story figure of a marine kissing a nurse.  There were no street merchants as far as we could see down the beach so we walked north along the deserted main street.  I lagged behind Wyona, studying the ironwork on the balconies and watching the different configurations of families out for an afternoon stroll.  We window shopped, paused by a store showing a set of men’s underwear decorated as though he was going to a formal tux  and this would be all he was wearing.  I was wondering, is this purely Italian or a gimmick to get some crazy spender into the store.
On the return to the ship, the same deserted street we had first seen along the beach was now full of vendors – the ones who display their goods on a large sheet on the ground. To describe this scene more fully for just a minute, the sheet is about three feet by four feet, and the four corners of the sheet can be easily gathered together, the rolled goods can now be put the vendors arm so that he can stroll past the police down the street.

So here were the vendors out now – about a street length and a half of them.  No one was shopping or looking at their stuff.  Wyona and I have a lot of experience with this next act.  If one or the other of us takes a closer look at the scarves – a look really in earnest, having the vendors take them out of the plastic packages for us, other women gather around us.
“We have enough scarves already,” said one of two women, gathering in very close to us, and somewhat dissing us.  “Same with us, enough scarves for a lifetime, but that is not stopping us from buying these today,” said Wyona. 

“The same with us,” laughed the other woman.  “We are scarfaholics, as well.  Our kids don’t want us to buy anything for them, not scarves, not anything, but they tell us to buy ourselves into oblivion.  So we aren’t buying these for anyone – just for ourselves.”

“Are you on the cruise ship, as well,”  I asked, continuing, “what was the price they were selling these murano glass necklaces in the jewellery shop on board?  Did you notice?”
“They are a lot cheaper here on the street,” said the one woman, identifying herself now as coming from the Italian Costa Cruise Line, not the boat we are travelling on.

We laugh and walk on, leaving 10 women now, all of whom have stopped and asked us (instead of the merchant) if the prices were good.  The women were now surrounding that merchant, all of them scarves in their hands, and no longer wondering if they should buy, but ... how many they should buy.  That was too much scarf activity around a sheet laid out on the ground for us. 

We strolled on.

“Wyona, when we stop at the next merchant let us make him an offer.  Ask him how large a discount he will give us on the scarves we buy, if we bring a crowd of women in for him.  It seems all we have to do is examine a few of the patterns carefully, throw a some nice coloured wraps over our arms like we are going to buy them, and soon we get squeezed out of our front line positions and have to move on.”

But none of the above is what I wanted to tell you when I started typing this.
As we were strolling back down the same avenue, this time, looking at the Murano Glass instead of the scarves – all pieces being sold at 2 euros a piece (or 3 for 5), we saw the lay-your-sheet-on-the-ground vendors packing up to go, all at exactly the same moment.
“Police?”, we ask the man in whose wares we are examining.  “No, we just close down at 3 pm.”

“Wyona, we have just been told a lie,” I whispered to her. “Vendors just don’t close up when it is 3 pm and they are surrounded with customers.  Ask the next merchant the same question -- what is going on.”

“OK,” he said. “The police only allow us to come out between 1 and 3.  Then we have to go home.  We can’t come out in the morning.   We can come back until 8 pm.”

All I could think of is that the cruise ships would all be gone by 8 pm.  A weird way for the police to patrol the streets. 

Anything goes during the community nap time ... something every tourist should know.