BLEEDING MONEY

---

TODAY, I BLED MONEY.
DEODERANT: First, I went into a farmacia, not realizing it was a sort of natural herb kind of place, picked out a lovely, light sage-green bottle of deodorant, and didn’t get my brain engaged to say no thanks when the clerk told me it was 7 euro (about $8.50) so I now have very expensive deodorant that no TSA better try to take away from me at the airport.
SUITCASE. Next, as my husband predicted, I needed a different suitcase since a wheel broke on my case even before I left the US. It’s tough to say broken wheels in Italian. It is something like “ruote rote.” I gave up on the explaining and just asked for a new one, which didn’t cost much, only 14 Euros ($17), which I got in a Chinese shop. I tried to speak Italian with the Chinese sales lady, who kept repeating “glotziah” to me. When I didn’t understand, she shouted it at me several times. I finally realized she was saying, “Grazie.” Duh! So, I said,”Grazie” back, to which she responded, “Plago”(meaning prego, your’re welcome). English is tough for the Chinese, but Italian with its trilled r’s is impossible.
CAMERA: After that, I went to take a photo of some rusty doors, zoomed in on them, and dropped my camera—forgot to put the strap around my wrist, something I’d been trying to remember to do but didn’t. The camera landed face (lens) down in gravel. One pointy piece pierced the lens—story over. I had to pay 149 euroz (I’m not going to figure it in dollars, it’s bad enough in euros) to get a smaller camera that only does 5X optical zoom. However, I popped the chip from the broken camera in the new one and the photo I’d taken earlier of some huge eggplants (melanzane) miraculously appeared on the display. Oh, well, it’s only money I bled and not the red stuff in my veins. I made friends with the couple who sold me the camera and took my first photo of them. Chalk that one up to stupidity and add it to the other cameras I’ve destroyed or lost. There’s still one out in the woods behind my house that fell out of my pocket in the snow a few years ago.
ART AND DRINKING: With new camera tightly strapped to my wrist, I went back to visit my wonderful bronze warriors. They were still resting in their wooden frames. In one of the other rooms at the museum there were some Greek pinakes (plaques) andmany of them included a rooster that it said signaled an important passage in life. I took that to mean that I shoudl forget the money I bled during the day and get on with life.
Afterwards, I came back to my local bar (where they sell mostly coffee and sweets, but also have liquor.) The couple there had promised to give me their recipe for limoncello and to give me a taste. I sat for a long time sipping the limoncello and listening to a gentleman, maybe my age, egg-on an elderly fellow who was holding forth on where in the world the most beautiful women are to be found. I understood most of it including a few naughty words.
Since it’s been three days ago, I’m going to confess I drank some absinthe, made by my hosts in Rome from an absinthe plant he grows. They are not the druggie types, so I figured it was OK, but still I worried a bit until it seemed pretty clear that it had no more effect on me than the limoncello they let me taste the previous day. Now it is raining lightly and I’m in for the evening, heading for Catanzaro tomorrow via train. Not sure what the internet possibilities are, so I may not have an entry tomorrow. The final photo is one of that moving walkway from up above where my B&B is. I plan to use it to get to the station tomorrow.

---

Comments

[Anita and Mom]

Photos
Nice photos. Hope you have better luck with this camera. Non vedo l'ora di vederti. Anita