Saturday, August 9th, 2014
I woke up panicked. I had a dream that the car I had rented had rolled down the hill and fabulously crashed in the sea. It was only a nightmare but I went out and checked on the car anyway. It was fine. It felt good knowing that the rental was safe. Some people have real problems. I think I was still in the obstacle course state of mind that I had found myself the previous night. I was looking forward to our first sporty day. Our first stop (and mistake) was to a corner store to pick up an over priced bottle of water. Amandine swore that we would never make this mistake again. Getting price gouged for water was a cardinal sin in her book. In the future we would load the car with bottled water from the supermarket and carry it around with us. To make matters worse, the vendor, a tall lanky individual with no sympathy in his eyes, had no change. I found myself buying extra peaches to make up the difference. Now we had over priced water and over priced peaches that we tried to keep cool by burying under pebbles. It was a good lesson. We would become pack horses, bringing all our resonably priced groceries wherever we travelled in the future.
We found some steps in daylight leading downhill. Along the way, people were camped out on the steps, ready to pounce on us with paddle ball sets and special booties. I immediately assessed the situation and determined that we did not need these products as I was wary of being hussled. I find it a curious thing that these vendors, hard working people from third world countries come to middle class resorts to hussle the middle class. It is the really poor, selling to the just geting by. You never see instances of the really poor selling to the really rich. The truly rich can afford to send someone else to get their booties. In retrospect, I think I could have used a pair of these booties for feeling at ease on the volcanic rock. The beaches in Taormina are soft soft sand. No one is diving into it trying to save a volley ball serve. Everyone is carefully treading on sharp rock formed millions of years ago by molten lava. It's quite a hostile environment when you think about it. But some are more at ease than others. Me, for instance, I was walking like an eighty year old man. While I saw real eighty year old men, without booties, strutting out on sharp rock like it was soft heather. Economics and booties aside, it was a glorious sun drenched day. I floated out in the water, and looked on at the marvelous Isola Bella that I had seen at night. I watched fearless young divers launching off of rock faces to impress their girlfriends. I saw plenty of girls and boys floating out on air mattresses. They had clearly mastered the art of doing nothing, a drink in their hand and a permanent cigarette burning to its end in their mouths. I found myself without any flotation devices but luckily my body had been specially designed to float in all conditions. I lay on my back and waved to Amandine back on shore. She liked to call my antics similar to a hippo. I tried not to be offended but atleast I was keeping cool. You would never hear me complain that I lacked booties or that the sun was too hot. Whenever I felt too sweaty or dehydrated I would go into the water.
That night, after some prepping and pruning, we gazed into the mirror to see how tan we were getting. I believe one of the most satisfying thngs about a summer vacation at the beach is to measure how your skin is changing in real time. It is one of the only instances that one can become more attractive in a matter of hours. We were vain children amused by simple pleasures. We made the trek up the steps again to the the restaurants and bars of Taormina proper. This time it was a little less romantic as we made careful calculations as to how hot and sweaty we were getting and changed our shirts once we hit the top. Amandine would have much rather taken the car as we wanted to be chic but I insisted that I was on vacation now and wanted to be free to not spend my life looking for parking spaces. It would become the theme of this vacation. Whenever I rent a car, I cannot help but fantasize about the day I will give it back. We bought one cup of creamy ice cream and ate it next to a fountain with two spoons like young lovers in a story book. We skimpped dinner proper. You can do this when you are on vacation: you can eat ice cream instead of a meal and convince yourseld you are being sensible.
I woke up panicked. I had a dream that the car I had rented had rolled down the hill and fabulously crashed in the sea. It was only a nightmare but I went out and checked on the car anyway. It was fine. It felt good knowing that the rental was safe. Some people have real problems. I think I was still in the obstacle course state of mind that I had found myself the previous night. I was looking forward to our first sporty day. Our first stop (and mistake) was to a corner store to pick up an over priced bottle of water. Amandine swore that we would never make this mistake again. Getting price gouged for water was a cardinal sin in her book. In the future we would load the car with bottled water from the supermarket and carry it around with us. To make matters worse, the vendor, a tall lanky individual with no sympathy in his eyes, had no change. I found myself buying extra peaches to make up the difference. Now we had over priced water and over priced peaches that we tried to keep cool by burying under pebbles. It was a good lesson. We would become pack horses, bringing all our resonably priced groceries wherever we travelled in the future.
We found some steps in daylight leading downhill. Along the way, people were camped out on the steps, ready to pounce on us with paddle ball sets and special booties. I immediately assessed the situation and determined that we did not need these products as I was wary of being hussled. I find it a curious thing that these vendors, hard working people from third world countries come to middle class resorts to hussle the middle class. It is the really poor, selling to the just geting by. You never see instances of the really poor selling to the really rich. The truly rich can afford to send someone else to get their booties. In retrospect, I think I could have used a pair of these booties for feeling at ease on the volcanic rock. The beaches in Taormina are soft soft sand. No one is diving into it trying to save a volley ball serve. Everyone is carefully treading on sharp rock formed millions of years ago by molten lava. It's quite a hostile environment when you think about it. But some are more at ease than others. Me, for instance, I was walking like an eighty year old man. While I saw real eighty year old men, without booties, strutting out on sharp rock like it was soft heather. Economics and booties aside, it was a glorious sun drenched day. I floated out in the water, and looked on at the marvelous Isola Bella that I had seen at night. I watched fearless young divers launching off of rock faces to impress their girlfriends. I saw plenty of girls and boys floating out on air mattresses. They had clearly mastered the art of doing nothing, a drink in their hand and a permanent cigarette burning to its end in their mouths. I found myself without any flotation devices but luckily my body had been specially designed to float in all conditions. I lay on my back and waved to Amandine back on shore. She liked to call my antics similar to a hippo. I tried not to be offended but atleast I was keeping cool. You would never hear me complain that I lacked booties or that the sun was too hot. Whenever I felt too sweaty or dehydrated I would go into the water.
That night, after some prepping and pruning, we gazed into the mirror to see how tan we were getting. I believe one of the most satisfying thngs about a summer vacation at the beach is to measure how your skin is changing in real time. It is one of the only instances that one can become more attractive in a matter of hours. We were vain children amused by simple pleasures. We made the trek up the steps again to the the restaurants and bars of Taormina proper. This time it was a little less romantic as we made careful calculations as to how hot and sweaty we were getting and changed our shirts once we hit the top. Amandine would have much rather taken the car as we wanted to be chic but I insisted that I was on vacation now and wanted to be free to not spend my life looking for parking spaces. It would become the theme of this vacation. Whenever I rent a car, I cannot help but fantasize about the day I will give it back. We bought one cup of creamy ice cream and ate it next to a fountain with two spoons like young lovers in a story book. We skimpped dinner proper. You can do this when you are on vacation: you can eat ice cream instead of a meal and convince yourseld you are being sensible.
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