Since I know you are dying to hear about the medieval pole dancers, I’m going to save it until last.
The first thing I did today was get my hair done. I needed my roots touched up (because apparently it looks bad, just about everyone in the family has told me by now.). It’s so hot I’ve been contemplating cutting it, and I mentioned it to Ava last night and she said, “don’t cut it, long hair is better, otherwise it’s like you are giving up.”. Huh? Clearly, she’s been drinking the cool aid that says long hair is better. Challenge accepted Ava, challenge accepted. I had passed a salon a couple of days ago that looked good, and made an appointment with someone at the desk, basically praying they didn’t screw up my hair (although, really, how could it be worse?) When I went in to make the appointment, the woman asked in Italian what I wanted done and I leaned my head down and said my “roots” and John was next to me saying, “oh, don’t worry, she can tell.”
I hustled it to my 9:00 a.m. appointment, getting lost in the process and showing up 10 minutes late. I came in huffing and puffing, and already sweating profusely from my short run (I managed to walk in the opposite direction by mistake and then had to back track asap.) The woman who colored my hair was very nice, spoke very little English and twice consulted with an older gentleman on the state of my roots. There was rapid fire Italian going back and forth, and I can only guess it was regarding the outrageous American hair situation they were dealing with. I then showed her a picture of what I was thinking for my hair length, she gave it a thumbs up and next thing I knew I had hair a couple of inches below my chin. I pretty much dig it though, and Ava said she liked it, so that did make me feel better. I can almost guarantee if she gets mad at me though, she’ll probably tell me I gave up on looking good and that’s why my hair is short.
We also ran errands today and were very productive. We needed to buy another suitcase to help carry our overages. We vacuumed the car so we wouldn’t get fined the 60 euros that they promised to fine us if the car was a mess (and let me tell you, it was pretty disgusting pre-cleanout.) Then we wandered around the city with the kids, having lunch, doing some shopping, eating gelato. Normal Italian stuff.
Later in the afternoon we went to a medieval fair that was going on along the bike path around the wall of the city. It was a street fair, art market, food thing…but very odd all around. There were people dressed up in period outfits, and there was some kind of medieval terror theme going on (one booth had skeletons, and there was a booth called the “horror family” that I could never quite figure out). One booth had live birds, in particular owls (sadly chained to their perches and I can only imagine, not happy at all.) We saw guys re-enacting sword fights with enormous wooden swords. There were odd street performers, like the super tall man on stilts that walked right over Lucia and scared her to death. Then there was the pole, in the middle of the small grassy area with some women doing what I can only presume was medieval pole dancing. Gia asked me, with an entirely straight face because she was totally serious, if pole dancing was a “real sport”. Uhhhmmmmm, not that I have heard of, no.
John and I came home and did some pre-departure stuff around the apartment with the kids, and then we left around 10:30 pm to go have a drink. It was a beautiful night, warm and TONS of people out. I love how at 11:00-11:30 p.m. the streets are completely packed, and there are kids too…I don’t know how any of those kids get enough sleep (are they sleeping until noon. the next day because I’m pretty sure 5 year olds need at least 10 hours??), but I still like it. We had some good Italian wine at the bar down the street and hammered out next Summer’s plans. Why? Well, we realized that we had booked our tickets for this trip right when we got back from Costa Rica the Summer before, so we figured we’d better keep up the tradition of booking a year in advance and start planning next Summer. Plan is Madrid, Portugal, up thru France, and over to England. I’m going to push for Belgium too, but who knows. We came home, and booked miles tickets to fly into Madrid June 17th—of next year. Done.
Tomorrow will be a full day of driving to Milan, dropping the car, taking a train from the airport to the train station downtown, and then taking the train to Venice. That should be smooth. Or totally not.
Signed, ME {lv}
Comments