Submitted by Grace Lancieri Olivo
© 1999 by Grace Lancieri Olivo
Friday, January 15, 1999
The trip began on a very sour note. I woke up to a snowstorm, and when I called American Airlines I was told our flight was cancelled. We drove up to Long Island on icy roads, and by the time I reached my brother's house American had us on a later flight that should still allow us to connect in London for Venice.
The day before I had received a call from Francesco (a cousin I had never met who had been born and raised in Bitetto, Bari); he wanted me to bring something to his mother - Mama Grazia - and brother Pasquale in Bitetto, so I drove over to his house to meet him and get his package. Amazingly, he lives about 2 miles from my brother, but we never knew he existed until the cousins in Bitetto told him about me 2 weeks before my trip. I was immediately comfortable in their home, looked over some photos of familiar looking ancestors, sipped an espresso and talked a bit about Italy.
Then it was back in the car to head to JFK. The flight was delayed on the runway, and our plane was de-iced twice before a scary take-off. The delay was enough that we missed our connection in London for Venice, and Jeannette and I spent a miserable 8 hour lay-over there. JoAnne (coming in from California) had made the London flight connection and was in Venice alone. We called her from London with our tale of woe and tried to make the best of it.
We arrived in Venice about 10:30 p.m. to find more bad news. One of Jeannette's suitcases was missing, and the last water boat to Lido had left for the night. We took a taxi to Piazza Roma, where we could get a water boat to Lido, and found out there would be another 50 minutes wait for the next one; a lovely Italian girl named Daniela was waiting for the boat too - she spoke Spanish which I could communicate in - and filled us in on our options. We ended up renting a water taxi instead of waiting because we were exhausted. All in all, it cost us $100US to get to our hotel that night.
Since Daniela was going to Lido too, we invited her to share our water taxi and during the 15-20 minute ride she pointed out the sites along the way. We were pretty surprised when we got out of the taxi - Lido was quiet and deserted. Not a soul in the street, and only one car passed us on our walk up the street to the hotel. The locals leave their bikes near the water boat station, and pedal to their homes. The hotel was clean and the staff helpful, but it was small and the room cramped with 3 beds. We didn't care. It was warm and quaint, and we were in Italy at last.
There seemed to be familiar faces everywhere - how odd to look around and realize that all the residents looked like an uncle, a cousin, an aunt or a grandparent. We were foreigners by birth, but natives by blood. We had come home. We talked until 3 a.m. - until the people next door rapped on the wall to silence us.