Promenade

We went walking along a promenade that was built on top of a seawall constructed after a tsunami that occurred a few years ago. The promenade includes frequent benches to sit on and, unique to the entire city as far as we could see, trash containers that were in the shape of various animals and signed: USE ME. We returned to the promenade to watch the sunset. While there a local began a conversation –we weren’t sure whether he was gay or lonely or both. He’s a bachelor, works in Verona, speaks Italian, and is trying to make a living guiding Italian tourists.

That evening we bought a small freshly caught tuna, planned to take it to a stand that had offered to cook it for us. But we were intercepted by a relative of the owner of the fish restaurant we had eaten at a couple of nights earlier. He grabbed the fish and walked it back to his restaurant. We should have protested, but were a bit in awe at his presumption. It would have been ok if they hadn’t charged what seemed an exorbitant amount to cook the fish.