Today I headed out to Burono, a tiny fishing island located about 40 minutes from Venice but light-years away from the crowds and jostle of daytime Venice. The boat trip out was incredibly picturesque, as the boat left the city there were some of the most incredible views of Venice. Stepping onto the island felt like I was stepping back in time. All the buildings are painted bright bon-bon-like colors. Apparently the women of Burono painted their houses these bright colors so that where their husbands came home from fishing in the morning fog, they would be able to find their correct house. Walking through the village it was refreshing to see how little life has changed. I passed men repairing their nets, and their wives hanging laundry or making lace. I found a bench in a little park on the island and opened up my book, pretty soon I was joined by an older man. He said something to me in Italian that I didn't understand, and I told him that I didn't speak Italian, he told me that he didn't speak English so we sat in silence for awhile. A few minutes later we were joined by more men and they all squeezed on the nearby benches, and I began to realize I had unknowingly sat down in the spot where these men have a daily chat. The men seemed really excited that I had joined their group. They all kept asking me if I spoke Italian and I kept having to tell them no, but I do speak English and French. I did understand one man when he told me "...but we are in Italy, we speak Italian". Another man told his friends that I looked like his granddaughter. Other than a couple of words here and there, I didn't understand anything else... The old men reminded me of my grandfather and the irony of the revelation was spine tingling. Two generations ago my grandfather was in northern Italy guarding Italian POWs... it is strange how quickly some wounds heal, and how others don't... At the hostel I met a really interesting Englishman, Tom. He was a kind of British hippie; he lived in a VW van but works at a posh office job. The stark contrast cracked me up. Later on we were joined by an Australian who really killed the conversation... I thought that it would be impossible for an Australian to be boring but this guy proved me wrong. I was able to escape the conversation by telling Tom I was going to get some gelato, Tom suddenly *remembered* he was hungry and asked to tag along; luckily the Australian didn't ask to come along. We walked around the city for awhile and I showed Tom all the sights, when we finally went to go get gelato I told Tom he should give me his money and let me get the gelato for him, when I explained why, he scoffed and told me he didn't believe that flirting would get me extra gelato. So I let him go in first, and he came out with a normal sized scoop, when I came out with mine his eyes bugged out. We measured our cones up against each other and discovered that my flirting got me 75% more gelato than him...hehe.