All's Well that Ends Well

We've decided to alternate our days spent sight-seeing out and about with days staying closer to home...after yesterday's outing to Padua, today's plan included spending a lot of time around the apartment - planning future trips, painting, reading, cooking, etc.-  and then heading out on an hour long boat trip down the River Sile that runs through town on an electric boat.  The first part of the plan turned out great, the second part..not so much.

We drove about an half-hour to the boat dock, and were very excited when were given the map of the sites (villas, abandoned ships) we would see on our hour-long trip. It looked like so much fun, and we were talking about needing to come back with Jim and go on maybe a longer trip next time to see more.  It should have been a red flag when the only real instructions we were given in Italian were about steering clear of the river grass and how to manage if the propeller were to get tangled up with weeds.  A second red flag should have gone up when we left the dock and put the boat into full throttle and were only going slightly faster than we could walk, not faster than we could run, and that even with the steering wheel turned all the way to the left, the boat still wanted to go a little right.  But, we still thought it was going to be fun!  Rachel did a lot of the driving (which was great fun for her), but after spending time on Lake Como and seeing the beauty and the villas there and the Villa Pisani on the Padua trip, the abandoned factories and  "villas" along this section of the River Sile left much to be desired.  All went pretty well until we had to turn the boat around to head back to the dock without going too near any edges.  We are all willing to blame each other for running into some river grass...none willing to take personal responsibility.  In fairness though, we found that even in the center of the river the river grass, though not visible from afar, was actually only about a foot under water.  In the end we didn't get too tangled up, the boat never stopped running entirely, and we were able to steer it back to the dock (eventually)...it took us almost an hour to do half of the route we were told we could cover in our hour.  And I wouldn't say we had fun, though it was funny.  And we were happy to be safely off the water.  Julia said that adventure would be remembered like the bus trip home from Venice...sometimes things just don't go as planned.  A good travel lesson to learn at an early age.

We went to pick up Jim at work, came home and made some fabulous pasta with lentil bolognese.  (I think Rachel has made the transition to vegetarianism! - though I'm not sure she has thought through CPK's bbq chicken pizza - we'll have to see when we get home).  Our nightly walk for dessert took us under a sky lit up with beautiful lightning to a place that Jim discovered that sells crepes and "frozen crepes" - because in Italy if you can make it out of ice cream, why not?  They spread frozen yogurt on a frozen metal plate and spread on toppings (nutella, fresh fruit) before folding it over just like a crepe.  I ordered first but made a mistake in asking for a small one - which wasn't enough to have as a crepe, so it just came in a bowl (but a pretty coconut bowl).  Jim and Rachel, learning from my ordering mistake, both got a frozen crepe masterpiece....Julia opted for the regular (French) crepe with nutella.  A great ending to our day!