My feet were dragging (dogs were barking!) by the time I passed this banner for a Quentin Blake exhibit, and I thought, "Well, that looks great, but I have to draw the line somewhere." In my mind I was headed to the Genoa aquarium, since it's the most famous one in the world (so they say)... but of course, I don't think anything could ever compare with the experience my mother and I had in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, home of the REALLY BIG SHARKS. So anyway, when I was wandering around the port and getting lost and eventually found myself right directly in front of the doors for Quentin Blake, I thought, oh why not? I figured it would be cheap, or maybe even free for estudiantes. But when it turned out to be 4 Euro, which is, no doubt, cheap, I still suddenly had a change of heart. I had two twenties that I didn't want to break and a lot of spare change that didn't quite tally up to 4 Euros.
"Oh well," I told the man at the front desk, holding out my change purse. "No importa." I shrugged and was about to turn on my heels, but he was suddenly more determined than I was that I get to see the exhibit.
"Wait!" He said. "Count your change. Count it carefully!"
I did, and arrived at 3 Euro exactly, and held it out as evidence. He took it from me, and counted through it again. He actually counted through it a few times, each system more inefficient than the last. He scratched his head.
"No importa," I insisted.
"Si, Si!" He countered. He held up a finger for me to wait a moment, and ducked behind the screen standing behind the register. When he returned he was carrying his wallet. I groaned.
"No!" I said.
"Si!" He told me.
He counted up my collection of Euros again, before adding his Euro to the mix.
"Mille grazie," I said, with an air of relief that made me sound much more desperate to see the Quentin Blake exhibit than I ever had been. During the whole interchange, I had made sure to keep my wallet placed in a way that assured he did not see the two twenties sticking out of it. He gave me my ticket, and told me all about the order I should view things in, and what was included, and where to go (the exhibit consisted of a few stands of illustrations placed in the lobby) and then I was finally free to peruse at my leisure. It was all very fun to see, especially the video of Quentin Blake working in his studio, and I ended the walk feeling very inspired to finally have one location to work in once I get to California, and excited to wander around the port some more, writing in my journal and planning the future.
"Mille grazie!" I yelled as I made my way out the door. But he wasn't letting me go that easily.
"Wait!" He said, running up to me and holding the door closed. "There's a video to watch!"
"I know, I watched it," I said, pointing toward the tv stand.
"No, another video," he said, beckoning me into a back room.
"Oh boy," I said, and followed.
The room was one of those meant for children, with coloring books and interactive activities. There were also chairs and a large screen tv on the wall. He pulled out a chair for me and put a DVD into the player. While that was happening, I made the mistake of asking something along the lines of, "How do you say "where" in Italian?" Only it came out, "Spanish, spanish, intelligible," and he looked very confused and I said "No importa" again, but he insisted that we follow through with the interaction. Thirty minutes of mangled French, Spanish, and Italian later I had learned that the post office was in the center of town, there were restaurants nearby, and the phrase for "Where is" in Italian is "Do've."
And then I sat down to watch the video, which was animated, and long, and all about a singing frog. It was painful. After about fifteen minutes in, of trying to be positive and thinking about how, after all, he had lent me a Euro and so I was obliged to get the most out of the exhibit, the frog broke into song for the sixth time and I decided to get the hell out of there. I said no goodbyes this time as I tried to slide silently out the front doors, but he had been lurking behind an illustration stand and intercepted me again.
"You didn't finish the movie?!" He asked in dismay.
I apologized, in Spanish of course, and mimed being tired.
"It was all bellissimo," I said. "Mille grazie."
"But there's another video," he said. "This one is even more bellissimo. You have to see it!"
I believe I groaned outright, and sent a look of distress toward the door. But he paid no attention, beckoning as he marched toward the back room. Head hung in defeat, I followed, wondering if I would ever see the light of Genoa again. At the entrance to the room, he took something from his pocket and offered it to me.
"Drinkable yogurt?" He asked. Figuring that refusing would probably turn into much more of an ordeal than simply accepting, I shrugged and said ok. Depending on how many more movies were on the agenda, it might be necessary to stabilize my blood sugar. He started the movie and proceeded to tell me all about it as it played, and I made the mistake again of trying to ask a question in response to what he had said, and then the whole choppy Spanish-French-Italian rigamarole started up again.
"At least this has gotten me through a good portion of the movie," I thought to myself. But before he left the room, he did an about face and pushed a button on the DVD player.
"I'll rewind it to the beginning for you," he said.
"Oh, Grazie," I said, wanting to scream.
And so I suffered as long as I could through the latest animated video, which was, I admit, more beautiful, and might actually have been quite pleasant to watch if I did not have the distinct sensation of being an animal trapped in a room. I paced back and forth a little, and when some other exhibit-goers wandered in and started to watch, I felt that I was justified in leaving for once and for all. The man was back behind the desk now and therefore could not get to the door quick enough to stop me. He did, however, try one final resort, responding to my decisive "Good-bye" with a question in Italian.
"No comprendo," I said, even though I was pretty sure I had.
"What... are you doing... tonight?" He said slowly and clearly in French.
"Ah... I don't know... I walk myself!" Was the literal translation of what I yelled back, as I shoved open the doors and went free, FREE, into the glorious sunshine of afternoon Genoa by the sea.
No comments:
Post a Comment