This Little Girl Went to Market.

My body felt nothing short of slow as I boarded the bus to head to the San Donato market a few brief hours of sleep after our trip to Venice. As Sonja gently asked how we were at bargaining, the expected answers came. Amy looked innocently and said, "I am terrible at bargaining." Jenn looked as if she had been waiting for this question for days, “I’m ready, Sonja, I have your back!” I looked on in disbelief, thinking of Shawn laughing at me, absolutely believing that I would wait in line for toilet paper, if it meant that everyone could have a square. Sonja, as if reading my mind said, “Well, I quite enjoy the bargaining process, so if you don’t, just hand over your money and please promise to just keep your mouth closed.” I grinned, half realizing I would be watching a master at work. After spending almost a month with Sonja and more specifically a day in Venice with her, I realized she had a skill and beauty that made people stop dead in awe. She made people ponder their own existence. And she could quite frankly charm the socks off of pretty much any person on this beautiful planet of ours.

The market was bustling, even though it was Sunday. All of Italy basically shuts down on Sunday, but the market in San Donato bustled with a foreign flair. The four of us, stuck out, next to the mostly middle easterners that meandered the aisles of the market. Yet, we walked the streets as if we belonged exactly where we tread. Sonja negotiated our deals one by one with her non-existant Italian and her charming gratzie coupled with a hand shake and a ciao, ciao. After losing the negotiations for a small red bike to a middle aged Italian, we found an even smaller red bike with purple writing. Not exactly what I had in mind, but after some thought, I realized it was perfect. The purple letters inscribed “Holland” up the cross bar. Perfect! Holland had given me my life, my courage, gave me the ability to be exactly where I was today, so for 30 euro I was sitting on a small red bike, that looked exactly like me. Bright and ready to face the world, perhaps a little squeaky, but it did the job beautifully.

At about 1 pm, the crew from Via Mose was headed back to Opera with absolutely no idea how to get there. So we asked people with our very shabby Italian and soon we found our way to the metro, and after a brief trip, we were riding like a motorcycle gang to our suburb, completely proud to have made it completely on our own.

As we got to the gate of our apartment, Jenn decided to ask our landlord where we should keep our bikes. After last week's fiasco with my beautiful nonna, we were going to do things right. As we parked our bikes behind our apartment building, we heard a voice, that I would recognize anywhere. It was MY nonna. My heart raced, I had been waiting for this moment for a week. I readied my camera, feeling like I had to capture her on film. As she came out the back door of the building, I asked if I could take her picture. She laughed as she reprimanded me for thinking of such a thing. I took the picture anyway, complimenting her… calling her beautiful (bella). She told me she was too old. I told her, she was my nonna. With those words she actually smiled. I then complimented her bike and asked her where I could get a basket just like hers. She called to Andrea the man, who, just one short week ago, had sympathized with her about the crazy Americans who were ruining her life by throwing cardboard out in the wrong place. He looked out his window and in almost perfect English told us where to go to find the perfect basket, only after chuckling at the scene he saw before him, almost amazed that we were starting to win her over. She told him, we had wanted her picture and he grinned at the site of us.