Spring Break Odyssey: Relay for Relief

We awoke to a glorious Italian sun. This was the day we were to board our cruise ship in Venice, and we were all excited.

Lilly had fully recovered from the stomach virus that nearly got us thrown out of our last hotel, I purchased a map after our GPS sent us through the Italian Alps, and we managed to find a nearby vacancy when a hotel in Venice did not acknowledge our reservation. We survived all that, and felt that the worst was finally behind us.

There was only one little pesky lingering problem. An embarrassing personal issue that seems to plague me any time I travel. My digestive system was on total lockdown, so I decided that I’d better hit a pharmacy for some “products” before we boarded the ship.

Just down the street from our hotel, I saw the characteristic blinking green cross, the symbol for pharmacies all over Europe. Taking a deep breath, I walked up to the pharmacist and his assistant behind the counter.

You see, European pharmacies are nothing like CVS, Rite Aid, or Walgreens. You can’t peruse the aisles in relative privacy and sneak embarrassing items up to the cash register. Here, you must tell the pharmacist your problem, within earshot of everyone else in the store, so he can find the right medication for you. He then hands it to you, and loudly instructs you on how to take it.

“You-a take-a one-a tablet-a, and-a in-a twelve-a hours-a, you-a will-a, uh, uh . . .” the pharmacist looks to his assistant, who shrugs. “Yea, yea, I get it, just put it in the bag,” I responded, humiliated.

We all took a Dramamine in the passenger terminal parking lot before boarding the ship, and I snuck one of the little pharmacy tablets with my bottled water.

Boarding the ship, the kids could not wait to find the four pools, the waterslide, the kids’ center and the arcade. After going over some safety precautions, I turned them loose.

“The arcade games all cost money,” Hayden reported. “The water slide is closed,” Lilly moped. “The pools are all too cold to swim in, and there are big hairy men in all the hot tubs,” Anna sighed.

“Don’t worry, everyone! I am sure there are fun things to do in the kids’ center, and look! You can eat as much pizza as you want!” I countered.

We joined the buffet line and fought to grab plastic plates. As we surged forth in the line, none of us could find anything that looked appetizing. Gelatin with fruit, some kind of seafood salad with octopus suckers in it, a large cylinder of pressed meat with a big glass bowl of translucent gravy. Ew.

Finally at the end of the line, wespied the pizza! Before we could grab a slice, some pushy Europeans emptied the pan. We waited for the next pie, elbowing the other patrons circling around us.

Finding all the inside tables filled, we sat at a chilly patio table on the empty pool deck. Hayden grabbed his first slice, which looked kind of stiff. Taking a bite, it crunched like a cracker, and the wind blew tiny fragments of crust dust around our table. The pizza was as hard as a sea biscuit.

Subscribing to the theory that all pizza is good, we ate it anyway.

Later at the kids’ center, we learned that, other than some coloring activities, there really wasn’t anything for Lilly to do. The teenage activities for Anna and Hayden were posted on a flier that read, “Meet Lorenzo in Dante’s Disco for Speed Dating at 8 o’clock!”

There was no way my timid kids were going to subject themselves to forced mingling with foreign teenagers, so we hit the hay early and hoped for a good port visit in the morning. The rocking of the boat lulled us to sleep like babies in a cradle.

Just as the Italian pharmacist had predicted, the little tablet took exactly twelve hours to work its magic. Stumbling through the dark cabin, I found the bathroom door. Locked!

With teeth clenched, I impatiently awaited my turn. Finally, the door opened, and Anna appeared, looking pale in the dim moonlight.

“Mom, I threw up,” she said weakly. “Yeah, that’s great, Honey, now could you just step aside and we can talk about this later?” I said as I shoved my way into the bathroom.

The proverbial floodgates opened, and I felt relieved. (Little did I know, there was plenty more to come.) I turned my attention to Anna, who I found right outside the bathroom door.

“Oh Mom! I feel sick again!” she said, pushing me to the side.

This bathroom relay went on into the wee hours of the morning. Poor Anna had caught the stomach virus Lilly had, and I was battling a combination of seasickness and Italian laxatives. Even Lilly, also seasick, came down from her bunk to compete with us for time in the head.

The toilet paper ran out at about 4 am. It was a rough night, to say the least.

Over the next few days, we aimlessly wandered each port like seasick zombies. Back on the ship, we grimaced at the buffet, nibbled at our food, and resolved to go to bed early.

Finally, the ship pulled back into Venice’s harbor. After paying the tab for taxes, hidden fees, service charges and overpriced drinks, we made a beeline for our beloved dirty white minivan.

This time, I kept my GPS in the glove box and followed a map. As my minivan whizzed along the toll road on its way back to Patch Barracks, I realized that the girl in the ruby red slippers had it right when she said, “There’s no place like home.”

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