Hiiiii @galenkp! Hope you are having a fantastic weekend.
Uhh, I love getting gifts and giving them! I won't mind a gift of a few days of holiday to visit Venice, Italy. 😄 I love to travel and visiting Italy would make my dreams of riding in a gondola on the canal come true. Hehe, I have this on my bucket list.
I also love wine and would want to visit the vineyards there and go for wine tasting. It would definitely be an experience!
I love to give gifts because it makes me happy to make others happy. ☺️ So I'd gift you the Mudmaster GWG-1000-1A3 you like (if I can afford it 😁),
gift @dandays a cool camera with powerful lens that he can zoom in with when he rides on his bicycle so he does not get into any trouble with biker gangs 🤭😜. That way he can snap and send me cool nature pics,
.... Hmm, I have to think of things I can gift my friends on hive. Will BRB. 😊
Hey there, I really hope your self-gift comes to fruition. I've been to Venice myself and it's pretty cool. I took the image below there, from within a gondola. It had bucketed down with rain that morning and it looked unlikely I'd be able to do the gondola thing but it worked out. It's worth the effort.
Thanks for my gift, if only I had that watch on my wrist - Want it so much! I'm sure dandays would appreciate his gift also, after all, who wants to get entangled with bikers right? Lol.
!ENGAGE 20
Wow, what a lovely snapshot! And look at that gondola. I think it's used mainly for tour rides. Or is it a form of public transportation? Hehe, if I lived there, I would ride it all the time! 😄
Venice certainly looks cool and I hope I get to visit it soon. 🙂 Enjoy your weekend!
I think the gondolas are more about the tourists these days although back in the day they were transportation.
They're so 21st century these days—rollin around on technologically advanced unicycles. I can't tell if they're thugs or clowns.
Well, I don't like thugs or clowns so the two are synonymous to me.
ENGAGEtokens.You sure know how to gear up a non picture taking cyclist.
You're a sweetheart. I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a lil girly when I saw you mention me. To show my gratitude for the new camera, I've conducted some serious cycle upgrades to include a passenger seat.
Your exertion-free chariot awaits....
Not Italy, though. I'll pick you up in France, Malta, Spain, anywhere but Italy. We spent 30 days there.. No Thanks! Don't care to even fly over that boot.
Hey! How's Hive's non-picture taking cyclist doing today? 😅 I'm having a good laugh as I read your comment. I'm glad you like the camera.
Thanks for the serious cycle upgrades, I love this new ride! Exertion-free you say? Riding requires enough exertion. If I ride it, I can't think of who would sit in passenger seat. 🤔😆
Why not? I love Italy and you spent 30 days there. Enough time to be friendly with the place.
Still, France, Malta and Spain are lovely places too! So I'll bring my new exertion-free ride along. 😉
My wife and I were blessed to tour 16 countries, living in 13 for 30 days or more. Out of everywhere we went including the Middle East, both Central and South America, Italians despise people who look like me the most!
I couldn't wait to leave Italy. We went up to Tuscany, it wasn't that bad and we went down to Anzio Beach, also real nice. But our stay was in Rome and we couldn't get outta there fast enough.
I was hated more in Rome than anywhere I've ever been in nearly 45 years of living.
😳😳😳 Wow! I did not expect that.
Not to get into any kind of debate on this issue but really, this just reinforces my stance that prejudice and antagonism against one another is not going away any time soon. Sorry about your experience.
On the positive side, you and your wife toured 16 countries!! That must have been an adventure! ☺️
Oh it was. It was a lot of planning, several years. To have it all come to an end in such dramatic Covid fashion was not in the itinerary though.
Didn't see that one coming.
When I tell my friends here about our experience in Italy, they're surprised as well—didn't expect it. Nor did we! You should see their reaction when I tell them two of the kindest, most loving people who welcomed us during that two years was an Iraqi and a Syrian.
💖
Here's to traveliving ever resuming again. 🙌
You just opened my eyes to new information I was unaware of. Thank you. 🙂
I never saw the statistics @kemmyb, thank you. I experienced it first hand and the history it stems from is enlightening.
"More than half" voted against condemning racism?! What?
Story time:
When we would go to the market, we had to coach ourselves prior to entering. "Don't talk, don't say anything, don't look at them." Where I come from, we customary say "hello," if nothing else, "hello." But it's common to extend that to "how are you today?" Just small talk, pay the bill, exit the market. Not in Italy.
They won't talk to me. I say "hello." :crickets: I ask for help finding something. :crickets: "Thank you." :crickets:
Well, as we discovered, being blatantly ignored like that is kinda enraging. So rather than get pissed each time we'd go to the market (restaurant, depot, coffee, everywhere) we'd coach ourselves, "don't talk, don't say anything."
For a month.
Wow! That's just mean. I quickly looked up that info after I read your comment on your experience in Italy.
Living in such an unfriendly, toxic environment is not advised. Now I understand better why you said, not Italy. If I had the same experience, I would not want to return there.
I'm sure you have more adventures planned. Covid really changed things globally and travel restrictions are quite tight. I wonder if we would ever get back to life as it was. In the event we do, I'll be sure to plan properly before taking any trip! 😉😄
We can only pray. Unfortunately I'm dangerously low on optimism. Pura and I have been transformed since returning stateside in such dramatic fashion. We haven't been scoping out destinations lately instead we're scoping out property. Booooo!
Never saw that comin.
And another thing, Cabbies. Italian cab drivers would stop their taxi's for us when we haled them. As soon as I would talk and say something like "16st please" they heard my California voice and "I'm not going that way" and would take off! Leave us standing in the street.
Can't make this stuff up.
Don't your lips get to quivering from making the noise for that cycle? Just wonderin'?
Wanna race?