The man with the dirty keffiyeh, whose name I never learnt, drove in the middle of the road, often, when night came, with the headlights off. His right hand was always occupied, either by a cigarette or mobile phone. He accelerated past signs which suggested, in English and Arabic, that he slow down, and let the vehicle’s enormous weight carry us with little control down long, whistling slopes.
Venice
I sat in Hotel Caneva’s small reception area, chatting to Stephano, the night time receptionist. Water, displaced by passing boats, lapped up against a rudimentary wooden barricade, erected to keep guests from the slimed over steps leading down to a small canal. Gondoliers, standing stiff above tourists, shouted echoing “Hoys!” as they twisted blind past the building’s dark exterior.
Stephano had worked in London, which he explained his easy, if imperfect, use of English. “I remember,” he told me, “when I arrive, I tell the owner of the hotel that I will be staying two years. He did not believe me,” he laughed, “but I stay two years. Exactly!” Continue reading Venice>>
