It’s 11:02 PM.
Just woke up from a nap, even though I was trying to sleep through the night in order to recalibrate my body to adapt to the time zone change.
Look left, and there is Junior, AKA my brother, G, literally snoring two feet away from me as we occupy the same bed.
This is what happens when you let someone else book the Airbnb.
I have to give the guy a pass though.
He had a big day, what with being robbed by an Italian mobster at lunch.
The check came.
81 Euros.
I mean, I get inflation, but 81 Euros for two bottles of club soda, a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, plus a dead fish accompanied by some French fries?
“Seems high,” I mutter to my brother, softly enough so that the mobster doesn’t overhear and have a conniption.
G starts laughing, but he won’t tell me why.
“I’ll tell you when we get outside,” he says, and I must admit I’m envious of his perpetual optimism.
It’s his turn to pay, so the 81 Euros is a laughing matter to me, but this should be interesting.
Outside, away from the lingering mobster, we begin weaving through the mesmerizing corridors of Venice, burning calories as we dodge some Latvians who are searching for that Kodak moment on a bridge.
“That fish tasted like shit,” G tells me.
“What do you mean?” I ask with a boisterous chuckle accompanying the question.
“Worst meal of my life. Can’t believe I spent 48 Euros on crusty fries and an old fish that was covered in 10-cent marinara sauce,” G continues, his mood still undeniably positive.
But oh, the nerve of that mobster, who told me all their food is imported fresh on the daily.
“I would have rather ate a Croppy,” G insists.
For reference, a Croppy is a type of fish that can be found in Minnesota lakes, and no one, absolutely no one, eats them.
Restaurants won’t even overfish them, which should give you an idea of just how unimpressive of a fish was plopped onto G’s plate.
“Welcome to traveling,” I tell G.
“It’s sad,” G then says. “Some of the luster of tourism is gone once you realize how some things are.”
“It’s just how these things are,” I say, having been disappointed enough on my quests around the world, and by now we have evacuated the tourist premises and find ourselves walking alone side by side along a bridge overlooking many bodies of water.
G and I will laugh about this one day.
“You remember that terrible fish you paid $50 for in Venice,” I’ll say, and the first few times we will laugh because it’s funny, and as we get older, we will probably just smile, and that will be enough to pay homage to the absurdity of it all.
Moments like this are why traveling is worth it.
It’s not about the trinkets one may pick up along the way.
Rather, it’s always the small things.
Like, finding an adapter for your charger and feeling so empowered that you can solve any problem, like world hunger, or the Pythagorean theorem.
Or something as minute as looking up at the small TV stationed above the bedroom door, wondering how and why such a tiny contraption was placed there.
Honorable mention:
The gelato, which is 10x better than any ice cream here (sorry Kemps: even though my roommate in college used to eat your recipe by the gallon, that doesn’t make your product any better).
We will see what tomorrow brings.
Hopefully more gelato, less overpriced fish smothered in Ragu, and enough moments where time freezes, and you think:
That will make for a good story someday, and the retelling of that story may actually be more fun than having experienced it. QS
quentinsuper.com 
Leave a comment