It was hot hot hot. Finally, my time to swim in the Mediterranean! I bought a voucher for lounge and umbrella in Mondello at the beach. It took a while to get to know the ropes. I rode the bus packed like a sardine with about 200 people I kid you not. I found my place on the beach and went into the water. I had put my cell into a baggie and pinned it to the inside of my hat. I didn't want to leave anything valuable on the beach. (I took these pics with my cell phone.) When I got back to my lounge there was a woman preparing to change her son's diaper on my lounge. Um, mi scusi, questa la mia lounge, I said. She said no, it is hers, for the entire season. I picked up all my stuff and went to a little hut where they directed me to a place of my very own. It takes a lot of humility to travel... a little later everyone near me was rousted and made to move so a woman could have the lounge they had assigned to me. People just hung their heads, packed up and moved to the next row (instead of putting the late-comer in a spare lounge - which would have been the simple solution. But how do you say that in Italian?)
People were selling everything from jewelry to massages to coconuts. The man with his box of coconuts held it high and rasped loudly, "Coco, coco, coco," sounding like a cross between a parrot and a raven, his shirt closed with one button, showing his skinny chest. The masseuses were Asian, covered from head to to in long pants and shirts and hats. The jewelery sellers were Indians. They did not give up, and circulated steadily the whole time I was there.
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