The gondoliaer

I want to tell you about a specific day, a valuable moment in my trip to Italy with my best friend Liraz. Our gondola experience in Venice:

Venice is an amazing city on the water, attracts a lot of tourists and visitors every day. Among all of these colorful diverse people My friend Liraz and I, young tourists, students in Venice, we wanted to get all possible things that the city had to offer, and among all the chocolate shops, boutiques, Venican masks, pizza and ice cream- the most important thing for us, girls were to have a romantic beautiful journey among Venice in a traditional gondola. And if for the men species it doesn’t matter who will lead this gondola for us it was not less importent than the advanture of the gondola itself: We knew from the beginning that the gondola and the gondolier must come together for a full, joyful experience. So that must explain the reason, why well we were walking with my friend, eating ice cream, she looked to the other side and she said to me when she saw him: “That’s the gondolier that I want”. I have shouted: “Let’s run!

The next second without even thinking We found ourselves running together like crazy crossing the pigeon bridge of Venice, eating the pistachios ice cream along the way.
We run! we run although we don’t know if we succeed to catch him! we run even we knew that it is stupid, even we knew that the chances are against us! But we run because of this one small chance, because we didn’t care, because of this very little opportunity to fulfill our little romantic fantasy.

When we eventually get there. We were breathless. The handsome gondolier was standing there in front of us. We were standing there staring at him. Asking about the price and the details.

Long story short, we find ourselves led by another gondolier and a second before we step on his gondola we stoped and refuse. We are trying to explain confusingly that we had run all the way from the other side just to be with this specific beautiful gondolier that happened to be not him but his friend. He said that his friend is on a break but the next moment he shouting something in Italian and the handsome gondolier smailing at us and nods his head. his friend saying to us: “yes he will take you.”

Joyfully and happily we are stepping on board of the romantic gondola with the handsome gondolier that we soon discover that his name is Marco. Our beautiful Gondola is floating on the water, between the Venetian canals, and under the bridges, the sun is setting down. We are listening to Marcos stories about the magical water city. There are moments of silence when all we hear is the sound of the wading water that humbles the boat underneath. We are moving in between the little Venetian houses that their doors are actually on the water. We can see the lights inside the houses, the unique victorian furniture. And it is like you can get out of the gondola if you want to and enter one of these beaming houses.

From time to time Marko whistles loving, relaxed, maybe Italian melodies. And when we passing by other gondolas, the gondoliers shouting to each other, making they secret movements, sign language that only they can understand. We are looking at him and he is smiling at us and it’s like we are in this beautiful dream that can’t be better then this.

This memory of this amazing little journey is still living in me every time I’m thinking about it. And when I ask myself what makes a life experience memorable? what is it that it worth to live for?
And then I understand that life is about these little journeys. It’s about these moments when you insist and chose consciously. Creating the reality that you want to live in. Making your life a dream that’s come true as you go on. It is When you can feel joy, completeness, flow. It is when you are living in the moment to the fullest.