Travel Tales
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| A garbage man's kindness kept them from fainting. |
A Hungry Dash for the Last Supper
Margaret and I were sitting over dinner in Venice on a Saturday night in August 2007 when I asked her when we were supposed to be at the Last Supper in Milan. She had no idea but assumed that since we were still in Venice, that it must be on Monday, right? Wrong!!! Our reservations were for Sunday at 2 p.m.
The next morning, bright and early, we jumped onto a vaporetto to the train station and managed to catch the first train to Milan. Well, after a train ride, several subway rides, up and down stairs, directions from locals (some of whom had never heard of the Last Supper!), we made it to the Plaza de Santa Rosa Marie where the museum is that houses the Last Supper — with 15 minutes to spare!
Exhausted, overheated and depleted but elated, we collapsed onto a stone bench to await our summons into the cool, dark interior of the museum. Along comes a garbage collector with one of those funny-looking little smart car trucks that are famous in Europe. As he cleaned up the garbage, he caught our eye and we could not help but smile at him because we had made it by our appointed time against all odds — hungry, hot, thirsty but definitely triumphant. He makes his way over to us and through our gestures and his limited English, we had an exchange of pleasantries. Then he went over to his truck and pulled out a small brown bag with two oval brown things in it and gestured for me to take it, well, I only took one, not sure what it was but sure that it was his lunch! I broke it in half and right in front of him popped it into my mouth — it was the most delicious melted cheese, rice and deep fried coated thing that I had ever tasted, and certainly, eaten that day! I hugged him and off he went. We were finally called to go into the museum but I will never forget that kind man giving up part of his lunch to a couple of stragglers in his marvelous city.
— Sharon in Calgary, Alberta
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