Been reading this entertaining thread. and I just want to jump in to point out that Bambina means "baby" in Italian.

Knowing my own family the varieties of dysfunctional families are numberless.

Ah, a classic.
Now where are the drunken mother and the family with the poodle?

I've just come back from a couple of days walking around Venice and I was quite surprised that there are no lifebelts by the canals - surely someone must fall in occasionally (how are they extricated?), on the other hand I was amazed at the care and concern shown by the waterbus operators on ensuring the safety of the old and infirm when getting on and off at the stops.
All the best
John

You wouldn't need a life jacket because you would die of a heart attack first.

There are buoys and life preservers on the Vaporetti....but I doubt that there are enough for a really full boat.

A gondola is expensive and really only a once while your there experience...not a way to transport yourself. I never saw anyone wearing a life preserver aboard a gondola.

I am reminded of that famous line in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid..."Drown? Are you kidding...the fall will probably kill you."

The waters are less polluted than they used to be but I would worry about what's still in there and certainly I wouldn't want to take a dip in the water.

couldn't help myself from topping some old humor for new posters here

ohmigosh! If I fell in that water, a life jacket wouldn't save me--I'd die from the gross-me-out factor.

Oh, geez, I'd forgotten how hysterical this thread was!

Thanks for the laugh!

Not sure about the gondolas, but at least on the vaporettos (and I'd be surprised if not on the gondolas, it's a pretty normal coast guard or whatever the Italian version is regulation to require them) there are life jackets, you just aren't required to wear them until you fall in the water. That said, I would think that gondolas capsizing is extremely rare (good way to lose business really fast) and wouldn't worry about it.

If you fall out of a boat in Venice, just stand up. The water is very shallow.

Larry J

I though Faine did it...topped it I mean. It is like fun from the past. What is the newest funny thread was? Were there any?

I'm topping it now... for Ziana, or what's her name now?

Definitely a classic, and with enough plot lines for a couple of daytime dramas.
Calling Tennessee Williams forsooth.

Sad to say that in Dec. of 2004 my parents decided against going on a gondola ride because of the lack of lifejackets. I could not convince her otherwise. I hope she makes it back to Venice someday.

When I was a child, I lived in an Italian Ghetto and the elders did not speak much English and they saved in their poor-payingh jobs to one day go back to visit Italy. One couple did eventually and while visiting Venice, some accident happened while on a gondola and they died. The bodies were returned home in the Italian coffins, the type we only saw in Dracula films. They wer also returned in clothes not their own, I was told. But their death and coffins became a curiosity, hundreds of people who never knew them lined the street to visit them at the wake.

*bookmark* for a rainy day

Here she is
http://tinyurl.com/yxkxrk

Miss Prism, where is that baby? (had to get this out of my system sooner of later.)

The orange items in photo are surely flotation devices?

Another round?

bookmarking