Caorle Beach

Day at the Caorle Beach                                                                                            July 28th 2012

As we woke up this morning, we decided it was the perfect day to be spontaneous and head to the beach.  Ike heard about this great beach.  It was 1 hour away from us and seemed to be the perfect place for us to go.  What we didn’t know, was that being spontaneous and going to the beach don't seem to match up very well… when you have nothing to go with.  We got off to a late start, but we were determined to go anyway.

The more we thought about what we needed, the more we thought how crazy we were.  We had nothing to go to the beach with except swim suits.  No towels, no cooler, no nothing.  I knew that the BX (Wal-mart military style) didn't have anything regarding beach stuff so we had to go out into the Italian economy to buy what was needed. Figuring out what store to go to was also another nice challenge.  It’s not easy when you can’t read Italian very well and even when you can read it, you still don’t know what it means.  We went to three different stores to find our “needs” for the beach.  Of course , we had to stop to eat lunch before entering the last store, those little tummy’s were telling us they needed food or this would not be a pleasant experience.  If you don’t already know, eating around here is not something you do fast.  You and they take their time eating.  By the time we were ready to depart we were mentally exhausted and tired from all the running around just to get the necessities. That wouldn’t stop the Williams clan.  We wanted to experience Italy so we were going to experience Italy.  Here we go….

I’ve mentioned before how difficult it is to drive in Italy.  Well, this was one of those things that Ike knew where the city was, but to locate the beach was another story.  The GPS (almost a necessity in Italy)  gave us a few options, we decided that we had no logical guess to punch in, so the best option was to play "eeny, meeny, miny ,mo" and hope for the best.  That didn’t work very well.  We kept driving and ended up in an area we knew was not the beach.  We didn’t have our handy dandy map, so at that point we decided to look at the map through the GPS and saw the other options that would have been a better pick.  Our mistake only took us about 20 minutes out of our way.  Oh well, we eventually made it to the city and found a parking spot.   Parking an American sized minivan in the European underground parking area is no easy task.  Once we parked and found the center of the city, I gazed around and saw no sand, no water, and no umbrellas.  Hmmmm….it was well past three and now we don’t even know if there is a beach around.  My thoughts went to enjoying the scenery and busyness around us, while Ike’s went directly to finding the beach.  He stopped some stranger and tried to communicate beach to him.  The guy gave him a funny look and walked on. We soon found out why the funny look.  All we had to do was walk around the corner and there before our eyes was the beautiful Caorle beach full of umbrellas and dark sand.  The color of the water was an astounding aqua blue with spurts of rock formations at the shore side.  The excitement was in all our voices, but soon ended for the walk was quite a bit longer.  It seemed to us the thousands of umbrellas we could see were part of the hotels behind them, which made us cautious  in just going under an umbrella.  So we kept walking, thinking we would find a clearing somewhere.  We finally had enough and were tired, so we decided just to stop at an area…to our surprise, there was a little table set up for people to pay for an umbrella.  It wasn’t with the hotel that we assumed.  Thankfully the lady at the table spoke English and explained to us that we had to pay 10 Euro to have an umbrella and the one we bought (because doesn't everyone need an umbrella to go to the beach) and carried that far, couldn’t be used in the front of the beach.  We also asked about a free area to sit in and she said “yes on number 31”  we were on 12.  No thank you, we will just pay the 10 Euro.  We didn’t even end up using the umbrella because it was so far from the front of the beach we had no use for it, but to put our stuff under it.  Most of "our stuff" ended up in the front with us anyway, in fear of theft.  Oh well, lesson learned.  You can put towels down in front…just not umbrellas.

We were definitely known as Americans just by our swim suits.  Our full suits and shorts down to our knees for the boys were a true American style.  I even had some lady come up to me trying to make money by asking if I wanted my picture taken.  We didn’t see many naked bodies, but did notice girls around Samantha’s age who didn’t wear tops and  saw only one lady without a top laying down under her umbrella. 

It was a wonderful time when we actually got there.  The older children swam out to the big blue jump area with daddy, while Samantha, Isaac and I played in the sand.  Isaac was a bit fearful of all the waves and wouldn’t leave my side.  Once we were about to leave,  he started warming up to the waves, as long as he was sitting on my lap.

Around six we all started getting hungry and decided it was time to say farewell to the beach and go eat a hearty dinner.  We were the first ones at the restaurant to eat an actual meal. (That’s becoming a norm for the Williams clan)  There were others enjoying a drink and snack…but it wasn’t dinner time for them.  Jana needed the restroom “really bad” so I asked for the key and headed in that direction. I was surprised to find out the keys are entirely different than an American key. It was an old style key hole, where if you peer into it, you can actually see the other side of the restroom. I peered into it, but couldn’t figure out how it was latched so I could unlatch it to open the door. I wiggled and jiggled and looked and jiggled some more. That door was not budging. I had to humbly and sheepishly go tell the waitress this “dumb” American can’t figure out how to open the door. She took the key and I observed very closely, so I wouldn’t have to go through that again, and noticed she put the key in half way and turned. It opened easily.
  We were now all comfortable, enjoying a nice meal, and ready to go back to the TLF from our very adventurous and different kind of day. We learned so much just by making all those mistakes, and next time we will feel more comfortable going out…to make more mistakes. But now is time to relax and take in the day thinking of all the funny challenges and not so funny challenges.  Thinking of how we have fallen so short of what we were called to be and do which in return reminds us of God’s grace and love for his children. It makes me think of how in all of our hardness, mistakes, and failures, God gently teaches and conforms us and as we sit back, just as we did at the dinner table, and rest in Jesus we are able to have true peace and comfort in our souls because we have been loved more than we could ever imagine through it all.

Isaac enjoying his nectarine

Samantha and Mommy's sand castle

 

Leave the beach????

Rocks near the shore

The blue floating device the children swam to.  (They did have kickboards if they needed it.)

Finding treasures underwater

 

It makes me laugh every time I see it. My boy James.

This one makes me laugh too.  My little Jana girl. She loves her adventures.

Our 10Euro umbrella for about three hours of non-use.

This is how the Italians do it.  They strip them down and wash them off.  We couldn't figure out how to keep the sand off the tiny body after he was cleaned off.  I need to observe that one a little better.

All the umbrellas on the beach, closed down and ready for the next day.