I live with my mother, father and grandfather Nicola, my grandmother Graziella and my aunt Antonia.
The three bedrooms, enough for the whole family, are a luxury for Venice.
There is only one bathroom and the heating is charcoal.
In the entrance door there is a deposit where the charcoal unloads its goods, which we then transport to the upper floor from time to time.
The stove is located in the entrance, located in the center of the house; it is, therefore, in the ideal position to heat it all.
In the farthest rooms, the temperature is fresh and, as the mother says, she often hugs the stove to make a supply of heat as if to store it.
In the entrance stands a radio inserted in a mobile bar.
The rounded doors open and inside there are many small mirrors glued together next to each other that cover the entire surface with a thousand reflections.
The radio is the meeting point for those who remain at home; the device is above all a great company for the grandfather Nicola who places himself on the sofa and listens to opera romances that once he went to listen to the Phoenix and the fashion motifs: "La campagnola bella" and "Vivere" are his favorite.
Once when he was young, he was at home in the Fenice camp in S. Fantin; he had his place at the Bar del Teatro.
He was a regular visitor to all the operas and all the performances, there had to be a serious reason not to find a replacement for the tavern.
It was his only fun. He had never had a day off in his life: he always worked every day of the holy year.
In the evening it is not very late. I, who am a child, at ten I'm in bed. Others listen to the radio or talk about the day's affairs.
You leave little; only the summer to cool off is to eat the ice cream on the Riva del Carbon where the water from the channel cools the summer heat.
In the kitchen there is an icebox where the mother places the most perishable foods, especially the fish that goes to buy at the Rialto market.
In the storage room there is a zinc tub that uses the Maria weekly to do the laundry.
Maria is a resident of Chioggia robust with a large round face and rubizzo that lives going to the houses to wash clothes.
I really enjoy helping her wash the tissues and she laughs to see my commitment even if I spray the water out of the mastea in the heat of washing.
"You have a good Nicheto," he says, laughing.
The apartment is considered modest for the mainland but "so beautiful and so ungrateful", as Mrs Emma says, "we are the ones who live by the shops selling the fish".
To live in Venice historic center or you are "great lord" or you have to "settle".
To be content there are less and less because the flow of the Venetians towards the mainland seems unstoppable.
All those who care about the city and its inhabitants have not been able to resist a form of development that has changed the face of the city itself.
This transformation places obstacles on the citizens themselves because the housing available to city residents is less and less.
The costs of restoring the houses, for the most part built at the time of the Serenissima, are very high.
Difficult to find the amenities such as the elevator or the heating system that are normal in the most recent constructions built on the mainland where new families tend to relocate.
The historic center is flooded with hotels and guesthouses that contend with the spaces available to homes.
My father has an ice cream parlor.
It produces the best Rialto ice creams.
He speaks little, works a lot.
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