Adeline the AirBnB manager showed us around briskly, garbage is through that door over there, someone left a popsicle in the freezer and you can have it. Keys, shower, towels. The washer’s here and the dryer’s there. She said a woman thought the dryer was the washer and put in soap, wide eye roll, what a disaster that was. Try to clean soap from a dryer, I am telling you. I’m here for you entirely, je suis entièrement à votre disposition, she said before leaving in that way French people say things and you know they don’t mean it.

We ate at our favorite place that night, the two sisters, and clumsily I asked if they have ice when there was ice obviously in the drinks so the younger sister looked at me and smiled and said of course we have ice, exclamation mark.

The air conditioner appeared to work and then it didn’t and I stood below it for half an hour, working the remote, putting it on fan only and back again, turning it off, turning it on, dialing the temperature down in desperation, Googling the force reset and the meaning of a blinking green light. I futzed with the vent by hand, knowing it was a bad idea. Finally I gave up and went to bed. In the early morning I had a happy dream I was somewhere that an AC worked. When I awoke Sara told me she got up at two o’clock when it was way too hot to sleep and pressed the button and it worked and it never stopped working after that.

I was inattentive and unadventurous for most of the trip, losing at online chess, leaving the freezer door wide open. I tended toward the uncolorful gelatos, the salted caramels, the chocolate family, though I knew the fruity ones were better, the mango and the passion fruit. But maybe this is what vacation is. A respite from trying.