Last week was not boring. In fact, for the first time in a long time Erin seriously considered dropping all her clients, quitting her job, leaving John by himself, and moving back to the U.S. OK, honestly she did not think about it seriously; it was more of a fleeting thought for all of 5 seconds. Wednesday was just one of those days.
Maybe because Erin is either using the phone a lot at home or is gone at work she gets very few calls from people in Dutch. Wednesday morning was one of those rare times. Erin understands just enough Dutch to figure out when someone is asking to speak with her, the lady of the house. After the woman continued talking in Dutch for about a minute, Erin tried to get her to explain what she was calling about in English. The woman did not speak English very well and kept asking Erin if she received something in the mail from the Oud Zuid Gemeente, which is like the city offices in our area of town. Erin finally arrived at the conclusion she had seen no such thing in the mail and, since the Gemeente is an important office, she tried to get the woman on the phone to tell her if this was an urgent matter - like we need to fill out a form to keep living here or something. The woman apparently did not understand and ended up saying “thank you” and hanging up on Erin. So far no one else has bothered us so we figure it wasn’t too important.
A few hours after the mysterious phone call in Dutch and in the midst of fielding phone calls from counselors and coworkers, Erin heard the washing machine had stopped. She went in to put the laundry in the dryer and was met with a washing machine filled up with water flashing an error code at her. “F-05”!!!! What does that mean?!? After looking through the manual that only said an F-code is an error code that needs to be reported to the service center, Erin finally starting searching the internet to find out what “F-05” could possibly mean and how it might be fixed. After searching for about 15 minutes the internet decided to stop working. Now, we had this problem of the internet randomly deciding to take a break for hours or even days at a time for the first 6 months we lived here. After John repeatedly called the internet company to hassle them about the problem, they seemed to finally find a solution and our internet has worked continually with no problems for at least the past 6 months…until Wednesday. Erin did finally find a service center phone number in the washing machine manual and we called the number only to be greeted by an automated system in Dutch. Thankfully, we punched some numbers, entered our postcode and were given a phone number in our area to call. We called the number. A man answered the phone who had no idea what we were talking about, so we called the service center again. It was about 5:05 p.m. by this time. Do not ask us how this is possible, but the automated system was closed for the day! Uugghh.
The next morning, still faced with a washing machine flashing an error code, Erin took John’s advice and shut the whole machine off. When she turned it back on, she put the dial on a different wash setting and started over, hoping for the best. This time the machine went through the whole cycle without a problem! We have now decided to just not use cycle number 6, which is fine since we have about 18 other setting to choose from. So far so good. Oh, and the internet decided to start working and has since worked without any problems!
Since things always happen in threes, there was one more incident last week. The grocery store didn’t have our cereal, so Erin decided to try a different brand that was in stock. When unloading her basket onto the conveyor belt at the check-out Erin noticed the bag of cereal had a hole in it. She set it on the ground to continue unloading her basket and thought she would just hand it to the cashier and tell her that she didn’t want the cereal. Well, as she picked the bag up off the floor to hand to the cashier, the entire bag ripped open and cereal flew out all over the entire front of the store! Erin tried to tell the cashier, but this particular cashier didn’t speak English. Erin’s limited Dutch would not allow her to explain the situation, but thankfully a man behind Erin explained. We guess it all got worked out and was alright. Well, except for the part where Erin became embarrassed by spilling a bag of cereal all over the front of the store and then was not able to communicate to the cashier about it.
Ah, the joys of life in the Netherlands! So far this week is already much less exciting. We think last week was a fluke.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Monday, September 18, 2006
More Sea and Sand
No, that sea and sand is not in Amsterdam, although other than the last couple days it has been extraordinarily sunny and warm here! John had to go do some work in Nice, France Monday and Tuesday a week ago (awww, poor John). Since Erin’s work schedule is relatively flexible she got to go with him! Sun and sand in the French Riviera – what more could you want?
Our flight left incredibly early Sunday morning: before 7a.m. In order to save some time, or so we thought, John checked in online Saturday afternoon and printed out our boarding passes so all we had to do at the airport was check our one bag. When we arrived at the correct desk row to check in, the first two desks were open for those who had already printed their boarding passes and the next 5 desks or so were for customers who still needed to check-in and get their boarding passes. The first two rows had about 10 people each in line while the remaining desks were totally empty. John decided to just go over to one of the free desks. Surely they could check our luggage for us. Nope. Even though this guy was doing absolutely nothing at his desk, he pointed to the two long lines and instructed us, “You already have your boarding pass. You need to go wait in those lines.” John argued that printing out your boarding pass is supposed to make things go faster and pointed out that this guy had no one else in line, no one was coming, and surely he could check our bag. Nope. So we went over to the lines and waited. Sure enough, not 5 minutes later one of the ladies at an empty desk starting calling people from our line over to be checked in! We ended up only having to wait a few minutes after all! John took a picture that you can see on our flickr site to document this phenomenon.
Since we got to Nice around 8:45 a.m. and didn’t leave until 9:40 p.m. Tuesday evening, we had pretty much 3 full days in Nice. (Although John had to spend two of those days in an office – with a really great view of the Mediterranean). Sunday we both got to explore the city of Nice and swim in the ocean. The other days Erin occupied herself with more sightseeing, some shopping, and entire day of lying on the beach, reading, and swimming. It was great! Just down the street from our hotel was a shopping center called Cap 3000. When Erin ventured into the mall on Monday she decided that must be the name because there had to be about 3000 stores in the place! Neither of us has seen a real shopping mall since our trip to California at the beginning of the year, and this one was really larger than most shopping malls Erin has seen in the U.S.! Other than the fact that everyone was speaking French, Erin felt a little bit like she was back in the States.
Interesting fact: Nice has rocky beaches – no sand. The title of this blog is not a complete lie because our hotel had its own private beach, where Erin spent one of her days, and this beach did indeed have sand.
Another tidbit: If a hotel charges €18 for one person to eat breakfast, it probably is not really worth €18, or even €8 for that matter.
Yet more useless information: Transavia, the discount airline we flew to Nice, apparently has as its theme song, “Take a Chance on Me.” Hmmm. Why in the world would an airline choose this as its theme song? (We did, by the way, make it to and from Nice safely with no problems.) We suspect that “Take a Chance on Me” by Abba is the theme song because it is the song playing when entering the plane and we got to hear it at least twice while taxiing into the Amsterdam airport, which, by the way, is about a 38 km. trip after the plane actually lands on the ground. Schiphol has to be the only airport in the world where the plane lands halfway across the country and then drives by way of runways all the way to the terminal. It will always add at least 20 minutes to your travel time. Transavia is not prepared with enough music to last this long on the ground without repeating songs.
Our flight left incredibly early Sunday morning: before 7a.m. In order to save some time, or so we thought, John checked in online Saturday afternoon and printed out our boarding passes so all we had to do at the airport was check our one bag. When we arrived at the correct desk row to check in, the first two desks were open for those who had already printed their boarding passes and the next 5 desks or so were for customers who still needed to check-in and get their boarding passes. The first two rows had about 10 people each in line while the remaining desks were totally empty. John decided to just go over to one of the free desks. Surely they could check our luggage for us. Nope. Even though this guy was doing absolutely nothing at his desk, he pointed to the two long lines and instructed us, “You already have your boarding pass. You need to go wait in those lines.” John argued that printing out your boarding pass is supposed to make things go faster and pointed out that this guy had no one else in line, no one was coming, and surely he could check our bag. Nope. So we went over to the lines and waited. Sure enough, not 5 minutes later one of the ladies at an empty desk starting calling people from our line over to be checked in! We ended up only having to wait a few minutes after all! John took a picture that you can see on our flickr site to document this phenomenon.
Since we got to Nice around 8:45 a.m. and didn’t leave until 9:40 p.m. Tuesday evening, we had pretty much 3 full days in Nice. (Although John had to spend two of those days in an office – with a really great view of the Mediterranean). Sunday we both got to explore the city of Nice and swim in the ocean. The other days Erin occupied herself with more sightseeing, some shopping, and entire day of lying on the beach, reading, and swimming. It was great! Just down the street from our hotel was a shopping center called Cap 3000. When Erin ventured into the mall on Monday she decided that must be the name because there had to be about 3000 stores in the place! Neither of us has seen a real shopping mall since our trip to California at the beginning of the year, and this one was really larger than most shopping malls Erin has seen in the U.S.! Other than the fact that everyone was speaking French, Erin felt a little bit like she was back in the States.
Interesting fact: Nice has rocky beaches – no sand. The title of this blog is not a complete lie because our hotel had its own private beach, where Erin spent one of her days, and this beach did indeed have sand.
Another tidbit: If a hotel charges €18 for one person to eat breakfast, it probably is not really worth €18, or even €8 for that matter.
Yet more useless information: Transavia, the discount airline we flew to Nice, apparently has as its theme song, “Take a Chance on Me.” Hmmm. Why in the world would an airline choose this as its theme song? (We did, by the way, make it to and from Nice safely with no problems.) We suspect that “Take a Chance on Me” by Abba is the theme song because it is the song playing when entering the plane and we got to hear it at least twice while taxiing into the Amsterdam airport, which, by the way, is about a 38 km. trip after the plane actually lands on the ground. Schiphol has to be the only airport in the world where the plane lands halfway across the country and then drives by way of runways all the way to the terminal. It will always add at least 20 minutes to your travel time. Transavia is not prepared with enough music to last this long on the ground without repeating songs.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Our Exotic Cruise Vacation, The End
We must explain the last several hours of our vacation, spent in Venice and Treviso airport. Surprisingly, we had some extra time in Venice after exiting the ship Sunday morning. After John helped negotiate a hotel room for a couple girls form our dining table and we left our luggage in the hotel we stayed at the previous weekend, we made our way, with much less difficulty, back to San Marco Square. We had just enough time to stand in line for the Campanile, take an elevator up and snap some nice pictures of the city from the top of the tower. Our window shopping in souvenir stores got us in a bit of trouble as we had to speed walk back to the hotel to get our bags and make sure we didn’t miss the bus to Treviso airport.
We made it on the bus and arrived at Treviso (think: the airport the size of our apartment). The first time we stood in line, the overly attentive ticket lady told us our hold baggage was over the weight limit. We dragged our stuff off to the side and tried to cram more heavy items in the carry-on bags. Then we stood in line again. This is the one and only time either of us have ever had a ticket lady decide to weigh our carry-ons! Woe is us. John’s carry-on, which had just been stuffed full of souvenirs and books, was way over the limit. The lady’s solution was to check that bag as well and have us pay for the extra 5 kilos of weight. Thankfully before reaching the counter the second time Erin had suggested John put some souvenirs and books in his pockets since he was wearing his handy cargo shorts. Erin also decided to hold a couple of the heavier travel books in her hands out of sight of the ticket lady. That little maneuver probably saved us having to pay for another 5 kilos of extra weight! After standing in yet another line to pay for our extra baggage, we still had over an hour to kill. Since sitting in small plastic chairs on the other side of security did not look appealing, we decided to walk around a bit outside. After walking down the street passing empty fields, abandoned buildings, and some car dealership we decided the city of Treviso is not your vacation destination and returned to the terminal.
We wasted some time buying a Gatorade and standing in the security line. By the time we had to sit in the plastic chairs waiting to board a bus to take us to our plane we only had about another 20 minutes left anyway. Erin observed that at least the airport was so tiny, dirty, hot, and ugly that now she really felt a desire to board a plane and return home. (Just hours ago she had not wanted the vacation to end!)
There’s good news for those of you who might fly to Treviso in the future: it looks like construction workers are building a brand new passenger terminal that’s about 50 times bigger right next door to the present eyesore.
So, now you have a complete picture of our vacation. The pictures are up on flickr.
We made it on the bus and arrived at Treviso (think: the airport the size of our apartment). The first time we stood in line, the overly attentive ticket lady told us our hold baggage was over the weight limit. We dragged our stuff off to the side and tried to cram more heavy items in the carry-on bags. Then we stood in line again. This is the one and only time either of us have ever had a ticket lady decide to weigh our carry-ons! Woe is us. John’s carry-on, which had just been stuffed full of souvenirs and books, was way over the limit. The lady’s solution was to check that bag as well and have us pay for the extra 5 kilos of weight. Thankfully before reaching the counter the second time Erin had suggested John put some souvenirs and books in his pockets since he was wearing his handy cargo shorts. Erin also decided to hold a couple of the heavier travel books in her hands out of sight of the ticket lady. That little maneuver probably saved us having to pay for another 5 kilos of extra weight! After standing in yet another line to pay for our extra baggage, we still had over an hour to kill. Since sitting in small plastic chairs on the other side of security did not look appealing, we decided to walk around a bit outside. After walking down the street passing empty fields, abandoned buildings, and some car dealership we decided the city of Treviso is not your vacation destination and returned to the terminal.
We wasted some time buying a Gatorade and standing in the security line. By the time we had to sit in the plastic chairs waiting to board a bus to take us to our plane we only had about another 20 minutes left anyway. Erin observed that at least the airport was so tiny, dirty, hot, and ugly that now she really felt a desire to board a plane and return home. (Just hours ago she had not wanted the vacation to end!)
There’s good news for those of you who might fly to Treviso in the future: it looks like construction workers are building a brand new passenger terminal that’s about 50 times bigger right next door to the present eyesore.
So, now you have a complete picture of our vacation. The pictures are up on flickr.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Barefoot and Homeless in Amsterdam
For a couple of hours this evening, John found out what it would be like to be homeless in Amsterdam. As he was getting ready to go to the gym after work, the window washer rang the bell to collect his 10 euros. After John mumbled something into the intercom, he grabbed his wallet and walked down the stairs. Upon handing the bill to the gentleman and saying "alstublieft," he realized that this guy probably had no idea that is one of the only words John actually knows in Dutch. Before having the chance to be too impressed with himself, he walked back up the stairs and realized that his brain must not have been functioning when he closed the door and locked himself out of the apartment.
Unfortunately, John was home alone while Erin was enjoying a day at sea with the Crossroads staff (she is still going through cruise withdrawal), so nobody was there to rescue him after he banged his head repeatedly against the door. Realizing his limited alternatives, he took to the streets wearing only his gym shorts and t-shirt (no shoes) in rainy, 59 degree weather.
Luckily, the Coopers only live a couple of blocks away. Although he only had to wander aimlessly around the neighborhood until they returned home 30 minutes later, he was disappointed when they reminded him that we confiscated the spare key copies last time we had visitors. On the upside, he scored a nice dinner that Annette happened to be cooking up, as well some excellent guacamole dip and a tasty Dutch cake for dessert.
Some things to remember if you're ever barefoot and alone in Amsterdam:
1. The sidewalk tiles are softer than you might think--much better than concrete. The grass along the canals is even softer, but you better watch out for the dog droppings.
2. The streets are swept almost daily so they're amazingly clean and free of hazardous objects.
3. Don't go barefoot in the winter. That would be bad.
Unfortunately, John was home alone while Erin was enjoying a day at sea with the Crossroads staff (she is still going through cruise withdrawal), so nobody was there to rescue him after he banged his head repeatedly against the door. Realizing his limited alternatives, he took to the streets wearing only his gym shorts and t-shirt (no shoes) in rainy, 59 degree weather.
Luckily, the Coopers only live a couple of blocks away. Although he only had to wander aimlessly around the neighborhood until they returned home 30 minutes later, he was disappointed when they reminded him that we confiscated the spare key copies last time we had visitors. On the upside, he scored a nice dinner that Annette happened to be cooking up, as well some excellent guacamole dip and a tasty Dutch cake for dessert.
Some things to remember if you're ever barefoot and alone in Amsterdam:
1. The sidewalk tiles are softer than you might think--much better than concrete. The grass along the canals is even softer, but you better watch out for the dog droppings.
2. The streets are swept almost daily so they're amazingly clean and free of hazardous objects.
3. Don't go barefoot in the winter. That would be bad.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
An Exotic Cruise Vacation, Part II
There are too many things available to do on a cruise, especially on “at sea” days. Our lives are full enough of lists, decisions, and priorities. Our list of activities on the ship during our seven-day cruise is rather short compared to the endless schedule of events offered: learned to swing and salsa, saw several entertainment-type shows, played mini-golf, swam, ate, read, slept. It was perfect…after Erin got used to there being 2000 people milling around everywhere she went. We always managed to find some chairs in the sun to read and take naps.
For those of you who do keep up with the world news, there were indeed three bombings targeting tourist areas in Turkey two days before we were supposed to stop there. Ephesus was one of the ports we were really looking forward to visiting; we had our own tour scheduled and everything. After a very long, hot day in Athens on Tuesday, the captain announced we would not be stopping in Turkey, but would go on to our other two ports of call, adding a stop in Dubrovnik, Croatia on Friday. Hmmm. It was a bit ironic to us that we were avoiding the danger of bombings in Turkey by visiting a country that had been at war for about 3,000 years with hostilities just coming to an end within the last decade. In Dubrovnik, by the way, visitors can still see effects of bombings in streets, buildings, and roofs. Nevertheless, we felt completely safe in Dubrovnik and it is a very pretty city (at least the old part of town by the port is, which is the only part of town we really walked around in).
Our first stop was in Athens, and we were there for a good part of the day. The city of Athens itself is big, smelly, loud, and dirty. There are stray dogs absolutely everywhere! Last night we decided to do a little research on the internet to figure out if there is some explanation for the vast population of stray dogs in Greece. Sure enough, someone decided to create a whole webpage dedicated to this phenomenon! Erin especially enjoyed the very last section on the page about “dogopotomus.” We digress.
Walking around in the Ancient Agora, admiring Athens from the Acropolis, seeing the Parthenon and the Porch of the Maidens with our own eyes, and wandering around the gigantic columns of the Temple of Olympian Zeus was an incredible experience. John bought a hat in Athens that says something in Greek that we have yet to decipher, and we negotiated the metro system from the port into the actual city of Athens with only one slight mishap (buying the wrong kind of ticket on the first try).
Our tour of Heraklion, Crete was a whirlwind since we were only there about 4 hours. We had decided in advance to get a taxi from the port to go see the Palace of Knossos and from there we would either take another taxi or the bus to the Archaeological Museum back in the center of the city. As expected, taxis were lined up waiting for all of us cruise tourists to get off the ship. The first guy said he would charge us €60 for a drive out to the palace. (That’s around $77) €60! Come on! It’s only about a 15 minute drive. John decided to try to negotiate with another guy further back in the line. After being told once that we had to go to the first taxi in line, we found a guy who said he’s take us out to the palace for €15. That’s more like it!
We ended up pretty much getting a free tour of the palace (which is really just a lot of “ruins” that aren’t even original since they were mostly rebuilt in the early 20th century) because there were so many other tour groups, all from our cruise ship, clogging up the walkways. Archaeology is amazing to me. How do people find pieces of this and that while they dig around a huge area like the Knossos Palace and then figure out exactly what the palace looked like and fit together millions of tiny pieces of clay to make jars and stuff? Neither of us would personally want this job, but the whole thing is astonishing. We took the bus back to the city for only €1.50 per person, and fortunately the bus driver asked us where we were going and pointed out exactly where the museum was at the last stop. Who knows how long we would have been wondering around aimlessly, trying to read signs in Greek, when the museum was really just a half block away?
The third port of call was Corfu. This was our absolute favorite place! We could have stayed on this island for another month! We rented a car that was available for us right at the port and spent the day driving around the island, taking breaks for pictures and short walks, and spending a couple hours at a gorgeous beach. Actually, it was our insistence that we stay as long as possible at the beach that caused us to almost miss the boat. On the map, it looked like it would only take about 15 or 20 minutes to get back to the port. We forgot that the roads in Corfu are extremely narrow and winding, so there’s no zooming down the highway. In some towns, the roads are so narrow, with cars parked along the side, that there’s a light on either end of the town so only one side of traffic goes through the town at a time. Earlier in the day we waited about 20 minutes at this one light waiting for our turn. Ironically, only a few towns operate the light system when there are plenty of other towns with the same narrow road situation but no light; drivers just hold their breath every time they go around a curve, hoping they will not meet a tour bus. Luckily, we ran into no lights on our way back to the port – just hugging the side of narrow roads on the edge of sheer drop-offs. Really, the problem didn’t start until we got to Corfu Town, where the port is, when we realized we did not have a detailed map of the town and had no idea how to get from where we were to the port. After hitting one dead-end road, turning around and seeing that the ship was leaving in about 15 minutes, Erin started panicking while trying desperately to stay focused enough to direct John along the correct route since he had even less of an idea where we should be headed. We pulled into the parking lot (thankfully we’d already paid for the car) told the man meeting us that we appreciated the service, and high-tailed it back to the ship where we boarded about 30 seconds before the deadline.
Since we knew nothing about Dubrovnik, and again did not want to shell out more money for a cruise ship tour, we bought a “top 10” book while we were in Crete. After cutting it so close getting back aboard the ship the previous day, we decided to take it easy. We were not in a hurry to get off the ship at the crack of dawn and we ended up touring the rector’s palace, the city walls, and doing a little souvenir shopping. The shopping was mostly just to spend the last few kunas we had taken out of the ATM. We really were not even sure what the exchange rate of kunas to euros was, but last night John looked on our bank account and figured out we only spent €40 the entire day! So, we guess Croatia is pretty cheap.
With all the sight-seeing and walking around in the sun, you can see why we did not especially want to do much of anything on our sea days aboard the ship! We did get up early one morning to see the sunrise and go swimming, which was followed by a late morning nap. Probably another favorite time on the ship was at night when there was no one else on the decks. On one clear night we sat and looked at the stars. It reminded Erin of when she was a little girl, living in a tiny town where she could go out on the driveway at night and see tons of stars without any big city lights. It was great! There was a more than half full moon on the final evening of the cruise that was big and yellow near the horizon. The water was pretty calm, and the moon shone a long, golden ribbon of light across the sea. We have some memories we will never forget!
Monday, September 04, 2006
An Exotic Cruise Vacation, Part I
Saturday, August 26 we left the rain and chill of Amsterdam for our long-awaited vacation: a Mediterranean cruise with ports of call in Athens, Kusadasi (Ephesus), Crete, and Corfu! So, going on a cruise meant we were actually already spending much more on a vacation than usual, so we decided to save a lot of money by not taking the excursion packages offered by the cruise line. John (who had very little pressing, urgent work to do in August while Erin faced the craziness of starting a new job) did a lot of research and planned out all the details from staying in a hotel in Venice Saturday night before the ship left to figuring out public transportation options in our ports of call. We had an absolutely wonderful, relaxing time! Erin had never before been on a cruise, but she would definitely be willing to go on one again after this experience!
Of course, the trip wasn’t all smooth sailing (ha, no pun intended). We took a discount airline to Venice, so the airport we arrived in was a 45 minute bus ride away from Venice. Treviso airport is about as big as our apartment. There are no actual gates since passengers must always take a shuttle to (and from) the terminal from the plane. Buses crowd the tiny parking lot right in front of the building, which looks like a very small warehouse; after all, only two airlines operate out of Treviso. We waited in the hot parking lot with a crowd of other people (probably because there is no place to sit inside while waiting for a ride or for your plane to depart) and finally followed a herd onto a bus that we were hoping was the right one. After hearing a lot of English-speakers all consulting maps of Venice, we decided we must be going to the right place.
There’s a reason people advised us to stay at a hotel close to the plaza where buses drop you off: there really are stairs on every single bridge in Venice…lots and lots of stairs. Fortunately we had taken the advice and booked a room only one bridge away from the plaza. This is where the first mishap occurred. After lugging our baggage up and down one too many bridges because of our poor sense of direction, we arrived at the hotel lobby. There were no reservations for us. John pulled out an e-mail that said we did indeed have reservations, but the man at the front desk could find no such thing in their computer system. He reassuringly told us that he did have a room available so we would not have to sleep out on the streets overnight. Whew. That was good to know! The room was fine, the breakfast was great, and we really spent only a minimum amount of time in the room anyway as we had less than 24 hours to enjoy Venice.
Even though we had a map and had read tons of warnings about the fact that everyone gets lost in Venice and it’s OK, we were not prepared. We found the park near our hotel, eventually wandered over to the Rialto Bridge, and found the restaurant John wanted to eat at for dinner. Getting back to the hotel at night was a long journey. Honestly, everywhere you look in Venice, people are walking around squinting at maps, trying to see what direction they are walking by looking up at the sun, staring around at street signs, or finally sitting down on a bridge arguing with partners and spouses about where they are on the blasted map! In case you ever decide to travel to Venice, leave plenty of time to get places, plan to get lost, and just enjoy the scenery wherever you are. It’s not a huge island so you can never get too far away from where you are supposed to be. We finally learned to just follow all the little signs that point to “Rialto,” “S. Marco,” or “Academia” to find our direction.
The only rain we had the whole trip was Sunday morning. We had the entire town of Venice to ourselves it seemed! We strolled over to San Marco Square to see the Basilica, Campanile, and Doge’s Palace. This is where the second mishap took place. On the advice of a fellow cruise passenger, John booked a “secret tour” of the Doge’s Palace for us on Sunday morning. He booked the time and paid for the tickets online, but only printed out one of the two e-mails he received confirming our reservations. When we got to the palace and told the woman at the desk our name, confirmation number and time of the tour, she flipped through pages for several minutes before telling us she did not have a reservation for us. Unlike the hotel, this time things did not go our way. It turns out the reservation was for Monday. Hmmm. John said he was sure he had not booked a tour for Monday since we would, by then, be in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. No, there were no more spots for the tour Sunday morning. Sorry. We ended up buying tickets to go see the palace on our own, which ended up being a good time. Erin started to wonder if we really had tickets to get on the cruise ship that afternoon. Now that would be a disaster.
When we came out of the palace, the sun was shining again and the temperatures were back up in the 70s. Although the signage at the port in Venice is deplorable, a kind passenger finally stopped to tell us where to take our bags before checking in for our cruise ship. By this time we were dripping sweat and sincerely hoping, after getting rid of all our luggage, that we had a place on the ship and that our bags would not be going to Greece and Turkey without us. We did! What a relief! A short 15 minutes later we were on board!
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