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Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Chase Quickpay is a complete scam

The name "Quickpay" brings to mind efficiency and speed, right?

An electronic transfer was made to my checking account on August 30, 2012
I accepted the transfer on September 1, 2012
Today is September 4, 2012
I still haven't been able to access my funds.
To make matters worse, I'm in a foreign country, and I have no cash.
Fuck my fucking life.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

On The Way to Venezia (Venice)

August 3, 2012 6:01p.m.

There are a bajillion roundabouts everywhere in Italy. It's almost as if whomever did the blueprint for the roads just randomly plopped roundabouts wherever they wanted. The good part about roundabouts is, if you don't have a clue where you're going, you can just keep circling until you figure it out. The bad part is, gas is super expensive. When we first got to Europe, I was like woah! Gas is so cheap! (Stupid American, they sell it by the liter.)

We get lost in Bergamo trying to find the stupid outlets, but never succeed. We jump back in the Smart Car and mosey on over to Lago di Garda (Lake Garda) and then Verona. I think the main attraction of Verona is the Arena. We parked the car and couldn't read any of the parking signs, and sat down for dinner at one of the restaurants, Ippopotamo. I asked the waitress what the deal with the parking was, and she said I needed to move my car from where it was or they'd stick me with a €30 fine. Ew! I ran to move the car, we had din, then gelato, and we hopped in the car via Venezia.

VENEZIA
Kiani is carsick by the time we arrive in Venezia. I had driven all the way to the port, near the beginning of the Grand Canal. It was dark by then and I somehow mistakenly drove all the way back to Mestre, the town just outside of Venezia. Kiani was huffy and said we needed to get a hotel asap so we checked into Hotel Apogia Sirio Venezia at 2 a.m. Room #607
The parking fee is €12 and the wifi is €3/hour. Their network, sirio_WAN is a fucking bitch and won't let me conmect and I'm starving and so os Kiani, but it looks like the entire town is asleep, so we go to bed starving.

There are ever so many tolls on the way from Milano to Venezia. We probably spent over €20 in tolls. Every time we'd exit into a town, we'd have to pay anywhere from €1.20 up to €8.20. Along the way, we saw what appeared to be an old castle. We had exited to find it but got lost and sidetracked. I was driving in circles from about 3:00 p.m. til we found a hotel with vacancies at 2:00 a.m. no wonder Kiani was pukey faced.

Kiani fell asleep with her eye mask on. I'm breaking out, probably from falling asleep with my makeup on. She just woke up and asked me how many lights did we need on. I asked if her eye mask was working and she replied,"Yes. But I still can't sleep." For someone who couldn't sleep, she sure was snoring pretty loud.

I'm famished and can't wait for the complimentary hotel breakfast. All we ate today was some baked goods we had bought in Milano for the roadtrip. and then lasagna in Verona...

I just hit my left knee on something really hard. OW!

August 3, 2012
We slept through my bajillion alarms and got downstairs to the free breakfast just in the nick of time. The croissants were delicious and tastes like brioche, but the watermelon tasted like it had been sitting next to a bunch of onions in the fridge. Onion scented melon. Gross. I went back to sleep for an hour after breakfast, then got up to shower. Kiani had showered before me and said that the bathroom had flooded, and it flooded even more after I was done. The front desk called to remind us that check out was at noon. we checked out at 12:37. Sorry.

We head towards the tourist infested Venezia. We circled around for a bit, looking for parking for our toy car and begrudgingly parked in the structure that charges €26/day. To our knowledge, there are only 2 parking structures around there... Highway robbery! The parking attendant on the 2nd level of the structure told is we needed to give him the keys. Um. No. Option 2 was park on the 10th level and keep our keys. The 10th level was uncovered. We left bananas in the car that were slightly green, and were fully ripe when we returned later. It was so hot and humid that I didn't even have to wear lotion anymore. 5 minutes after showering and sticky again!

Venezia is a total tourist trap and I found it extremely difficult to take a photo of anything without 10 or so people trying to do the exact same thing. The architecture and landscape were beautiful, however, the snotty local workers and swarms of tourists were not. We walked for awhile and sat down for a bite at Trattoria Al Brindisi and Kiani had the Branzino, and I, the Spaghetti Vongole, and a split of Soave. Kiani's Branzino cost €8 for every 100 grams, so €24 for the small piece of fish. Apparently Venezia adds 12% gratuity to all checks! Perhaps we should've paid more attention to the menu, but €62 for 2 entrees, a soda, and a half bottle of wine is a bit steep. We made full use of the restaurant's wifi before making our way to San Marco Square. To get to San Marco, we had to buy ferry tickets, €7 per person per trip. San Marco had more souvenir shops, higher end boutiques, art galleries, etc. We forgot to go to Murano, known for their special glass, but I at least bought a Murano glass bracelet.

We window shopped and oohed and aahed at ancient buildings and gondolas til we got tired, then hopped on a ferry back to P. Roma. We thought we were going the wrong way but ended up right by the parking structure where we'd left the car. We grabbed a Margherita pizza for din, bought postcards and stamps, and mailed em off. Postage to the U.S. from Italy is €1.70