{Venice We’re Back!}
Or
So much for No Drama!
Well at least it wasn’t Departure Drama, more like Arrival
Drama.
To start with…
Landing in Venice 20 Minutes early and taking our time to
deplane with the usual trek into the terminal, only to run into a halted line at the escalator down to
“Controllo Passaporto”.
OK… that’s not a good sign.
Once on the ground floor, we encounter a loooonnnnggg line -
6 switch-backs - to get to the new automated passport “Checky Thingy” where:
1.
You put your passport face down on the
glass top of a pedestal while it verifies it
2.
Up pops your name and picture on a
panel then lets you through into another stall
3.
Where you stand on the yellow foot
prints, face the camera and it does a biometric scan of your face and lets you
out
4. To stand in a short line to get the
nice immigration dudes to go stamp-stamp on your passport.
Now… try this with a variety of nationalities of varying
ages, that have never seen or experienced this, with only one agent assisting
with the dazed and confused and you are amazed that there are only 6 switch-backs
and a stalled escalator line… for only one aircraft. Imagine 3 or 4 aircraft hitting this Cluster-F**k
all at once.
Of course if you’re in a wheelchair or a children’s travel
group, you get whisked straight to the stamping counter and WHAM, you’re in.
The long lines and delay must have been why the Flight
attendant apologized in advance for the delays in “Controllo Passaporto”.
Next, Chucky started searching for the vending machines for
the previously mentioned travel passes for busses and vaporetto, which weren’t
in the spots indicated in his research. Rather than waste more time, he gave up
and went to the ticket counter {no Line} and WHAM, he had 2 - 48 hour transport
passes and they headed for the Uscita. [Exit]
Snagging a cab was a breeze, and since a quick call to
Andrea and Lara, went un-answered, a text went next. Lara called back quickly and said to wait
outside the apartment, she was on the way.
Venice Radio Taxi
dropped them off 20 Minutes later and 10 minutes behind them Hurricane Lara
arrived with a flurry of Baci-Baci, hug-hug and began to give Dragon Chic a run down on everything and
anything she could think of… I think if you look up “Type A” in Webster’s, it
would show her front and profile! Seriously, this Woman was a WHIRLWIND. She
was ball of energy at a mile-a-minute. No wonder she was so skinny [but very
lovely],
After a thorough tour of the apartment, which was even nicer
than the pics on AirBnb - modern kitchen with all the amenities, roll down
security shutters, three way storm windows with automatic blinds, bathrooms out
of a futuristic movie, WiFi, TV, and on and on and on.
She was marvelous with local recommendations for snacks, lunch,
dinner, grocery stores, pizzerias, fruti vendalo e pasticceria, {Fruit stands
and Pastry/Bakery} all within walking distance, instructions for the bus to
Venice and where to start a self-guided tour
“Just Get Lost, You see more & everything
leads to the Grand Canal anyway, don’t worry.”
And with that, more Baci-Baci, hug-hug Hurricane Lara… was
gone
Oh… about that DRAMA...
Upon arrival at the airport Marco Polo, Chucky discovered
that his phone has “lost Data Connection because he left his home network with
data roaming off”, according to the error message he got when trying to access
the local phone carrier. This he learned
when his phone could not sign on to the AT&T E-Mail service.
THIS was NOT a good thing.
HE was on the phone with AT&T when Hurricane Lara blew
in and when he realized it was not gonna be a short issue, he disconnected and
did the Baci-Baci, hug-hug thing and listened intently to the rapid fire,
heavily accented introduction to Venice/Mestre and the surrounding area by their
mega-Hyper, but seriously lovely and animated host.
Once Lara left, HE proceeded to spend the next 2+ hours with
no less than 5 AT&T techies who each had a different idea of what was
wrong, because, even on WiFi, now his Outlook app on his laptop, could not sign
into the email service either. It looked like a repeat of Tuesday and HIS
frustration was growing with each useless techie.
Finally one tried something on their end and after some
click-click, snap-snap, WHAM, it was fixed… for a while. Only to repeat the
same issues that evening where, after 3 dropped calls to the Mother ship, another
useless techie dialed into his laptop only to tinker around trying this and that
and not even addressing the Prime issue of Outlook non-connectivity, Chucky
finally had enough, disconnected Mr. Useless, spent 15 minutes with MR Google,
found the solution, fixed it himself and all was well in his world.
Meanwhile, Back at Maarrcooo…Poolooooo…
The Tempelshifs texted that they had landed and were processing [funny
how text seemed to work where the data
didn’t] They arrived at the apartment in record time, since due to her ankle
operation, Donna does wheelchair transfers and they bypassed the looonnnggg
line for the passport “Checky Thingy” and whisked
right through to the Stamp-Stamp guys.
He was
still on with AT&[useless]T when they arrived and after the first 3
misfires noted above, he shelved it till they all wandered down to a cute
little Ristorante recommended by Lara for “uno Spuntino” {a quick snack}
before the planned Grand Canal Vaporetto ride to introduce the Tempelshifs to
Venice.
We'll cover
those lovely little moments, in Part II of Venezia
siamo Tornati! as this has already gotten too long, even for him.
Ciao 4 Now
Uncle Chuck & The
already in Nony-Nony land,
Dragon Lady
Two things I have learned from your NOWAT posts: Forget all electronics except phones until you're back on home ground is the first one. Second, I usually travel by wheelchair anyway, especially in unpredictable situations, so don't get brave and try to walk an unknown distance.
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