Trip planning

After my Italian class, Josh and I had a roving lunch in Piazza Euclide. First we tried to the "take away" sushi place, then we had schwarma at the place next door owned by Egyptians. Super nice people. Then I went to the grocery store while Josh paid a visit to the local travel agent. It had been so difficult to book train tickets on-line, a friend suggested we have a travel agent do the booking and print the tickets for us. Afterwards, Josh said it was super easy and the agent was very professional.

The trains tickets are for Venice, which is where we'll be going for the upcoming long weekend. Tuesday, December 8th is a national religious holiday and all the schools are closed. Since it fell on a Tuesday this year, RIS (along with many other schools) decided to close on Monday to make a "ponte" (bridge); in other words a long weekend. The slightly interesting part is that the official schedule for the school year that was published and distributed in late summer had the kids in school on Monday. It was just 3 or so weeks ago, that we received an email stating that they'd decided to give everyone another day off.

This sort of last minute, "go with the flow" style of doing things is pervasive in these parts -- and healthy to some extent. I thought nothing of it yesterday when my friend called to say she'd be late in meeting me. She was blocked in by another car that had double parked, and 10 minutes of honking her horn had not produced the driver of the vehicle. These sorts of things happen ALL the time here. No one is ever really punctual and so it just takes the pressure off.

That brings me to our planning the weekend. We've been batting around the idea of going to Venice for at least a month now. But we didn't feel compelled to hurry and book something. Italians routinely make plans at the last minute and so we weren't that concerned. Apparently, though, when they know they have a holiday -- all bets are off. We found that several hotels we'd been eyeing were already sold out for the weekend. Granted, these are not your 150 room mega-hotels, but rather charming places with less than a couple of dozen guest rooms. Still, with a little effort we discovered some great options, and although we will be moving hotels during our stay, we are happy with the outcome (and the low season, last-minute prices). The trains, however, are another story.

Josh's friend warned him, if we plan to go to Venice, to book the train we want because they sell out. He was right. Once you think about it, who wouldn't take a train to Venice. You certainly don't want to have a car there, and the Eurostar gets you there from Rome in under 4 1/2 hours (It would take at least 7 hrs to drive...and then you've got traffic headaches too.) But the process of buying tickets on-line was maddening. First, the website takes you through a series of steps before alerting you to the fact that the fare you've selected is unavailable. To add to the confusion, there are a number of fares to choose from -- each with its own set of rules. But they are not available. Then, just when you think you've checked all the boxes and completed the process, for some strange reason, they won't take your credit card. Finally, we made the reservation and received an email explaining how to pay. But that payment page was unavailable.

Now, I am not the most website savvy person and I admit that if I were doing this alone, I'd think it was me and not the system. But since it was Josh trying to buy the train tickets, I know there is a problem with TrenItalia website system. In any case, that is how we he ended up at the travel agency. Even with the travel agent, the availability and price she quoted Josh before lunch and after lunch was different. And we thought the airlines were bad.