So after the long days (and nights…) the last few days, we decided to pass on the excursion that was on the agenda, and just spend the day walking around Corfu… Which was a great choice, since it was a beautiful town… We did some shopping (and found that no one took credit cards, and had to find an ATM to get Euros, since I didn’t bring that much with me…) Then we found a great hand made jewelry store that had beautiful pieces, and and bought a few really nice things… Then it was time for lunch, and we found a great little place with seats outside… Got salads and a bottle of wine, and then I decided to get something more… So I ordered sea bass, with some prawns, calamari, and octopus… What I didn’t expect was that it would be a huge platter, enough for more than two people… But it was the best and freshest seafood that I have ever had… especially the octopus, which was like butter…
Yep… staying up so late the night before wasn’t the most intelligent thing that I have ever done… it was a bit tough to get up to get ready to go for the excursion, and I ended up having a very light breakfast, and made it just on time to get on the transfer to the dock for the trip…
Today was a day in Sicily, going to locations where parts of the Godfather trilogy was filmed… Although first we stopped at a church to see some “mummified” bodies, which really looked more like bones with clothes on… sort of weird, and not really sure why it was on the trip, but whatever… we saw something that we weren’t expecting…
Friday was an good day… Slept for around 12 hours, got packed up, and took our bags up to where we were gettting picked up to go to the ship… We found a great place to get a bite to eat (although it was too late for breakfast…) at a place called Harry’s Bar in Rome… Apparently a place famous people eat at, looking at all of the pictures on the wall…
I did make it up on time, and because the sea was a bit choppy, the transfers were running behind a bit and we didn’t leave until about 9… Once at Sorrento, we took a small bus (first) since it barely could get around the streets, and then got on a large bus for the trip to Pompeii… Amazing watching the driving in Italy… still don’t know how they do it without hitting anything… The roads are filled with motorcycles and cars, and are extremely narrow compared to our roads in the US… but there don’t seem to be many accidents… guess they are used to it…
Well, the flight got in perfectly fine… on time, no problem with luggage, in fact, no problems at all… Other than no sleep on the plane, and starting to feel it already when we got there… But it was a good flight, and I’m just happy when there are no problems…
When we got off the plane, we had a driver run right up and offer us a drive to Rome… Thankfully, it actually proved to be one of the best things that could have happened, since we had a driver that gave us a ride that I will never forget… Down the highway from the airport weaving in an out of traffic at 150 kph, which I think is around 90-95mph… all while texting and making calls… But then the fun hit when we hit Rome traffic… apparently, there are no real traffic laws in Rome… going down train tracks passing trains, passing a half dozen cars going down the wrong side of the street, cutting off whoever and whenever it suits, and going down side “streets” that are barely wide enough for walking, all to get there as fast as possible… (fixed rate from the airport… makes for someone who wants to get you there asap… But we finally arrived safe, only wished I had taken some video…
So this is an interesting trip so far… Had a driver pick us up at noon, thinking that there would be long lines and maybe traffic getting to Phil airport… but… NO traffic… and NO ONE in line at the baggage check… The terminal didn’t spit out a boarding pass for me, and it took all of 3 minutes for them to get that resolved… Call out to American for making things easy…
Tomorrow I’m off on another Cooper trip… This one is a cruise around Italy… Flying into Rome, onto the Regent Seven Seas, and then cruise around and finally to Venice&… in between we will see Capri/Sorrento, Sicily, Corfu – Greece, Kotor – Montenegro, Split – Croatia, and finally to Venice… Should be a great trip, and Thursday we have a whole day in Rome… which I have always had on my bucket list…
Ok… now that I had a decent night sleep, and an amazingly good breakfast at Ruby’s Diner in the Newark airport, I can continue the story from last night… Ultimately, it was the weather to blame, but United at points helped things along… and I wasn’t the only one…
As noted, we got to Newark at 10:30 pm… And the flight to Edinborough wasn’t leaving until 11:04 (actually didn’t leave until closer to 11:40)… So there are 5 of us standing in the front of the plane that need to make the flight… all the others have boarding passes, I have to get one… The reason we didn’t get out right away was because it took them 10 minutes to get the ramp right… yep… never saw that before… Anyway, I got off and checked at the gate about my pass… and was told that I wasn’t on the flight… ?
Ok… quick update… on the way to Newark (finally…) at 9:45 pm… that’s right folks, the flight hat was supposed to leave Dulles at 4 did leave at 4:30, but then sat on the runway for over an hour and then went back… but fortunately, after standing in a huge line to get to United customer service for a half hour or so, they announced that the flight was back on… Good thing is that the original booking on a 7:55 flight to Edinborough got changed to a 9:45 flight, which got delayed until 10:35… Whew… But there are at least 5 of us on this little prop plane that is bouncing around in the weather that are hoping that we can make it to the next flight on time… if not, things go south quickly… no flights out tomorrow at all that we know of…
Hmmmmm… I really didn’t know that it was almost two years since I wrote anything… Not that there has been that much going on… lol… (okay… If you know me well enough, you know that the last year a lot of things changed… But we won’t go into any of that now…)
So anyway, here I go again, off on a trip to Scotland (courtesy of Cooper Tire) Going to be staying at Gleneagles, which I haven’t been to since 86 or 87, never can remember which… Right now I’m sitting in Dulles drinking a Bloody Mary and waiting for the second leg of my convoluted trip… Harrisburg to Dulles to Newark to Edinborough… And no, I didn’t plan that one… Travel agent apparently took me too literally when I said I didn’t want to fly out of Philadelphia… (My second least favorite airport in the US, second only to JFK…) I didn’t mean through, just didn’t want to start there… Whatever… At least it gives me time to sit sweating in a hot bar in Washington/Dulles and type this…
