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Cheers
Give a Cheer
Give a Cheer
Today we spent 6 hours and 15 minutes total sitting in train stations and nearly 9 hours riding the trains. Hopefully we won't have too many more days like today!
Saturday, May 25th – After getting off the train at 3:00AM in Venice we walked across the street to the Plaza Hotel. We decided not to check in since we had to be at the bus stop at 5:30AM to catch a bus to Aviano, the American military base. The desk clerk at the Plaza was awesome. He told us to wait upstairs in the mezzanine where there were couches and we could sleep. It was a very nice lounge that overlooked the lobby. It had nice restrooms and we would have the entire area to ourselves. Best of all it was warm and dry and it was across the street and ½ block down from the bus stop. And he gave us the internet password! We had a very comfortable 2 ½ hours and actually got a little sleep!
Before we knew it we were on the bus and on our way to the military base in Venice to wait for a plane home.
Once we got to our room Bill made a very disturbing discovery. When we travel he carries two wallets – a throw away with about $10.00 or less in it and a few expired IDs. If someone tries to steal Bill's wallet or tries to mug Bill for his wallet – they get the fake one.
The bad news was that he had left his good wallet in the men's room in the McDonalds in Vienna where he changed his clothes. At least his military ID had accidently gotten into the throw-away wallet (which he still had), but my military dependent card was in his good wallet that he left on the side of the sink in the McDonalds in Vienna when he changed his clothes.
Bill had put his military ID in his throw away wallet several cities back (by accident) and now the good wallet was gone and my military dependent card along with it. Also missing was a little bit of cash (fortunately all the big bills were in Bill's money belt), a few credit cards, and Bill's driver's license – but at least he had his military ID so we could get on base in Venice.
As soon as we got on base we had to go to the office that makes the military cards to replace mine. They required Bill to go to the police station on base to file a stolen ID card report – then I could be issued a replacement card. It had to be done immediately, as we would be flying out on the next available flight either to the United States or another base that would get us to the United States. I couldn't board the plane without a military dependent card!
With my new ID card in hand, dinner was at the food court on the military base. Popeye's chicken for me and a Taco Bell soft taco and slice of pizza for Bill. We were very happy.
Back in our room again and ready to settle in for the night Bill volunteered to do the laundry. We had quite an accumulation of dirty clothes from our train trip across Europe. At home I do the laundry, when we travel, he does it.
He brought back the clean laundry and as we were folding it together we made another awful discovery – Bill had washed our passports! Our passports had visas in them for Brazil and China that were still good in addition to all our passport stamps I wanted to keep. Now some of those stamps were just a faded memory – you could barely read them!
Worse yet, our passports were a dripping wet mess – the dryer hadn't dried them at all! While Bill watched tv, I dragged out the iron and ironing board and spent the next couple hours carefully ironing every page of our passport books until they were usable again. They didn't look very good anymore, but at least they were presentable.
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Thanks for spreading positivity!
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