Adventures of MyNeChimKi

OK, so Venice isn’t exactly on our Ciclismo Classico trip… but that’s where we chose to fly in to in Italy.  First I can say we learned a few things:

1. Bring a neck pillow, ear plugs, and an eye mask for the plane.
2. To make your connecting flight at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport you must first clear customs and go through an additional security screening; 1 hour might not be enough.
3. Malinois toting security guards will help expedite your exit from the Marco Polo airport.  Hopefully in a good way.
4. Making friends on the waterbus when you get to Venice is a good thing.

After an extremely long night and a fairly long morning we arrived safely in Venice and without terrible fanfare we found our hotel (which can be a bit unnerving if you’re trying to navigate the maze of streets and canals without a proper map).  I was kind of disappointed to find out that my International Data Roaming package on my iPhone eats up bytes like they’re going out of style.  For that reason I’m having to take Wi-Fi when I can get it and just keep the data roaming off unless I really really need it.

We’re staying at the Hotel Torino which is really just about a 5 minute (or less) walk from the Piazza del San Marco.  I had kind of forgotten how crowded the city was… there are people everywhere, and I think that most of them are likely tourists like us.

After getting settled (and showered) we headed off to take in a few sights in Venice, namely the bridges.  The lines to see inside the Basilica were horrifically long and we decided that we probably didn’t need to see that on our short stay here anyway.  Our plan is to check out the Campanile tomorrow morning before heading to the train station.  Here are a few pictures of our travels today:

So the only truly stupid thing that I have done so far is stub my toe really hard going into our bathroom. It’s probably not broken, but it sure hurts… I’m wondering how putting bike shoes on it will feel in a couple of days.  I suppose we’ll see!

For some reason whenever we fly into Little Rick Airport something always gets lost. Last Christmas it was DH’s baggage that went to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. This trip has been no exception.

Before leaving Dulles, we fastidiously checked the tags on all our bags to ensure that our names and final destination appeared perfectly printed on each baggage label. Feeling sure that there was no chance for error, we dropped our bags off at TSA and went along on our merry little way. The flight from Dulles to Atlanta was uneventful (the last leg into Little Rock I can’t say the same for, but that the subject of a different story entirely).

We arrived in Little Rock, relieved to be on the ground and interested in retrieving our baggage and getting on our way further south.

One polka-dot bag came off the conveyor belt. A sigh of relief, and a slight apprehension that maybe Mom’s bag didn’t make it.

After not a terribly long pause, and being reassured as bags were steadily coming onto the conveyor belt, Mom’s bag appeared. Another sigh of relief. I momentarily forgot that my parents didn’t share a bag, and by the time Mom reminded me that we had one more bag Dad’s bag popped out all ready to be retrieved.

There was just one thing left to collect… The Golf Clubs (and yes, they require capitalization).

We made friends with a nice retiree who has three dogs (a lab/beagle mix, a rat terrier/whippet mix with a sensitive tummy, and a white lab) and the meanest cat you’ll ever meet who’s a private pilot for hobby (Cessna 182) while we waited for the golf clubs to arrive. We waited a little longer and heard how the cat, scared at the vet one time, bit nearly clean though his finger which subsequently got infected and to this day he’s never got feeling to return to that finger. The Golf Clubs still hadn’t arrived. The door to the oversized baggage slammed shut.

Story goes that “there were weight issues” and that “this kind of thing happens all the time” and then they said they would “try” to get the clubs (failing to use their proper name and use the respect they deserve) to us within the week, but citing that since it’s a two hour drive they weren’t sure if it was possible.

Thank you Delta Airlines for yet another über fail