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Our last morning in Florence we had coffee and walked around enjoying the sights.
Checkout from the hotel was smooth, the taxi ride to the train station was quick and we found our train to Venice easily. Although it was a bit late…which caused us to listen to recorded announcements throughout the ride about how we could apply for compensation if we wanted to :).
Our arrival in Venice got off to a rocky start because I realized, as we were disembarking, I’d lost the lens cap to my camera. A group of American visitors across the aisle heard me tell Barbara about that, and they told me a steward had found it and had gone up and down the carriage several times asking if anyone was missing it. They thought the steward finally announced the cap would be available in the club car. Apparently, I was either so engrossed in the scenery, my Kindle or sleeping that I didn’t hear any of this.
I immediately went to the club car…and had the bad luck to interact with the one steward who didn’t know about the lens cap. She told me to talk to the “train manager”, who would be someplace on the platform. I dashed outside but couldn’t find any such person. I was trying to ask some of the employees about what to do next, but of course my translation app chose that moment to fail.
I finally went back on the train and found someone who knew about the lens cap and redirected me to the club car. I raced there and, this time, had the good luck to talk to someone who knew where it was stashed. Problem solved! After the requisite clown car insanity, of course1.
Venice was beautiful! Unfortunately, we’d failed to research how the water buses worked, so we ended up walking to our hotel, each towing two suitcases. But no matter. We eventually got checked into a very nice room and had a tasty dinner nearby.
Finagle apparently delights in causing this kind of havoc…which is why, if there is an after-life, Finagle is going to regret having been born or created or gone through whatever process brings imps into existence. ↩
