Why not simply not pack them? You two never use them anyhow.

Dovster -- who is 69 hours away from starting his odessy to Venice.

On my upcoming trip (which will eventually bring me to Venice) the very first FlyerTalker I will meet will be Mary2E, who is actually making a special trip to EWR just to bring me a New York kosher salami on rye sandwich.

Today is her birthday and I have just started a thread about it on Community Buzz. I would be very happy if a large contingent of the Venice Meet group were to wish this extremely nice (even though Democrat) F/Ter a happy birthday.

Dovster -- who is 67 hours away from starting his odessy to Venice.

Dovster, if you're going to make such an ordeal about your hop across the pond, at least have the decency to spell odyssey correctly :p.

As for the flooding, the BBC reports that 80% of Venice is under water - although I suppose a certain percentage is always under water - and that heavy rains and high tides continue to plague the area :(. One of the platbrowngals also watches the BBC news and IMed me to make sure I'd seen the story, commenting that if I wanted to go for a swim, I should just forget about Venice altogether and hang out in the hot tub.

Anyways, I've confirmed my flight on BA now, and I will be arriving on BA 2582 at 11:00am on 11/19. Assuming there are two Cholulas and just one Belle, I will be more than happy to wait until 2:20 if it means just paying 1/3 (or 1/4 :)) of the taxi fare. If platbrowndude joins me, he will leave DFW on Friday and meet me Saturday afternoon, likely at 4:45 on the BA flight. He's more than happy to take the water bus or whatever.

I will be be making a side trip to HKG this week to have some clothes made, and will be making a side-side-trip to Guangzhou for the hell of it. Cholula, I will locate this "Ants Climbing A Tree" dish that you crave so much, preserve it by dousing it liberally in Tabasco, and present it to you in VCE in exchange for your Air France pajamas ^. Everyone else will get items of lesser value, like ivory mahjongg sets and hand-carved wooden things.

And you thought you wouldn't be getting a fair trade :p.

O2k, don't worry over much about food for me. I have had strange eating habits for 60 years now and am accustomed to having difficulties finding food I can eat.

While my parents, siblings, friends, children and associates all eat normally, I simply have never in my life been able to bring myself to eat many foods, including lamb, pork, duck, veal, or anything else that reminds me of any animal that I like. I don't like chickens, so I eat them. I also eat extremely crisp bacon. Go figure. Over the years I have developed an inability to tolerate fried foods and or sweets, which, given my extremely low metabolism, is, I am certain, all for the best. Broadening the scope of my eating would undoubtedly result in brodening my posterior as well. ;)

Hunki used to love it back in the day before anybody ever heard of a vegetarian. In those days, they always served prime rib at banquets and he loved getting two portions. He held the sigular distinction of being the first, last and most frequent interim visitor to any buffet held at either our yacht club or our church and he will eat anything--well he was a little squeamish when his Father cooked up Kibuchi, their pet rabbit. (I think that I have errored in spelling Kibuchi's name. Hunki's Mom was from Velaluka and spoke very broken/mixed English so I suspect that rather than being a Japanese name, Kibuchi was really Croatian for "rabbit".)

Platbrownguy, I stand corrected about the spelling of "odyssey". It is especially embarrassing as I just finished seeing the classic movie in which Michelangelo spends years travelling to Rome just so he can lie on his back in the Sistine Chapel making love to Helen of Troy. For those of you who haven't yet seen it, I can highly recommend The Odyssey and the Ecstasy.

Anyways, I've confirmed my flight on BA now, and I will be arriving on BA 2582 at 11:00am on 11/19.

All references to Platbrowngal have been taken out of the first two threads, your new flight noted, and Platbrowndude added to the "Possible" thread.

As we have not heard from Canarsie about his travel plans yet, can you let us know if he is Platbrowndude?

If there is, indeed, just one Belle, will she become TempPlatbrowngal?

Dovster, who is 63 hours away from starting his odyssey to Venice.

Well, I am almost (by Wed. I will know either way) confirmed on this trip. I have confirmed my work sched. in Zurich and booked the Ramada International(on points). I would much rather stay at the FT group hotel as usually that is where people meet for events however, at this point I am guessing that it is sold out. I have used the hotel’s website reservation form but have not heard back yet to its availability which leads me to that conclusion.

Dan

Dan, that is indeed encouraging news. As soon as you are certain, please let us know.

I do, however, wish that you had not publicly admitted to going to the Ramada. There is nothing wrong with it (in fact, the international Ramadas are usually of a very high quality) but Cholula, Canarsie, and Indufan viciously attack anyone who spends anytime at a Ramada.

This is a result of the extreme jealousy they felt at the PBI-FLL Meet in May when I was fortunate enough to snag a room at a Ramada with an on-site Denny's while they had to slum it at a Marriott whose closest restaurant was some beef joint run by a guy named Morton.

My understanding now is that Ramada International is actually owned by the Marriot Family of Hotels. Hence I am really staying at a re-branded Marriott. :)

Dan

On 19 November, my flight (Czech Airlines flight 734) is scheduled to arrive in Venice at 2:00 in the afternoon (1400 hours).

On 23 November, my flight (Air France flight 1427) is scheduled to depart from Venice at 12:35 in the afternoon.

Canarsie, I have just updated the second post to reflect that. You are listed under "Hotel Unknown".

You arrive 20 minutes before Cholula, so you might want to warn the Water Taxi TSA that he is a suspected terrorist and they should SSSS him.

Dovster, who is 60 hours away from starting his odyssey to Venice.

:-: :) ^ ^ :-:

I just hope I don't get on your bad side... :eek: :eek:

Sky News reports Venice being 80% underwater, including all of St. Marks Square as well, and the pictures are downright scary :(...

Take a good look at those pictures and you will find that the water comes up to about the middle of your shoes. Although there have been rare instances of Venice really flooding, what it is having right now is fairly normal for this time of year.

I can't guarantee that it won't be like that when we get there, nor can I be sure that it will be like that.

Obviously, I would prefer dry land to walk on as it makes strolling much easier but there is nothing happening now to ruin a vacationer's trip. (In fact, most tourists seem to like taking pictures of the floods.)

Not to worry. It really is not scary at all. Think of it as an adventure :)