Thursday 3 January 2008

When in Rome, do as the Romans do .... Day I

...which is basically crossing the road carelessly, eating dinner after 21:00hrs, talking excessively with your hands (even when you're on the phone and the other party cannot see you), and taking things slow and easy even if it means making a whole bunch of people queue up for 2hrs... .

I never thought I would mean this seriously, but man, it's good to be back to Copenhagen despite the icy cold here. Rome was such a beautiful city to me when I was 1st there in September 2001, but going there a 2nd time was probably a mistake. Maybe it was a different season, maybe it was too many days in the same city, or maybe it was simply that things change sometimes for the worse over time.

I don't know if the word "romantic" actually comes from Rome, but though the city has some charm, it was lacking very much in other positive factors. It was dirty, it was polluted, it was disorganised, it was expensive... . I don't mean to sound so negative, but I really can't lie about how I feel about the city.

Things were already going bad when we left for the airport. For some strange reason, the taxi driver who drove us to the airport from our home decided to go the unconventional route via the highway. That would be good if there was heavy traffic, but at 5:30hrs on a Sunday morning, there was no heavy traffic to beat. That trip costed 390 DKK (S$98) when it would normally cost 100 DKK (S$25) less!

At the airport, we realised that we had brought along Martin's old and expired passport instead of his new and valid one! Luckily, since we were going from 1 EU country to another, and Martin is an EU citizen, he didn't need his passport. He could use his driver's license as his passport/identification instead. If I was the one who didn't have a valid passport, then it would have been really bad, since I'm not an EU citizen... . So phew!

In Rome airport, it took at least ½hr before our luggage came out onto the belt! Anyway, we got it and took the train into the centre without any event, so that was fine. In the evening, things got really bad... . We went in search of a dinner restaurant around 18:00hrs, and decided to take some cold hard cash out from the ATM. We punched in 200 EUR...then Martin's Visa card came out, then the receipt came out saying 100 EUR (ok?), and normally, one would expect the cash to come out too but no... . Nada! WTH?

Ok, fine...bank was closed, so we couldn't do anything anyway except to check with them the next day. We found a restaurant, sat down, ate some crappy lasagne, and asked for the bill which turned out to be 29 EUR. Rather expensive, in my opinion. We said we would pay by Visa, but Martin's card was denied. Tried again, denied. Tried my Visa, but I knew it would be denied because my account was in negative anyway (I don't use that account very much, and it would only be after the long Christmas vacation that the money I transfered to make it positive again would go through). Tried my Diners Club card, didn't work (the restaurant didn't accept Diners, that's why).

So yeah...Martin had to find another ATM to try get money out...but after 1hr of searching and trying, we were still not in luck. We had 150 DKK with us in cash, so we thought we could change that at the money changer and get between 17 EUR - 20 EUR. I did have already 10 EUR with me in coins, so with this, we would be pretty much able to pay the bill of 29 EUR. Good idea? No. Money changer only gave us 11 freakin' EUR!!! They practically took away 50% of what we gave them ! Scumbags!

Had tried to call the bank in Denmark too, but the line which we could get through to could only tell us that the card had been blocked because it went over the limit. We did have more than enough money in this "spending" account, so we didn't understand how it could go over the limit. After all, we did use the same card to pay for the taxi from home to the airport, and also the train tickets from Rome airport to the city centre without any problems.

Anyway...22 EUR was what we managed to give in cash the restaurant...and we promised to go back the next day to pay the rest. Spent nearly 2hrs sorting this out, but good that we didn't have to do the dishes as payment ;o).

But seriously, we were feeling really helpless at that point. No cold hard cash, plastic that didn't work...bank in Denmark was most likely not going to be opened the next day (24th Dec being the date on which Danes celebrate Christmas) so we wouldn't get an explanation from them about the situation... . In fact, we won't get an explanation from them until they opened again on the 27th! No cash from the 23rd till the 27th?!? Even the beggars on the street were "richer" than us!

Oh well, at least we would have breakfast every morning at our hotel...and I did prebook a nice dinner cruise for us on the 28th so we won't totally starve to death... .

Stay tuned to find out what happened in Day II... .