April 12, 2014
Today
our sole goal was to retrieve our (hopefully) fully operational little Opal. We
had a long day yesterday and didn’t go to sleep until almost midnight (mostly
because I was working on this blog…), so we slept in until 8am and then got
ready and went down for breakfast. After our exhausting day of walking
yesterday we opted to take a taxi back to the train station. This time I bought
our tickets from the self serve machine, so I knew exactly what time the train
was leaving and we were able to use this information to confirm the track
number on the big screens in the station.
Once we knew we were one the right
platform we very closely inspected our tickets and could not find anything that
indicated what time the train was leaving, platform, nothing. The only reason
we knew our leaving time was because I chose the time when I bought our
tickets, yesterday the teller didn’t say peep about when our train was leaving
and thus we dallied too long trying to decipher our tickets and missed our
train.
Today
the train experience was blessedly uneventful and we arrived in Venizio Maeste
and caught a taxi back to the shop. When we got there the guy we had talked to
yesterday (apparently the only person who works there who speaks English) of
course wasn’t there. They managed to find a guy who spoke some English who told
us that they had drained the gas tank, flushed the lines, changed the spark
plugs, and filled it half-way with benzina (regular unleaded apparently, we put
gasolio in the tank which turns out is some sort of diesel, although Ben said
it smelled like gas). However something else was still wrong with it so they
told us we should bring it back to the car rental company and get a new car.
We
were about a 15 minute drive from the Venice airport and toyed with the idea of
just going back to Padova and letting the benzina run through the engine; Ben
figured there must still be some gasolio in the system and that’s why it was running
so rough. But literally right after we left the lot the car was blowing so much
smoke that we couldn’t see anything behind us (including a poor guy on a Vespa
that we knew was there…). So it was toward the airport for us, in a very slow,
jerking, precarious, nerve-racking, prayer-filled journey….a journey that we
were not destined to complete. We were about 10 minutes away from the airport,
limping along, when a highway patrol truck (not police but a guy who patrols
the highway for broken-down vehicles), came up behind us and honked at us to
pull over. He told us we couldn’t keep driving the way we were because it was
too dangerous and he called a tow truck to come and bring us the rest of the
way to the airport. About half an hour later a tow truck arrived from the same
company that had towed us earlier (possibly the only towing company in the
area? They had a super nice clean shop that Ben was quite envious of, it was
huge, had a tile floor, and not a speck of dirt or oil anywhere). So he gets us
all loaded up and we are in the truck driving and Ben asks him if he is taking
us to the airport, and he says no he’s taking us back to his shop. So we were
like heck no! We just came from there and they told us to go to the airport! So
he called the shop and they must have told him that they don’t want to see our
Opal again and just get rid of us, so he took us to the airport. Let’s just say
that our little mistake in Italy cost us 2 tows and a trip to the shop, more
than you would pay and home, then convert it to Euros (it’s a good thing Ben
has worked so much overtime lately, I already told him that I am not
sacrificing my cuckoo clock for this little mess-up).
At
the car rental place they didn’t really seem that surprised that this happened,
the just asked us to write down why the car wasn’t working and then gave us a
new car. While we were getting our new car there were some other North
American’s picking up a car and we told them that if they were getting a gas
car not to put gasolio in it but that it needed benzina; they were pretty
thankful for the tip. Our new car is a diesel (or gasolio depending on the gas
station) Ford Modeno, which is a free mid-size upgrade that came with a
navigation system; a total step up from our super bare bones basic Opal Corsa
(poor innocent little thing never hurt a fly and we destroyed it L). I actually felt guilty
like we should have been punished with a crappier car, but our Modeno smells
like someone smoked in it (not too bad, just a little), so maybe that is our
punishment.
By
1pm we were finally back in a car and back on track, and very much wanting to
put this whole car fiasco and negative feelings behind us. I’m sure by the time
we get to Holland and meet up with everyone we will be able to laugh about it,
but in the moment it has been very stressful and demoralizing. But we are only
human and we make mistakes and this is how we learn; we learn which is the
correct fuel to put in a car and we learn how to cope with crisis in a country
where we don’t speak the language and most people don’t speak ours and we learn
how to move past this bump in the road and enjoy the next 2 weeks of our
European adventure. And let’s be honest, if things like this didn’t happen, it
wouldn’t be an adventure, it would just be a vacation.
So in
the spirit of moving on, we headed to a medieval walled city called Cittadella
which is north of Padova. The walls were very impressive, I would definitely
say they were higher than the walls of Rothenburg ob der Tauber (a medieval walled city in
Germany).
However because we were there mid-day on a Saturday, all the
businesses were closed (but we didn’t have to pay for parking=Win!). We
wandered through anyways as the walled area was small, but the buildings seemed
newer than the walls. On our way to Cittadella we had spotted a larger grocery
store so we made sure to stop there on our way back south to pick up snacks and
food for tomorrow, because we have another primarily driving day and everything
is closed on Sundays in Europe. We also made sure to pick up a couple bottles
of wine (Ben helped a couple ladies reach a bottle at the back of the top
shelf, such a gentleman). We also saw a station where you could fill up your
own bottles with bulk wine.
I really wanted to see someone use it but no luck.
Also for a late lunch we picked up a huge fresh pizza for super cheap.
Back
in Padova we decided to wander around and check out a couple of the nearby
basilicas. I still can’t get over how massive and ornate the churches are in
Europe, it amazes me every time. Because it is Saturday evening, there was a
service going on in one of the basilicas, so we could listen to the organ and
singing resonating throughout the building.
By
7pm we were pretty tired already and ready to go back to our hotel and enjoy
one of our bottles of wine. Tomorrow will be another day of driving and we plan
to end in Lucerne, Switzerland….but who knows where our travels will take us…
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