Today will not go down in the history of travel as my best day. We did not get to our room at the airport hotel until four in the morning. We woke up around nine o’clock, and for the rest of the day we were working in a sleep deprived condition which I think should be held as a mitigating circumstance as the rest of the day's events unfolded. After breakfast we grabbed a cab back to the airport where I had reserved a car rental from Hertz for the next day.
It was during this cab drive that I made the observation that all Cypriot cab drivers look exactly the same. Same age (about 50) same body build, same gray hair. They certainly control the cab industry around the airport. Seems like a strong union of cabbies as demonstrated by the fact that they have pressured the government into not allowing Uber on the island.
So here is when the day started going a little south. Actually it had started going south yesterday at the Zurich airport Swiss Air Lounge, I had just not known that then. As I was looking for my passport, driver’s license and AmEx card (all needed to pick up the reserved car), I could not find my Ohio driver’s license and AmEx card which I carry. Sandy carries both passports and she had no trouble producing those. I looked throughout my bags and simply could not find them. We had other credit cards but the driver’s license was a real sticking point. I tried to rent the car with my International driver’s license but that went nowhere. We finally got the car using Sandy’s Ohio license. But the problem was that they would not even put me on as an alternate driver, and Sandy didn't want to drive in Cyprus because they follow England in that they drive on the wrong side of the road with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car. Well, somehow we got to the AirBnB about an hour away. Before contacting the past hotels to see if I had left my driver’s license in a safe, I went through my luggage, (a suitcase and a backpack), thoroughly and there they were, my license and credit cards! It seems while I was at the Swiss Air lounge I saw that they had a huge container of those delicious Swiss chocolate bars. I thought, “well heck”, I always like a little bit of chocolate with my morning coffee so why not take a few pieces just to get me through the next few weeks of travel. I took a few pieces (maybe a little more than that) and put them in a plastic baggie in my back pack. And, there was the rub. That baggie was where my license and credit cards were securely stored. The chocolate bars thoroughly concealed them. I realized then that my decision to put those chocolates in the same baggie as my important documents was not a good decision. I’m pretty sure Sandy was wondering about some of her own life decisions at this point also. So back to the airport we went, got me put on as a driver, and all is well that ends well.
I don't know what the British were thinking when they started doing this stuff backwards
Our AirBnB is a sea front apartment looking South towards Egypt. We picked up some gyro meat, pita, veggies and Tzatziki Sauce at a little grocery store and ended the day sitting a few feet from the Mediterranean enjoying a gyro sandwich.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.