October 15 - The Plan

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October 15 Sunday – I had a busy day today. I went to the Travelocity.com web site and researched different flights from College Station to Dublin leaving on the 24^th of October and returning on the 5^th of December from Athens, Greece. I will be taking my usual 6 week trip.

I have opened another bank account at another bank besides Bank of America since I found out on my last trip there “guarantees of no loss” are worthless! They only apply if my debit/Visa card had been lost or stolen, not if someone working at a hostel I went to took down my number and used it to get money. If I had not caught it quickly and canceled out the debit/Visa card and someone got more money thru the card it would have just been my tuff luck as it was on the first theft. As it was they stonewalled and told me to get it from the merchant and the Generator Hostel after me having sent them the info they requested Generator Hostel stonewalled as well and told me when I called again they had referred it to “accounting”. So I guess I have just been cheated. Sometimes in life you just have to take it and move on….but I don’t forgive and forget.

I made Bank of America cancel the card and give me another one which surprised them as they evidently just considered that I was a liar and a thief and was just trying to cheat someone. And yes…… when someone considers me to be a liar and a thief and treat me as if I am, I DO take it personally.

In any case I have opened another account without as much money in it and will use that account for all reservations, bookings etc., using my BOA account only at ATM’s.

The plan for this trip is to fly to Dublin and go to Ballinasloe to regroup and refit. Then I will take a meandering route using trains and ferries back through England to the Normandy coast of France. I will thoroughly tour the Normandy Coast, museums and battlefields, as well as Mont St-Michael, and then head to Paris. After Paris I will take the train to Italy and tour Venice, Rome, Monte Casino, Pompey and then at Brindisi I will cross over to Greece by ferry. I will invest the remainder of my 6 week trip exploring Greece and hopefully a few of the islands. Then I will fly back to the US from Greece. There is a ridiculously long delay at Heathrow airport in England on the way back, but what can you do…….

I have been listening to my Living Language French CD’s and studying the book that came with it for the past few weeks. I also have some other French language cassettes and a book I have been studying. It seems a hopeless task but I guess I will learn as much French as I can before I go as well as study some each day on the trip.

I will just have to do the best I can language wise in Italy and then in Greece I will try and study Greek a bit on the way and hope it comes back to me. I was stationed in Greece while I was in the Air Force back in the 70’s for a year and a half. So I learned the language pretty well. Hopefully a little brushing up on the language and some hand signals for the rest will do.

I’m in pretty good shape on Euros and Pounds for the trip as I squirreled away some that I had left from my last trip and they should be enough for me till I get some more Euro’s from an ATM in Ireland or France. Depending on how long I stay in England I should have enough Pounds but if not I can get some from an ATM there.

So that’s the plan which as always is subject to change as opportunities arise.

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