Day 43 (Lecce)

Today is 74 and partly sunny. The temps are getting warmer this week and we were supposed to stay 1 more night (tonight). I woke up with bug bites all over me because it is 75+ degrees in our room and the window is open. Lori had booked 3 nights with her credit card points so there were no refunds. We discussed it and decided to move on. Unfortunately we were going to have to forfeit tonight which results in a loss of points. We stopped at the desk and told them and they said let us talk to the manager and try and work something out. We went to our room and started packing. They called a few minutes later and offered to turn on the A/C in our room. Where was that before the midnight bug raid? We decided to pass and went to check out.

I dropped off Lori at the front desk and went to get the car. When I returned she was still trying to check out. Apparently the lady behind the desk cancelled the transaction and now wants us to pay cash instead. Well that is exactly what we are trying to avoid and is the reason why we used points. This turned into a 2 hour ordeal trying to sort this mess out. They tried calling and reversing the cancellation but with no luck. The points are not refundable so now it potentially cost us the points and cash for the room. Basically double the cost plus a lost night because they made a mistake and cancelled the initial reservation with our points. They were very apologetic and knew that it was on them. Lori called the credit card company twice about getting the points refunded and ended up with 2 answers. We decided to go with the more favorable one which was; if they cancelled the transaction then there should be no draw from our points. Seems to make sense but it wasn’t showing up in our points bank. We collected proof that it was cancelled and the names of people at the desk. Eventually everyone agreed to make it right both ways which we were happy to do. I think we had every right to force the issue in our favor but Americans do not have a good reputation right now. We thought that making Americans look nice and reasonable was a better way to go in these times. Plus it was just the right thing to do.

We started our trip to Lecce as Lori searched for a place with A/C. This was about a 1 hr drive south and farther into the heal of Italy. She found a nice apartment for $100/night. We decided to stay 2 nights.

We found parking about a block from our apartment, which was very lucky, and decided to tour the city. It is a nice city with a recently excavated Roman Forum. Basically a much smaller version of the coliseum. Apparently there were 250 of these forums all over Europe. We have seen 4 or 5 of them so far. I’m not sure they have located or excavated very many of them. We had dinner at a local restaurant where Lori had pasta with sauce and I had meatballs with sauce. Mine was loaded with delicious sauce and Lori’s was lacking sauce. Both were really good. We walked around a little more and took some pictures.

We headed back to the apartment to chill out the rest of the night. This is a good time to catch up with friends so we called Harold. Harold is one of our great friends from Higgins Lake. He always tells us that you can travel anywhere in the world and there will be a girl that knows Harold. He is a 72 year old stud boy. Yesterday he sent us a picture of him with 2 girls. It turns out that one of them is the lady that we met a couple days ago that was from Brighton, Mich. She is in the picture with her best friend Theresa who is also one of our friends. I wish that would have come up in our conversation at breakfast 2 days ago. The lady from Brighton contacted Theresa and told her that she met some people from Higgins Lake in Italy. Theresa said I know some people that are traveling in Italy and they put it together. What a small world!! It is crazy to think that if I wasn’t wearing that Higgins Lake shirt that morning we would have been sitting only a few feet from each other and never knew it. I wonder how many people we missed by not wearing that shirt. Its crazy when you think about it.

We also called our daughter Sophia and had a very nice conversation about her work experiences in the ER. Some things never change. We ended up also talking with our son Chase who also filled us in about being in the work force. We are very lucky to have 2 successful children in their chosen careers.

Tomorrow we plan on chilling out but may end up on a rickshaw tour. Who knows?