Almost there!

The reality of our trip to Italy is slowly sinking in as the days go by and emails from the travel agent confirming our airline tickets and hotel reservations. There are a million things we still have to do before the trip.

The web is full of information on Italy and travel in Europe. "Use the ATM for cash," the web reviewer wrote. Following the advice, I called 3 credit card customer service numbers (um.. in India) tonight and realized that I have no idea what my pin numbers are for them. VISA and MC wanted 3% transaction fee and American Express wanted 3% transaction plus 2% currency conversion fees. What a scam! In addition, the value of the US dollar is in the dumps lately.

I am kind of proud that I was able to figure out the GSM phone and Italy SIM card trick so we can have a local Italian cell phone for our trip. To top it off, I will be signing up with a Callback service for cheap calls back to the US. I'll post more on this as I get the stuff assembled.

One of the open items I still have is to bring or not to bring my laptop. Free Wifi apparently is available in Rome but is non-existent in Venice. If we are going to keep this blog going during our trip, we will really need to have Internet access almost on a daily basis. Internet cafe is the next option.