Friday, January 22, 2010

20th Jan- A day trip to Venice

After a good breakfast we headed off to Venice via the Petrol station which is always a slow job as UK Credit Cards do not work in the US Credit card fuel pumps. You are required to put in a US Zip code which relates to the address where your credit card is billed. As they only accept numerical codes and our UK postal code starts with KT 13 it totally confuses the machine, so when you need petrol you have to visit the office first and leave your credit card, then get some fuel and then go back and sign. All good stuff really.

Jennifer was driving today so with Noel's navigation skills and with some luck we finally made our destination. After leaving Sarasota on the Tamiami Highway heading South we came across a small farmers market, there was about 5 times as many people as stalls and what there was for sale was not great but we did stop to find out more and take some photos. On to Venice and on the main road we noticed a large RV (Recreational Vehicle) display on the other side of the road which we decided to stop at on the way back.

Venice was fairly quiet and it's not really a large town but it does have some history, see photo. We wandered around for about 90 minutes and took some photos before having a light lunch of Bruschetta and Chicken Ceaser salad in a little cafe and we sat on the boardwalk to eat. Along the road was a nice ice cream parlour where Noel indulged whilst Jennifer looked on with disgust but with a certain amount of jealousy. We then drove down to the beach area which seemed to be busy and lined with Condos and houses but decided this was not for us and so we headed back to Sarasota and arrived at the RV shop which was massive. It had RV's built on bus chassis and then we looked at the 5th Wheelers which were very large and by this time we were being pursued by a sales lady and so with some story of possibly buying later this year she took us on a tour of many of the Rv's they had in stock. Some of the layouts we liked but pretty much all of the vans were very dark inside with heavy wood and dark curtains and furniture as against the much lighter vans that we get in Europe. Prices for these machines are extremely low at the moment and considering the size and fixtures, one had three 42 inch TV's, we thought the pricing was excellent compared to Europe Standards.

On to Whole Foods for some fish and a little internet. Although I knew that Sky had updated my telephone line and broadband yesterday I did not realise that the security code on our voicemail had been changed. On calling SKY they did not know what had happened either and so for fun I tried again using 0000 and it worked, so now I have changed it to a new code and can now see my phone voicemail on the web.

Tonight is Tilapia (fish) with mashed potato, peas and corn and an evening of reading and rubbish US TV.