tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8362454344378752317.post8392845300051992594..comments2024-03-08T09:42:28.879+01:00Comments on Burnt by the Tuscan Sun: Numbers GamesIrreverent Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15104487411073849736noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8362454344378752317.post-15772232880973881582009-06-23T18:43:18.909+02:002009-06-23T18:43:18.909+02:00but things have improved.. you no longer have to p...but things have improved.. you no longer have to pay to open and/or close a bank account. so, doing either of those is now free! imagine that.Carolhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04928630647126543563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8362454344378752317.post-65799530182633591252009-06-19T22:56:55.722+02:002009-06-19T22:56:55.722+02:00Since I've been an aficionado and frequenter o...Since I've been an aficionado and frequenter of McD's for close to, if not over forty years, I've always found the paying for ketchup part hard to swallow, so to speak. But I suppose it's a European thing as much as Italian. Imagine my surprise last summer in Amsterdam's airport McD's asking for mayonnaise, paying extra for it, and then getting something sort of like tartar sauce with green bits in the middle. And then they tried to tell me that ALL McDonald's mayonnaise has actually always been special sauce (but it was NOT the Big Mac special sauce, by a long shot, I can guarantee after hundreds of Big Macs under my belt over the decades). Oh, and the girl at the cash register tried to hand me unwrapped straws with the same ungloved hands that she had used to accept the payment of at least the previous four customers that I had seen, and seemed offended when I asked for wrapped straws (well, it was before swine/HXN1Vsomething/nuova flu)...<br /><br />As to the rest of the freebies, particularly TrenItalia&co, for an annual fee, first they gave discounts & extra services & Eurostar lounges in all the major stations, then they eliminated the discounts, now the points only last 18 months, and then they closed several of the nearby lounges (es.: Mestre) and now they are reducing the hours for the offices and extra ticket offices to ridiculously minimal amounts (recently in Mestre it was like 9-12 & 15-17??? WTF this is for the business traveller, theoretically, who may not be interested in arriving to Milan or Rome at 2:30 PM). And the ticket offices in both Venice and Mestre close at 9PM. Done Did it lights out all home. One of the main tourist drags in all of Italy... 9PM roll up the carpets like the Nebraska countryside. Not one single sportello open.<br /><br />Don't get me started on the Eurostar "included services" that cost more than airflight, but don't include even a newspaper any more, much less a complimentary glass of water and stale cookies. You can't even buy them onboard anymore, unless you can track down the cart along one of the dozen carriages, since the restaurant/cafeteria car has been eliminated in most trains which cost an extra €5-10 compared to before...<br /><br />Oh well, welcome to the twentyfirst century in Italy.Jacqueshttp://oldcountry.blogdrive.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8362454344378752317.post-84309777538497468872009-06-19T15:31:20.085+02:002009-06-19T15:31:20.085+02:00Francesca:
Well, what do you expect?
It's jus...Francesca:<br />Well, what do you expect?<br /><br />It's just another example of Italian Chaos!<br /><br /><br /><br />DavideDave514https://www.blogger.com/profile/08791965245809463319noreply@blogger.com