We caved in and booked a car for the weekend. Well, I called on Friday afternoon on the way back from the Trolley ride laden with groceries. Yep, I just dropped everything and there, in the middle of the sidewalk, 1/3 of the way home from the trolley stop, I called Enterprise. No, they didn't have a car available for pick up on Friday, but they would possibly have on Saturday by 11am. They close on Saturday at 12 noon! cutting it a bit fine, considering we still have to get to there to pick the car up and they are usually understaffed on Saturdays. What choice did we have?
Considering Enterprise is the only rental company where we get the good weekend rates, there was no other option. Wait!
Saturday morning: at 9.30am, called Enterprise, not content to wait until they MIGHT call us at 11am. They had not even bothered to take my phone number down, even though they asked for it on Friday, so good thing I called. No, they would not have a car available unless the 10 people ahead of me on the list (really?) dropped out.
Fortunately there is another Enterprise on 15th Street. We called there. Yes, they have a car, but no, they couldn't give us the cheap weekend rate! Well, says me, we have rented a car on weekend rates since we were in Houston 2 months ago...and I expect that this time. We are repeat offenders when it comes to car rental, so why not?
Oh, in that case, says the young man...(who enunciated soooo poorly I didn't get his name the third time he told me) they would be able to find something for us.They could not, however, come and pick us up. No problem, a taxi is always just a phone call away.
We left immediately (now 10am) and went to the marina office to ask them to call a cab for us. Sheesh....they didn't have the number anywhere close at hand. How is this possible? So, after about 10 mins of searching, they finally found a cab to call and it showed up pronto. We are amazed at the poor condition of the cabs we have been in so far. The sliding door on the back of the van didn't work!
We turn up at Enterprise on 15th Street where JOEY, the enunciation- challenged youth found us a Mazda 3 to rent. I did mention to him that I could not make out his name on the phone (he had a name badge on ) and could he please speak more slowly. He shot back that at the time I called that he had 35 people waiting in line for attention! My reply to that was..."No excuse", to which he eventually conceded.
We didn't find the 'challenge' with this vehicle until AFTER we had signed for it. No central locking! How accustomed we all are to having these modern conveniences. I can tell you now, it is a right pain in the ass!
Grateful to have a car for the rest of the weekend, we didn't go back and ask for another one. When we returned the car, just half an hour ago and queried the lack of electronic security, he explained that most cars in that $ -rental bracket didn't have. Ha! This lad has excuses every inch of the way. When we explained that this was the first vehicle in all our travels, not to have electronic controls, he then conceded that perhaps 90% of cars did. Sheesh! This kid would have been fired by us, already:)
Perhaps this might be making a mountain out of a molehill, but customer service is something we value.
Just to break the monotony of this story, this Osprey was seen eating a fish on one of the spotlights next to the Marina. I know, a bit far away!
Back to Saturday.
Seeing that the morning was getting away from us, and food was going to be necessary at some stage no far away, we headed out to look for sushi. The weekend before we had found a sushi restaurant in Old St Andrews, on the waterfront that had All You Can Eat Sushi for $16.95 ea. What we didn't ascertain at the time, was the opening hours. Poohbah! It was only open from 4pm. Of course:)
Not to be deterred, we scouted around for somewhere else to eat, first having decided to go down an up one way street! Locals stopped me before I went past the point of no return fortunately. Just as well we all have a sense of humor:)
We found a 'grill' with waterside seating. One problem...the plastic covering the outside seating was not clean and everything was a bit 'distorted' to view the comings and goings in the Marina and beyond. Well, our necks got a workout, anyway.
The food was mediocre, as we find with many of these 'tourist' places, but we had full tummies.
We thought we would go in search of the impossible (how unlike us!!) which was loose leaf tea. Having a new Royal Doulton Teapot and cups, we thought it would be nice to have a 'real' cup of tea.
WRONG!
Just past the St Andrews Marina...going the right way down the one way street this time, we noticed a Tea and Coffee shop. How fortunate, we thought. Nice ambience, a few customers in our age bracket that we thought might have been off any one of the boats in the marina across the road (we all have a kind of 'look' about us...truly!...Not quite 'Birkenstocks', but something similar). This might normally bode well for us, but they weren't selling loose leaf tea and the tea they did have came in expensive cans. We decided not to purchase and take our chances elsewhere.
By now it was about 2.30pm. We were tired and had intentions of going out later in the day.
Waz put his head down for a kip and ZZZZ'd away a couple of hours. I read the Wall Street Journal from the previous weekend. I LOVE reading the WSJ as it is now headlined. I used to read it every day on Maui, and had forgotten the pleasure. The arts section in particular is excellent.
There somehow isn't the same satisfaction reading the news etc online. I love to have the print in my hand.
We ended up staying home and I made Linguini with mushrooms, onions and tomatoes. Against my better judgement, I put mozzarella in the sauce (just because I had two small balls sitting in the fridge waiting to be eaten) and though it dissolved beautifully in the sauce, it isn't nice stuff to get off the plate or pan once it is cold! bah!
There was enough left over for another meal for one!
An early night was in order and we were in bed by 10.30pm. Weather was supposed to change overnight and it was getting cooler, the later it got.
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