It was a long beautiful drive on Saturday, relatively uneventful. Our book-on-tape did quit working right at the most intriguing part in the story (where Darcy and Elizabeth are about to meet again), but, at that point we only had a couple more hours to go, no big deal.
But when we reached Berlin in Connecticut, the real fun began!
First, we got to our hotel and discovered that our room had just one bed, instead of the two beds clearly indicated on the reservation print-out. Oh well! They gave us a nice-sized cot to make amends (I'm sure I'll be sacked out on it shortly).
Next we got directions off the internet for a good place to eat, a Polish restaurant, and we had hopes of also finding a park in which to walk around after the long day of sitting. So we set off. We discovered very quickly that the roads here have long center rails which frequently block you from turning exactly where you need to, so you may need to drive a half-mile further and make a U-turn. You know these U-turns are legal once you get to a left turn lane that would take you straight into trees if you didn't use it for a U-turn. Also there are all kinds of street signs and only a few of them are the green ones up on the right-hand side or over the road. Some are white signs, some are white posts, and some are just plain non-existent. And the "No turn on red" signs are strategically placed down on the right where the driver can't possibly see them once he/she has pulled up to the light. But, I digress!! Back to the story.
So after looping around the same roads several times, we finally found our real road and headed happily down it. We went up and down it several times without discovering the Polish restaurant. Finally we found it - and discovered why no one had answered my phone call earlier to see if we needed a reservation - because it was closed tonight although neither the internet nor any signs on the restaurant indicated this at all. "But we're open tomorrow night" she assured us, so, we might try that tomorrow before leaving Connecticut.
Then we looped up and down the road looking for a park, but the only park was apparently a stadium park, not exactly what I'd envisioned, and a lot of the restaurant neighborhood felt inner-city anyway, so we didn't exactly feel like strolling around. I did realize later that we could have walked through the historic part of town. Note for next time!
Then we looped up and down the road looking for another restaurant, and finally Stacey saw a nice Italian one called P's (all names have been abbreviated to protect identity). It was very nice. They gave us a delightful green oil-based dipping sauce for the bread - I think it had garlic and green pepper seeds and green onions in it. Then we received our salads.
[intermission: Sharon visits the ladies' room and discovers that the toilet is not quite working, fixes it]
My salad had a little piece of plastic in it. I was momentarily shocked but got over it. Then we received our lovely plates of pasta. By this time we'd realized we weren't really hungry at all, but we managed to eat a little. It was definitely very yummy. Our waiter kindly offered to box up our food for us but we declined since we hadn't seen a fridge in our hotel room. I explained to him, "We don't have a refrigerator" but neglected to mention the hotel part. Hopefully he figured that out! He was a very good fellow. He even ran out after us with my sunglasses which I'd left on the seat. I suppose he never had such a pair of inexplicable blondes on his hands, poor guy!
We made it back to the hotel, to find a refrigerator.
I think that's all the failures I have to recount tonight - hotel failure, direction failure, park failure, 2 restaurant failures, appetite failure, etc. etc. ... but we did laugh LOTS! And we just can't wait to see what happens tomorrow!
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