travel

I feel a strange compulsion to post today, but I have nothing to say.

I started to leave it at that, but things are starting to come to me. Random thoughts, as usual. We were supposed to go to New Orleans to visit friends next month-- next month is November, as a reminder, in case you, like me, are surprised at how incredibly quickly this year has passed-- but hotels were just too expensive that weekend, and for no reason that I could find. We have other friends who regularly go to Saints games and always get the Sheraton on Canal for $65 a night on Priceline, but we couldn't get anything for less than $120 a night. When you throw in New Orleans's outrageous parking fees (sometimes as much as $30 a day) it became ridiculous.

So we're postponing. I would say "until the spring" only we have decided to take our Italian vacation in April. Venice, Florence, Rome, and the Amalfi coast, 14 days in glorious springtime in Italy. I've already seriously begun to plan, and we applied for a new credit card last night.

We applied for the Chase Sapphire card because of the great things we've heard and read about their live "concierge" customer service. A lost or stolen card in Italy requires me to be on the phone with a real American person directly, not redirected to India or sitting through a recording and hold music. It's only available to folks with credit scores higher than 750. Because the only credit card I ever had was  one that belonged to my dad but was in my name throughout high school and college, I have superb credit. People take their credit scores for granted, but mine has allowed me to buy several things interest free (couch, washing machine and dryer, etc.) as well as get a really low interest rate on both my mortgage and my car (used, of course. Suckers buy new). Because we're tight-fisted and, frankly, anal about our finances, my credit has remained high through the years though I haven't actually used it to my advantage in a while. So hopefully they come back with a decent APR-- we'll never carry a balance, but I like to be wanted and appreciated.

Back to work. Oh, lunch first.