Update on the trip: 9/26-28

OK, here goes....
As most of you know by now or could probably guess, this trip has hit a formidable snag. After my first day in Venice, I logged on to the Internet to post my first day's blog. I had to pay to use the Internet & that is what began the problems that followed.
The credit card I used to pay for the Internet had a stop payment put on it because my credit card company is run by morons. To call the credit card company, I had to put the phone charge on my second card which prompted THAT company to put a hold on that 2nd card. I didn't find out about that 2nd hold until the following day when, only having 25 euros left, stopped at an ATM to get more cash & was denied. Unfortunately, the phone numbers on the back of my 2nd card were no good & there was no way to contact them while I was in Italy, so that card was officially dead. I had to see if my first card was OK, so I had my hotel put a 1 euro charge on it, and although it went through, it flagged my card AGAIN & my first card was put on hold, AGAIN! So, there I was in Venice with no use of my cards and only 25 euros to my name. I tried calling a few people in the states collect but since you cannot call collect to a mobile phone, I could only call my brother on our land line phone. He was able to calm me down and get me to focus on solving this money problem. Without much spending cash, I was unfortunately unable to eat and eventually went almost 2 days without a bite to eat! I needed the euros I had to get either to the airport or the train station (and I was unsure if I even had enough to do that!).
Using collect calling, I got a hold of my 1st credit card company and got that card activated again, but was told that one more time & the card would be cancelled & reissued without me having a say in it. To make matters worse, I found out Sunday night that for some reason, I could no longer call my brother collect anymore & was on my own again. LOVE the Venice calling system. The international operator was of no help whatsoever & would not connect me to toll free numbers & I had no service at all on my cell phone.
So I made a decision & it was a hard one to make - I had to try & fly home, take care of my cards and try and fly back in time for the Rome leg of this trip. Luckily, my card was not flagged a 3rd time & I was able to buy a ticket & fly back to LA today. I now have 4 days to get everything in order before I take off this Sat for Rome. It sucks to have to skip Florence, but I would have been screwed if I had used all my remaining cash to get to Florence, had my 1st card cancelled in the process and had nowhere to stay if I couldn't charge the B&B to my card. Even with $$ wired to me, it wouldn't have gotten to me until Tuesday and that would have made almost 4 days without food, so that would have been fun. I also needed cash for the Rome leg to get the apartment.
So this ends a jumbled update. I am currently, as I write this back in my apartment in LA and getting ready to open fire on my credit card companies tomorrow. What fun! The good news is that I am OK & if everything goes well, I should be able to get things taken care of in time to get to Rome this weekend.