Como is lovely, but I'm sooooooo disappointed and frankly embarrassed

First - the train ride from Venice was quick and easy.  Again, the train system in Italy (and most of Europe) is so great!  Since it's Friday, the crowds were a little pushier, but still not as bad as it probably was in the summer.  We said goodbye to Venice and began the last leg of our trip - Como.  A five minute taxi ride from the train station put us right at the front door of our hotel and directly across from the boat dock for Como on Lake Como.  This is the view from our balcony (Gratzie, Roberto!!!):

So pretty - you can even see the fall colors firing up!

We walked around for a bit getting our bearings, and then decided to go to the restaurant at the hotel: The Embarcadero.   Tons of good reviews.  The patio overlooks the piazza to the west and the lake to the north.  It was a beautiful evening, and I soon doffed my shawl in favor of the evening air.

A lovely evening...

Our waiter was a delight and loved that we tried our best to speak Italian - even helping us along - he was very funny and sweet.  And we were having a lovely time until this ASS HAT at the next table felt the need to throw a hissy fit because he had a voucher for the restaurant (which he did not have with him) and demanded his three course meal and bottle of wine.  He berated several of the waiters, fussed profusely that the wine he ordered did not have a year on it, bitched that "no one else had ever asked him for a voucher on his trip," and groused to his wife to "take notes: 'the Embarcardero is a piece of shit.'"  

If you know anything about me, you know that I was purple from holding my breath and absolutely in knots from resisting the urge to backhand the everlovin' shit out of this fucktard.  Whilst scurrying waiters did their best to appease this ass wipe, their boss tried his utmost to explain that he must have a voucher to exchange for payment to his company.  Butthead continued to harass the innocents but finally managed to order some dinner.  I heard him ask his cellophane wife, "What the hell is sea bream, anyway...it'd better be good."

He had on a shirt that read "Moby's"  an island pub.  I really wanted to ask if, in fact, he was Moby, because he certainly was a dick.

I noticed that even with all his bullshit bullying, he managed to drink every bit of his wine, slurp down all of his minestrone ("We're in Italy...oooo...minestrone...oooo that's different"), and eat all of his motherfucking sea bream.  

At one point he reached over to his stepford wife, grabbed her shoulder and said, "Can you honestly say that meeting me wasn't the best thing in your life?  I have never thought that you weren't trying your absolute best."  A minute later he said, "Yeah, I've got to watch it, or I'll become the ugly American."  Hey shit stain...you are way past ugly American.  Ugly American is a dot to you.  Yep.  I was seething.  Poor Joe was stretching out his biceps knowing that he might have to defend my kicking the last bit of shit out of this bastard.

I sooooo wanted to apologize to all the waiters for this behavior.  I sooooo wanted to rescue his wife from her bad decision-making.  Fortunately for this worm scum, this fucking worthless waste of space, this human piece of garbage, I finished my delicious dessert and we left before I made a spectacle of myself.

Note to all (and Joe and I are included in this):  Yes, America is a great country, but it's not the only country.  Yes, Americans are loud and proud, but we must choose when to exhibit our innate behavior - say, at a Raiders football game, a NASCAR event, or Saturday night at Hooters.  One of the things I love most about travel is that you get to see what other cultures are like...this evening's exhibition - brought to you by a total snot swipe - was disrespectful and disingenuous to the American culture.  I was ashamed and embarrassed by some cocksplat, and I hope that he wakes up tomorrow, naked, in a back alley with an ass pumped full of minestrone and a bread stick shoved up his nose.

Sigh.  Okay, rant over.  Tomorrow will be a lazy day - unless of course I see that fucking moron on the street somewhere...then my next post may be from jail.