Month: July 2011

About traveling…

I’m a wee bit pissed. My last 4+ trips have been nothing but nightmares, as far as the getting there part goes. I have no idea if this has been brought about by the issues the travel industry has faced in the last couple of years, but it has become too commonplace in my travel experience to not be “the norm” now. This time around, the first leg was marred by JFK having “issues”, which delayed my flight by 2 hours, just enough to miss my connection. The positive, was that Delta rerouted me to a direct flight to Paris and I only arrived 2 hours late. The negative, I got another toiletry bag to add to my growing collection (they couldn’t remove my bag from my original flight and load it onto the reroute).

The way back? Started off decently, was upgraded by Air France to the upstairs deck of the jumbo jet (assuming business class), where there were hot male attendants, larger seats and no one sitting next to me. Arrived at JFK 20 minutes late, but no biggie as they gave me a quick pass for the re-entry line. All’s going well….until my bag is one of the last ones off the plane. I applaud Air France for their fore-thought, given their penchant for being “fashionably late” that they might think to put bags with connections in a section that gets unloaded first. But apparently, being fashionably late is more important than efficient. Which leads me to the actual problem…

My flight was with Delta, my reservation number and flight numbers were Delta. I go to check my bag onto my next flight….Sorry! You need to go to the long Air France line to check your bags through. But wait! They require and hour to get your bags to your Delta connecting flight, so you can’t board unless you can carry your bag through security. What? You have unapproved liquids in your checked bags? Sorry!

They offered to transport me to LaGuardia, where I might have made the last flight out, which would have stranded me at the Atlanta Airport (gotta love MARTA). So, instead, they put me up at a slightly better hotel than Montreal, with an alarm clock set an hour ahead and walls so thin my neighbors kept me up an additional hour with their family movie full of explosions (my flight is still 1.5 hours away and I was up at 4.30).

IF, I have time this afternoon, a phone call will be made to Delta customer service, because that buck passing was bullshit. The Delta guy who passed me off to Air France was smiling at my negative commentary on the whole thing and I should have slammed Delta for the buck passing and gotten his name. All of this shit is ridiculous and there was no reason for the buck passing. I was a Delta patron on a flight being operated by Air France, not an Air France patron.

I honestly don’t know if this is just the universe saying that I shouldn’t travel, or if the industry is just ensuring they don’t get my money. I’m really not keen on it anymore.

France, day 4

My shoulders have finally relaxed, I don’t feel them as much, even though my neck still hurts a bit. So far, I’m adjusting better than the last visit, helps that we don’t sleep in till 12.

My bag still isn’t here, and I only bought one tank top the other day. At this point, it’s a bit wet from all the walking I did. Opted to roam the neighborhood and walk over to the mall. I think I covered about 2-3 miles. I much prefer the sports stores here, even though I was never able to find the other “multiple sport” swim suit from day 1. I did find a surfing swim suit that should accomplish what I need it for…stupid water workouts that require suits to stay in place.

Still nowhere near where I should be on the language front. My sentences are more a jumbled mix than anything meaningful. Oh well, not much I can do, considering the manner in which American schools choose to teach their languages and the fact that I have to undo all of it to learn the way I learned Portuguese and Danish (I’m at the point where I can at least understand what they say to me, even if I can’t respond. With French, I can’t even get to the understand part).

Tomorrow, bag arrives and it’s in-law time. I can’t remember if tomorrow is the pedicure or the facial. Either way, gotta wake up early. 🙂

Freak Trip ’11 France part 2

I have finally arrived. I am going to say that the airline industry is continually convincing me to save my money and not travel abroad. Yesterday’s drama started in the rush to arrive at the airport on time, which resulted in me being overly early….again. I set my updates for 3 hours ahead of time, so I might actually get everything done that I needed to do. Got to the airport, checked the bag in, everything is on-time, till boarding, started with the initial 30 min push back which turned into an hour, then an hour and a half, then we boarded and were told we had another hour. By that point I had talked to 3 agents about switching my flight, opted not to twice because my connecting flight had also been delayed (conflicting stories about AT controller issues and the weather). By the time we were stuck on the plane, I decided to give the last agent a call and see what was up. That news was that I would be stuck at JFK over night because I would miss my plane. Not wanting to take the chance on whether it would be further delayed or cancelled, I opted to switch to a direct flight. All’s good, right? I headed over to the international terminal to get checked-in and try to get my bag taken off the flight to JFK, which apparently failed, despite watching the woman talk to someone about it. I say apparently, because at this point no one has received a call stating my bag is in Paris and half the plane was at the Air France baggage service deck. So, there’s a decent chance my bag is still in Atlanta. I think I’ll have to create a new category for keeping tally, as my trips with connections are 0-3 on baggage arrival while my direct flights are 2-2 on arriving with me….except in this case, which is a bit special given the circumstances. I don’t fault them, but I am getting tired of over-sized Delta SkyTeam shirts and trial size deoderants. But Air France one-upped Delta, they gave me a 100eur/day allowance vs Delta’s $25-50/day.

I didn’t kill anyone, but whatever happened up there was pissing everyone off. Our Pilot was none-too-thrilled due to Atlanta telling us to get the fuck out of our gate and JFK telling them they can’t leave. In de-planing, I almost got security called because I failed to check out, mainly because I was in a hurry to get a seat on another flight. In all, I spent 6 hours at the airport. Normally, I’m ok with that, but only because it involves being at an airport other than my originating port. Reminds me, I need to check my Delta account.

Fun stuff!!!!

So last night, I got it in my head to start working on the entertainment system configuration for my living room. Disconnect the Mini, TV, speakers…everything and hoisted it up on the mantle to see what all I will need, provided I can run cables inside the wall that houses my fireplace. Not an ideal set-up, for now, but once the electrician can get into the attic I’ll have a better idea on what all I can do, but at least I know which basic stuffs I need to get ahead of time and stayed up waaaaaaaaaay too late looking at BestBuy, HomeDepot and Lowes to price out things. Also need to run to RadioShack, as they have decent stuff, too. Main thing is to run a new cable outlet and the HDMI outlet, I’ll deal with the sound system later, as I’m probably going to get a new one, if Pastry can’t bring his when he moves. So far, the really nice thing is that it opens up more floor space. The negative, is that I haven’t gotten the wall mount for my TV, so I can’t sit on the floor and watch movies clearly (gotta sit on the couch instead). Goal is to have this taken care of by September, if it gets cool enough, as the electrician and I both agree, too fucking hot for attic work. 😀

Sooooooo excited!!!!