Couch Surfing September 20, 2007

Maybe I’ve just had some bad experiences with strangers in the past, but it’s not clear that I would welcome a complete and total stranger to stay on my couch. A stranger is one thing. I don’t mind strangers in limited quantity. Sooner or later they’re not strangers anymore and are friends instead, but that’s often “later” rather than “sooner” and sometimes for good reason. A known-quantity houseguest is another matter. You can plan ahead that they’re coming, know their habits, and never invite them in the first place if you have the foresight that it just won’t work out. Combining the notions of strangers and houseguests just seems like a bad idea.

Staying on strangers’ couches, “couch surfing”, is the premise of a website (as well as an NYT article) that must be meant for a younger generation than I. Being a part of this couch-surfing community means accepting some rules: not staying out until all hours, being a gracious guest, enjoying rather than taking advantage of your host’s company. Even with these rules in place, I know that I would end up with at least one guest who pushed the boundaries of what I feel is acceptable behavior for a houseguest, especially a houseguest/stranger.  But I think in this case one bad egg ruins the experience.

I also know that if I were to stay on a complete stranger’s couch and be expected to join them in their planned-fun-activities, something would go wrong. I don’t know what, but something.  Again, it only takes one bad experience to spoil the whole thing, and it just seems too likely to me that I would get that.  I guess my overly cautious persona means that I won’t get to see or do some set of things in life, but I’ll learn to accept that, and I’ll do other things in their place.

Seating Moo-pinions September 19, 2007

In the news today I noticed that Southwest Airlines is changing their A-B-C cattlecall boarding structure. Rather than have people lying on the floors, their backpacks strewn all over the place, passengers will each be assigned a number within an A-B-C boarding group, based on their relative check-in times.

I see a few weird things about this process. First, how is assigning people a number within a group (A-B-C) any better than just assigning people a number from 1 to the total number of passengers? Is this in place because the setup is already built in (three lanes) at Southwest gates? Second, Southwest is apparently taking this stance rather than traditional assigned seats because there are passengers who actually like the cattle call setup. I don’t personally see how the cattle call setup is at all beneficial. It means I have to race to check-in at midnight the day before the flight in order to assure that I’m not sitting in a middle seat. Rather, I feel that I should get seating privelege not because I stayed up late or arrived early to check-in, but because I bought my ticket in advance and helped them fill the plane’s seats early.

I also feel that if I book a flight with a travel companion that we should be guaranteed to sit together, not forced to each sit in a middle seat across the plane from one another because a solo-traveler was quicker to check-in; when booking a long flight, I will bypass a somewhat cheaper flight for another because the first is mostly full with no seats together (this case tends to be rare for me) and on the other there is room for me to sit with my companion.

Finally, I just don’t see how the cattle call arrangement, or this deviation, is monetarily beneficial to Southwest. While there may be a few people who enjoy the race to be in Group A, I can’t imagine it makes or breaks their decision to fly Southwest. But maybe that’s the moral: since seating probably won’t break my decision to fly Southwest either way, why do I care what their policy is as long as their prices remain relatively low. Will their prices remain relatively low, though, if they keep spending valuable executive dollars and resources on potentially unnecessary decisions like seating arrangements? Will any of it even make a difference? Is this just a bold PR move? That is to be seen!

Fly Away Free September 14, 2007

Continental Airlines has a contest (monthly, it seems) at www.continentalflyaway.com. Just drop off your name and address and you’re entered. The prize this month is a trip for two to China. China, you say?! Well, Hong Kong. And four nights’ accomodation. One of these days I’ll get mine, I’m sure!

Speaking of Continental Airlines, this week they were featured on Top Chef (with guest judge Anthony Bourdain — yay!) where I thought they really made themselves look good.  The flight attendants were all very complimentary of the chefs’ work, and the people in business class looked especially comfortable… makes me want to fly more often, but only in business class.  I was especially jealous when the winner (no spoilers here!) took away two free plane tickets, business class, to anywhere in the world. That’s right. Anywhere. Berlin? okay. Brazil? okay. Bangkok? okay. Beijing? okay. I hope she uses it to go to the most expensive and awesome destination she can find (oops… she… giveaway).

Overplanning the Overplanned September 13, 2007

It’s not long before we leave for the Caribbean! It does always seem, however, that the days get longer and become uncountably many as vacations approach. I’ve found that I’m spending of my more mundane moments at work daydreaming about not only how pretty the beaches are and what it will be like to just lay on them mindlessly, but also of what the inside of my suitcase is going to look like, packed. Since we bought the flipper/snorkel sets, I have dedicated what might amount to hours figuring out how they will fit into my suitcase or if they should become carry-ons. Questions like this one plague me endlessly even though I know that once I actually start packing they will resolve themselves within minutes.

When I’m not dedicated to my packing list or dreaming of how I will reposition myself for ultimate sun exposure I’m obsessing over where and what we’re going to eat. I’ve said before that after a few days I get sick of dining out, so I’m trying to come to a reasonable conclusion about all the facets of what I can only think of as island food. I’m very excited to be having conch fritters at some point. But how many times will I eat conch fritters? And where on the island is the best place for conch fritters? Certainly I don’t want my first conch-experience to be mediocre! Should I also have a conch salad or conch sandwich? Is it too much conch for one week? What are my other options? I’ve turned to the Fodor’s Caribbean website to help me answer these questions.

When we went to Rome I used the Fodor’s Europe website to answer many of my Roman-related questions. Since my questions aren’t exactly novel, I don’t post, I just snoop off of what other people have asked and answered. For our trip to Rome we made a short list of must-eat restaurants based on recommendations, and I don’t think we actually ate at a single one of them. So do I bother making a similar list for St Thomas and St John? There are far fewer restaurants to choose from on the islands, and part of me imagines that the bad ones would go out of business eventually, leaving behind only the yummier digs. Plus, something we learned in Rome, people are exceptionally willing to send you to their favorite restaurant once you actually arrive at your destination, so maybe there is no need for preplanning. Or overplanning.

Finally, our timeshare/hotel has a kitchenette, so part of the plan is to drop by the Kmart on the island in our Jeep to pick up cereal and other basics for the week. I’m quite excited about seeing an Island Kmart, mostly because they purportedly sell liquor. Rum is only $4 per bottle. I’ve never thought of Kmart as a purveyor of anything but cheap toys and housewares, and certainly they have never in my mind sold liquor! It will be a photo for the scrapbooks.

It’s fun to think about travel, almost as much as it is to actually travel, and I know when we return I’ll start (over)planning our next vacation. Until then, I’ll be daydreaming more and more of my days away and overplanning this upcoming, but still too far-off, vacation. Which law of physics is it that makes vacations seem farthest away when they’re so close!

Two Gets One September 12, 2007

Just a piece of news of note: Southwest Airlines has a deal going on this month where buying two round-trip tickets gets you one free. It’s easy with only a few restrictions, for example the two purchased tickets must each be 1250 miles between origin and destination (boo, too far!).  But to sweeten the pot, you can take the deal twice, purchasing four round-trip tickets, and combine the two earned flights to get yourself to Hawaii and back. This is a Great Deal. The only drawback is that you have to have flown your two purchased flights by November 15. That’s a lot of vacationing to do in just two months!

Eat in, Dine out September 10, 2007

Producing a painful quandary for me, one of my favorite and least favorite parts of travel is eating. I adore eating new foods in new places, trying new flavors, spending time in strange restaurants. I’ll never forget being in Cancun when I was 12, eating outdoors on the deck of a restaurant where the waiters spoke no English. The Cokes were $2 each, a lot back then, and I don’t remember what I ate, but the atmosphere sticks with me still. In Rome last March, each of the restaurants struck a different, delicious chord with me. Buona, buona! In Tucson when I was 15 we ate at a Carl’s Jr, which was a total novelty to me. Then as we left the parking lot, we drove the wrong way down a one way, four-lane street, four semitrucks driving toward us, one in each lane. In San Francisco last year, I had delicous Greek food at a friend’s favorite restaurant.

But traveling to strange, new places where family doesn’t live also means dining out all the time. Tuesday we eat out, Wednesday we eat out, Thursday we eat out, and by Friday I’m ready to sit on my own couch with a bag of potato chips. It’s not just the cost, although three meals a day can quickly add up. It’s the stress. The stress of finding the best restaurant in the area so you don’t miss out on any of your travel experience. The stress of getting there before they get too crowded or close. The stress of being done with dinner in time to make it to the evening’s other events. The stress of a week not sitting quietly in my pajamas on my couch being a downright lazy bum with a bag of potato chips and a plate of leftovers.

There is the question of what to do with leftovers, but many places now are including a fridge or use thereof in the room rental, so as long as you like cold leftovers, you’re set (unless you’re lucky enough to have a microwave). Plenty of travelers make it to the local grocery store, which is a great venue in which to get to know an area. You can see how the locals shop and eat, experience the atmosphere, and buy tasty treats. But the downside to both of the previous options is that then you’re probably stuck eating in your hotel room or condo, which can be a bit of a bummer, especially if you just spent thousands of dollars to get to an outstanding destination. You could eat lunch in a public park, but maybe not a late dinner. Similarly, afternoon snacking, while awesome, could create the problem where you have to eat dinner before you’re ready. Otherwise, the restaurants might close, and you might wake up at 3am hungry with no peanutbutter in the pantry.

Dining out for weeks at a time can be stressful, and there are ways to eat in when dining out becomes too much, but for the most part I’ve accepted it as a natural part of travel. I’ll take the added stress if it means I can go home with one more cultural experience, an evening with a strange, colorful waiter, odd restaurant-goers, or a giant plate of yummy food in my tummy. It’s just one more thing to consider in planning, and I remind myself that I can sit on my couch every day for a month when I get home, bag of chips in hand.

Earning to Fly September 9, 2007

Collecting frequent flyer miles became a hobby of mine two years ago when I started flying for business. My job requires only minimal travel, and because of my employer, I’m required to take different airlines depending on the city pair, making it nearly impossible to build up all of my miles on a single airline. So, I opened three frequent flyer accounts: Continental, American Airlines, and United. Because of their partnerships, registering with this trio covers registration with almost all of the major airlines. For example, if one were to fly Delta, she could funnel those miles into her Continental fund. Similarly, USAir pairs with United. Qantas, Hawaiian Air, and British Airways each partner with American. I have Southwest points, too, but I rarely fly Southwest, so I often forget about them.

Airlines also partner with hotels, car rental agencies, and other businesses to help you earn miles. It simply requires asking the car rental agent or hotel clerk if you can earn miles for your stay. They take your flyer number, and you’re on your way. You can find out in advance on the airline’s website who their partners are and current special deals. Earning 50 miles here and 200 there can become a full-time hobby if you’re OCD like me! Check the airline website often for new deals; you might find something you were going to do anyway. For example, the subscription to Netflix I was about to make in June earned me a huge 2000 miles with the click of a button.

By far the best racket, though, is airline credit cards. They’re all backed by financial instutions like CitiCards and Chase Bank, so these aren’t your crumby Target Card. The interest rates, however, tend to be high, so if you don’t pay it off regularly, it may be worth your while to find a card better suited to your needs. The standard reward-earning for each card, with the exception of infrequent promotions, is one mile per each dollar spent. On its own, a credit card is not the easiest way to earn a free ticket, but in rounding out the last few hundred miles for a ticket, it’s a good bet — assuming you were going to spend the money anyway! Another benefit is sometimes-discounts on a ticket or on miles-cost for ticket purchasing when the airline’s card is used at its website.

If you’re going to get one of these cards, the best time to get one is when the airline is having “specials”. The deals usually come with 15000-25000 free or close-to-free miles, as well as waiving the first annual fee. If you don’t like the current deal, wait a month and another will appear. I maintain, although opinions vary, that an airline credit card should be one’s secondary, and not primary, credit card. Because of their annual fees, it’s nice to not have to rely on the card and be able to cancel the card when the fee is levied (usually the second or third year). Then you can reinstate the card at a future date when another good deal comes around, perhaps winning another 20000 miles if lucky.

Spending miles is another tricky subject. Because each mile is worth approximately a penny in the airline’s mind, using, for example, 25000 miles to buy any ticket under $250 is arguably a waste. If you have 25000 miles, you will often have enough miles to get a state-state ticket in the US. The catch is that there are only a limited number of these tickets allocated per flight or per day, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. So in order to snag a deal like this, tickets often have to be booked long before their date or booked for an off peak time. When I consider booking my tickets with miles, I look at only at the mile-saver fare, although I can understand why one might need to use the regular-miles fare at times. If I’m going to use my miles, however, I want to get the most value out of them that I can, or else I should just keep collecting them until I can squeeze more value out of them. For 50000 miles, I could find my way to Europe, a ticket that I could probably afford (at $750 per ticket) by saving dedicated-money for a while. But for around 60000 miles I could go to Japan, a place I might have trouble affording on my own (at $1400 per ticket). Similarly, I do not underestimate the value of the estimated 14000 miles I would acquire going to Japan, compared to only 8000 going to Europe.

Finally, when acquiring miles as it was initially intended, through flying, if you have the time and patience to make a short connection rather than take a direct flight, you can often eke out another 200-400 miles from the trip. It doesn’t seem like much, but just like the hotels, rental cars, and other special features, it adds up. You simply have to take the time, have a goal… and maybe have a touch of OCD.

Washington’s Autumn September 8, 2007

Another of my entries to the Conde Nast Traveler contest (taken Nov 06):

Autumn is the perfect time to visit DC with the leaves breezily dancing over the sidewalks, the thinned crowds making the monuments feel very private. Walking around in a fall jacket, the subtle nip in the air indicates how quiet the area will be once winter actually sets in. As the leaves fall from the trees, the surroundings change again, but the monuments remain unaltered. We see the everlasting history of this great city and the very mutable future that can be ours with a dream.

Labor Day: Part 2 September 3, 2007

We found a big, fat history lesson in Colonial Williamsburg. If only history class had been interactive like this, I might have actually learned something or gotten good grades. Aside from the steep price, it was a pretty fun experience.

Something I found really fascinating is that Colonial Williamsburg hires people who actually have the “ye olde” professions. I have, in the past, wondered what people who major in professional harpsichord-making would do for a living. Now I know. What about the people who want to make guns old-school-style or leather shoes and saddles? They’re also at Colonial Williamsburg. What about wigs made by hand? Yep. Did you study “ye olde” printing pressing? Were you a colonial jailer in your past life? You’ve got a job! And the people who like American history, answering questions, and interacting with strangers? They’re there, too.

Colonial Williasmburg rents costumes for the day, and I was suprised to see how many people (children, mostly) take advantage of this. The best image we saw, barely captured on film, was a set of four girls, each about eight years old, all four in their “ye olde” dresses and neon-colored Crocs shoes. Other interesting things I got to see for the first time were two oxen and a unicorn. The oxen reminded me of the Oregon Trail videogame from my childhood, and the unicorn might have just been a white plow horse, but I didn’t see his head, so I suspect? Unicorn!

The people of Williamsburg reenacted their part of the Revolution. We got to see George Washington, live and in person! My only disappointments were that I didn’t see a single person making candles or soap, and the blacksmith wasn’t currently smithing. Otherwise, it was a pretty good day. We ate at Cracker Barrel on the way back home because I think on the Virginia highway? You probably have to. There just aren’t enough quick-stop sushi bars.

Labor Day: Part 1 September 3, 2007

Labor Day is an American Tradition.  On Labor Day, much like Memorial Day, millions of Americans are expected to pack up their stuff and sit in traffic for hours upon hours in order to get to a destination, like the beach, that they will only stay in for a few days.

I do, however, love last-minute trips, so we decided to spend Labor Day weekend in Virginia at Colonial Williamsburg. Since I can only handle so much American history in a weekend, we realized we would have to find another activity, too. But since we were already behind all the other Labor Day vacationers in planning, first thing’s first: reserve a hotel for Saturday night. After searching for a while, we realized that there wasn’t much left on the cheap except the Ramada in Hampden, VA, about 2o minutes from Williamsburg. That’s cool. Given our placement in Hampden, VA, it was obvious that we should go to the beach. Virginia Beach.  About 35 more miles away.  We could have dinner there, see the area, and get up early the next morning for our history lesson in Williamsburg.

We hopped in the car around noon on Saturday hoping to miss traffic that late in the day, and we mostly did except for a few rough patches. We got to the Ramada around 4pm, dropped our stuff off in a mildew-smelling room. We didn’t feel like arguing because it was already late in the day and the clerk was inundated with problems (read: other guests) of her own. So we booked it out of there immediately, hoping not to return until it was well past bedtime. Then, it took us an hour to drive three miles to the Norfolk tunnel. An hour after that, around 6:30, we were in Virginia Beach parking the car for $7 in municipal parking. I should mention that I was also going to ask the Ramada people for advice on where to park or what to see at the beach, but they were in the middle of an arguments about important things like who owed whom money and where replacement irons were kept (both guest v. hotel). It was a classy joint.

The first striking thing I noticed about Virginia Beach was the smell: the overwhelming smell of dead fish. It was not pleasant, and I quietly hoped that I wasn’t the only one who could smell it. The beach actually looked pretty pleasant, had soft sand, and the people had mostly cleared off of it for the day. The sun was setting, and it was getting chilly out. My second important observation about the area was that every person in a sweatshirt was wearing one that said “Virginia Beach” on it. There must be quite a market for those. It seemed like a club that I could only join as a complete poseur. The third thing I noticed was that, aside from a Dairy Queen, there was no boardwalk food. Where oh where was the fried… anything?! Ocean City is more indulgent than this, and dare I say nicer, too, and Ocean City ain’t nicer than much!

It turned out that all of the shops and “food” were on Atlantic Ave, off of the boardwalk. But there was no food. There were bars and raw bars and icecream stands, and two pizza joints, but only one stinky arcade and absolutely no fried beach-food. What kind of a beach is this? Don’t these people snack? There were all sorts of haunted houses, fun houses, and “amazing carnival” stuff, but no fried beach-food! I was ready to go, the dead fish smell totally grossing me out. But hunger and our want for adventure dictated we find food or die trying. So after finding the crappiest (but only) fried-food stand ever and trying their (purported last serving of) fried clamstrips, we went to a raw bar.

The bartender was drunk and still drinking. It was only 9pm. We ordered broiled shrimp that were flavorless and crab dip that was okay. And beer. That was it for us. Kind of sucked. At least the Red Sox were on tv and ahead, although the bartender took them off the tv in front of me in order to put on football that no one was watching. I complained, but he was drunk and just pointed to another tv behind me. So we left, got pretty good frozen custard, hopped back in the car and left. If only there had been more arcades. The drive back took about an hour total, and we were at the hotel by 11. So much for a late night! Maybe I’m a bit of a princess, but I spent most of the night tossing and turning thinking that there were bedbugs or cockroaches in this mildew-smelling room. I got up at 7, completely unrested.

We checked out at 8 where the clerk asked if everything had been okay. I said “the room smelled like mildew, but otherwise I guess it was okay”. She said, “that’s nice”. I could have said “My boyfriend got eaten by something that came out of the toilet.” She totally didn’t care. The complimentary breakfast, however, was better than expected and therefore crowded. They had lots of cereal and bread-things and even had a waffle maker. Then, a strange event: the same lady from check-in the day before who had been arguing about the iron tried to seat her friend in my chair across from Numero Uno. When we said “hey”, she said, “oh, I didn’t see you there”, as if to either my purse or Numero Uno or maybe just the space in between them. So we scratched our heads, ate some more, and left for Williamsburg.