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Rest and Relaxation

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

My wanderings around the state have come to an end, and not a moment too soon. I do enjoy the traveling, but there comes a point when you’re in yet another hotel chain that looks like any other hotel chain (LaQuinta? Fairfield Inn? Hampton Inn? Is there a difference?) when you realize that you simply can’t face one more morning with Faux News blaring in the background over another styrofoam plate and plastic fork breakfast featuring KAW-FEE brand coffee bean product and individually wrapped English Muffins (which are neither English nor muffins. Discuss).

There is the occasional quirkiness to be had. Despite the fact that San Angelo–which only two years ago was proudly putting in all of its tourist literature that it had the highest murder rate west of the Mississippi between 1850 and 1870–is now trying to bill itself as the culture capitol of the Panhandle Plains (a title that is disputed by … well, no one), the town is relatively uninteresting. A tour around town on a Sunday evening revealed a frightening number of businesses with Christian names (such as: Bible Automotive. I’m not kidding.) and a dearth of business actually open to the public. After eating Mexican food from a restaurant that clearly used to be a service station (the food wasn’t bad — Bobby Flay had apparently been there at one point), Natalie and I wound up at Baskin Robbins … along with half the town because, as I may have mentioned, there was nothing else open at 7 pm on a Sunday.

Then there was the unexplained psychedelic van (above) that I stopped to photograph on the way out of town. And this place:

This place practices false advertising: there are no man’s for sale in the man’s shop.

My most recent trip ended a scant three hours ago with a flourish and flutter (literally: the woman sitting next to me apparently cramming for a medical school exam who had refused four requests to put away her book and notes for landing seemed surprised when it all flew up the aisle upon touchdown. That’ll learn her).

We were over in El Paso, the one place in the state that, it is regularly agreed upon, we must fly to. I’ve heard rumors that you can drive it in under eight hours now, with the speed limit on I-10 through west Texas now legally at 80 miles per hour, but I’m more happy to reduce it to an hour and twenty minutes on Southwest Airlines.

I have always liked going to El Paso — in fact, I’ve enjoyed all of our trips to the border area, both in West Texas and down in the Rio Grande Valley (for the uninitiated among you, even though technically El Paso is on the Rio Grande, the term “Rio Grande Valley” seems to only apply to the part between Laredo and Brownsville, on the Gulf of Mexico). We usually get groups that are really energetic and happy to learn, and this was the case with our session yesterday. One of the guys was so enthusiastic that he engaged me in conversation in the men’s room. I am not a particular fan of the conversation-while-I-pee. If you see me in the men’s room, please don’t strike up a conversation until I’m at the sink, OK?

It’s also saying something about the sort of people that Natalie and I are that we kept coming back to the five or so really negative evaluations we collected at the end of the day. There were 68 people in the room–our largest audience ever. The vibe was overwhelmingly positive, but we still kept coming back to those negative ones. I think somehow we just need to validate that the criticism isn’t valid–we’ve gotten unenthusiastic comments before, but this time the people who didn’t like us really didn’t like us, and they weren’t shy about expressing it.

At the end of the day, though, this last trip was a good note to end the late summer training sessions on. We had a new audience, and they seemed to be happy with what we were doing. The people who invited us were effervescent. And then it was off to have a nice drink in the historic Dome Bar in the lobby of our hotel, the historic Hotel Paso del Norte.

And now … I’m home. Next up is a trip to a conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico toward the end of September. Technically it’s work. I just wonder if I can put sunscreen on my expense account

Tags: advertising, airlines, art, Bible, bla, coffee, conference, eating, english, flu, food, Home, ice, khowaga, literature, me, men, mexico, murder, Natalie, news, Photos, press, rain, summer, texas, Travel, work
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And all I got was a pair of Chatty Kathys

Friday, July 31st, 2009

Allow me, if you will, a moment of political incorrectness that nearly every member of the flying public has had at some point or another.

You’ve boarded an aircraft. You’re in your seat, and there is an empty seat next to you. It’s now late in the boarding process, but people are still coming down the aisle with that pensive look that is, frankly, a little mystifying. (Seriously, what’s causing that overly confused look? Are they seriously thinking to themselves, “According to my boarding pass, I’m sitting in row 23. I wonder where that is in relation to row 10? Oh, if only there were some systematic way of ordering rows on airplanes so that I wouldn’t have this problem!”)

Perhaps you have a coveted window seat. Perhaps, like me, you’re a little taller than the average person and so you enjoy a good aisle seat. Aisle seats have a lot of legroom, but if you’re flying on your own–as I frequently am–you have to get up once or twice to let someone by you, so it’s hard to relax until your aisle mates have arrived.

And so … as the plane starts to fill up, you do it. Don’t deny it–you have, too, done it. You start scrutinizing the people walking in–and there’s always that moment of, “Oh, no, please don’t let him/her be sitting here.” Sometimes it’s a mother with an infant in arms that’s already fussing. Sometimes it’s a child traveling on their own.

On a flight to DC several months back, I was next to a woman who was very sweet, but also very large. Although I did enjoy talking with her, when we landed in DC I had a very sore back because I had spent most of the flight leaning toward the aisle out of necessity–it was physically impossible for me to sit upright in my seat because, well, she was occupying part of it.

It’s not her fault — frankly, we as Americans are larger people in both stature and, um, girth–and our airlines seem to be shrinking the size of the average seat. Seriously, have you flown on one of those regional jets? Even I can’t put the tray table down without leaving a red crease across my naval. I have found myself fighting for control of the armrest with skinny people. There is no privacy on an aircraft — the number of businessmen who whip out those laptops and start working on confidential memos — if I’m sitting next to you, kids, I can read every single word on your laptop screen.

However, whatever experiences I’ve had–and you’ve had–here’s one I’m happy to have not had:

Friday, July 31, 2009 10:33 AM

ASSOCIATED PRESS

CAIRO — An official at Cairo’s airport says a foot-long baby crocodile wriggled out of a passenger’s hand luggage and caused panic on a flight from the United Arab Emirates.

A crew member on the EgyptAir flight from Abu Dhabi rounded up the wayward reptile and calmed passengers. The airport security official says the animal was seized and given to the Cairo Zoo.

Transporting exotic animals in and out of the Egypt is illegal, and none of the passengers on today’s flight claimed ownership of the baby croc.

The airport official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.

Where’s Samuel L. Jackson when you need him? Honestly.

So, the next time you find yourself on an aircraft, consider yourself lucky if one of your aisle mates isn’t toting a killer reptile. Or a skunk. Or … well, it’s not like they’d have the room to take it out of their luggage anyway!

Tags: airlines, art, cairo, egypt, Friday, ice, luggage, me, men, press, Ray, SHE, Travel, Will, work
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Notes from 25,000 feet

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Currently on a Turkish Airlines Airbus A320 en route from Istanbul to Izmir, the third largest city in Turkey and a major port along the Aegean coast.

We arrived yesterday afternoon after what was, all things considered, not a bad flight over from Chicago. I’m traveling with a group I put together — Chris from work is along for the ride, along with ten teachers, eight from the Austin area, one from Dallas and one from Houston. Most of us met at the airport in Austin and flew together up to Chicago.

I’ve defended O’Hare on a few occasions, stating outright that I’ve never had any real problems connecting through, and this continued to be the case. This should not be confused with the concept that connecting to international flights at O’Hare is actually easy. The international terminal — Terminal 5 — can only be reached on the airport train, which requires exiting the secure area and going through security once again when you get there.

And frankly, for an international terminal, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. The only source of food is before security, so for those looking at their watches and the long line at the three security lines, it’s a choice between food and wondering if you’ll make your flight on time. It took nearly 45 minutes for us to get through, and to say the TSA folks were rude would be an understatement. I accidentally forgot to empty the water bottle that I carry with me (it’s refillable – I carry it through security empty and then fill it at a water fountain so that I don’t have to pay airport prices for a 12 oz bottle of water to carry on the plane). The guy working security waved it at me.

“Oh, it’s water,” I said. “I’m sorry, just go ahead and dump it out.”
A burly officer with a shaved head who struck me as ex-military came up, snatched it from the other guy, and practically yelled at me, “No, I’m going to take you back through and you can dump it.” He meant it, too. He was willing to let me wait for someone else in the group to come through so that I could leave my stuff with them, but got impatient.

“Where are they?” he snapped.
“They’re still waiting to come through.”
“Well, I’ll just take it out there and give it to one of them to dump,” he said, and stalked off.

Welcome to America, ladies and gents. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Once we got to the gate and checked in with Turkish Airlines, we got another nasty surprise: we were all in middle seats. And the plane was full. I boarded in a bit of dread, but I have to say that if you’re going to get stuck in the middle seat on an 11 hour flight, there are worse places to do it than on a Turkish Airlines A340. They’ve got a little more leg room than most other carriers I’ve flown on (on the plane where I’m sitting at this moment, I could get out to the aisle without bothering either of my aisle mates), and that fun AVOD system where you can while the flight away watching really bad movies on demand (After sleeping most of the way across the Atlantic, I finally chose Confessions of a Shopaholic over Bride Wars). Although flights that long can never be described as “short,” I didn’t spend the last four hours wanting to get off the plane by any means necessary, like I have on some other airlines *coughDeltacough*.

We were met at the airport in Istanbul by some folks from Austin from the organization that’s hosting us — I’d been a bit nervous because I didn’t have any information about that, and so when we walked into the arrivals hall there was a moment of truth, so to speak. Ironically, it turned out that they were getting worried about us, because it took over an hour from the time the plane landed for us to get through the long line for visas, then passport control, and then for the luggage to arrive. “We were starting to wonder if something had happened … ”

We were taken to our hotel in Istanbul, which may be in the old city in the sense that it’s within the old city walls, but there’s nothing particularly old about the neighborhood where the hotel is located. It is, however, on a quiet side street, which I appreciate. We went out for a quick dinner, which lasted exactly as long as I could deal with, then back to the hotel for bed.

We had an early wakeup call, but I woke up early (4:15). I guess jetlag will be with me for a few days, but right now … granted, it’s still 7:45 am … I’m feeling OK. We have a long day in Izmir, visiting Ephesus and Selcuk, and then we’re flying on down the coast to Antalya tonight. At that point, I’ll be ready for a good night’s sleep.

And now, I’m getting the usual warning about putting electronics away as we’re on our descent into Izmir. More later …

Tags: airlines, art, Austin, cat, dinner, ephesus, feet, fes, food, fun, HBO, ice, istanbul, luggage, me, men, military, Movies, rain, stuff, tea, Travel, turkey, Will, work
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The Never-Gonna-Get-There Blues

Tuesday, January 6th, 2009

It’s currently 8:19 pm Austin time, 6:19 pm San Francisco time, and I haven’t got the foggiest idea what time it is in Korea because, as far as I can tell, we’re never actually going to get there.

I’ve been on long flights before, but it never ceases to amaze me how you can zonk out for what feels like hours, have vivid dreams (in my case, accompanied by equally vivid cursing people out–out loud–to the consternation of both my boyfriend and the other passengers, and wake up to discover you’ve been out for about thirty minutes. Ugh.

It has been a long, exhausting couple of days. On Saturday night (jeez, was that only two days ago?), Rodney had us over for a make your own pizza night. We’ve done these in the past; they’re kind of fun. He gets dough from a local Italian restaurant and then everyone gets to make up their own toppings. It’s a nice idea in theory, however, between the overconsumption of pizza with odd and conflicting toppings and my nerves about the trip (yes, I get a little anxious before travel, especially to new parts of the world where I don’t even know how to say “yes” or “no”), I was up half the night. Had my digestive system been an airplane, the flight attendants would have been on the PA making the announcement to “please exit the aircraft through the nearest door.” That started around 2 in the morning and continued in fits and spurts (no pun intended, although perfectly applicable) until around 9.

The panic attack happened around 10 when I began contemplating what would happen if I hadn’t recovered enough to make the trip. Between the, “what if I can’t fly tomorrow because I’m still too sick?” and “dear God what is wrong with me that I’m stressing this much about this trip,” well … I’ve had panic attacks before, and I’ve heard said that people have confused them with heart attacks. This was the first time I ever had one of those kinds of panic attacks. Fortunately, I knew what was happening and was able to take measures accordingly without involving a trip to the emergency room or somesuch. It did, however, involve me sleeping a good chunk of the early afternoon.

Anyway, where this is all going is that it was mid-afternoon before either myself or Ray was ready to begin packing. As the luggage is in the cargo hold, I’m still not convinced we didn’t forget … many things, but we seem to have done all right with the carry ons.

Mom and Dad came to pick us up at 5:30 in the morning — which, because it’s my parents, meant that they came at 5:20. I had these grandiose visions of taking all sorts of artistic shots of the luggage and the tickets splayed out along with out passports and … yeah, no. Flying the first Monday morning — the first work day — after New Year’s is ridiculous. We got to the airport in Austin, and thank God that Dad has earned elite status with United Airlines because if we’d had to go through the main check in line, we might, in fact, still be waiting. The line for security — all three of them — were wrapped around the terminal. By the time we got through security, we stopped-by mutual agreement-long enough to pick up something to eat since none of us had had breakfast, and walked right on the airplane.

Three and a half hours later we were in gray, rainy San Francisco, where we had the fun and excitement of a four hour layover that involved repeated walks up and down the G concourse, where there isn’t much in the way of food that’s inexpensive or particularly fast.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we boarded this here Boeing triple-7 that, according to the Airshow program on my little foldout screen, is currently at 35,000 feet, traveling around 500 miles per hour on a west northwest heading over the Pacific Ocean a good distance south of the Aleutian islands. We’re not even halfway there yet – Korea (nor Japan) hasn’t even come into view on the screen.

I know the best thing for it is to just sit here and tune out everything, and accept that we’ll get there at some point, but there’s no rush. My limit on being able to sit still the entire flight, though, is right around 9-10 hours. This one’s scheduled at 12 and a half.

I wonder if I can score another glass of water off the flight attendant.

Next post from Korea, or bust!

Tags: airlines, art, Austin, blog, feet, food, fun, god, ice, khowaga, luggage, me, men, packing, parents, rain, Ray, sports, stress, Travel, work
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12 of 12: September 2008 (the Hurricane Ike edition)

Saturday, September 13th, 2008

Welcome to the Very Special Hurricane Ike edition of 12 of 12! Not to make fun of what looks like it’s going to be a very serious storm, but Ike has played into my day in more ways than one, as I’ll relate below.

3:45 am: Sadly, this is not a trick photo. I began this 12th in Veracruz, Mexico:

I was in Mexico for a little over a week on business, beginning in Mexico City, then to the colonial city of Puebla, on to the town of Xalapa–capital of the state of Veracruz–and finally to the port city of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico. The temperature moved from the 20s in Mexico City and Puebla, to the high 30s in Veracruz (where the humidity was about 8000%).

The stay in Veracruz was stressful, not least because of the heat, but mostly because of the conflicting reports we were getting about Hurricane Ike. There is only one flight out of Veracruz to the US each day (it leaves at 6:50 am, hence the crack-of-way-before-dawn wakeup shown above), on Continental Airlines to Houston. At a meeting on Tuesday afternoon in Xalapa, it was brought to our attention that Ike was aiming for Houston and that a couple of people from the University that we were meeting with had either postponed or bumped up their travel to the US in order to avoid the hurricane.

On Wednesday evening, I spent 20 minutes on hold with Continental Airlines’ reservations number on Mexico City. Our meeting in Veracruz had fallen through and we were ready, able, and willing to leave on the Thursday flight if there was space. There wasn’t. However, I was told that the storm was scheduled to hit Houston on Saturday morning and that the airline was planning normal ops on Friday, so we should have no problem getting home.

4:15 am: Double checking

On Thursday morning, thus liberated, we did a bit of sightseeing in Veracruz until we couldn’t stand the heat anymore and went back to our hotel. I checked my e-mail (which was only available in the courtyard of the hotel, which was hotter than blue blazes), and then went to my room with the intention of participating in the time honored tradition of taking a siesta. Before I could, however, Natalie knocked at my door, laptop in hand. “The storm sped up,” she said. “Continental is planning to shut down its operations in Houston at noon.”

Over the course of the afternoon, I spent 400 pesos (~$40) recharging my cell phone while we tried to call Continental in Mexico City, but by that point the number was constantly ringing busy. I contacted a coworker in the office, who called the university travel agent, who reported back that the flight out of Veracruz was still scheduled to operate, but that our connecting flight to Austin was looking “iffy.” We went through a number of scenarios, but the only one that involved getting home before Monday was a contingency rental car reservation waiting for us in Houston just in case.

By the evening, our connection was definitely cancelled, and Natalie called her friend Paola to ask her to call the travel agent and tell them to call us in Mexico. Paola is from Buenos Aires, and you don’t argue with a portena. We were rebooked on a 1 pm flight to Austin, which made us both nervous because Continental still had a big notice on its Web site declaring that it was probably going to shut down Houston at noon.

4:40 am: waiting for the airport to open

So, we left our hotel at 4:20 am and headed to Veracruz Airport, keeping our fingers crossed. What would have been nice to know, however, is that the airport doesn’t open for business until at least 5 am. We sat around in the lobby, waiting for the ticket agents to show up (and start working), then had to sit around again waiting for the security agents to show up … and start working.

7:17 am: Sunrise over the Gulf

The flight left on time, and, not having gotten a lot of sleep last night, I napped most of the way to Houston. The flight was rather smooth given the large hurricane out in the Gulf, although it did get a little bumpy toward Houston.

8:40 am: There’s a hurricane out there …

It was sunny in Houston when we landed, although from the air the edges of the storm (as above) were clearly visible.

8:50 am: Ghost Town Airport

Houston airport was a ghost town, hardly the bustling place that it normally is on a Friday morning. We managed to get through US Customs quickly, by which point the luggage from our flight had not only circulated but been pulled off the conveyor. At the recheck point, I asked if there was a chance we might make an earlier flight to Austin, knowing there was one scheduled for 10:10. To our delight, the agent was quite enthusiastic about getting us on the earlier flight, handed us our new boarding passes, re-tagged the luggage, and sent us on our way to the next security checkpoint.

9:33 am: Bad day to fly

10:24 am: Clouds move in

It had been clear when we landed from Veracruz, but an hour and a half later, the first bands of clouds have covered Houston, extending almost halfway to Austin.

10:59 am: Waiting for luggage

And so, earlier than we had originally hoped, we were back in Austin, and once again the luggage was circulating by the time we got to baggage claim.

12:09 pm: Did you miss me?

I have a feeling that the sandwich on my lap had something to do with this…

5:20 pm: Storm clouds

After … well, I’ll be honest: it wasn’t a power nap, so much as trying to make up for the few hours of sleep I got last night. Ray and I went out to remove the light objects from the back yard so that they wouldn’t blow around if the hurricane came out way after making landfall in the middle of the night.

5:20 pm: My shadow

Mocha has been following me around since I got home. I think she might have missed me

We’re keeping our fingers crossed for friends in Houston and Galveston–it looks like it’s gonna be nasty.

Tags: 12 of 12, airlines, art, Austin, bla, blog, class, Friday, friends, fun, heat, Home, ice, khowaga, luggage, me, mexico, Mocha, Natalie, opera, power, Ray, SHE, stress, Travel, university, Will, work
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Tag: ‘airlines’

Rest and Relaxation

And all I got was a pair of Chatty Kathys

Notes from 25,000 feet

The Never-Gonna-Get-There Blues

12 of 12: September 2008 (the Hurricane Ike edition)

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