Please charge me more

I have just returned from a business trip to New Orleans … it’s still hot, humid, seedy (at least Bourbon Street) and rich in culture (food, architecture, and history), but that’s not my purpose here.

I flew US Airways and they have already instituted changes in how they operate and by operate, I mean that they are nickel-and-diming fliers now.  I am an elite member with United, a Star Alliance member, so I enjoy perks and privileges like selecting my seat assignments … until now.  It’s $5-10 to do so now.  Yes, this is not a lot of money, but it is the principle.  Charge me a true dollar amount for my ticket that covers everything … check baggage, snacks, air, lavatory, seat belt, arm rest, use of the jet bridge.  Okay, some of this is an exaggeration, but it may just be a matter of time before we have to pay for these “amenities.”

Perhaps, most shocking about my trip, was how many passengers actually purchased snacks.  Way to go in letting the airlines know how unhappy you are with being nickel-and-dimed!  I would rather dehydrate than pay $2 for what is probably tap water!

Airline executives, stop nickel-and-diming me and just charge me a fair fare.  I don’t care if you make a nice profit, I do care if I feel as if I am “taxed” to death.  I thought we had a revolution about that 232 years ago!

Visiting the Vienna Woods

While in Vienna, we took a tour operated by Vienna Sightseeing Tours that’s called Vienna Woods.  This was a most interesting tour just outside of Vienna.  So on this tour, we visit an old hunting lodge, an abbey, and the largest subterranean lake in Europe.

In route to the old Mayerling hunting lodge, which is now a chapel, we passed through the picturesque and culturally rich Baden.  The hunting lodge is dedicated to the Crown Prince Rudolph and Baronesse Vetsera.  There’s a lot of history about these two … like how did they die.  Was it suicide or murder.

The Cistercian Abbey of Heiligenkreuz was absolutely incredible and well worth the visit.  The abbey dates back to 1133.  If history appeals to you, you want to visit the abbey.  Like so much of the historical sites of Austria, the abbey helps connect the history between Austria and Hungary.

After the abbey, we make our way to the Seegrotte, the largest subterranean lake in Europe.  This subterranean lake is like a massive air conditioner and it too has a rich history, particularly, it’s use by the Germans, during World War II, to build machinery for the war effort.

The Seegrotte ends our tour and on our way back to Vienna, we get a treat and drive by an old Hapsburg castle.

Fortunately, for this tour we had an excellent tour guide.

Airline ad agencies … are they pinheads?

I recently returned from my summer holiday in Eastern Europe and now I am on my way to New Orleans for a business trip.  Between these two trips much is changing in the airline industry … some of which has many fellow travelers threatening to figuratively storm the corporate boardrooms with torches and pitchforks in hand.  I ask my fellow travelers, “what’s the matter with you?  why do you want to harass and pick on the airline industry?”

To all the US airline carriers, I want to say, “I stand with you and the appreciate the great services that you provide in the face of all your financial woes.”

I remember many years ago, during one of the many airline industry crises, (by the way, these crises are never the airline’s fault, our government, instead of bailing them out, should just subsidize them all the time … more so than they already do) the airlines stop serving food.  Hey, all of you naysayers, that was a good idea.  If I recall, most passengers complained about airplane food anyway.  “Oh, airplane food doesn’t taste good.  It’s over/under cooked.  I think that food made me sick.”  Then, there’s the sanitary conditions.  So, look the airlines did us a favor by not feeding us anymore.  Besides, who wants those tasty meals that the Europeans serve anyway?

The airlines are about to do us another favor … no more snacks or beverages (unless you want to buy them).  We don’t need all those snacks.  We have an obesity problem in the United States anyway.  The airlines are just trying to contribute to a more fit population, besides, there no place to exercise on a plane so you are just storing all those calories as fat … and that contributes to the weight of the plane and fuel cost and your flight discomfort (trying to fit in to those every comfortable seats).

Now, this one, I really do not understand the uproar.  $15 or $50 for a second checked bag sounds reasonable to me.  All those extra bags just make the plane heavier and feul inefficient.  If we cared about the economy we would be more wasteful and only care the bare minimal and buy everything else once we reach our destination.  That would be a real shot in the arm for the economic.  Think about those poor underpaid baggage handlers who always take special care not to damage our bags.  With fewer bags, they will no doubt do an even better job.

Some unreasonable people may accuse the airline industry of nickel-and-diming us to death, but I say baloney.  Food and bags are non-essentials for traveling.  The only thing that you ticket promises is arrival to your destination, which the airlines always do … maybe a couple of days later, but you generally get where you need to go.  For example, when you go to the movies (another great bargain), you have to buy popcorn and soda separately.  Same principle.

In fact, we have been cheating the airlines for quite some time.  They are due their just reward.

Kudos to the ad agencies for managing this public relation nightmare with such competence.  They deserve ever nickel and dime that they receive.  Anything more would be cheating the airlines.

Salzburg brandy … hmm

One of the things that I like most about traveling is learning something new.  I always thought that the Austrians were known mostly for their beer.  I must say that I was a little indignant when asked for a local Austrian beer and the server brought me a Budweiser.  I thought what the hell!  I don’t even drink Budweiser at home.  I am really a wine drinking, but I like beer too, but if I am going to drink beer it better be good stout beer.  Well, as it happens to be, this Budweiser is a local beer and it was good.  Not as strong as some German beers that I had in Frankfurt, but not American beer either.  So, this was lesson one.

During our trip to Salzburg, I had no idea what to expect in terms of alcoholic drinks … other than beer.  Well, to my surprise, during our city tour, I learned that brandy is big in Salzburg … at least that’s what the residents told us.  I am such a skeptic, they are probably laughing at me right now, saying that “Dumb American.”  I don’t really think that and so what … that brandy is really good!  It’s apricot brandy and very smooth.  Actually, that’s bad because you tend to drink too much!  So, I learned at least two things on my Salzburg trip.  Actually, three, their wine is not too bad either.

Vienna night life … street performers

One of the things that we like most about most European cities is that they are walking friendly … not necessarily pedestrian friendly.  Some drivers are totally nuts, i.e., crazy!

Typically after dinner, we like to walk around.  Vienna was perfect for this … I still wonder how European women are able to walk on those cobblestone streets, especially in high heel shoes.

Not only is Vienna ideal for walking, but like many other European cities, the street performers come out at night to perform.  Lets just say that not all street performers are created equal.  Some are good and some are really bad … too bad for street and free performing.

What’s funny, while we were in Vienna this past July 2008, there was a Canadian performer from Montreal … he was in the not so good category.  Even when the street performers are not even good, it is still entertaining to watch.

I don’t mind to tip, if you are working to try to entertain me.

English anyone?

One of the joys of being English speaking is that we can almost travel anywhere and expect to find the local people fluent to some extent in English.  The summer of 2008, we visited Austria, the Czech Republic, and Hungary and had not issues talking with people (well, actually we had a little communication problems, but nothing major).

Now, we were not just whisking off to Europe as solely English speaking, between the two of us, we speak some German and a little French and Spanish.

We ate in small mom and pop restaurants and we ate in gourmet 4 star restaurant in all three countries and had little to no problem order food.  Riding the trains were a little more complicated especially en route to Prague and Hungary … English was scarce.  A couple of tour companies also sparsely spoke English.  All the tour guides spoke English quite well.  Of course, all the hotels had fluent English speakers.

Despite the criticism of being arrogant, because we speak English in non-English speaking countries, I remember (actually, I was not born) that prior to English, there was another international language … French.  We have hundreds of dialects throughout the world and dozens of major languages.  It makes sense that we have an unifying language, and right now, it is English, but lets not get too arrogant … there have been other standard languages in the past.  By the way, who speaks Latin these days?

My ugly American moment in Vienna

To start, we had a wonderful time in Vienna July 2008 and made good use of Europe’s rail system.  Earlier during our stay in Vienna, we took the train from Vienna to Salzburg and back without incident.  It was efficient and comfortable.

Now, my ugly American moment.  A couple of days later, we were traveling by rail from Vienna to Prague and had a direct train, which, of course, would make periodic stops.  We were supposed to depart Vienna at 10:04 am and arrive in Prague later that afternoon.  We were getting to Prague in plenty of time for our 5:30 walking tour of Prague Castle.

Well, my excellent planning, did not pan out so well … we missed our train, probably by minutes and here’s why.  The previous night, I packed all our bags (3), leaving out only toiletries.  We get up a little late and have breakfast, a little longer than we should have.  Then we take a walk around the block to help digest breakfast, probably shouldn’t have.  We go back to our room and get ready.  I’m getting concerned about time now, since we had planned to take the metro and the tram to the train station.  We finally leave the hotel around 9:20.  I’m debating should we take a taxi.  We finally reach the metro station with our 3 bags.  It’s the weekend, so trains run slower, but not slow.  We reach the end of the metro line and I have to ask directions for taking the tram, which is right across from the Opera House … not too far from the metro line.  We now have about 15 minutes before 10:04.  So, I am thinking we are not going to make it.  We reach the train station and didn’t know where to go.  There were no escalators, so, we had to drag heavy bags up steps.  We finally reach the correct platform.  I’m thinking we have missed our train.  And, we had!

I explode and throw my bags on the ground … and may have used an expletive or too and may have given an old lady looking at me the evil eye.  Of course, missing our train was no one’s fault, but ours.  I am still fuming mad!  I ask staff at the station how we would get to Prague now that we missed our train.  We could take a direct train much later and miss our Prague tour or we could change trains 2 times and get to Prague by 4 or 4:30.  We took option two.  I was also irritated because we had paid for first class tickets and had reserved seats for the long journey, but the first couple of trains had no first class compartment.

We finally arrive at the border station, Breclav, where we would take a train direct to Prague.  This train had a first class coach.  Of course, we boarded in the middle and walked all the way to the opposite end of train looking for first class.  We had to trace all the way through the second class coaches before finding first class, but we finally did.

In closing, we eventually reached Prague, checked into our hotel, and enjoyed our walking tour.  The lesson in this story, European trains run on time, so get to the station on time.