I'm apparently not very good at this whole having a blog business. I didn't realize there were comments on any of my posts. Maybe I should investigate some notifications or something. Oops.
We're now sitting back in Toronto, right across the hall from where I started this blog 3 weeks ago and once again we weren't even supposed to be in Toronto. The flights we had booked were Rome - Newark - Denver - Saskatoon. But when we checked in at the desk in Rome we were told we'd now be flying Rome - Newark - Toronto - Saskatoon. This time the eff up by United / Continental (same airline now as they're currently merging) worked out in our favor though. Not only do we arrive in Saskatoon 10 minutes earlier, but we got to clear customs here in Toronto instead of having to do it in Saskatoon where the agents are generally grouchy and slow.
This comes at a cost though, Continental managed to mangle one of our bags. It was a small carry-on style one that we checked and really isn't made to be carried through an airport, and especially not when it is filled with wine. I think when the customs agent in Toronto saw me carrying this awkward bag up to her desk she took pity on us and let us slip through with one too many bottles of wine.
We'll be boarding our final flight home soon. See you all shortly.
-Ryan
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
The Island
The city of Rome is just outside the walls of our hotel property, but the hotel itself does not seem to belong to the city. I shouldn’t be surprised that this hotel is a little sanctuary of North America in the middle of Italy, nor is that a bad thing after 3 weeks of traveling, its just a bit strange to walk off a crowded Roman bus into a spacious, quiet hotel where the vast majority of people seem to be native English speakers.
The place has actually been great. Indoor pool, saunas, Turkish baths, restaurants and bars. They’ve also been very accommodating to tourists. They have shuttles to the major attractions and provided us right away with a good map of the city and information on how to find the hotel on public transit.
Our time here has been fairly well spent. Our first day we did a quick tour of the city and saw some of the major highlights (many of which we’ll end up looking up to see exactly what all our picture are actually of). There is a children’s book here that I might have to pick up before I go home. It has pictures of how buildings currently look (ie, 3 standing pillars and a few scattered bits of wall) with a plastic overlay of how the place probably looked hundreds of years ago. I think I’ve picked this book up at about 15 different locations across the city. Maybe I should have had Mel making a photo diary of all the places in Rome I read children’s books.
Our second day was scheduled to be a tour out to Pompeii, but I think we’ll have to settle for Google street view on that one as we woke up feeling terrible and decided to sleep in, do some shopping, and make use of the hotels spa area instead, which brings me to the one bone to pick with this place. In the spa area it is compulsory to wear slippers and bathing caps. Not so bad for people used to that who bring a proper swim cap and flip flops. But for us, we ended up wearing hotel shower caps with little slippers like my grandma used to wear. I can understand the caps might be to keep hair and hair related chemicals out of the pool water, but I’m pretty sure the slippers were just for the comic relief of the spa workers as they watch people grease their way around the slippery tile floor. Or maybe they just screwed up the Italian/English translation of “Slipper”. Instead of being a little shoe you slip ON it is a little shoe you slip IN. Once wet (so about 2 seconds into the spa) walking around on the tile of the spa was about like walking on icy roads in the spring when you get that layer of water to really make you slide around. We tolerated the rules though, but could not tolerate the place after about 5pm when the business men here for meetings decided it was time to slip out of their suits and into their speedos for a quick dip. Gah! I’m sure I don’t look great in my new Italian grape smugglers, but at least I don’t have to look at me. (JK, I did NOT purchase a speedo, but sure did threaten to on occasion).
Today we went to the Vatican. Big thumbs up for purchasing tickets online with a reserved time in the Vatican museums. It saved us about 3 hours of waiting in lines. In fact, we didn’t wait in a single line all day for more than about 5 minutes. I think by about noon the line to get in was closing in on a km long and 4 people wide! The tour guides were circling the end of the line like hungry sharks: “Skip the line!”, “No wait, tour with us!”, “Only 45 Euro to save 3 hours waiting!”. I think these tour guides are carnies during the summer, they made me hopeful to see a Skee-ball game nearby.
We’re now all packed and ready to come home. The only thing left to do is decide if I want pizza or pasta for my last supper here.
TTYL,
Ryan
The place has actually been great. Indoor pool, saunas, Turkish baths, restaurants and bars. They’ve also been very accommodating to tourists. They have shuttles to the major attractions and provided us right away with a good map of the city and information on how to find the hotel on public transit.
Our time here has been fairly well spent. Our first day we did a quick tour of the city and saw some of the major highlights (many of which we’ll end up looking up to see exactly what all our picture are actually of). There is a children’s book here that I might have to pick up before I go home. It has pictures of how buildings currently look (ie, 3 standing pillars and a few scattered bits of wall) with a plastic overlay of how the place probably looked hundreds of years ago. I think I’ve picked this book up at about 15 different locations across the city. Maybe I should have had Mel making a photo diary of all the places in Rome I read children’s books.
Our second day was scheduled to be a tour out to Pompeii, but I think we’ll have to settle for Google street view on that one as we woke up feeling terrible and decided to sleep in, do some shopping, and make use of the hotels spa area instead, which brings me to the one bone to pick with this place. In the spa area it is compulsory to wear slippers and bathing caps. Not so bad for people used to that who bring a proper swim cap and flip flops. But for us, we ended up wearing hotel shower caps with little slippers like my grandma used to wear. I can understand the caps might be to keep hair and hair related chemicals out of the pool water, but I’m pretty sure the slippers were just for the comic relief of the spa workers as they watch people grease their way around the slippery tile floor. Or maybe they just screwed up the Italian/English translation of “Slipper”. Instead of being a little shoe you slip ON it is a little shoe you slip IN. Once wet (so about 2 seconds into the spa) walking around on the tile of the spa was about like walking on icy roads in the spring when you get that layer of water to really make you slide around. We tolerated the rules though, but could not tolerate the place after about 5pm when the business men here for meetings decided it was time to slip out of their suits and into their speedos for a quick dip. Gah! I’m sure I don’t look great in my new Italian grape smugglers, but at least I don’t have to look at me. (JK, I did NOT purchase a speedo, but sure did threaten to on occasion).
Today we went to the Vatican. Big thumbs up for purchasing tickets online with a reserved time in the Vatican museums. It saved us about 3 hours of waiting in lines. In fact, we didn’t wait in a single line all day for more than about 5 minutes. I think by about noon the line to get in was closing in on a km long and 4 people wide! The tour guides were circling the end of the line like hungry sharks: “Skip the line!”, “No wait, tour with us!”, “Only 45 Euro to save 3 hours waiting!”. I think these tour guides are carnies during the summer, they made me hopeful to see a Skee-ball game nearby.
We’re now all packed and ready to come home. The only thing left to do is decide if I want pizza or pasta for my last supper here.
TTYL,
Ryan
Saturday, October 9, 2010
When in Rome...
...internets are expensive and keyboards are messed up! There is a note on the monitor that reads "For the @ Press AltGr + Q" but there was no map pointing out the Alt-GRRRRRrrrrrr button and most of the keys are worn down in here. I eventually found it and life continues though.
The last couple days were spent in La Spezia and Cinqe Terre (as an aside, a woman just walked past the business center here with wrap around ear muffs on. Its about 24C outside! WTF?). We hiked most of the Cinque Terre trails, but one section was closed due to weather, rain the night before makes it dangerous I guess, as opposed to the first section we did which was ALWAYS dangerous. We both survived though, despite not having hundreds of dollars of trekking gear to help us like about half the people had (the other half was split between people in normal street wear like us and people hiking in beach wear and flip flops which must have make the hard core hikers feel a bit over...geared?).
We're in Rome now as you might have guessed by the title. Plan to visit the ancient city tomorrow, Pompeii Monday and the Vatican Tuesday. I think we even made it to our hotel without getting anything stolen in the Rome train station, but I haven't really checked to make sure all my organs are still intact, I hear the pickpockets are really skilled here!
No internets (for a reasonable price) in our room so I probably won't post again until we're about to head home.
-Ryan
The last couple days were spent in La Spezia and Cinqe Terre (as an aside, a woman just walked past the business center here with wrap around ear muffs on. Its about 24C outside! WTF?). We hiked most of the Cinque Terre trails, but one section was closed due to weather, rain the night before makes it dangerous I guess, as opposed to the first section we did which was ALWAYS dangerous. We both survived though, despite not having hundreds of dollars of trekking gear to help us like about half the people had (the other half was split between people in normal street wear like us and people hiking in beach wear and flip flops which must have make the hard core hikers feel a bit over...geared?).
We're in Rome now as you might have guessed by the title. Plan to visit the ancient city tomorrow, Pompeii Monday and the Vatican Tuesday. I think we even made it to our hotel without getting anything stolen in the Rome train station, but I haven't really checked to make sure all my organs are still intact, I hear the pickpockets are really skilled here!
No internets (for a reasonable price) in our room so I probably won't post again until we're about to head home.
-Ryan
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
A bus to call our own
So the B&B we're staying at in Florence is sort of out of the way. In fact we seem to be in some sort of no man's land that doesn't even get included in maps. Seriously, there are 3 bus routes that go within a block of our place, but all the maps end about 2 blocks early. Even the city's bus maps show that the route continues, but it just seems to fall off the edge of the page. In any event, one of these routes is brand new, it just started running 3 days ago. Needless to say, when asking for directions on that route nobody has a clue. This has lead to a bit more walking around than required, but as a bonus we accidentally found one of the Piazzas we wanted to see.
Our first full day in Florence was pretty great actually. We got in to a gallery to see the statue of David, climbed up to the top of the cathedral's dome here for an excellent view of the city, and then went through a nice market that we spotted from the dome. Despite not being any sort of art buff, or really a fan of much art at all, there is a lot of very impressive stuff here. And admittedly, the 2.5 hours to wait to see the statue of David was a long time, it was still well short of the 8 hours to see David Sedaris last summer so this was totally worth it.
We learned 2 important lessons today. 1) To get all the Nutella out of a pack of Nutella and bread sticks you have to have about a tablespoon of delicious hazelnut/chocolate/icing stuff on each bread stick and 2) If a dude on the street playing a guitar-looking thing for tips thinks you're going to throw out the last of your gelato since you're about to enter a church he'll GLADLY take it off your hands.
I'm just going to throw in a couple pictures of the day, probably without any smart-ass comments...I'll leave that to you.
Our first full day in Florence was pretty great actually. We got in to a gallery to see the statue of David, climbed up to the top of the cathedral's dome here for an excellent view of the city, and then went through a nice market that we spotted from the dome. Despite not being any sort of art buff, or really a fan of much art at all, there is a lot of very impressive stuff here. And admittedly, the 2.5 hours to wait to see the statue of David was a long time, it was still well short of the 8 hours to see David Sedaris last summer so this was totally worth it.
We learned 2 important lessons today. 1) To get all the Nutella out of a pack of Nutella and bread sticks you have to have about a tablespoon of delicious hazelnut/chocolate/icing stuff on each bread stick and 2) If a dude on the street playing a guitar-looking thing for tips thinks you're going to throw out the last of your gelato since you're about to enter a church he'll GLADLY take it off your hands.
I'm just going to throw in a couple pictures of the day, probably without any smart-ass comments...I'll leave that to you.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Italia! Where "H" is heard, and not seen.
We just arrived in Florence today after 3 nights in Venice. You would think in a town with no roads that traffic wouldn't jam up, but you'd be wrong. Gondola traffic can get totally stalled when about 50 tourists in a group all want rides at the same time through tight canals. Seeing that really did a good job of busting the illusion of the quiet, romantic gondola ride through the city. Made me glad Mel and I just toured the Grand Canal from the comfort of our water bus...with about 120 Euro to spare in our pockets.
We both really enjoyed Venice and besides getting lost a few times early on everything went smoothly (including the flights with Alitalia, no lost bags and no cancellations, plus I'm sure they decrease the oxygen in the cabin because we both fell asleep as soon as we boarded and basically time traveled from Greece to Venice).
I have piles of pictures of the city as we spent the majority of our time just walking around enjoying all the sights Venice has to offer. We even managed to take in a live show depicting the history of the city. The gellato was as good as I was told it would be and believe it or not I think I like the pasta here even better than Chef Boyardee raviloli!
We're off to see the sights of Florence tomorrow and then going for a wine tour to Chianti Wednesday. We're planning to hit Cinqe Terre after that and finally on to Rome then home.
TTYL,
Ryan
We both really enjoyed Venice and besides getting lost a few times early on everything went smoothly (including the flights with Alitalia, no lost bags and no cancellations, plus I'm sure they decrease the oxygen in the cabin because we both fell asleep as soon as we boarded and basically time traveled from Greece to Venice).
I have piles of pictures of the city as we spent the majority of our time just walking around enjoying all the sights Venice has to offer. We even managed to take in a live show depicting the history of the city. The gellato was as good as I was told it would be and believe it or not I think I like the pasta here even better than Chef Boyardee raviloli!
We're off to see the sights of Florence tomorrow and then going for a wine tour to Chianti Wednesday. We're planning to hit Cinqe Terre after that and finally on to Rome then home.
TTYL,
Ryan
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Zmobies...or crazy old bums?
Sitting in the Athens airport again (this time with a full laptop battery). Thought we'd get into our hostel around 11:00 last night and catch a little sleep before coming to the airport. Turns out since the ferry took 8:15 instead of the 7 we were told, AND the metro here stops at 12:00 we didn't actually get to our hostel until 1:00am and had to be up at 4:00 to catch the bus back to the airport.
Our hostel was about a block from the Acropolis and would have been a great location to spend a day at. As it turns out I only got to snap a quick picture of it on the way to the bus. I gladly would have tried to get another shot or 2 but we managed to wake up a homeless guy on a nearby bench who started rambling some stuff and shuffling around in front of his bench/bed. There was a chance he was a zombie/zmobie so we bolted. I want my brains left inside my head!
There was actually a lot of security for our 4:00am walk to the bus station. I saw at least 4 police officers, 1 private security looking guy and 2 military guys, then again I've also been warned about a fake police scam in Athens, but I think the police cars would be a bit elaborate for common scammers.
Apparently people who fly Alitalia have never heard of weight restrictions on their checked bags. At least 3 people in front of us checking in had full size suitcases loaded up with nothing but books. Looked like something from a conference maybe. They were loading stacks of them onto a trolley to ship as cargo back to Rome. Some of these ladies should have been tipped off when they couldn't lift their bag onto the scale alone!
Should be boarding our flight to Rome/Venice in a few minutes. We'll see how far I stay awake into this flight on the 3 hours of sleep I got.
-RF
Our hostel was about a block from the Acropolis and would have been a great location to spend a day at. As it turns out I only got to snap a quick picture of it on the way to the bus. I gladly would have tried to get another shot or 2 but we managed to wake up a homeless guy on a nearby bench who started rambling some stuff and shuffling around in front of his bench/bed. There was a chance he was a zombie/zmobie so we bolted. I want my brains left inside my head!
There was actually a lot of security for our 4:00am walk to the bus station. I saw at least 4 police officers, 1 private security looking guy and 2 military guys, then again I've also been warned about a fake police scam in Athens, but I think the police cars would be a bit elaborate for common scammers.
Apparently people who fly Alitalia have never heard of weight restrictions on their checked bags. At least 3 people in front of us checking in had full size suitcases loaded up with nothing but books. Looked like something from a conference maybe. They were loading stacks of them onto a trolley to ship as cargo back to Rome. Some of these ladies should have been tipped off when they couldn't lift their bag onto the scale alone!
Should be boarding our flight to Rome/Venice in a few minutes. We'll see how far I stay awake into this flight on the 3 hours of sleep I got.
-RF
Congrats Yang & Tony and happy birthday Melanie!
Yang and Tony's wedding was yesterday and things seemed to turn out great. That is, at least from the parade master's perspective (me). I only had one person fall down some stone steps on the way to the ceremony and I don't think too many tourists/shopkeepers were creeped out by 12 guys handing out candy while wearing lais.
The ceremony was very nice and the meal after was great. I'm not sure if the locals have seen many western weddings or if they do things differently here, but at one point I had a waiter lean over and ask me, "So...is it 2 boys and 3 girls getting married?" In his defense, Yang and her 2 attendants were all dressed up, as were Tony and his 2 attendants, but Tony didn't have a lai on so I guess the waiter thought he wasn't part of the wedding.
Unfortunately there was a fire burning on the cliff right by the restaurant. The waiters said they are usually started by people throwing cigarette butts over the stairs. But every cloud has a silver lining (and this literally was a cloud so I'm glad to use that expression). You see, the steps from which the cigarette was likely thrown is filled all day long with donkeys and mules. They don't smell very good, and neither does their crap. But the smoke from the fire totally blocked that out!
Today we leave Santorini by slow ferry to Athens (about a 7 hour boat ride). We were told the slow ferry lets people go outside an see the area, where as the fast one (about 4 hours) is enclosed and 1/2 the people get sea sick on it. We should get to Athens around 10pm then fly to Venice tomorrow at 7am via Rome. We're traveling with Alitalia so we'll see if I get to add them to my growing list of terrible airlines.
Today is also Mel's birthday I'm sure she'd appreciated some birthday wishes from home.
The ceremony was very nice and the meal after was great. I'm not sure if the locals have seen many western weddings or if they do things differently here, but at one point I had a waiter lean over and ask me, "So...is it 2 boys and 3 girls getting married?" In his defense, Yang and her 2 attendants were all dressed up, as were Tony and his 2 attendants, but Tony didn't have a lai on so I guess the waiter thought he wasn't part of the wedding.
Unfortunately there was a fire burning on the cliff right by the restaurant. The waiters said they are usually started by people throwing cigarette butts over the stairs. But every cloud has a silver lining (and this literally was a cloud so I'm glad to use that expression). You see, the steps from which the cigarette was likely thrown is filled all day long with donkeys and mules. They don't smell very good, and neither does their crap. But the smoke from the fire totally blocked that out!
Today we leave Santorini by slow ferry to Athens (about a 7 hour boat ride). We were told the slow ferry lets people go outside an see the area, where as the fast one (about 4 hours) is enclosed and 1/2 the people get sea sick on it. We should get to Athens around 10pm then fly to Venice tomorrow at 7am via Rome. We're traveling with Alitalia so we'll see if I get to add them to my growing list of terrible airlines.
Today is also Mel's birthday I'm sure she'd appreciated some birthday wishes from home.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
In the Greek Isles...but not without adventure!
So on top of my advice to never fly United, I'd like to add never fly Aegean Air...or Olympic Air...and maybe steer clear of all Greek airlines just to be safe.
As of my last post we were waiting to get on our plane from Athens to the Island of Santorini. What we didn't know was that we'd be waiting another 26 hours before our luggage would meet us in Santorini. The Aegean service desk never really did tell us the full story about our bags. They were either left in Munich, lost in London Heathrow, left in Athens, or maybe they ended up in Gatwick. When our bags were finally located it seemed like they waited for US to call THEM to confirm they were our bags. The conversation went a bit like this:
Agent - Sir, we have found 2 bags in Gatwick that have a 60% match to yours.
Me - Hmm, ok, can you tell me about them?
Agent - Yes, there is one larger blue one and a smaller red one.
Me - O...k...
Agent - They contain clothing, electronic devices, food, and religious artifacts. Does that sound like your bags?
Me - Well, I'm sure we didn't have any food, and the only thing I can think of for religious artifacts are some Hawaiian flower necklaces for a party. Though I'm sure at least one of our bags has an ID tag on it that should have our information.
Agent - Yes, the message I have about the bags says there is a tag reading "Ryan Fauchoux, 622...<insert the rest of my information here>" Is that you?
Me - Yes! Wait, how does a bag with my actual contact information, which YOU have only score a 60% match and requires my confirmation before you ship it?! What constitutes a 100% match? Would you have to open the bag and actually find ME in it to be sure?!
Ok, so that last part wasn't actually spoken, I was just happy our bags were located and they did arrive at our hotel the next day despite the agent saying it could take another day or 2 to get to us.
We were fairly well prepared with spare clothes and toiletries in our carry on bags, but we neglected to pack shorts and the weather in Santorini is fantastic, which brings me to all the happier, less stressful parts of being here.
As of now all 26 1/2 people (I'm only counting the 5 month old baby as 1/2) have arrived. We have all found each other's hotels (with the exception of the bride and groom staying at a secret location for fear of pranks on their wedding night) and have been having a great time. The town of Thira is a busy little tourist place on the cliffs overlooking a volcano. There is a lot of activity here. Shopping, bars, restaurants, tours, etc. Other areas of the island are much quieter and laid back. There are some excellent white sand, red sand, and black sand beaches around and the water is very clear and comfortably warm.
As I assume is normal in parts of the world that don't get snow or icy roads the drivers here seem insane. One of the guys in our group watched a guy ride a moped down a steep coblestone road while talking on his cell phone AND holding a lit cigarette. Despite the drivers I haven't seen any squished tourists on the roads. Mel and I even decided to join ranks with the motorists and rented a car for a day here. We were glad we did and got to see some areas we otherwise wouldn't have.
I'll include a couple pictures of the island and hopefully post more to a Shutterfly account as time permits:
Town of Thira (aka Fira depending on what map you read)
Beachside restaurant by a black sand beach:
Looking down to the old port in Thira from the wedding reception site:
Also, props to Casio for making a camera that fits into a 1L beer stein in Munich and can then be washed off in the Agean sea days later!
Goodbye for now,
Ryan
As of my last post we were waiting to get on our plane from Athens to the Island of Santorini. What we didn't know was that we'd be waiting another 26 hours before our luggage would meet us in Santorini. The Aegean service desk never really did tell us the full story about our bags. They were either left in Munich, lost in London Heathrow, left in Athens, or maybe they ended up in Gatwick. When our bags were finally located it seemed like they waited for US to call THEM to confirm they were our bags. The conversation went a bit like this:
Agent - Sir, we have found 2 bags in Gatwick that have a 60% match to yours.
Me - Hmm, ok, can you tell me about them?
Agent - Yes, there is one larger blue one and a smaller red one.
Me - O...k...
Agent - They contain clothing, electronic devices, food, and religious artifacts. Does that sound like your bags?
Me - Well, I'm sure we didn't have any food, and the only thing I can think of for religious artifacts are some Hawaiian flower necklaces for a party. Though I'm sure at least one of our bags has an ID tag on it that should have our information.
Agent - Yes, the message I have about the bags says there is a tag reading "Ryan Fauchoux, 622...<insert the rest of my information here>" Is that you?
Me - Yes! Wait, how does a bag with my actual contact information, which YOU have only score a 60% match and requires my confirmation before you ship it?! What constitutes a 100% match? Would you have to open the bag and actually find ME in it to be sure?!
Ok, so that last part wasn't actually spoken, I was just happy our bags were located and they did arrive at our hotel the next day despite the agent saying it could take another day or 2 to get to us.
We were fairly well prepared with spare clothes and toiletries in our carry on bags, but we neglected to pack shorts and the weather in Santorini is fantastic, which brings me to all the happier, less stressful parts of being here.
As of now all 26 1/2 people (I'm only counting the 5 month old baby as 1/2) have arrived. We have all found each other's hotels (with the exception of the bride and groom staying at a secret location for fear of pranks on their wedding night) and have been having a great time. The town of Thira is a busy little tourist place on the cliffs overlooking a volcano. There is a lot of activity here. Shopping, bars, restaurants, tours, etc. Other areas of the island are much quieter and laid back. There are some excellent white sand, red sand, and black sand beaches around and the water is very clear and comfortably warm.
As I assume is normal in parts of the world that don't get snow or icy roads the drivers here seem insane. One of the guys in our group watched a guy ride a moped down a steep coblestone road while talking on his cell phone AND holding a lit cigarette. Despite the drivers I haven't seen any squished tourists on the roads. Mel and I even decided to join ranks with the motorists and rented a car for a day here. We were glad we did and got to see some areas we otherwise wouldn't have.
I'll include a couple pictures of the island and hopefully post more to a Shutterfly account as time permits:
Town of Thira (aka Fira depending on what map you read)
Goodbye for now,
Ryan
Saturday, September 25, 2010
15 minute post
I only have a bit of battery power left, so I'm keeping this post short and to the point.
Sitting in the Athens airport / campground right now. 3:30am. Looks like the Chicago airport with the number of travelers laying around. Seems like a lot of flights leave here early in the morning so people just spend in the night on the comfy marble floors.
We managed to make it to Munich without any issues with Air Canada. No problems getting around or finding our hotel. The town we were in didn't seem very big but offered more than enough for the short amount of time we spent there.
Made it to Oktoberfest yesterday. Mel seems to think she should write this part since she's sure I've got some gaps in my memory, and really, with a party that starts before 10am, the beer are 1L, and each tasted better than the last, who could blame me. We did have a great time there. Didn't get to see all the beer tents, but hit the highlights that we wanted to see.
Weather in Germany turned to garbage yesterday / today (we're running on catnaps while traveling so I'm not sure what day it actually might be). Couldn't tell you what the weather in London was like since we only saw the inside of the airport. Seems like has rained a lot recently here. I think the forecast looks good though.
Off to Santorini in about an hour and half.Getting there at 6:15am with no hotel might not have been the best idea, but we'll see how it goes.
-Ryan
Sitting in the Athens airport / campground right now. 3:30am. Looks like the Chicago airport with the number of travelers laying around. Seems like a lot of flights leave here early in the morning so people just spend in the night on the comfy marble floors.
We managed to make it to Munich without any issues with Air Canada. No problems getting around or finding our hotel. The town we were in didn't seem very big but offered more than enough for the short amount of time we spent there.
Made it to Oktoberfest yesterday. Mel seems to think she should write this part since she's sure I've got some gaps in my memory, and really, with a party that starts before 10am, the beer are 1L, and each tasted better than the last, who could blame me. We did have a great time there. Didn't get to see all the beer tents, but hit the highlights that we wanted to see.
Weather in Germany turned to garbage yesterday / today (we're running on catnaps while traveling so I'm not sure what day it actually might be). Couldn't tell you what the weather in London was like since we only saw the inside of the airport. Seems like has rained a lot recently here. I think the forecast looks good though.
Off to Santorini in about an hour and half.Getting there at 6:15am with no hotel might not have been the best idea, but we'll see how it goes.
-Ryan
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Never Fly United
Hello World. I'd like you all to take a minute right now and stop what you're doing, but only if what you're doing is trying to book a flight with United Airlines, anything else is fine.
Ok, now that we have that out of the way I can write a bit about the start of our trip. We were scheduled to fly from Saskatoon this morning at 7:00, then to Chicago, then Newark, and finally Munich. That being said, here is a picture of Mel in the Toronto airport:
Now, you might be wondering, "But Ryan, Toronto wasn't one of the locations you said you were flying through. Why are you there?!"
The answer to that question is the title of this entry: Never fly United. You see, the flight we were supposed to take from Saskatoon to Chicago was canceled. We weren't told why, but I can only imagine they weren't making their quota of angry passengers this month so they just pulled one flight for good measure. More likely was that their plane was grounded since their hub is in one of the worst places in North America for a major airport. Whatever the reason, they didn't bother telling people about this in advance, instead they let everyone find out at the airport.
The best the 3 slack jawed individuals behind the ticket counter could do was get us to Munich a full day later, meaning we'd likely miss out on our chance at Oktoberfest, or at best would only get a couple hours there.
Luckily, the designated competent employee showed up, and after suggesting we were willing to drive to Regina or Edmonton she managed to get us on a flight from Regina to Munich via Toronto, departing in less time than it should legally take to drive to Regina. We took our chances. As a bonus, it was an Air Canada flight who for some reason decided we had earned a free meal on board the flight. Maybe we set the day's best time down highway 11, maybe they just thought we looked hungry.
Anyways, here we are, sitting with a beer and a netbook in Pearson International. It has been an interesting start to the trip so far, but odds are looking good that we'll make Oktoberfest.
Big thanks to Rachelle and Don for driving us to and FROM the Saskatoon airport and to Moira for getting my truck out of long term parking in Regina!
Talk to you soon, and remember, never fly United.
-RF
Ok, now that we have that out of the way I can write a bit about the start of our trip. We were scheduled to fly from Saskatoon this morning at 7:00, then to Chicago, then Newark, and finally Munich. That being said, here is a picture of Mel in the Toronto airport:
Now, you might be wondering, "But Ryan, Toronto wasn't one of the locations you said you were flying through. Why are you there?!"
The answer to that question is the title of this entry: Never fly United. You see, the flight we were supposed to take from Saskatoon to Chicago was canceled. We weren't told why, but I can only imagine they weren't making their quota of angry passengers this month so they just pulled one flight for good measure. More likely was that their plane was grounded since their hub is in one of the worst places in North America for a major airport. Whatever the reason, they didn't bother telling people about this in advance, instead they let everyone find out at the airport.
The best the 3 slack jawed individuals behind the ticket counter could do was get us to Munich a full day later, meaning we'd likely miss out on our chance at Oktoberfest, or at best would only get a couple hours there.
Luckily, the designated competent employee showed up, and after suggesting we were willing to drive to Regina or Edmonton she managed to get us on a flight from Regina to Munich via Toronto, departing in less time than it should legally take to drive to Regina. We took our chances. As a bonus, it was an Air Canada flight who for some reason decided we had earned a free meal on board the flight. Maybe we set the day's best time down highway 11, maybe they just thought we looked hungry.
Anyways, here we are, sitting with a beer and a netbook in Pearson International. It has been an interesting start to the trip so far, but odds are looking good that we'll make Oktoberfest.
Big thanks to Rachelle and Don for driving us to and FROM the Saskatoon airport and to Moira for getting my truck out of long term parking in Regina!
Talk to you soon, and remember, never fly United.
-RF
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