Join Me in Snarkville

I went to bed last night at 8pm. That would be in my very own bed, but 8pm, folks. I’m apparently either 80 or I’m not yet recovered from my trip.

Let’s review, I’ve spent no more than 72 hours in a single time zone since the 1st of October. 72 hours, people. Can anyone guess why I was wide awake at 3am, then 4am, and then 5am.

I got out of bed at 5am when I heard Duke talking to himself. He declared he didn’t like Snarkville and wanted to go back on vacation. Well, since I was awake and all…I got up and asked him if I could snuggle and talk with him. I want to freeze that hour in time and just live it forever. I curled up with Duke and we chatted about what made vacation fun and how we might make Snarkville more like vacation. Yes, sure we can go to the zoo every day and not have to clean our room or possibly put in a water park in the backyard — I’ll get right on that, um, when the sun comes up, ok.

But at the end of it all, he put each hand on the side of my face and said, “Maybe we can just make pancakes before the sun comes up?” Well, hmmm, let’s see… I think we can do that. So at 6am, Duke and I made pre-dawn pancakes. I reminded him that this isn’t going to happen all the time, but I understood he was awake and hungry. (and pancake making is fun)

So, back to the story of my travels. I thought about on my very last flight of October, I’ve traveled 38 hours in the air, 6 days on a ship, 2 hours on a train (plus countless Metro hours) and about 9 billion miles by foot. I did all of this in 17 days. Keep in mind I lost a day and a half in air travel alone. I don’t even want to think about all the hours I lost (and gained) in time zones. However, I want to give you a few highlights. I’m hoping the laundry will cooperate and let me get a few photos up on Flickr later today. Real life must begin again tomorrow and I’m not prepared for it at all.

• While I hated the small dark room we had in Paris (though I loved the bright white bathroom for reasons I still can not put my finger on), the location was perfection.
  • We were 7 blocks from the Eiffel Tower. We went there nearly twice a day. I love the feeling of standing under it looking up. I loved that the French put large screens in the field out front to watch rugby. I was fascinated by the open air urinals along the walk. (I wanted a photo, but Prince refused — and I can’t figure out why.)
  • We had the most delightful cafe next door. On day one, we sat and drank our Cafe au lait and watched the market open. We watched people go about their normal Sunday routine, these were not tourists on vacation. These were people who shopped from the butcher a few doors down, the cheese shop on the other side of the hotel, the fish monger across the street and the produce market on the corner. They were women with the little wheeled carts who knew everyone on the street.
  • We were two blocks from the Metro station. This was our gateway to all of Paris. We mastered the very large system rather quickly and with only small arguments and one mistake. However, I came to enjoy the people watching, the clean cars, the fact that it was expected that if there was a seat you were to take it — few people in the trains stood, unless they had to. However, the doors, which you push a button to open, would be opened while the train was still moving and people were hopping in and out — FREAKY.
• We spent 7ish hours in London. It was so short we can hardly remember it, but alas, we seem to have photos of our time in London. My memories include
  • Spending an insane amount of money to check our bags for a few hours so we could walk around sans 6 plus bags.
  • Using the worst pay toilet ever! I was under the impression that a pay toilet was to keep it clean or at least keep the riff-raff out. Ahem, perhaps 20 pence isn’t enough. I swear that the stall I located was coated in pee — everywhere. And I was afraid to look, but there was a Marks & Spencer bag in the corner of my pee covered stall behind the small waste can, I’m rather convinced that there was something illegal in it. If I hadn’t been in so much pain, I’d have run, but I peed then ran. I wouldn’t speak of it to Prince afterwards either.
  • Yo-Sushi. Trying to describe this place to my parents the only thing was to say it was the automate of sushi. I loved the clean lines of the conveyor belt going around. I loved the picking and choosing of the things I like best and leaving the rest. It makes me happy just to remember it. (and I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that was the stop right after the pay toilet.)
  • Eurostar. Check-in was flawless and almost fun. In the States I’ve come to think of taking the train in about the same vein as taking the bus, as in — I try not to think about it (though I freely admit that there are some routes that I think about often — like the Cascades from Seattle to Vancouver). However, in London, my Eurostar experience was a hair shy of flying international first class. While we didn’t have the separate pre-lounge, the terminal was clean and since they don’t let people down there until about an hour before the train, uncrowded. The check-in folks were nice, ahem, do I need to say more? Even the security folks were sweet (one even joking with me about the impending rush, when there was NO ONE around). The train was awesome. We had tons of room, a 5 course meal that included multiple wines. In a word, delightful. If you ever have the chance, I highly recommend the experience.
• The QM2. What can I say about her? She’s delightful and it was 6 wonderful days. We have now been on this ship 12 days (12 SEA days) and I’ve yet to do everything I wanted to do. However, I’m going to just come right out and say it, I’m done with the transatlantic cruise. I spoke to tons of people who don’t do the long haul flights anymore and they use the ship as a shuttle bus — which for a shuttle bus she’s wonderful. However, I can fly. I like to fly (well, on long hauls as long as I can be in the pointy end of the plane) and I like to get there already. I was done by day 3 or 4. Six straight days at sea is tough on me — and while I firmly believe that the connection to the golden age of cruising is fun and exciting — I’ve now been there/done that. Now I’m ready for port calls.
• Domestic air travel today. I’m horribly disappointed. I have been flying most of my life — heck, all of my life. I have an ORIGINAL Frequent Flyer card from a certain airline. That airline has been my default airline of choice for years. However, I’m horribly disappointed in their boarding procedure changes. After being on so many flights recently, I think I may have figured out the process. Eons ago when the airlines had good service and nearly edible food, they boarded by rows — filling the back rows first and moving forward. Today, they board by zones, up to NINE zones on a plane. The zones seem to be based on your status with the airline and nothing to do with seat placement. It is frustrating to say the least. It isn’t that I want to sit on the plane letting people whack me in the face with their bags, but instead I just want a spot for my backpack in the overhead bin. This is the problem with zones. Since the plane fills oddly, the bins fill in the front of the plane. Also, they are flying planes to the brink of full and not really enforcing the carry-on bag rules. It is one carry-on and a personal item per person. This does NOT mean 3 bags or two carry-on sized bags. (and here’s my question, with the liquid rules now, how can you possibly NOT check bags?) I really would love the airline to actually stand at the gate and stop people who have too many or too large bags — yes it would make boarding take longer, but there would be SPACE in the overhead bins for my computer bag. Remember me, the one who plays by the carry-on bag rules.