European Travel: I spy a thumb in my eye while I fly...

JUNE 26: We were intensely, immensely excited for our trip to Europe. We started the day at 4 a.m.; the camera came out 45 minutes later. Above, the first picture of our European adventure: The exotic locale of McDonald’s in Kinsgburg. We felt so international!

It was a fairly brisk trip to the airport, minus the whole LA freeway driving thing. It could have definitely been worse, but thank GAWD we padded our travel time as much as we did. You never know what to expect at check in. In our case, it was pretty packed (a youth soccer league was ahead of us).

Notes from the plane:

· Thumbs up: Thank you, security agent, the only kind person in all of LAX (and coincidentally, NOT an employee of U.S. Airways), who was amazingly cool and funny. She got us excited for our trip.

· Thumbs up: I applaud the ambitious efforts of the ESL Asian woman who repeatedly attempted to understand the computer at the self-check- in kiosk.

· Thumbs down: Amazed and disgusted by the desk agent, standing directly behind said kiosk, who refused in every aspect to assist the Asian woman (even after my family and I spent 10 minutes trying to help her) in navigating her way. Of course the desk agent had no problem assisting us.

· Thumbs down: My body exudes waves of intense dislike aimed at the woman sitting behind me, who tapped me on the shoulder and immediately complained about me reclining my seat. Then complained again 2 minutes later, after I'd already repositioned it to accommodate her girth (to my great discomfort).

· Thumbs down: The woman who ends up in our row. She freaked out when she thought we were in her seat. In the end she was right, but we were sitting there unintentionally and tried to be kind about it. Her instant, over-the-top reaction was unnecessary.

· Thumbs up: Later, to the same woman when she turned out not to be a total arse, but someone desperately afraid of flying. Also, a talented cross-stitcher.

· SIDE NOTE: I still hate the woman behind me.

· SIDE NOTE: Prediction: The retro-cool gift coming to Target next X-mas will be the USB powered turn-table, available for $19.99. Of course it is on sale now via SkyMall for the low-low price of $229.95. Or thereabouts.

· Thumbs down: The cheap-ass airline who charges us hundreds of dollars for the ticket but refuses to serve free soda pop. Cheapos.

· Thumbs mid-point: There’s a lemon in my drink. I love lemons. But I read this story. GAH!

· Thumbs down: There’s a distinct lack of drink in my drink.

· SIDE NOTE: Even though First Class consists of the first 4 rows, and I am sitting in the 5^th row, I am not allowed to use their lavatory. The flight attendant did not evict me, however. Just almost. Why is it these flight attendants never smile?

· Thumbs up: The woman behind me has dozed off. I want to throw peanuts at her sleeping face.

· Thumbs down: The airlines no longer serves peanuts.

More than your Emo boyfriend.

On June 26, 2008, my partner, three nervous teenagers and I ventured off to Los Angeles, where we boarded a plane, and then another, and eventually woke up on a transatlantic flight headed for Dublin, Ireland. The whole vacation itself consisted of three cities—Dublin, London and Paris—and if you were to ask any of the teenagers, they would say the trip’s purpose was three-fold: First, to eventually catch up with Madeline, our oldest daughter, who was traveling with a student group in the British Isles; second, for each—our oldest son, Trevor, our nephew Colin and Madeline’s best-friend, Darlene—to see Europe; and third, to afford Trevor and Colin the joy of cramming in the faces of their peers (aka OTHER family members) they fact that they have been to Dublin FIRST.

Naturally, we adults had an agenda too.

DIGRESSION:
My partner in crime and I have many, many things in common. We each like the color blue. We each brush our teeth twice a day. And we each grew up with devoted, family-centric parents who—while offering untold numbers of family camping-trip-based vacations—themselves never traveled abroad until they hit their retirement years. And to both my partner and I, international travel was exactly that: Something we both yearned to do, yet felt only retirees were supposed to enjoy.

And that is when the swirling black cloud of death descended upon both of our lives.

First my father passed, and I was inaugurated into the Dead Dad’s Club (ooh! Matching jackets!).

Sometime later, my then-not-yet partner earned his Dead Mom’s Club lapel pin.

And sometime even later, after the easy laughter and puppy love of early dating, and after slightly-deeper monologues about child rearing, came the soul-baring conversations about these enormous, earth-shattering losses that had changed our lives in many startlingly similar ways.

Such conversations gave rise to various, life-altering realizations, the most profound of which being: Life is for the Living.

Why did we keep saying, “Someday, I will visit X,” when we could visit X now? Why did we compartmentalize all that we wanted to experience into a chunk of time not destined to occur until a series of far-reaching conditions were met?

It was a very scary, but very serious, question. Why did we keep putting off all the things we really wanted to do on a very-distant later? What if, after all the putting off, and more putting off, and STILL more putting off… what if there was never an “on”? What if later never happened?

We both saw firsthand: Death permanently invalidates all the dreams you have sitting out there.

And so we, my partner and I, began making different choices. We began redefining our lives in terms of the now, as opposed to the maybe later.

I planned a trip, an unconventional trip, and planned on taking my sons. After some time, my partner agreed to come along, to meet us on our unconventional trip and so it was that in June of 2006 we met up in Machu Picchu, Peru, and went on to see the Amazonian Rainforest together.

Okay so now we’re getting to the crux of this missive . (I know, finally, right? Bear with me.)

It was on this trip that we realized and saw—truly saw for the very first time—how enormous this great wide world is.

*forehead slap!*

Each of us had lived in many places over the course of our lives, and had always understood that there was more to life than what was in front of our faces. Our parents had said that very thing to us—WE had even said that very thing to our kids: THERE IS MORE TO LIFE THAN WHAT IS IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE. Duh, right?

Still… it doesn’t really sink in until you actually have something different in your face.

For my boys, seeing how people in Cusco or Iquitos or deep within the rainforest live— that was life changing. We were old, seeing this, REALLY seeing this for the first time. But my boys, they were young. They got the realization early and maybe it would change who they became and how they lived their lives, how it affected their choices? Maybe they could avoid getting sucked into the “maybe later” rut, and live in the now?

We left to visit a small bit of the world, and came back with the understanding that there is MORE TO LIFE.

There is more to life than School. There is more to life than College. And Church. And Family. And Fresno and Clovis and CALIFORNIA. There is more than the United States of America, more than just the English language, more than the dollar and the Euro and Lays potato chips and your Emo boyfriend and your X-box. There is more than just YOU, in your little world, with your real and perceived, serious and not-so-serious, dilemmas. There is so much more than you’ll ever know or be able to understand unless you go out and see, really see it for yourself.

A whole wide world churns, grows, cries, laughs, buys, sells, produces, EXISTS just beyond your doorstep, and no matter how deeply involved you are in your own tiny little area, thinking that whatever is in your face is all there will ever be…

You’re wrong.

There’s more.

That was our agenda: To share this message with these up and comers, as they approach the next steps in their developing lives.

That, and to cram in the faces of our friends that we saw Dublin FIRST.

Most. Humble. Mother. EVER!!

My boys got an agent. As in, they are officially represented by a talent agency. It's a wonderful and strange thing to think my boys are actors and they are pursuing their dreams of fame and fortune and supporting their mother's early retirement; and yet it is quite another to place those thoughts into reality.

My boys are really actors! Who will be acting! They (with the help of their father, with whom they live during the summer months) actually went on auditions and procured an A-list agent. And now, they have headshots.

Behold, my awesome sons! I am only a little bit proud when I scream, OH MY GAWD THEY ARE SO HANDSOME!!! Check them out:

Harry

Trevor

But at least I'm not bitter.

When I booked my flight to Europe, I was going for cheap. Months in advance I began trolling various online flight aggregators in search of the best flight deals. And time and again, I noticed the same airline has the best fares—if only by $50 even—than the nearest competitor. And since our trip was on the double-cheap, and since $50 could translate into a museum pass somewhere (let alone a meal), I decided to go with what appeared to be the most economical choice.

Two words, dear readers: NEVER AGAIN.

Four words, dear readers: WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE EVER!

And whether you’re 10 or 110, kindness and customer service matters. But see, you don’t realize just how important it is to be treated with a modicum of respect until it’s gone.

As an avowed, unapologetic feminist, I have no problem stating that all of the old biddies (and they know who they are) working for EXPURGATED Airways should be fired or forced into retirement, the lockers containing their personal items pilfered and the contents of said lockers deposited in various airports strewn across the country. But not before they have been repeatedly bashed in the elbow with an overloaded drink cart.

All the juvenile (both literally and figuratively) male attendants who look up to and emulate the crappy attitudes of the older set should also be axed, their eyes super-glued mid-roll and forced to RINSE the gel from their hair and their overly applied cologne with the deep blue waters of onboard lavatory. This all should be done, of course, AFTER being doused with piping hot coffee.

There are apparently no youngish female attendants, nor aged male attendants, working for this airline (or at least working any of the legs that my family and I flew). I cannot therefore make a recommendation to EXPURGATED Airways about how these sub-groups of employees should be treated, but based on my experiences of customer service with the rest of the company, I’m going to lump them in with the previous. The youngish females, then, will be known as stinky, self-absorbed brats and the aged men as asses. Old-fogie asses.

Whatever. Come up with whatever non-stereotypical, non-sexist, non-gender-specific insults you prefer, so long as they are childish and offensive and descriptive, and that is EXACTLY how I feel about the customer service personnel with this airline.

But the issue goes so much deeper than simply the flight staff.

If an entire company’s staff is miserable, from the greeter (who looked like this) to the ticket taker (who looked like this) to each and every flight attendant (who acted like this), I’m not really sure where the fault of such a tremendous failure in customer service lies.

Is it with the individual? Certainly these people should bear the responsibility of their actions. Isn’t that one of the basic tenants of life? The Golden Rule? Treat others as you would like to be treated. Unfortunately it appears that every individual working for this airline—or perhaps, just the individuals working in Los Angeles and Philadelphia—likes to be dominated, condescended to and verbally abused, sexually harassed and ignored because of their race or age or gender, and thus expects that treatment in return. Yet, having been on the receiving end of such abhorrent behavior, I can’t imagine anyone prefers such treatment. (I can’t speak for fetishists, however.)

Yet I also can’t help but blame the corporation, the master entity who both allows and apparently fosters such horrendous customer service. After witnessing a ticket agent ignore a woman because English was clearly a distant second to her native tongue; after being verbally abused and herded by various staff members (“Get in this LINE! NO! You people—OVER THERE!”); after witnessing my seat-mate get doused with coffee by unapologetic and somewhat inebriated flight attendant; and after watching various passengers receive eye rolls and annoyed sighs for any request, I sought out a supervisor. I relayed to him all that I had seen and how we all—my family and the greater public—had been treated by the staff of the organization. I was professional, yet frustrated; he was nonplussed and unapologetic. When I requested that he forward my suggestion that the airline’s staff revisit customer service training, he agreed that it was an obvious, necessary step and followed up with, “Ma’am, that ain’t ever gunna happen.”

I wished him well in his union’s upcoming labor negotiations (but I secretly didn’t mean it. I’m not entirely certain he caught the undertone).

No matter who is to blame for such horrendous behavior and despite the strong language herein, I have largely moved beyond my misery of my flight experience with U.S. Airways—oops, I meant EXPURGATED Airways. Since my return I’ve heard many stories about this airline from lots of other people, and the endings all seem to be the same: NEVER AGAIN.

So there you go. For all future travel plans, whatever they may be, I will fly with other airlines. I strongly urge those of you who may have future flight plans to think twice about how you spend your hard-earned vacation dollars.

cross posted from centralvalleymoms.com

World travel.

I have been away for a few weeks, visiting our sister countries across the pond. Many amazing good times. Several trying ones, but only when dealing with Americans. What is THAT?

Check the photos:

See PARIS!

See DUBLIN!


See LONDON!