What A Pain In The Ass!

Getting there is supposedly half the fun...

Dear Blogette,

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm now in Moscow. Arriving here was not as easy as 1-2-3. No "just get on a plane and voila! you're there."

After fleeing Austria, I stayed with wonderful friends in Paderborn. During that time, I was offered my job here in Moscow and the arrangements began. To go to Russia, you cannot just buy tickets and go, no, there is a complicated and lengthy as well as costly procedure that has to be followed whether you're planning to visit just a few days as a tourist or to transact some business or, as I am, staying a longer time to live and work here.

The first step is the "invitation." If you're a tourist, you seek one of these through a travel agent or visa agency. In my case, it was obtained from the appropriate government body by my employer and sent to me in Paderborn. Once I had this, I needed to find out what to do next. Although I have both an American and a German passbort by quirk of birth and fate, I was being hired here as an American and so the somewhat more relaxed methodology applying to EU nationals wasn't applicable.

After nosing around the internet and getting utterly confused thanks to the various different sources and conflicting information out there about what to do next, I spent a few days just trying to figure out whether, as a U.S. citizen, I would be able to apply from Germany for my visa. And a few more trying to track down whether I actually did need a statement showing my HIV-negative status as intimated on the Russian embassy's website. Since I wasn't living in Berlin, I needed to deal with the Russian consulate in Bonn, which added a few new twists to the melange thanks to differing and more limited operating hours, its relatively inconvenient distance from Paderborn and such. After being told three different versions of what I needed to do by Consulate personnel, it became clear quite quickly that like in many bureaucracies, often the brain is as unaware of what the hands are doing as it is of what the feet are up to.

The solution was to find a visa prcourement agency. Enlisting the trusty www again, i found one in Berlin and proceeded to waste several days in communicating with them only to have them tell me that because it was a work permit visa I was seeking, they could not help me since, according to them, only the Embassy or Consulates could issue those. Stymied but not defeated, I scoured those "internets" some more and found two more agencies in Bonn itself or its immediate surroundings. After more e-mails flew back and forth, one turned out to be very competent and off I sent the necessary documentation along with a goodly wad of cash for them to be able to get the visa in "express" mode so that I could finally get to Moscow to start work. After all, money was tight and the stipend from my gracious sister was not bottomless and still had to pay for transportation and moving costs and was also supposed to see me through the first few weeks on the job until that epic first paycheck.

Three days later, the passport with visa came back by courier and I trotted off to the train station to buy a ticket. True, the train was slower, but with the volume of stuff I was transporting, it was also cheaper by far than flying (note to U.S. readers: excess baggage is charged at premium rates in the rest of the world, not for a reasonable fee as in the U.S.). Besides, trains are more comfy and adventurous and you get to see where you are going.

Having read in several guides that the train traversed Belarus, the Russian satellite country ruled by its despotic dictator, "President"  Lukashenko, I also found out I would need a transit visa for the ride across its "sovereign soil," even though various sources contradicted themselves on whether that was still true and/or how much it would cost, how long it would take to get, etc.  I called the Belarus embassy in Berlin and received one answer, then I called the visa agency and received another. Finally I called a third agency and received a third answer. The bottom line, it was felt in rare near-consensus, would be for me to use my EU (German) passport to traverse good old Belarus. They would issue a transit-visum at Brest at the border to Poland for 65 Euros. Convenient!

Once ensconced on the comfortable train, off I rattled towards Mother Russia. The ride through Germany and Poland went through mostly (boring) pleasingly green landscapes which I saw in glimpses and snatches as failed air conditioning made keeping the blinds down to keep the searing sunlight out of my (luckily) single compartment and roasting me more than necessary. (Some already know how well-seasoned, mouth-wateringly delicious and downright plump I truly am; indeed, many may have even called me "Mrs. Butterworth" in my hey-day... Confused? Click here to find out more!)

After tearing through several of the books I had brought which were supposed to last me through my first few weeks in Moscow due to the absolutely riveting train ride, we arrived in Belarus at the main station in Brest, the very same town once made famous because of the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which took Russia out of World War I in 1918. A friendly Belarus border guard came into our car and went door to door after having picked up our passports from the conductor.

Surveying my German passport with its many stamps and visas from all over the world in it (and its rather dilapidated appearance), he barked a few words which were meaningless to me and strode off. Shortly thereafter our conductress appeared and said that I would have to exit the train because I did not have a transit visum for the great country of Belarus. When the guard came back, I told him via the now translating (and visibly trepidated) conductress that his embassy had said I could get a visa at the border, to which he replied, "Nyet." And so I got booted off the train in Brest, luggage and all. Oddly, he had summoned a chain gang of lesser uniformed monkeys to help me with my bags, and so we toddled off across the dirt path towards a curtained minibus of indeterminate vintage. Scenes of dark torture cells and prisons were hard to keep out of my mind, but I did the best I could.

The bus drove through Brest, which under other circumstances might have been quite nice to visit and tour. It stopped in front of a mighty looking government edifice where I was bade to alight and again the little gang took my luggage inside for me. There I was bid sit on a wooden chair and wait, most of this conveyed through mime-action.

After three hours in the less than commodious chair, the same boss soldier reappeared from behind a dingy curtain and beckoned me to follow. Again the little troupe of soldiers appeared to take charge of my luggage, and again we boarded the curtained, creaky minibus and rumbled off toward the station. Once there, I was shown to platform 1, where a cutting-edge regional train fitted with more comfy, oh-so-splintery wooden seating awaited me to Poland awaited me (see representative image at right). And thus I was whisked at lightning speeds back to the thriving metropolis of Terespol, which abuts the internationally-significant border between those mighty superpowers, Poland and Belarus.

The Polish border guards were lovely and immediately helped with my baggage (I was getting spoiled at this point) and when I asked about a taxi, the lead guard switched to German and communication in one of my two perfectly fluent tongues was established. He helped me find an English-speaking cab driver (!) and thus I met Grigor, who took me under his wing (for a price, naturally as I found out the next evening...) 

I spent the evening in a nice hotel which even had a restaurant and I was able to eat Pierogis in Poland, one of the things on my bucket list of lifetime goals. They were delicious and very filling. I could live on them very happily and easily.

Next morning at the crack of dawn Grigor arrived to take me to Biala Podlaska, the district town about 40 Kilometers away, where there is a Belarus consulate. First we went to a travel agency where I needed to buy a health insurance policy to ensure that I was covered while traversing the superpower's sovereign soil so as to ensure that I would not become a burden to their ever so progressive and all-inclusive health care system, should I fall deathly ill during the long and arduous eight-hour train trip across the land of dreams and enchantment. After this purchase was made for a total of $2, it was off to the consulate to wait in line for about four hours in the blistering sun. The consulate makes everyone wait on the street, and one person is admitted at a time into the toilet-cublicle sized office, a system well worth emulating as it makes for fun like line-jumping, bribes to get "cuts" and other entertainment such as knife fights and cursing contests in various Slavic languages.

Once I finally ascended to thre throne room, I turned in my papers with my passport photo. A woman in late-model cat eye glasses scanned the paperwork, gestured for me to sign here, there and everywhere, and then took the paperwork to a hidden space for someone to sign, presumably the Belarusian grand poobah. She then returned and told me without batting an eyelash, "$320 please," which caused me to go off like a volcano. I could not believe that Lukashenko the Magnificent and his local grand poobah would try to fleece me out of more than my train ticket and half the Russian work permit had cost for 8 hours on his polluted, evil soil! So I told cat woman my astonished sentiments in flowery language that would possibly have made some people blush. She disappeared again and came back and said, "$160, please." I flatly refused and said that this was attempted theft and that the only reason I was there was because their own embassy in Berlin had guaranteed me I could traverse their glorious nation for 65 Euros using my German passport. She went away again, and this time the grand poobah himself emerged from behind the curtain into full technicolor view. After stuttering on "I is so sorry" for several tension-filled minutes, he told me that since my Russian work permit and visa was in the U.S. passport, I could not use the German one and the price "this week" for Americans wa$320, but he would give me a children's visa and thus only charge me $120. When I explained that I no longer owned $120 thanks to their little racket, the answer was repeated shoulder shrugging and muttering behind the bullet-proof glass. When i asked what they expected me to do, Old Cat-Eye abruptly spoke fleuntly and said, "You must go to Warsaw and fly." Wonderful...

Grigor said I should not worry, he would take me somewhere where they had "internets" and we wound up at his sister's house, who was charming, spoke lovely English and hosted me all afternoon while I established communication with my dear brother in Mary-Land. He immediately called and agreed to help me get to Moscow by buying a plane ticket for the next day, as it was too late to go thanks to the time-wasting tactics of Belarus, as well as a hotel room in Warsaw, as I was now close to totally broke, would still need to get to Warsaw with and pay Grigor, too. I had a total of 100 Euros left, which I changed into Polish Zlotys and Robert prepaid the hotel and the airline ticket.

Grigor and I set off to Warsaw and arrived there a few hours later, where I found out that the Zlotys I had would not cover the taxi fare (naturally), but I needn't worry, Grigor would gladly accept what have you in payment. What have you turned out to be a pair of gold cufflinks left to me by my grandfather and a netbook given me by my sister Marcia which was less than a year old, so Grigor was very good at making sure he got paid very well, but I could not in any way complain as without him I would have been stuck in Terespol forever, which seemed like a cruel fate...

The hotel was an old Soviet-era Interhotel at the Warsaw airport. It had been purchased by a chain and extended and the cheaper rooms were those in the unrenovated tract, which made for one of those charming retro experiences. The good news was they had cable with several channels in English and German and so I was happy as a clam...

Next morning there was a decent breakfast included and off I went to the airport around the corner. In the meantime my brother contacted me to say he had sent me some cash via Western Union and that I should go to one of their outlets and show my passport and I would be back in the chips. 

At the airport, I immediately went to the counter for Aero Svit, the national carrier of the Ukraine, on which I was booked. At the check in they determined my luggage was 37 kilograms overweight (try 75 pounds!) , but the nice counter lady said i should go upstairs and just pay for 15, which should cost about 100 Euro. So I went to the Western Union counter in the same area and showed my passport and was told that without a transaction number, there was nothing they could do. At this point I was ready to have a conniption fit and be tied and bundled, all at the same time. After much begging and wheedling and cajoling, the airport woman at Aero Svit finally decided that she would give me my boarding passes anyway, and thus nothing was ever paid for the overweight bags, which somehow felt like just revenge, even if the Ukraine is a dictatorship all its own with nothing to do with evil Lukashenkoland, a.k.a. Belarus.

Aero Svit took me svitly to Kiev's Borispol International airport, which reminded me quite a lot of the huge facility known as Hosea Kutako International in Windhoek, Namibia in both size and atmosphere, but I shouldn't joke because they had free Wifi, which made the five hour layover pass by in the (slow) blink of a turtle's eye.

Arriving in Moscow, I discovered that apparently I had left  my glasses on the plane (which had taken off again nearly immediately) and was now close to blind. I got to the front of the customs line and was told I would have to go back and fill out an arrivals form (not mentioned on the plane at all, which struck me as bizarre), which now seemed an insurmountable take, but with the help of a lovely young customs guard, I was able to overcome this final hurdle. Moscow, at last!

NEXT TIME: Mysterious Moscow

 

 

Wow, it's been a long time!

Dearest Bloggette!

I apologize most humbly and sincerely for neglecting you. I note with dismay that the last time I even visited you, let alone shared anything with you, was while I was living in the Czech Republic again... eons ago! Again, my sincerest apologies for such wanton neglect.

And let's catch you up on what has transpired since those better-forgotten days in Brno...

Brno, in the clutches of the evil and degenerate Lufthansa Global Domination empire, was a fiasco. I met some nice people there, true, but generally working there turned out to be worse than working for the evil German Labor Camp (GLC) division of aforementioned carrier in South Africa. At least in South Africa the administration was honest and while not always the most intelligent, when they made mistakes they were honest, not blatant attempts at rip-off motivated by immeasurable stupidity in the upper echelons of the local management. Suffice it to say that after having to pay back amounts of cash based on a mistake by dumb Czech management and accountants even though I apparently could not be held liable, and having to put up with shift leaders who borrowed money never to repay it and other shift leaders who were simply unadulterated  pure evil, it was time to move on.

Alas, Dowager Baroness Elizabeth I. passed away on New Year's Eve 2011, while I was still in Brno, which first caused more consternation with aforementioned dunderheads at the Labor Camp (they had apparently never heard of compassionate leave for when one's mother dies) and subsequently also provided me with amodest inheritance.

Sadly, I decided that the inheritance would be best appied to helping me escape the misery that was Lufthansa and all of its negative attributes. Rather rashly, I chose to make a foray back into hospitality, along the lines of "the grass is always greener" and forgetting the hard work and endless hours involved. Reassuring myself that since I would be the boss this time, things would be different and I would not be as exhausted, drained and sucked dry as I had been while slaving for others in the past I forged ahead with zeal.

The turns and twists of the human mind truly can be amazing. How quickly we forget unpleasantness, downright lies, broken promises and affronts to one's dignity. How easily we seem to recall only the good of something without remembering in detail or completely displacing all those evils and pettinesses bestowed upon one's soul by unscrupulous and perfidious previous employers and faceless corporations interested solely in bottom-line avarice.

And so it was. The carrot dangling on my personal stick was independence, the chance to prove to myself that I was a clever and decent entrepreneur. As I was not sure I wanted to begin what I envisaged as a global empire of Baronial hostelries in Germany, I looked to Austria. Object 1 was a small hotel in a forgotten corner of Austria's upper Northwest. The town had only the one hotel, it was in passable condition with the apparent potential for growth, alocal brewery interested in investing large sums in order to have a showcase hostelry at its disposal, immediate proximity to the Czech border which meant lower prices for just about everything within a stone's throw, and a motivated owner seeking to find a replacement for the current unreliable tenant who repeatedly threatened to shut the place down, lest a replacement be immediately forthcoming.

My dearest high school friend, Lady Felicity of the Baronial order of the Bravehearted, accompanied me on my fact finding missions. We sussed the place out, asked all the right questions and received (by and large) all the right answers. I did my due diligence diligently and the entire project looked to be a green-lighted good thing. With my modest inheritance (all that was left of the once vast Baronial estates and holdings due to indiscretions, idiotic investments and poor planning by predecessors who shall remain nameless, as good taste would have it) wending its way through the maze of international banking houses, I descended upon the arranged meeting place for the ceremonial reading of the proposed contract, only to find several untoward and unpleasant surprises awaiting me.

The locale for our meeting was changed while I was en route - a very bad sign - with notification made by SMS on my cell phone - Clue 1 that something was amiss. Then my proposed advisor and accountant sent an SMS to say he would prefer to meet at the same time as the scheduled contract reading and at the same site, which was the place of business of the lessor - Clue 2. And upon my arrival at said place of business, I was ushered in to a conference table at which there was an unknown face, a surly older woman, the mother of the lessor - Clue 3 that something was not only amiss but downright foul.

We proceeded to read the contract aloud, as is customary, and not one of the promised changes and improvements was included. This made not only the hair on my neck stand erect but also caused the eyebrows of our mutual go-between and real estate agent to lapse into paralytic arches of total dismay and surprise. Every time he reached a passage where something was missing or had been changed to the worse, he would shoot a look at the young lessor, who would make urging eyes at him, as if to say, "Go ahead, it's alright." And a second inquisitive glance from the realtor would then result in a very deep-throated rumbling comment in perfect local dialect along the lines of, "That's right, we aren't paying for anything" by Big Mama, who apparently was busy protecting her sonny boy from evil me.

When we got to the end of the contract, all eyes turned upon yours truly. in the interest of good taste, decorum and mild manners, I cleared my throat carefully and inconspicuously and said, with my sweetest, most benign voice,

"I'm afraid this is not what we had previously agreed to. I cannot, in good conscience, be a party to any such contract and therefore must withdraw. Should you change your minds and wish to continue in the vein previously discussed and agreed upon, bearing in mind that under Austrian law a verbal agreement is binding, please do not hesitate to contact me. You have my contact details. I must bid you farewell."

Big Mama, bowled over either by my eloquence or the fact that unlike her weaselly son I was not impressed by her girth or gruffness, now rumbled noises telling me they had had another offer and that if I did not act, they might be forced to accept it.

"Madam, you are free to accept any offer. I shall not be a party to an agreement which is wholly slanted against me and would be closer to a death warrant than a business deal. Should the other party be willing to sign such a document, then Godspeed to you all."

With that I doffed my non-existent hat and strode through the door. I got in my lovely Renault Scenic (which I sorely miss here in Russia) and drove back to Lady Felicity's country estate, where I told them the sad tale. After being soothed with pots of delicious tea and a lovely repast, I set about attempting to find a replacement for the soured deal, as disappointed and shocked as I was.

After a few false starts, a second property emerged in due time. It was a mountain inn in Tyrol. It was smaller than the first object (only 9 guest rooms as opposed to 26), in a remote location (as opposed to a prime spot on a town square, even if in a less-than-touristy spot in Austria) and had a motivated lessor (a German couple) seeking to give up or transfer their lease due to (supposed) ill-health.

Negotiations stretched out over several months. Lady Felicity's husband Tony cautioned me that Tyrol had a checkered history of poor snowfall (one of the inn's selling points was its immediate prximity to a ski slope and lift). lady Felicity herself said that Tyroleans were cagey beings and to be enjoyed with extreme caution, but none of these auguries seemed serious enough to abandon the project. Additionally, my sister, Lady Marcia of Bruckless, had indicated that due to the recent demise of her husband, she sought a new task in life and would like to invest and become active in the project. Hear, hear!

And so I proceeded. Again, I did my due diligence diligently. I contacted local officials in the village, made inquires as best I could about the character of the current tenants and the owner, researched local law and what grants and enticements might be available for me locally. Finally, I visited the property with Lady Marcia. We were bowled over by its beauty and the friendliness of those involved.

Shortly thereafter, not heeding the caveats of others, papers were signed and I was the proud owner of my own business and operator of a bona fide Tyrolean mountain inn.  As the takeover was in the middle of the summer season, I brought with me a trusted friend freed from the bondage of slave labor in Brno, and we went about the take-over.

It became rapidly apparent that the current tenants were not forthright, that a state of war had existed between them and the owner-lessor, and that the path ahead would be laden with obstacles, barriers and hindrances. The property was filthy, no work having been done by the exhausted tenants for several weeks as they had scrambled to find alternative employment in Germany. There was a bitter battle between the owner and the tenants over numerous improvements made which the owner claimed he had paid for and that therefore could not be purchased from the tenants, as is customary...

Perhaps at this point I may be allowed to promise a continuation, as the next 8 months turned out to be more hellish and outrageous than even the two years' endured at the hands of the German Labor Camp division of Lufthansa.

Suffice it to say that in April 2012, both Lady Marcia and I called our inn adventure quits, fleeing at nightfall much like those superb singers, the Family von Trapp of Sound of Music fame had done some 60-odd years before when escaping the Nazis.

After recuperating and resting Germany with some of my best friends in Paderborn, from whence I had started out on the GLC Luftahnsa misadventure in 2009, I was finally able to return to teaching English to hapless foreigners once more, this time in a whole new world - Moscow, capital of the Russian Federation.

More to come

Roaming Around...

Hello, Blogette, darling! Instead of just uploading a bunch of pics to FaceBook, I decided that maybe I would blog them all and try to comment on those I can - sadly, as age advances and senility grows ever nearer, sometimes I look at a particular picture or two and think to myself, 'Now where the heck was that?' 

Well, let's start with the Czech Republic... to make this blog load faster on some of the relics some people are running all pics will be thumbnails. Click on an image to see it full-sized, 'kay?

Brno

Brno, formerly known as Brünn, is where I live these days. It is the second largest city in the Czech Republic with about 400,000 inhabitants. There are a lot of nice things to see and do here, although in actual fact it cannot hold a candle to Prague in terms of consistent splendor and beauty...

      
Below:   Two abandoned houses I happened across while out and about. 

Lest you think everything in the Czech Republic is abandoned, let's take a trip to Mikulov, the former seat of the von Liechtenstein and von Dietrichstein dynasties. Yes, the von Liechtenstein family are the ruling prices of the country by the same name. They used to live and rule from Mikulov, back when it was still known as Nikolsburg. Many cities here had German names and were in fact German (or Austrian), but after World War II, the Czechs booted out all the Germans and de-Germanified the entire country, renaming everything and I do mean everything.

Mikulov

     

Mikulov is about 35 minutes from Brno (which used to be known as Brünn) and is one of the principal towns in the south Moravian wine region. Tons to see and do there, not just tasting wines...

On to some other wonderful sights on my way to Austria. I have a GPS now and it does take me on some of the bizarrest routes you can imagine. So here are sights from along the way, but the location names of most of them escape me... damn, getting older sucks!

 Other Places in the Southern Czech Republic

And now on to Austria. One of my wonderful high school friends, Felicity, lives in Linz. Thanks to FaceBook, we reconnected a while ago after about 35 years and I've been over to see her and her charming family a number of times now at their home in Altenberg bei Linz. Felicity always is good about going to see sights with me, so here are some recent shots of Linz and environs to start with...

Linz and Extended Environs

           

Some of the names one comes across in Austria are good for a laugh... here are two found in Linz. For real!

Steyr

On my most recent trip to Altenberg, Felicity decided to take me to see Steyr, a wonderful, picturesque old, very Baroque town about an hour South of Linz. 

     

Always concerned I might get bored (why? I never do!) Felicity and her family also took me to a wonderful horse show in Wels, a town near Linz. A couple of pictures for the horse-lovers out there...

What would Austria be without Vienna, its beautiful capital city, about an hour South of Brno? These pictures were taken in December 2010 when my sister Peggy and her half-sister Molly (it's complicated...), were visiting. Some were taken with a mobile phone, so the quality is less than stellar... 

Vienna

                            

Not far from Vienna is Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, formerly the other half of Czechoslovakia. The two countries 'divorced' peacefully in 1993. Bratislava is one of my favorite cities in Europe as it reminds me very much of the typical operetta capital...compact, old, beautiful... I always expect to see a King in an open carriage dashing through town, even though Slovakia is a republic.

Bratislava

      

                

Well, gentle reader, that about wraps up this installment of the Blog to end all Blogs! See you soon with new and even better sutff, I hope...

TTFN, TheLastBaron, aka What A Pain in the Ass!

Better flying for Everyone: What airlines should do...

Hello, sweet Bloggamathingy...

Today I have once again been pondering the thought of making flying a better experience for everyone.

You will of course remember my previous submission here on creating 'family sections' aboard intercontinental and long-haul flights, along with my award-winning designs for baby crates (allowing the little ones to be put into the cargo holds of aircraft, thus ensuring a wonderful trip for the rest of us). What's that? You don't remember? Ah, well, here's a link so you can go back and refresh your obviously faltering memory (and you may want to go see a doctor right away to make sure you are not suffering from some debilitating brain disorder, just a friendly helpful suggestion...)

I still remain firmly committed to trying to goad all the major carriers into establishing Family Sections. It would be sooooo easy and all those who cannot afford or don't want to spend the outrageous money to sit up front in First or Business but still would like to be treated with a little respect and dignity and not be subjected to those mewling, squawking brats oh-so-many parents seem to feel the necessity of bringing aboard would thank each and every carrier a million-fold.

Imagine, dear airlines, what nice extra money you could make by charging a modest service fee to sit in a baby-free zone on a long-haul flight? I'm sure there are millions of harassed long-haul passengers who would gladly shell out for the ability to sit in an area of Economy without babies, devoid of  seat-back kicking junior terrorists and without raucous families sharing their particular dysfunctions and bliss with all of those around them...

The how-to is quite simple.

First, launch an ad campaign promoting the fact that the seats at the back of each plane are safer in crashes, statistically having more survivors. This could be quite effective visually... show a jet liner in its final moments before break up, plunging Earthward, with a family up front in tears, sobbing, terrified. Now pan the camera to the family sitting in the back of the plane in the all-new 'Family Section,' calmly reading magazines, watching their video screens, looking totally relaxed and even smiling, despite the fact that the plane is about to crash...

The announcer intones in quiet, soothing tones:

"See how relaxed the Joneses are? They know their chances of survival are statistically 100 percent higher than those of the Smiths up front. That's why they booked new 'Family Class.' Don't you want your family to survive in the case of an unforeseen tragic airline accident? Think about it. Book new 'Family Class' next time you fly long-haul or intercontinental with Air X."

Those family seats will sell like hotcakes!

Just to make sure there are no foul-ups, there would have to be a few small changes to the reservations software used at check-ins, of course. Anyone buying a ticket for himself or herself plus a minor under say, age 14, would have to automatically be shown only seats in Family Class on the seat selection page. And, of course, the software would need to be rewritten to make sure those crafty sneaks out there who would buy tickets for themselves and then for their children as unaccompanied minors in order to avoid having to sit with their little darlings in the Family Section couldn't trick out the program. The same would hold true for unaccompanied minors - the software ticketing them and allowing seat selection would automatically provide only the row at the very back immediately adjacent to the galley for selection where those well-trained flight attendants could keep their eyes on the little tykes at all times.

The only problem I am able to come up with right now are those silly parents who insist on 'bulkhead' seats to hang their damned bassinettes on, but I am sure Recaro, ZIM, B/E Aerospace or one of the many other seat-makers to the airline industry can come up with some groovy ideas there...

And those who travel without children but insist on sitting in the new Family Section [maybe they are lonely and desire the abuse or perhaps they want to be able to survive better in the event of an unforeseen crash, too? Who knows? There are lots of weirdos traveling these days, as we all know...] can be easily persuaded not to ('full of children,' 'really noisy,' etc.) or, if they insist on sitting there 'anyway,' subjected to an extra fee for taking up 'space dedicated to families.'

Lest you think me totally nuts and are certain that no one else is pondering such frivolous needs as Family Sections, here's some more reading on the subject... and here's more... and still more... 

In summary, instituting Family Sections would make flying easier and better for those of us who don't want noisy babies and loud dysfunctional families around them during that long flight to Grandma's house or to that business meeting the next morning (with the employer who was too cheap to put us in Business in the first place, as they should have).

Yes, airline companies, it's a win-win-win-win-win idea! Now, get cracking!

Let's segue to the next topic at hand. As my friend Gina recently pointed out in a comment on my original Family Sections proposal, there is also something to be said for preventing smelly people from flying. 

In the interest of the odor-free flying public worldwide, I propose that airlines in future (on their websites, when booking, or at the airport or in the departure lounge) ask travellers to fill out a brief questionnaire. It could, of course, be coupled or combined with other useful, personally invasive questions such as those found on U.S. immigration forms asking visitors whether they are Nazis or plan to explode bombs while visiting the country.  

Here are some questions that should be asked:

1. What foods have you eaten today? (Please make a complete list of everything you have ingested in the past 12 hours.)
2. When did you last evacuate your bowels? (Please be accurate to within 30 minutes.)
3. Do you suffer from chronic flatulence? 
4. If you feel a whopping SBD^* coming on, do you feel compelled to share it with others or do you discreetly head for the toilet?
5. Do you habitually ingest a lot of legumes? Are you vegetarian or vegan or some other form of weird greens-only eating human? 
6. Are you wearing antiperspirant less than 8 hours old and have you changed your clothes within 4 hours of beginning your travel?
7. Are you carrying large amounts of smelly cheese on your person or wearing onions or garlic as decorative accessories?
8. Do you suffer from any of the following: Bromhidrosis, halitosis, axillary hyperhidrosis, onychomycosis? [Gentle reader, Google those if they do not mean anything to you. They are the medical terms for various disgusting body odors.]
9.  Are you wearing diapers? Is any member of your party wearing diapers? When were they last changed? (Please be accurate to within 15 minutes.)
10. Are you or any members of your party dead or decomposing?

_______

^*SBD: Silent-But-Deadly. Flatulence of the sneakiest, most dangerous kind.

After completing the questionnaire, answers would be evaluated by trained airport security personnel, which would then also perform an odor check as part of the security scan. Passengers would be instructed to raise their arms during the walk through and while being scanned for explosives, weapons, and the like, a scent-sniffer would also sample and react to any over body odors or disgusting aromas. It could even be adjusted to alert if someone is wearing too much perfume or cologne, or an especially offensive cheap brand. [N.B.Those 'over-scented' passengers would be weeded out and forced to shower before being allowed to catch the next flight to wherever.]

At smaller airports, specially trained odor experts could do the job, as seen in the photo above left. Such measures would help to prevent experiences like mine during my last trip to Africa:

I arrived at the airport in Germany, only to learn that the airplane we were supposed to be taking was kaputt, and instead the airline had substituted a smaller version of the same plane, meaning a lucky 30 or 40 of us supposed to fly would not be on board that evening... 

After a peaceful night in an airport hotel which was surprisingly nice, I was rebooked by said airline. My new trip took me via several other countries on a hopscotch of routes cobbled together in order for me to get me to my destination in a time frame of under a week, since the aircraft type in question had been grounded by the manufacturer for an unknown period due to engine problems.

I boarded my first flight to Beirut, Lebanon. The airline was nice enough to upgrade me to Business class for the enitre journey, which was a good thing... but do read on.

In the Beirut plane, I sat next to a gentleman who felt the need to gas me with the foulest flatulence I have ever had to endure during the entire three-hour flight, all the while stocking up on more odor-producing legumes in the form of tahini, baba ganoush, and other delights of the Middle East known to cause voluminous gas clouds once digested. The worst part was that there was no warning. Each time I was about to be enveloped in yet another deadly yet unseen veil of malodorus fumes, my seatmate passed his toxins quietly, subtly and with an elegance unsurpassed for someone who is breaking deadly winds that could have been used as the basis for a new poison gas... and he supplemented it by speaking to me in a steady stream of garlic breath! Of coourse, it was just my luck that Business was completely full that evening, so I was unable to plot an escape to another seat... I was nearly comatose by the time we landed in Beirut and so grateful for being able to escape into the lovely airport with its functioning air conditioning and odor-free environment.

Next, I boarded another airline's plane to Abu Dhabi. Here, again in Business, I was spoiled by a menu that was hard to choose from since it was so voluminous, but sadly also contained salmon, a variety of exquisitely stinky cheeses and a number of other malodorous choices which my fellow travelers all seemed to revel in choosing, rather than sticking to such pleasant-smelling fare as Carbonnade a la Flamande, Duck Bigarade or a delightful Boeuf a la Wellington.

All too quickly the rather cramped space of the Business cabin became a foul blend of disgusting food-borne odors (most likely mixed with a few discreetly emitted bouts of flatulence and stifled belching). By the time we landed in Abu Dhabi (sand, sand and more sand everywhere!) and I was able to repair to the Business lounge for my eight-hour layover, I was nearly in need of a respirator and oxygen tank. 

The flight to Johannesburg aboard the same airline also had an odorific episode. The gentleman (and I do employ the term in a very loose fashion here) sitting across the aisle from me apparently felt more at ease bedding down for the night on his flat-bed seat than I did; he removed all of his clothing except his undershorts and emitted such delightful body odor that at one point one of the flight attendants was seen discreetly scenting the air using disinfectant spray as he slept. The fumes from the spray can at last helped me pass out and drift into a semi-vegetative sleep-state... 

When I arrived in South Africa, naturally I was a wreck from all the malodorous assaults on my poor proboscis. It took me nearly a week to recover. And so, on the basis of personal experience and the experiences of others, I feel it is high time to institute such new controls as outlined above. What do you think, dear reader? Your input is welcome...

Now last, but not least, is the issue of fat people flying.

I am a fat people. I fly. Often. And while parts of me may sort of 'ooze' over the limits of my minuscule airplane seat (when I'm in Economy), the only person who has ever complained with an absolute slip of a thing who didn't even fill half of her seat and had no reason to complain at all... but the crux of the matter is the fact that the airlines insist on using silly measurements that only about 30% of the world's population could describe as "adequate," let alone "bearable" or even "generous."  

The answer to this dilemma is easy: Make the airlines change their seats.  There is an interesting discussion brewing on just this very topic worldwide on varioous and sundry passenger fora, and it is also being looked at by airlines. (One of the more perverse suggestions from carriers is Ryanair's notion that on shorter routes, they should be allowed to substitute rack-like devices designed to support standing passengers rather than provide real seats!)

Naturally, a lot of the major carriers claim to have redesigned their seats with thinner backs allowing for tighter seat pitch (the distance between seats) but any idiot understands that if I have thick seat backs at a pitch of 34 inches, which I replace with new seat backs allowing for a 31 inch seat pitch, I still have only 31 inches between the seats, even if it supposedly "feels" like 34...

Of course airlines love these new seats. They are lighter, meaning they save expensive fuel, and because they are closer together, that old 89-seat cabin now holds 100 passengers.... who wouldn't love that? Passengers! (Here is a great article about just this topic...)

So now what should we all do till we can make airlines acquiesce and give in to demands for  Family Sections, passenger body odor prevention measures and better, bigger seats? Well, again another link... here's a great way to make flying and your entire vaction more pleasant... you just have to do your homework, and this article will show you how.

Well, Bloggy, it has been a while since I last posted, so I promise to visit more often and more regularly. Until then, toodles!

 

 

Wow, time sure can fly... why can't I?

Hello Blogette,

it has been positively ages, for which I apologize. But there have been quite a few good reasons for the long absence, so let me explain before you go off at me...

If you remember, most of my previous postings were, um, to say the least, rather acerbic and aimed at my former place of employment at TITS (you know, Teutonic International Transportation Service*) since working conditions there were less than ideal.

Well, almost as if there really is providence or some higher power (and being somewhat of an atheist, you know how I feel about that idea), in September the world there started to crumble. South Africa's morose and overtly anti-white government started giving TITS and other foreign companies employing non-South Africans a ton of trouble when work permits had to be renewed, and so it was with mine. I was thus spirited away from Cape Town (one of the most beautiful and most dangerous places on Earth) to Europe so they did not lose my working capacity, and thus I arrived back here in the Czech Republic to which I had first emigrated in 2006... full circle, so to speak.

After less than two weeks here, I realized that TITS here was more like what it had first been when I arrived in Cape Town - a lovely place to work which appreciates its employees and treats us with dignity and respect. And so I asked for a transfer and voila, here I am.

"Well, that's not such a big deal," I hear you objecting, Bloggymathingy.

Well, yes, it was. Even though TITS is a globally present company, they are still run on a very small-brained scale. You would think that a lateral transfer would be a simple matter, but it was not and hasn't been.  Getting here was comical in and of itself:

One fine September day Big Boss came to my desk and said: "Walk with me. We need to talk." Gulp...

It was proposed that I move to the Czech Republic office on a temporary basis so they could have enough time to straighten out the work permit mess. And they would pay for the trip, accommodation would be provided, and and and...  so far, so good, no?

Well, in theory, yes. In practice, no. No prep time for travel and leaving on another one of those bogus South African holidays the next evening (!) meant no laundry or clean clothes to pack, no paycheck in my account yet (holiday delay), no gas in the car to get home and back to the office, and no money with which to get to the airport, etc. As advances are unheard of at TITS in South Africa, I was even more amazed when one was swiftly arranged. And off to Europe I went...

The trip itself was grotty - I was booked on that big new airplane they all talk about, you know the double-deckered one, and was supposed to be all thrilled about its supposed luxury and superior accommodations in all classes. Bohunkus! It's a crappy big plane like any other, at least in Steerage, where they put people flying on free tickets. I was way at the back, which has the added feature of 8 toilets at the very back right behind your seat arranged in a semi-circle. The periodic odorific   ambiance excluded, the flush sounds alone were enough to keep anyone from sleeping or resting on a 12-hour flight... and the seats are hard as nails, have really poor leg room and generally could be registered with terrorist organizations as potential torture devices... that is, unless you are a skinny midget.

After that flight, I got on the plane to the Czech Republic, and was bumped out of my assigned seat. Sent back to ride "jump seat" in the galley, humiliation was added in to the mix - as I am not slim or small nor a midget, the seat belts on the jump seat, those X-shaped ones like in fighter planes, didn't fit, so loud calls were made by the ultra-Teutonic bitchy head trolley-dolly (for all to hear on the P/A) telling the cockpit they needed to "swap" me with the off-duty pilot flying "jump" there.  For some reason the seat belts there are bigger and so I flew the whole way in the cockpit.

"Oh, how exciting!" you say? No, not really. Pilots on modern jetliners really don't do much, since the planes more or less fly themselves. They check things on check lists, occasionally speak to towers and flight centers and otherwise don't do much of anything at all... and for that they earn the big bucks!

Once in Prague, I had to make my way here, and there was little help proffered by my "travel orders" - not even our local office address or phone number was shared! Well, intrepid traveler that I am, that didn't stop me and a comfy two hour bus ride later (sarcasm intended) I arrived. With a little further sleuthing I was able to find the office and after a few comical mistakes about where I was to be lodged, I finally was able to bed down, catch up on sleep and become human once more. 

That was in September. It's January now...

Good things: My sister Marcia and her hubby Bob visited me from Ireland at the end of November and we had a blast, traveled to Bratislava together, went to a bazillion Christmas markets. Then my sister Peggy and half-sister Molly came to Vienna, so I went down and visited and went to more Christmas Markets. And I also discovered that Eric, my grad school roomie and good friend, is back in Vienna (he is from there originally), so that improved things even more.

And life just kept getting better and better. I bought a car (a Fiat Seicento, which broke down ten days after being bought and is still in the shop), I went on a few excursions, met some wonderful new friends here, threw a lovely Christmas dinner, and was having friends over on New Year's Eve when a phone call from Marcia told me my mother had died shortly before. That was, while a shock due to its suddenness, not altogether unexpected and of course engendered another tip, this time from Vienna (closer to our office than Prague and easier to fly from) to Washington, D.C.

And now I'm back home, albeit with Mom's cat, Lucille. In the meantime I have also reconnected with my last girlfriend (yes, the real kind) from high school, who actually lives in Austria, too! So, while the daily annoyances of life continue (incorrect paycheck deductions, growing older, aching joints, ice, snow, etc.) I'm here and live is actually truly getting better... (cue Mama Cass Elliott song here).

So look forward to more here after the hiatus... and don't be so bitchy about my having had to do other stuff besides blog, okay?

Ta-ta for now (TTFN).

Your friend,

(The Last) Baron

So Why Not? Airlines: We Want "Family Sections"!

After my last blog, which was of course tongue-in-cheek, I began doing some research in earnest into the topic of creating "family sections" aboard long-haul flights in which families with children, say those under the age of 16, would automatically be booked by airlines. Seems I was in no way alone with my "crazy notion" - sources supporting the idea are numerous. Here are but a very few:

"No Babies on Board

Seventy-one percent of travelers surveyed think families with young children should sit in their own section of a plane. Thirteen percent think airlines should prohibit parents from flying with infants, except in the event of an emergency. Thirty-seven percent would pay extra to sit in a quiet section of an airplane, and of that group, 38 percent would pay as much as a 6-10 percent premium."

Survey shows ups and downs of air travel

30 September 2008

KUALA LUMPUR — Leading global market intelligence firm Synovate, today released global survey results on airline travel showing 56% of people choose 'getting there quickly and easily' as the best thing about air travel and, once on board, three quarters would like to be able to change seats if they were unhappy with their allocation.

Synovate spoke with more than 10,000 respondents in 13 markets across the world to find all about whether air travel was pleasure or pain, the impact of fuel costs and surcharges, easy-on-the-eye flight attendants, the frustrations of sitting near other people's children and chatty fellow passengers ...

Children shouldn't be seen, or heard

It turns out not everyone hates sitting near children. In good news for paranoid parents, two thirds of our air traveller respondents disagreed with the statement 'I get frustrated when sitting next to or near children'.

However, Britons were found to be most intolerant of children on planes with 55% agreeing they find sitting near the smallest travellers to be frustrating. They were closely followed by Hong Kongers (52% agreed). Least likely to get frustrated were German travellers with only 15% agreeing. [N.B. This may explain why Lufthansa is not at the forefront of my proposed "Family Section Movement"]

Looking at the results by gender, it is not too surprising to see that overall women are far more tolerant of air-borne kids. However, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), 48% of women agreed they find sitting near children frustrating and only 24% of men did.

George Christodoulides, Managing Director of Synovate in the UAE, said this may, in part, be due to large families and gender roles.

"When it comes to supervising children men tend to be fairly hands-off, while women travellers may be so busy empathising with harassed mothers that they are not really able to relax themselves."  

Wanted: Child-free flights and no wind chimes

Neither are likely, but we can reduce discomfort when traveling with kids

Everyone has their idea of a perfect world. For me, it would include a ban on wind chimes. My friend Camille would be happy if “airlines would offer child-free flights.”

I know I’m not likely to get much of a buy-in on a world without wind chimes. And no airline seems likely to roll out a schedule of child-free flights anytime soon. [...] Of course, anyone who buys a ticket has a right to a seat on an airplane. But it’s invariably those days when you’re looking forward to a little quiet time or shut-eye on a flight that at least one otherwise angelic kid (rarely yours; most often someone else’s) will decide to spend the entire trip crying, whining, rolling on the floor or kicking the back of your seat. [...] In mid-January, for example, an AirTran flight from Florida to Massachusetts was unexpectedly delayed while the parents of a three-year old girl tried in vain to get their child seated and buckled up for takeoff. Finally, citing the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) rule that everyone over age two must be buckled up in their own seat for takeoff, the airline asked the family to step off the plane so that everyone who was seated and buckled up could get on with their trip.

[...]Looking back at the flurry of media stories, articles and blog postings about the incident, some interesting themes pop up: while a few people expressed empathy for the parents, pretty much everyone cheered the airline for refusing to delay the flight for one cranky passenger. In fact, according to Judy Graham-Weaver, AirTran Airways Manager of Public Relations, the airline itself has gotten more than 9,000 e-mails about the incident and they “overwhelmingly (about 95 percent) support the airline’s actions in the story.”

The poll that accompanied this 2008 article is even more revealing (despite its spelling errors):

 

Travellers in favour of child-free flights

Survey indicates support for separate section on planes for babies and young children

An overwhelming majority of air passengers would prefer that people who travel with young children are seated in a different section of the plane, according to a US-based consumer group.

The survey, carried out by airfarewatchdog.com, found that 85 per cent of the 10,000 travellers surveyed thought that segregating those travelling with children from other passengers was a good idea, due to their frustration at hyperactive youngsters and crying infants. ...

“There is no reason why this couldn’t be introduced,” said James Freemantle, a spokesman for the Air Transport Users Council. “Many airlines already use systems where passengers pick their own seating, so asking those travelling with children to sit in a certain section of the plane is entirely up to the airline.”

Hmmm, momentum grows...

Isn't it time for child-free flights?

By Frank Barrett, Travel Editor, The Mail on Sunday

Forget mobile phones (for a moment): according to a survey this week, do you know what the number one in-flight irritation is for air travellers?

Top of the list – at 81 per cent (ahead of ‘lack of leg room’ at 78 per cent and ‘the person in front putting his seat back’ at 74 per cent) – is ‘people kicking your seat’. Who are these people who kick your seat? Kids, of course.

[...]If airlines are off-loading drunk passengers, isn’t it time they started dumping hopeless parents. Why should we have to suffer miserable flights just because parents find it impossible to say: ‘Don’t do that'?

If you have the Bash Street Kids sitting behind you, a mobile phone ringing would, by comparison, seem like gentle bells ringing in heaven. What about child-free flights – advertised, of course, with a ‘baby not on board’ sign?

 

Simon Calder: Child-free flights... 

[...]First, the problem: flying is an uncomfortable enough experience for adults, let alone babes-in-arms. Combine an alien environment with the legal requirement to sit still at certain stages of the flight, and the pain caused to young ears by changes in cabin pressure, and you have the recipe for an upset infant.

Older children simply get bored non-rigid, and may decide that the best way to pass the time is by arguing, fighting or repetitively kicking the seat in front in a 21st-century adaptation of Chinese water torture.

Personally, I find many children behave much better on flights than do adults, partly because they do not see it as their duty to drink the trolley dry of alcohol. But I accept that finding on an overnight flight that you are adjacent to a toddler is in the same league as sharing an armrest with an especially obese passenger, or one whose personal hygiene standards do not match your own.

Other areas of the travel industry have a lot of experience at keeping out children. Some Caribbean resorts are adult-only; and the proprietor of a smart South Coast boutique hotel told me that he uses pricing to try to deter families from staying. Similarly some of Britain's train operators seem to want to minimise the number of children in first class by charging adult prices, for example for Weekend First upgrades.

Next, how would it work? Banning child flyers altogether would be outrageous. But a partial prohibition is worth trying. These days, the airlines need every penny they can get. Business travellers and well-heeled holidaymakers could be prepared to pay a premium for a flight free of kicking and screaming. And if people on child-free services are prepared to pay extra, then fares on other flights may come down.

The only circumstances I can envisage in which an airline could insist "no children" would be on a route with plenty of flights. British Airways, for example, has eight departures a day from Heathrow to New York JFK; and if families were banned from the 3.15pm service, they would not have to wait long for the 4pm.

The idea would be easy to test, as BA showed 20 years ago. Until 1988 all its flights had a smoking area, in which I gleefully travelled while misspending my youth. Then the airline started to test the then-preposterous concept of "smoke-free" flights. Almost apologetically, BA deemed one of the daily Los Angeles services non-smoking. Many passengers loved it, and smoking was soon stubbed out on all UK airlines.

Suppose an airline were brave enough to start some child-free flights. The downside: some families would be inconvenienced by not being able to travel on the exact flight they wanted.

But if significant numbers of families felt disadvantaged, this could persuade other airlines to come in offering family-friendly flights. The market – you, me and a couple of hundred million other people – will decide.

Hmmm... I think we have the wrong end of the stick here, people. Children-free flights are a very dumb idea which will never fly! Instead, the "Family Section"  idea to which people with these little "darlings" are automatically limited to is the way to go. For the airlines allowing "on line check in," there's no problem, either. After indicating online that you are flying with your little brats, er, darlings, the seat-selection chart would automatically only allow you to choose seats in that part of the plane... no big whoop there. Leave the kiddies at home or abandon them returning home and voila! - you are again free to choose any available seats anywhere on the aircraft at check-in!

So, dear reader, who's with me? Let's start a massive campaign on Twitter, FaceBook, and everywhere else demanding that airlines finally wake up and bring in these sections - and now, not, "sometime in the near future."

 

 

 

There Ought To Be A Law...

Flying With Your Damned "Baby On Board" Is Unfair To The Rest Of Us And Should Be Banned... 
Or Something!

Dearest Bloggymathingy,

I already know I'll catch hell from the various doting mummies and daddies about this topic, insisting that their little darlings are oh-so-cutesy-wutesy and would never disturb anyone, coochy-coochy-coo-oh-s/he's soooo adorable! Gag.

Why is it that airlines are still stupid and have not figured out that they need to address the problem of squawling, mewling horrible bratty babies in the economy section keeping all the rest of us who either cannot afford or don't want to be taken to the cleaners for an overpriced, slightly wider seat aboard the same aircraft?

This problem has bugged me for years, since I used to and am again flying for work or pleasure on long-haul aircraft over many hours dumped in with umpteen of this little disease-factories whose irresponsible parents use them as the excuse of the century to justify their selfish behavior and attempts to get extra frills for nothing at the expense of the rest of us! 

It's time for a revolution! Singles, Retirees, Businesspeople on Budgets, and those who just plain hate babies - UNITE!

We need to stand up and fight for our rights! Ban babies on board!

What brings on this latest diatribe, you ask?

Ah, let me tell you, grasshopper! Recently I had the extreme displeasure of flying to the U.S. from South Africa. Leg 1 of the trip was aboard South Africa's pride and joy, the state-owned and hum-drum to poor South African Airways. Service was at best mediocre, the food was okay, the seat pitch (okay, distance between rows for those not in the industry) was torture in economy and generally conditions on board the gleaming silver tube hurtling through the lower atmosphere could best be described as "sub-tolerable."

Well, it might have been a hair better on the 12-hour flight if I had not been (see picture above) surrounded by no less than eleven of the little monsters on the flight in question. As anyone knows, babies and small children under about age 10 are disease factories, and this flight was no exception. By the time we reached London, I was already running a low-grade temperature and feeling woozy, to say nothing of having had almost no sleep due to the ongoing all-night "chorus of waaahs" which surrounded me and subjected  me to all its glory in Dolby 2000+ surround sound. 

The next leg, a seven-hour flight from London's horrid Heathrow to Washington's superior Dulles International, was aboard United. They were kind enough to take pity on me and upgrade my ticket to Economy Plus, so at least the legroom problem went away, but did the mewling, irksome chorale atmosphere? No, of course not! Babies even here! Egad!

I landed in D.C. with a full-blown case of baby-borne, trapped in conditions surrounded by infantile germs flu. The first four days in the capital of the U.S.A. were spent in bed. What fun and thank you very much, you selfish individuals who must subject the rest of us innocent and healthy passengers to the germs generated by your offspring. I believe that these traveling wastrels do this on purpose to the rest of us - they are already so accustomed to never sleeping and constantly warding off colds and flus and other horrible baby-induced diseases that they get a real rise out of sharing their pathetic conditions with the rest of us unsuspecting innocent people who merely want to get from A to B as quickly and unscathed as possible.

Well, dear Blog, Mom always said that one should not just complain, but always suggest a way to fix a bad situation, so I've been busy in my invention laboratory and have come up with the solution!

Presenting: Baby Transporters!

Since airlines keep complaining they are all losing money, what with competition and volcanic clouds and greedy oil sheiks straining their budgets, I have come up with an idea of some sheer brilliance... if my clean, quiet, well-behaved adorable Labrador or Ridgeback can't ride in the cabin with me and has to go in the hold, then so should babies. Naturally, the holds will be pressurized and climate-controlled. Babies will have tubes inserted into their bottoms to dispose of all the toxic waste they generate during long trips (no diaper changing needed!) and feeding tubes into their mouths so they don't go without formula or that soft disgusting stuff that comes out as the aforementioned toxic waste.

As most airlines operate on a class-structure, and some people even insist on bringing their little darlings into Business or First class, I've designed two baby carriers for hold loading. The first is the Economy version, pictured at left.

Note the happy toddler in his safe haven, all ready for a nice trippy-wippy to wherever. Once the door shuts and the lights in the hold are dimmed and all that yummy Purity- or formula-goodness starts flowing through his feeding tube, he'll be in heaven, and so will Mumsy and Dadums and all the rest of us who will manage to arrive at our destination without the diseases caused by the little monsters and the lack of rest brought about by their incessant braying and brawling. Ah, what bliss for everyone aboard!

Now, of course those in Biz or First won't be able to stomach the model pictured above. After all, are their babies going to have to tolerate campinglike-conditions, what-what? And when they are already being ripped off by the airline to the tune of about 5 times the cost of some economy tickets? Never! Well, don't get your knickers in a twist, business-mommies and daddies! Yours truly has naturally considered your superior needs for your better-class babies. Behold, I present to you at right, the Upper Class Baby Transporter!

Doesn't little Miss Precious just look ecstatic in her secure, cozy trip box? Why, naturally it has a built-in night light, the food tubes only dispense premium organic (or, upon request your very own home-made, warmed to the perfect temperature) food! It also features built-in deluxe busy-toys and piped-in lullabyes to make sure your precious little one never realizes Mama and Dada are upstairs actually enjoying their own flight and getting some much-needed rest along with all the other delighted passengers and a much less-stressed crew. 

The upper class container you see above has another advantage over the economy model, too - they can be stacked up to three high, so there's no danger to upper class parents of twins or triplets getting the wrong baby/ies back at the end of a long flight. You see, the old Baron has truly considered and carefully weighed all the options!

Too Avant-Garde, As Usual!

Well, dear Blog, I know that usually people think my ideas are too outlandish or far-fetched, and I'm already aware that some of the aforementioned selfish Mummsies and Dadumses won't lie down and roll over and play dead and let the airlines introduce and make mandatory my brilliant, profit-making scheme. 

So naturally I've come up with a compromise solution which does not require the boxing and/or crating of those precocious, precious, luvvy-wuvvy little bundles of toxic waste, yet would still allow those of us travelling in Economy at least to avoid the germs, the noise and the discomfort they cause and possibly even get a good night's sleep! Best of all, it would cost nothing and could be implemented by any airline immediately and easily! Huzzah, panacea!

Introducing: Family Class

Yes, a revolutionary new concept whose time has come! Family Class! Anyone traveling with any child under, say, 14 (mandatory) and gladly up to (voluntarily and made oh-so-irresistible to most by cunning marketing campaigns) age 18 will automatically be booked into or required to buy Family Class tickets.

Family Class tickets mean that all those traveling in this mode have seats at the back of the aircraft, the way-back. That way, the rest of us still get to get off the plane ahead of them and not be inconvenienced when they spend hours looking for little Susie's binky or little Tommy's left shoe. And that way, the noise stays behind us, at the back, they're closer to the galley for all those pesky "warm the bottle" requests and closer to the rear lavs where they can take little darlings for hour long nappy-changes to their hearts' content without making the rest of us do the "gotta go, please hurry up"-shuffle. Another advantage that crafty marketeers could point out to those reluctant to cotton on to my new scheme is the common belief that the back of the plane is safest in a crash (which remains a completely unfounded misconception, but why rock the boat?).

Well, dear Blog, I must run now. I am completely exhausted from having spilled forth all this brilliance and must now go recuperate. I promise, in my next installment, to tell you the rest of the trip-story about Baron's travel adventures of most recently. Till then, nighty-night!

Just to let you know... (more South African observations and anomalies)

Dear Bloggy-ma-thingy,

Sorry I've been away a while again. Things have been busy at work at the Hill, what with droves of worker bees migrating to other, probably vastly friendlier hives. Even some of the drones are apparently getting ready to desert the Queen, and sometimes I wonder if I should not be out there scouting around for greener pastures...

Generally, though, life outside the hive has been quite pleasant. I seem to have finally settled into more or less what could be considered a routine, even if it is somewhat desperately dull, devoid of all romance, and definitely on the pathetically lonely side at times.  

For one, I have become relatively expert (notice: I did not use the word "addicted," and that for good reason) to locally produces "TV dramas," which will be one of the observations and anomalies referred to in the title to this entry today.

For another, I have given up my horribly bad internet connection at home, as the local internet cafe around the corner has been kind enough to offer me unlimited internet for R200 a month. While this has the disadvantage of meaning I no longer can go online 24/7, making playing Airline Online sadly impossible, it means it makes me get out among the people every day, which is probably responsible for my not becoming a total hermit and completely unbearable curmudgeon. I've gotten to know most of the staff at the cafe quite well and there are a few nascent friendships there, which is always a nice benefit...

And another pastime I've sort of developed is watching political developments in my erstwhile homeland. That - like the locally produced dramas (called "soapies" here) - is in and of itself, never a dull thing to be involved with. South Africa's political scene, while probably reported only in small doses or hardly at all, is wild and crazy...

My first observation about all of the local soapies is probably not a shocker, but definitely something which keys into the other area broached above. In every one of them, from Generations through Isidingo, Rhythm City, Scandal!, 7de Laan all the way to Muvhango, nearly all the truly evil, bad guys are white. True, in some of them, there are evil blacks and coloreds, too, but the main range of truly evil folk on these widely watched shows is nearly always white. The whites come up with the most corrupt, evil and sinister plot points, are the most foul when it comes to bad behavior, and are (at least in the case of 7de Laan) always the biggest gossips and busybodies around.  The range of acting, especially in 7de Laan, likewise, is also similarly awful.  Nonetheless, all of these shows are cult and camp at the same time and give rise to the preponderance that some of South Africa's genuine, real-life problems may come from everyone in the country being subjected to too much bad soapie script-writing and acting. That, in turn, may be the reason for political high-jinx and problems besetting the nation in real-time.

Racism, while officially not very much a topic in the "rainbow nation" Nelson Mandela proclaimed, is, nonetheless, a genuine and frequently unaddressed problem. Many of the policies put in place after 1994, when decades of the cruel, constitutionally-enshrined national policy of apartheid ended, were designed to bring black and coloreds - the two previously completely disenfranchised majority segments of the local population - up to speed as rapidly as possible. Sadly, in a vast majority of cases they have had the opposite effect, fanning further the flames of hatred, inequity and broadening the divide. [I should explain here, for the sake of Americans who might be reading you, dearest Blog, that coloreds and blacks are government parlance here, not some racial slur I'm incorporating. Blacks in South Africa are those people of black African descent, while coloreds are people of racially-mixed origins.]

Corruption, while in the early years of the new South Africa not a pronounced problem, has grown steadily, owing to a variety of reasons, not the least of which is these early policies that, instead of bringing a more equitable distribution of wealth to all as envisioned, has resulted in a very small handful of blacks and coloreds in power milking the system for all it is worth and enriching themselves to astronomical heights at the expense of a vast majority of the population. 

Part of this can be laid directly at the doorstep of the ANC, the ruling party, which established an investment arm called Chancellor House. That organization controls a majority stake in nearly every state-run business ranging from South African Airways, SABC, Sasol  (the state-run petroleum company) to Eskom and Telkom, the electricity company and telecommunications company, respectively.  While some aspects of each of these business sectors have been privatized, the bulk has not. Corruption in each of these businesses is rampant, and the result is a wild increase in poverty, marginalized citizens and residents and a furthering instead of a closing of the gap between haves and have-nots.

I can think of no other country, for example, where an electric company can propose (and then get approved by the country's utilities board) a rate hike of 100% spread over three years. The first "installment" of this outrageous hike took place on the first of the month, increasing electric power bills by an average of 33% to the entire population. It was approved, so the utilities board said, become the mismanaged Eskom had (during the preceding nearly 20 years of corruption and misgovernance) "become uncompetitive and fallen behind" in generation, distribution and production in general. That fact had led to massive brownouts in 2007 through early 2009, which the behemoth addressed not by ramping up production or building new plants, but by buying additional power at grossly overinflated prices from neighboring nations with excess production. Nevertheless, despite these problems, Eskom's board and directors were all paid, much like in many misled American companies, bonuses that were beyond understanding.

Eskom's excuse for these "problems" was that all the poor people living in "informal settlements" (more accurately called slums or barrios) were stealing so much power through illegal taps that the company was facing losses. Documentary programs, news interviews and word of mouth all exposed those excuses as fraudulent; indeed, while there is a connection problem with illegal taps in the "informal settlements" and theft is a problem, the real reason behind Eskom's woes is - simply stated - corruption and fraud. As the majority of the company is controlled via Chancellor House, there is no interest in doing what would come naturally at an American or German or British (or any other first-world) company - whether state-owned in part or entirely - which is firing the entire board and then divesting a majority or all operations.

And so the story goes for almost all state-owned companies here. While a part of each has been privatized (often during the apartheid era), the shares of each are nearly always securely in the hands of Chancellor House, the "investment arm" of ANC, which steadfastly refuses to disclose just how much of what it actually owns.

The result is, naturally, corruption at all levels of these businesses, and also in government. While South Africa may not rank among the most corrupt according to Transparency International and similar organizations that monitor the spread of fraudulent behavior at national levels, it is, as one local paper recently reported, poised at the brink of crossing the line of "no return."  

And the result, in turn of this national problem, which is not being dealt with despite promises to the contrary by current president Jacob Zuma, is a growing racial divide and polarization of South Africans. Of course, ZUma himself may not be the most shining example for someone to lead a battle against corruption. He was, from the outset, a controversial ANC candidate and his name was connected to several major criminal and political scandals, the circumstances of several never having been completely cleared or resolved and, indeed, some continuing to this very day. Zuma also tends to incite division through his personal behavior - having five wives and numerous bastard children may work for him, personally, but is not considered de rigeur among a greater part of South Africans, and certainly does nothing to improve his reputation overseas.

So, Bloggy dear, let's review: We have soapies telling everyone whites are evil while corruption of state-run companies rises alarmingly as it does in the ANC and the country itself, which is led by a controversial president with a chequered past. Hmmm. What else can we throw in the mix? Well, how about Julius Malema?

Who's he? you ask? Ah, glad you want to know. Here's what one website says: Julius Sello Malema (born 3 March 1981, in Seshego) is a South African politician, and the president of the African National Congress Youth League. He is best known for his controversial statements and speeches, and intense support for African National Congress president Jacob Zuma.  So let's get this straight - born in 1981, which makes him 30 next year, and the president of a youth league? For most of us, youth end at the very latest at 25. After all, most of us recognize that 30 is the beginning of middle age, and middle age and youth have, in most people's books, precious little in common.

Aside from that glaring fact, Malema is probably the single most controversial figure in South African politics today, even more so as of late, than Zuma himself. For starters, he has an extraordinarily big mouth, which he has extreme difficulty keeping shut. Usually, when he opens it, it is to insert an entire shoe-store and always with extraordinarily bad timing. Whether it's a controversial, dangerous and unsettling topic such as nationalizing all the mines in this mineral-rich country, or undermining Zuma's own feeble efforts at trying to bring some sort of cooperation back to Zimbabwe's erratic government through proclaiming to the world press during an "official" visit  to the decrepit dictator Robert Mugabe that the ANC wants the despot's Zanu-PF party to stay in power and that it has the"full support" of all of South Africa, Malema can be counted on to distract from Zuma's weaknesses and frailties by giving local and international pundits a workout. 

Recently, he's managed to whip things up into even more of a frenzy by insisting he has the right to sing what he called a "struggle song" from the days of the apartheid era. The song, Aw dubul'ibhunu, (Zulu for "Shoot the Boer") was declared hate speech by the country's highest court, but Malema decided he could still sing it publicly (as did several other ANC members, who have since apologized).  Shortly after this latest commotion involving the great youth leader, the leader of one of the right-wing extremist parties, Eugene Terre Blanche, was brutally murdered on his farm. Terre Blanche, an odious scumbag leader of the local extremist equivalent of the American White People's Nazi Party, was - how could it be any different? - a farmer. [Okay, so he was hacked to death, not shot, by two black farm hands, and now there's a huge controversial debate ranging since claims have been aired saying a used condom of Terre Blanche's was found at the scene, leading to the suspicion that he was homosexual and enjoyed raping his farm hands on the side, but some here believe Malema may not be totally without blame in the whole case.]

What really amazes me in all of this is the incredible double standard here in Mzanzi. It's okay to do anything and say anything about one group of people, but anything said about another is automatically  a "racist slur" or "hate speech." Yes, this is a dangerous topic, but it will only grow more dangerous as long as the soapies continue to cast whites as the baddies, Zuma continues to be more of a buffoon than true leader, and Malema is allowed to continue antagonizing and misbehaving at every turn.

Especially irksome, too, is the fact hat South Africa is on the verge of blowing its first real chance at showcasing itself to the western world as a member of same. There are less than two months to go before the FIFA World Cup begins. Public service strikes, more corruption exposed, and more and more resentment against whites being stoked by Malema and others really is not going to help the country much, if it truly does want to encourage visitors and those tourist Dollars, Euros and Pounds. Apparently Malema and some of the other cronies urging death to whites and worse haven't come to realize one basic fact yet - the vast majority of the 350,000 expected soccer fans who will soon be descending from the skies on South Africa is not going to be black or colored...

Let's just hope that Zuma's latest efforts at reining in the unrepentant bad boy Malema work in time to not have a detrimental effect on the World Cup and don't ruin South Africa's first-ever chance at truly impressing upon the world just what a wonderful place it is. After all, South Africa needs those tourists, but they don't need Malema, crime, corruption, race riots and anything else that will scare them off.

So while we are being besieged morning noon and night by ad campaigns exhorting us all to "feel it, it is here," it's still readily apparent that that sentiment is a last-ditch effort at trying to instill some sort of excitement and will to behave properly in everyone, yet apparently not in politicos.  Go figure...

Spider Bites!

A while back, during my unfortunate car-less period, I was forced to spend a few weeks in backpacker hostels in Cape Town as my shift hours at work kept me in town until after the notoriously poor commuter rail system had ceased operations each evening (which it does surprisingly early - the last train on the South line leaves Cape Town station at 8 p.m. - truly not a very cosmopolitan operating time... tsk, tsk, tsk!).

I stayed in three hostels and have decided to share my adventures with you. Most hostels are designed for people to be able to find a cheap, affordable bed for the night. They make no promises as to an undisturbed night's sleep, but all of them guarantee a clean bed, most supply linen (but some charge extra for towels!?) and most cater exclusively to tourists and people staying short periods of time, although I did manage to find and stay in one which apparently is also a favorite among the wealthier homeless Capetonians.

My first stay was at the Afrique du Sud in Seapoint. Here, I had no option but to rent a private room as the dorms were all fully booked, which was actually fine with me, even though it cost nearly treble what a dorm bed was listed at on their website.  The location was convenient to work (minibus taxis galore!) and food (Seapoint is very good that way). The building itself is an ancient inn and very quaint. The hostel itself, however, can't be described as quaint but rather as filthy. While the linen on the beds was crisp, fresh and white, the carpets and floors throughout the establishment were so filthy, I was loathe to walk on them even in sandals! The excuse by management on other websites which have mentioned this fact is that the building is old and therefore the carpets are difficult to clean...  hahahahahahahahaha!  What a lame excuse...  I wonder how many people living in old buildings worldwide would probably either die laughing or pass out in their food if they were to read that! Nonetheless, due to the private room, I enjoyed great sleep there all three nights and the ceiling fan in the room kept me cool and made for reassuring, sleep-inducing "white noise" all night long. 

The next stay, a week later (we have bizarre work schedules) was at the Lenox Guesthouse and Backpackers in Gardens. This place bills itself as a typical German style Gasthaus, so naturally, as in the lyrics of Leo Sayer's Long Tall Glasses, I thought I'd take me a look inside.  After finally finding it (very confusing directions on their website), I was again forced to rent a private room - the dorms were all booked.

The procedure was very odd - I announced myself at the office, where my reservation was located by one person, then was accompanied by another nice lady to the kitchen, where I made payment, then was taken back to the office to meet up with someone else who showed me to my room. The back and forth at least gave me a chance to see the dining rooms and also what appeared to be a TV lounge set up for mass viewing but very "classroom" and uncomfortable looking and totally empty. There was a free breakfast included in the room rate here (hence probably the notion of German-style); I asked what it was and it turned out to be bread, butter and jam with tea or coffee, just as is actually served in "better" German hostels.

My room was very small, furnished in ancient "early attic" furniture, adorned with dozens of lovely, faded , type-written notices urging residents not to connect appliances, not to let strangers in or have guests in the rooms, or not to smoke, not to drink, not to do anything but sleep, basically. When I saw the "no appliances" notice, forbidding not hairdryers or razors, but mainly refrigerators, hot plates, microwaves and other items most backpackers usually don't carry in their knapsacks, it became clear to me - aha! Longterm residents!

I met a few of them during my two-night sojourn - all of them what they call "bergies" here - bums who subsist on alcohol (primarily) and usually hang about Table Mountain in caves or bushes, but these guys all lived on the same floor I did, so I assume they were of the "bergies deluxe" persuasion... their begging and cursing at tourists in odd trance-induced dialects must be extra lucrative, or perhaps they have all discovered a secret gold vein on the mountain they mine under the cover of being alcoholic tramps.

The bed was comfy, the linen even fresher and crisper than at the Afrique du Sud, and while the floor was not carpets, it was much cleaner, even if the little rug on it probably could have stood in a corner as it was so breath-takingly replete with every type of filth known to man...

My third stay necessitated by late shift at work was for a week at the Sunflower Stop backpackers in Green Point, kitty-corner from our lovely new stadium here build and opened in time for the upcoming disaster known as FIFA, to be held there and at about eight other locations nationwide for several weeks in June, and upon which most of the country has pinned its hopes for financial revival after the recent global downturn...

The Sunflower Stop was very different - a bar, a pool, a lovely TV lounge, cleanliness everywhere and friendly people everywhere who were obviously backpacking through South Africa and were having a good time visiting Cape Town.  I booked into an eight-person dorm, was shown to a lower bunk (which I exchanged for an upper bunk the next day after bumping my head severely several times due to the lilliputian dimensions between upper and lower bunk.The bunks were obviously homemade, and thus an upper bunk solved the space problem nicely. Most other residents didn't seem to mind waking up and bumping their skulls - in some cases, I imagine it went unnoticed due to babbelas (that means extreme hangover in Afrikaans) anyway...

All was well with the world for a few nights. I had tons of channels in the mostly empty TV lounge including such fare as Discovery, BBC Lifestyle and even the Crime Network (huzzah!) and got my first exposure to the super-deluxe (and for me unaffordably expensive) all-inclusive SatTV package...

On my fourth morning, I noticed that I had developed weird bumps under one arm and on both thighs which were obviously the results of bites of some sort, itched madly and looked rather nasty. My immediate thought was bedbugs! But upon closer inspection (clandestinely, so as not to induce panic among those of my co-inmates coherent enough to notice me basically pulling apart my bed), no bedbugs or traces were found in any of the common places to look (hey, I was trained to know as a hotelier! Never doubt me on this!).  Hmmmm, what was it? Since no fang-marks were present, snake bites were immediately excluded as cause, despite my wondering if there wasn't a boomslang  (tree snake) or two in the trees outside the open windows.

No, after a while it became apparent (due to my supernatural powers of deduction, obviously) that I had been the foodbank for a number of evil vampire-spiders during the night...  sure enough, next morning when I was able to get a better look at what was under those crisp, white sheets it became clear - the mattress, under the blanket being used as a pad, was home to a number of spider eggs... proof at last, Watson!

Management took news of my discovery in a very relaxed manner - so relaxed, as a matter of fact, that an apology for my pain, suffering and inconvenience was not even deemed necessary. And as I was departing anyway, thanks to the end of late shift for a few days and an imminent car purchase, I minibus-taxied away into oblivion, leaving the Sunflower Spider Stop behind me forever.

Since then, I have invested heavily in a number of antibiotic creams (thanks to my health plan and doctor) and have been watching the bites turn colors, swell, cause pain, make me think perhaps I had contracted Hodgkins lymphoma, fill with pus, become even nastier than I shall relate here, explode, make a mess of sheets, etc. 

As today I realized that the last one was in its final stages, I decided to share my news and findings with you, dear Blog. Hopefully some readers, if there are any, will have been entertained by my misadventures, and will have drawn the logical conclusions from it that should be apparent: You must have a car to get about in Cape Town or not live in Muizenberg (which is so poorly connected to the city that it might as well be on Mars); you should not rely on any of the backpackers mentioned here (and probably others) being spider-free; and don't buy used cars from people you don't know you can trust (much like Mom used to say - don't take candy from strangers!).