Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Society’ Category

We ended up choosing Venice as our Halloween trip basically because the flights to it from our selection of local airports were among the cheapest to anywhere and it seemed to offer us the most of those cheapo destinations in terms of attractions and general interest.

I was surprised to find that there’s quite a selection of fairly reasonably priced appartment accommodation right in the city itself. Last time I looked everything was at crazy prices as you would expect for such a popular and compact city. Getting to the accommodation sounds like something of a trek though. We’re flying Ryanair so “Venice airport” is actually Treviso which is about 30km outside the city (vs 10km for Marco Polo, the main Venecian airport) and involves a coach trip (EUR 9 each, each way) as Treviso isn’t well connected to Venice. Still, once we get off the coach we’re pretty much in Venice and it’s quite a nice boat trip round to the dock nearest our accommodation.

Water transport in Venice is quite expensive although to be fair if you’re based right in the city as we will be you don’t really need to use it that much. Sure, we’ll go on the round-the-island trip but other than that and probably a trip to Lido we’ll likely only be heading out on the water to see the glass making at Murano so don’t expect to spend too much on getting around (it’s quite a walkable size of city).

Christmas shopping is a bit of a nightmare at the best of times but try doing it in a foreign country and it’s that much harder.

For one thing, you need to consider how you’re gonna get all the stuff back home again. Ordinary holidays are bad enough and we had to buy a new case once to get it all back again so Christmas is just that much worse with both extra weight and volume if you’re shopping whilst you’re actually on holiday.

This time around we’d the added complication of needing to get a refund on our credit cards which is generally much more of a hassle when you’re abroad even aside from the double change of currency and the extra delay in getting the refund back to your account.

Fortunately, perhaps, getting secured loans is one option that you can safely forget about if you’re doing your Christmas shopping abroad, at least if you’ve not planned ahead for it.

We received an interesting e-mail from one of the European offices looking after consumer affairs last night.

They’re writing on behalf of a Spanish couple who booked with us last July but who didn’t turn up.

Ordinarly, that would mean we’d have billed them as a no-show but at the time the booking system had a technical problem so we weren’t receiving their reservation e-mails and therefore didn’t know that they were coming. Anyway, net effect was that we didn’t charge them although under the terms of the reservation system we were entitled to.

They’ve gone to this European office with their booking confirmation that has a note of the two nights booked and EUR 98 charge. Except, that it isn’t a change: it’s just a note of what they would have to pay.

The Spanish guy in the European office doesn’t understand that at all. They quoted their credit card number and they’ve a statement with EUR 98 on it, they didn’t get their accommodation (because they went to the wrong place) but he believes that they’ve paid it as do they.

Usually the Spanish are much more Internet-savvy than the French but in this area they’re just as far behind in that they assume that they’ve paid when they quote a credit card number yet it’s only used for a guarantee.

I suspect that it’ll run for a bit as he sent another e-mail this morning threatening to translate everything and sent it to the French consumer protection authorities to demand the refund of this EUR 98 which they’ve not paid.

In an ideal world, a direct non-stop flight is definitely the way to go. One check-in and you’re gone.

However, the growth of discount airlines means that in many cases an indirect route is considerably cheaper and can also offer you a lot more choice in the way of departure times. The downsides are that you generally need to collect your bags and check-in for the second flight and you run the risk of a delay on the first flight knocking you off the second one.

The bags sure are a hassle but if you’re travelling light, it’s a manageable one. Where you do need to be careful about is the time between arriving from the first flight and departing on the second one which needs to allow for delays. You could go with the minimum time between flights in a terminal but are better to add an hour or two (possibly more at peak times) to be sure of making the connection. Actually, at peak times I’d be inclined not to risk it if the second airline is a discount one (“normal” airlines will let you go on the next flight, discount ones will sell you another ticket).

Funnily enough you seem to get these flights cheaper. So, for example, my flight next week is around £70 for a direct non-stop one vs £50 for the two stage one. Not only that, but the £70 flight gets me here after midnight whereas the two stager gets me here for teatime which is always a lot easier on the system.

My Dad died on August 24th, suddenly and unexpectedly aged 81.

Frankly, I’d always thought that I’d have some last words to say to him before he went. In fact, I was sure that there would be something or other that I’d have left unsaid. Yet, now that the time has come in fact I find that I can’t think of anything that I should have said which seems a little odd to be honest. How come? Well, we’ve always spoke over the years and if anything probably that little bit more in the past few. So, he knew broadly what I’d be doing in the years to come (or at least as much as I know myself). He knew that Mum, me and his grandchildren loved him and that he’d be missed when he went.

Actually, that being missed bit is a little odd at the moment. I find that I’m not missing him for me but rather for his grandchildren. He’d had a full life of being Daddy to me but, sadly, only got to be Granda for just over six years. I know that he’d never have lived to see them graduating from university but it’s nice to know that he was able to be there for James’ first day at school and he’d expect nothing less than that he would one day be graduating in whatever subject interested him at that time. Actually, that’s not quite true because, as with me, he only ever wanted them to do whatever they wanted to do in terms of education; he felt his job was to provide whatever resources that were necessary to enable me to achieve my objectives.

As with my Nanny almost 20 years back, I’ve very much made a point of not considering him as dead but rather as living somewhere that we never quite manage to get around to visiting. I’m sure that’s a totally crap way of dealing with it in terms of closure but it’s worked really well for me with both my Nanny and my Dad’s brother John. I know that some people feel the need to see an actual dead body to say goodbye to but I much prefer to maintain my little illusion and therefore anyone expecting an open coffin was disappointed.

Anyway, whilst I didn’t have the opportunity to say any last words before he left us, I can’t think of anything that I needed to say to him. Is that strange?