No profound thoughts to offer today;
instead, ten rapid-fire, shoot-from-the-hip impressions -- some of them snarky -- from
my current road trip. Readers who want to discount what follows can chalk
it up to some serious jet lag.
1. British Airways has mastered the art of predatory pricing. First, they canceled my initial flight to London, which meant I couldn't make
my connection to Paris in time for my first commitment. So I had to buy a
separate one way ticket on Air France to preserve my schedule. But did BA
offer to refund the unused portion of my itinerary (which was unused because
they canceled the flight)? But nooooooooo! If I wanted a
refund, I had to cancel my entire itinerary (which involved four more flights)
and then rebook all four of the remaining legs under a new reservation number, but
at a new, higher price that cost more than the original ticket. Heads
they win, tails you lose. Resolved: avoid BA whenever possible in the
future.
2. Alas, Air France is not an appealing alternative; it's no longer a
great airline but instead is merely adequate. I still have vivid and
glowing memories of flying first class to Paris on my honeymoon (a gift from my
mother-in-law, who had a gazillion frequent flyer miles back then). I
wasn't in first class this time, but even taking that into account, it was a
pretty mediocre experience. And the "tournedos" they served for dinner
would have made Escoffier tear his hair. Some poor vache died for
no good reason.
3. Public transportation. On the other hand, there were a few
experience on the road that put les États-Unis to shame. In Paris,
there's a direct train from the airport into Paris, or you can take an Air
France bus that leaves frequently, is cheap, and gets you to one of several
convenient Metro stops. In London, the "Heathrow Express" rail line is
equally convenient, and a virtually seamless way to get from the airport to
central London. As you leave customs, there's a guy standing there with a
credit card swiper. Thirty seconds later, you have your ticket, the trains
leave every 15 mins., and they get you to Paddington in about 20 mins..
Consider that you can't take a train to Dulles or JFK and it reminds how bad
most public transport and infrastructure is in the Land of the Free(way).
4. London Taxis. Wow. They're ubiquitous. They have
enormous passenger space. The drivers all speak English (it is England,
after all). They have a turning radius of about 4 feet. And they're
pretty cheap too.
5. The oysters in France are excellent. This is not a news flash.
But can somebody arrange a blind taste test between the Old and New World
oyster beds? And invite me?
6. I never noticed it before, but there are a huge number of bicyclists
on the streets of London, even though the weather is unusually cold. As
someone who bikes to work year-round, it's nice to know that the tribe of
all-weather, damn-the-traffic cyclists is spread world-wide.
7. The modern world has many wonderful features -- googlemaps, email, cell phones,
etc. -- and all of them have proven to be invaluable on this trip. (I'll
spare you the details). But they also make us unusually dependent.
One of my colleagues on this visit has a malfunctioning ATM card, which makes
it nearly impossible for him to get a hold of cash easily and
conveniently. In the old days we all carried around wads of
"traveler's cheques" (remember those?), now we all tend to assume that if
you're in a major city, there's a cash machine within two blocks of anywhere
you might be. Not really true, of course, but our reliance on handy
little tools like this can leave us totally at sea when the system breaks
down. (At this point I pause to knock wood and utter several ancient
gypsy incantations against evil spirits).
8. Have you noticed that the more you pay for a hotel, the less likely
you are to get free internet service? At first glance this makes no
sense: once you've installed Wifi, it doesn't cost the hotel any additional
expense if everyone can just use it for free, so why not just make it available
to everyone and generate some good will among consumers? The explanation,
of course, is that bargain hotels (e.g., Red Roof Inn, Holiday Express, etc.)
are competing for the bargain consumer and they offer these perks as way of
luring business. By contrast, high end hotels like the Hilton or Four
Season assume that customers who can afford to stay there can also afford to
shell out another 15 or 20 (!) bucks (or its Euro equivalents) if they want
check their email or catch up on what Lynch, Ricks, and Drezner are saying on
the FP website. I promise to fix this problem by fiat just as soon
as I take over.
9. Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if all countries had the same electrical
systems, and you didn't have to carry around a lot of converters (or even one
of those so-called "universal" ones, which seem to work in every country except
the one I currently (no pun intended) in.
10. Lastly, a thought experiment: I wonder what Americans would think if every
single one of them could travel to Paris or London, go through the airport and
ride the public transportation system, and spend a week seeing how well some
public institutions (though of course not all) actually work. I somehow
suspect a lot of them would come home and ask themselves why Americans don't
have the same thing. This effect would be compounded if they all
re-entered the United States at Logan Airport or La Guardia. I won't beat my
dead horse on crumbling infrastructure again (well, at least not today), but
I've been thinking about it a lot on this trip.
Read More
(23)
HIDE COMMENTS LOGIN OR REGISTER REPORT ABUSE