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My Ass, A Pain In
Mar. 22nd, 2011 10:09 amCan I have "What is travel?" for $1,000 Alex?
I love going to conferences, I really, really do. It's just that I hate getting to them, and for that matter, getting back from them.
ICFA was actually fairly painless, as these things go. I mean, sure, I tried a new medicine the night before I left without realizing that one of its rare side effects (I am the queen of rare side effects) is wakefullness, which meant that I went to bed at midnight, stared at the ceiling for a few hours, got up for my flight, and was a little punchy the first day ... but what's a non sequitur or three between friends, right? But aside from that and the con-crud, that trip went swimmingly.
(An aside: Dear Company Whose Products I Saw in the Orlando Airport: You are so twee. There is no excuse for luggage tags that say things like "Don't Board Without the Lord" and "Bless this Baggage." If God has enough time to watch over your checked luggage while tsunamis are happening? Either he's got a bad case of tunnel-vision, or, more likely, your customers are smug, self-satisfied, self-obsessed asshats.)
On the other hand, York? York is sort of shaping up to be a clusterfuck.
Point the first: they did warn me to book my accommodations early, but I thought "inside of a week from getting the e-mail" was early. Nope. The 4-night stays were booked solid by the time I got around to it, which means I'm spending the first night in one place, and the next three in another. It will be so much fun schlepping my suitcase across a busy campus in the middle of an eventful conference.
Point the second: V and I intelligently booked an 11:30 AM flight home from Manchester to Newark, thinking it was the best balance between not getting up too early and still having a semi-usable workday upon getting home. Nope. Continental fucked us by moving the flight back two hours. Do you know how early you have to get to the train station in York in order to catch a 9:30 plane out of Manchester? 3:40. Military time, y'all.
Happily, my husband has, like, a black-belt in airline-fu, so we're transferred to a later flight with a London layover ... it'll mean getting home late Sunday night, but, hey, at least I'll be alive upon disembarking, which could not be guaranteed if I'd gotten up at 3 in the damned morning.
You know how the Lady of Shallot is weary, weary? Me, I'm wary, wary. Travel sucks.
I love going to conferences, I really, really do. It's just that I hate getting to them, and for that matter, getting back from them.
ICFA was actually fairly painless, as these things go. I mean, sure, I tried a new medicine the night before I left without realizing that one of its rare side effects (I am the queen of rare side effects) is wakefullness, which meant that I went to bed at midnight, stared at the ceiling for a few hours, got up for my flight, and was a little punchy the first day ... but what's a non sequitur or three between friends, right? But aside from that and the con-crud, that trip went swimmingly.
(An aside: Dear Company Whose Products I Saw in the Orlando Airport: You are so twee. There is no excuse for luggage tags that say things like "Don't Board Without the Lord" and "Bless this Baggage." If God has enough time to watch over your checked luggage while tsunamis are happening? Either he's got a bad case of tunnel-vision, or, more likely, your customers are smug, self-satisfied, self-obsessed asshats.)
On the other hand, York? York is sort of shaping up to be a clusterfuck.
Point the first: they did warn me to book my accommodations early, but I thought "inside of a week from getting the e-mail" was early. Nope. The 4-night stays were booked solid by the time I got around to it, which means I'm spending the first night in one place, and the next three in another. It will be so much fun schlepping my suitcase across a busy campus in the middle of an eventful conference.
Point the second: V and I intelligently booked an 11:30 AM flight home from Manchester to Newark, thinking it was the best balance between not getting up too early and still having a semi-usable workday upon getting home. Nope. Continental fucked us by moving the flight back two hours. Do you know how early you have to get to the train station in York in order to catch a 9:30 plane out of Manchester? 3:40. Military time, y'all.
Happily, my husband has, like, a black-belt in airline-fu, so we're transferred to a later flight with a London layover ... it'll mean getting home late Sunday night, but, hey, at least I'll be alive upon disembarking, which could not be guaranteed if I'd gotten up at 3 in the damned morning.
You know how the Lady of Shallot is weary, weary? Me, I'm wary, wary. Travel sucks.