Fluffy

I meant to post this shortly after returning from the Azores. Here it is, though belated, and hopefully helpful to someone out there.

Out of our group of 5, 2 of my travel companions had missing luggage upon our arrival at Frankfurt. One fellow got his back the next day, but not the other guy, who incidentally works across from me. He told me the following week that he could not find his baggage claim ticket either.

A few minutes later, I grabbed a large stack of items I’d pulled from the house, like credit card receipts, to run thru the shredder. I always shred old airline tickets as well. I started to put my boarding pass into the shredder when I noticed a surname other than mine. I quickly turned it off and realized it was the boarding pass of my coworker with a claim ticket attached to the back.

I handed it to my very grateful coworker, who called the airport. Sure, they found the bag with the ticket number - under my surname!

WTF?

I rummaged thru my old airline ticket envelope and found my boarding pass with his baggage claim ticket on it.

We figured out that when our flight was delayed and we missed our connecting flight, our group handed all 5 of our tickets to the airline clerk. The clerk then obviously mixed up our claim tickets with our boarding passes, and to add bad icing to the burned cake, he stuck both of them in my envelope.

All’s well that ended well though. My coworker was thrilled to get his bag back, which contained some gifts he’d bought for his family. And I learned a valuable lesson to ALWAYS check stuff before I shred it (yes, I felt like a real bonehead for nearly shredding the only piece of evidence to help my coworker get his bag returned).

So when traveling, hand clerks tickets one at a time. Double check to be sure you have your own boarding pass and claim tickets before handing the clerk another ticket.

Happy travelling.

I gave him his

The Decameron.

Seriously. I picked it up merely to satisfy my self-imposed rule of reading one classic for every modern novel/beach book I read, but I had no idea it would be so interesting. It is a collection of 100 short stories and of course I am nowhere near finishing it, but since it is in short story format, you can read a story or two per night. Give it a try.

So, my pal and I decided Tuesday night that we would like to go to Athens for Labor Day weekend. Easy enough, you might say. Unfortunately, we decided to use Orbitz. It’s very misleading in that a good fare shows up repeatedly. Try to purchase it and you get this message saying “Sorry, that flight is no longer available”. Well, why the sam hill do you still have it listed, eh? So you pick another ticket and this time you ge the message that “We’re sorry, that ticket now costs $27 more.” Fine, whatever, couldn’t they have just added it to the price already? We finally got thru all the mess and bought out tickets.

Today, I discover in my inbox a message that we are to be issued paper tickets. Again, I say WTF? Oh, and this of course incurs an additional charge. Then I find another message from them asking me to call them long-distance to confirm my address so that they can send the tickets. Um, I live in Germany. Calling the states during their business hours is smack in the middle of my bedtime.

All in all, we really don’t care. It’s Greece or bust, baby, and we will figure out how to get there one way or another.

This is something I have noticed for quite some time, but not until my recent trip to the Azores (not to mention the painfully long layover at the Lisbon International Airport) did I feel it was worthy of a purse. Aside from shoes, haircuts, and choice of cologne, there is also another way to determine if a man is European or American.

Does he carry a manpurse?

Seriously, nearly every man I saw over the age of 15 was carrying some sort of manpurse. There is the modified fanny pack style, in which a trendy young fellow buckles the fanny pack and wears it over his shoulder, sling style. For those who prefer a waist style, there exists the popular belt bag, which closely resembles a camera case or large cell phone case and attaches conveniently to a belt. Or try the classic messenger bag, available in a variety of fabrics and sizes, and wear it over or across the shoulder. Some brave men who were obviously quite confident in their sexual orientations even carried tote bags.

Well, I for one am glad to see this trend is steadily growing in popularity and will hopefully make its way to other areas of the globe. On behalf of ladies everywhere who get sick of men asking “Can you put this in your purse?”, whether the item is a camera, water bottle, meatball sub sandwich, or fishing tackle box, allow me to extend a huge THANK YOU to the manufacturers of the manpurses. For too long, men who eagerly wear a dress for Halloween but shy away at the thought of carrying a bag of any sort, even a plastic sack from the neighborhood grocer, have relied on women to relieve them of their excess baggage that will not fit in their pockets. Well boys, your days are numbered.

Wow, I seem to have spark a debate on not only my translation abilities, but also whether Schnappi is cool or not. Go me! By all means, if someone has a better translation, please post it. I welcome comments of any kind and am pleased to have people reading my blog.

Anyway, here is a rundown of my trip to the Azores (Terceira Island). I left out the boring work details as they are, well, pretty boring.

Day 1 - we went to a local village’s bull run. This is apparently a national pasttime in which they put up barricades along the street, sort of in Mardi Gras fashion but more hefty. Then they release an angry bull into the street (attached to a long rope). The object is apparently for men in the village to taunt the bull and touch it thereby proving their manhood. Most of them leap over the barricades whenever the bull gets within 100 yards. It seemed cruel but at least no one kills the poor bull. In fact, I was rooting for him. I got a bit too bold and at the prompting of my comrades, I jumped out into the street to grab the end of the rope and pose for a quick photo. However, the bull handlers turned around and saw me, grinned brightly, gave me one of their hats to wear and offered me the rope. That was awesome and made for a good photo. As soon as the bull came back, I fled and lept back over the barricade. The bull was tired and stood right next to us - I could actually reach down and gently pat the fellow. How many people can say they petted a bull, eh? Afterwards, we went to Praiafest (”beach fest”) which is their huge annual street party. The guys found 70 Euro cent beers so needless to say, good times were had by all.

Day 2 - we drove around the beautiful island, which is only 11 miles x 18 miles. The coast is not beaches, but rather gorgeous rocky cliffs. Some were ideal for local swimming holes. The land is all blocked into neat little squares bordered by stone fences that look straight out of Scotland. From the airplane it looked like a lovely green quilt. Also, I think there are more cows there than people as most of the fields had at least several cattle. I took some stunning photographs as well.

Day 3 - I went swimming in the Azores! The water was terribly cold and choppy but I had to give it a try. After all, how often does one get a free trip to the lovely islands of the Atlantic? We then drove up to a dormant volcano and a petting zoo. Did anyone else here know that fawns make noises? They sound almost like a human baby, but sweeter and far cuter. A young buck had gotten loose and seemed to enjoy walking next to us - beautiful creatures, by the way. Afterwards, we went to a local restaurant where for about 18 Euros, they bring you various cuts and varieties of meat. You actually have to tell them to stop when you are done. Of course, it was delicious, but the best part of the meal were the roasted pineapple slices they brought after every few meat servings. They were sweet and juicy, which helps cut down on the saltiness of the meat.

Day 4 - I wanted to go hiking but the rest of the group wanted to go shopping. Turned out to be a good idea because it rained heavily, far too heavily for hiking. I bought some interesting candleholders because I figured I had to have something to prove I once went to the Azores. Dinner was especially good - steak on the rocks. They bring you a steak on a sizzling hot metal slab so it cooks as much (or little) as you wish. For people who love rare steak, it was a delightful treat. Afterwards, we went back to Praiafest where the guys were making jokes about the local mascot of the rooster (use your imagination). I wound up walking thru a fountain to cool off, which felt marvelous after a long day. Three galloas and some pastries later, and it was 3am and time for bed.

Day 5 - 2nd worst experience flying home (the worst was 8 hours at LAX). At least this time I had some company. But after all of the fun and good luck, I figured it was only natural for bad karma to hit us hard.

All in all, it was wonderful. I highly recommend exploring the Azores, but be sure to do it during their annual festivals.

Okay, I am a bit perplexed here. Saturday afternoon, I realized I was out of Kinderschokolade and headed down to the local Real Markt. On the way, I got a random idea to go furniture shopping and pulled into a nearby Mobel Boss.

It was hot outside yet because I had failed to do laundry, I was wearing my wool turtleneck sweater, mom jeans, and my hair looked like I had just rolled out of bed (in fact I had just awoken from a nap after a rather unfortunate hair gel experiment went awry.) Needless to say, I wasn’t looking my best.

But one of the furniture clerks, who incidentally speaks the most pitch-perfect English I have ever heard from a German, gave me his phone number and said he’d like to take me out sometime.

WTF?

Each time I wear this sweater, I attract an unusual amount of attention. It is just a plain white wool sweater from the JC Penney catalog, and no, it’s not a hoochie sweater. But I could deck myself out to the nines and be doomed to third vice president of the wallflowers club. An I missing something here? Is the librarian look really that appealing?

Also, is it morally acceptable to call a fellow with your primary goal of getting a furniture discount?

I forgot this earlier. Check out this link for a good laugh and marvel at the perks and pitfalls of modern techniques:

Awful Plastic Surgery

So today I finally rode to work on the bike after taking several months off from motorcycle riding. It was a pretty nice ride but as luck would have it, it looks like rain. Also, I got stuck behind a large truck hauling tree branches (driving at 60 kph in a 100 kph zone, by the way) for the entire ride. I had no idea tree branches produced so many leaves and dirt specks.

Other good news: my landlord is FINALLY coming by tonight to repair my dishwasher. Let’s see, I called to report it in May and now it’s August. 3 month turnaround time and two calls to the housing office and voila, wheels start turning. Funny how if I paid rent a day late bells and whistles would go off. I swear, it will be so nice to actually own a place one of these days.

Looks like I am all set to go to the Azores next week. Anybody want anything from there?