Leaving on a jet plane

 I’m getting ready for a vacation trip

This is the first time I’ve had to do it by myself. So many little details that we use to share.

I leave Friday – Fly to Miami, change planes, fly to London, change planes, and fly to Budapest. I start out at 8:15am and arrive at my final destination 12:30 the next day. I’ll meet my friends in London since they are starting out in New Jersey. The tour is nine days by motor coach. We also considered a river cruise, but Bill was opposed to that because he felt there wouldn’t be enough to do in the little towns that the cruise stopped at. Maybe my next vacation.

What will the temperature be like? Looks like 50-75. Uh oh. That’s a wide range and means layers of clothes. The booklet says bus can only take one piece of luggage per person – no carry-on! I have to have all the toiletries in my bag so there is more stuff than you would think for half of a couple. There are some things in the booklet I never would have thought of – bring wash cloths, soap and laundry detergent. Huh? American hair blowers are a no-no. A universal adapter for electronics is essential. I’ll bring my iPad and iPhone. Calls are expensive, $1.29 – $1.49 per minute, but it is only for emergency. Texts are 50 cents outgoing, 5 cents incoming. If I can get Wi-Fi, I will email. The bus is supposed to have Wi-Fi, but only for browsing, not downloading. That may mean I can’t send or receive emails.

Put a hold on newspapers and mail. Arrange for car service.

Money! We are going to three countries. Bill always dealt with the currency. He knew what currency and when and where to get it. He also knew what credit card(s) could be used. I read that we could use euros. Great. I ran to the bank and ordered some euros. They came in the next day. Uh, oh. I spoke to my friend, Maria (one of my travel companions) and she pointed out that although they use euros in Austria, if they take euros in the Czech Republic and Hungary they will charge you extra. Back to the bank to order Hungarian and Czech money. I also got a credit card with no conversion fee. If I run out of currency, the plan is to use a debit card at an ATM.

Bill was the one to deal with the excursions. Now I have to see what is being offered, figure out how much it costs, talk to my friends to see if they want to go and decide whether to go myself if they don’t want to take the same excursion.

I always get very stressed when getting ready for a trip. Now I have no one to holler at but myself. I am making a mess trying to pack. I guess I always did. But I am surprised by the amount of the mess. I think of myself as very organized. I’ve taken out much too much and laid it out all over the place and expect to whittle it down. I bought some inexpensive clothes that should travel well and are comfortable. I plan to bring a light down jacket that can double as a pillow on the planes. They said to bring hats and gloves. Really?

I played tennis this morning but will take the rest of the week off from pickleball and tennis. I don’t want to risk injury. I’ve only started playing again a couple of weeks ago, but I see a big difference in just the couple of weeks. Enough so that I plan on getting a better racquet. I bought a $25 racquet just to see if I could get back into it.

I’m a little scared, but mostly excited. I will miss Bill. I already do. We enjoyed traveling together. At least most of the time. There were exceptions. But even before a trip, sharing the excitement and the plans was a huge part of the experience.

I don’t expect to post next week, and will probably be late the week after. But I’ll be back.

Thanks for following,

 

What is it that I value?

I’ve just committed to a trip to the Galapagos Islands next year with my friend Sylvia. An enormous amount of emotion went into the decision.

My parents lived through the Great Depression. I learned at an early age to avoid spending frivolously. We were, I guess you would call it lower middle class. We always had a roof over our head, food on the table, and a car – purchased used. We would go out to eat at a local restaurant occasionally.  I didn’t own a bicycle, but we could rent one near the park. We got out of the city heat during the summer. Three families shared a “bungalow” with each family of four having its own bedroom. We shared the kitchen and a single bathroom.

After Bill and I married, and with both of us working, we had more discretionary income than my parents had. But we always looked for bargains. We didn’t know about luxury items for a really long time. We felt they were for rich people and had no real value.

Then, a few things happened.

1. We decided to splurge for our 40^th We were looking to take a cruise but wanted it to be special. My cousin suggested we try Crystal Cruise lines. It turned out they had an exciting itinerary for an 11 day cruise of the Baltics. We asked my cousin if we would feel out of place because we weren’t wealthy like the other passengers. He said that everyone was very nice. So we decided to go for it. What an experience!!! We arrived at the dock with our five pieces of luggage (including carry-on) and five men jumped out and each grabbed one bag and they magically appeared later in our cabin. We went straight through to check in – no line – and they treated us to a sit-down lunch, including free champagne. Service was incredible, always someone there. The excursions (for which we did pay extra) were outstanding. Great guides, small groups, no stopping at gift shops for an hour. There were some really unique (and too expensive for us) optional excursions like a ride in a MIG jet.

We’ve been on other cruise lines. We had to bring the bags on ourselves (they did transport them to the cabin), we stood in line for 30 minutes, and we could go to the buffet for lunch if we wanted. The excursions spent more time at gift shops than anything else. On one trip, we were eating at the buffet when Bill asked for coffee (that had to be served). The server went to the back and brought him a cup of coffee. Bill then asked for some cream. The server went back and got some cream. Then I said, “I would like some coffee too.” We laughed, but it wouldn’t happen on Crystal. Another time, we sat down in the smoking area because it was the only place we could find a seat. We waited a half hour for a glass of wine. Then somebody reached over and grabbed the ashtray off our table. We weren’t smoking, but they didn’t ask, just grabbed it. I never encountered rude people on Crystal.

2. The counter tops in our 45 year old kitchen were really falling apart. We decided to look into replacing them. We stopped at a neighborhood home improvement store, Royal Kitchens and asked how much it would cost. The price range sounded reasonable and we asked for references. The receptionist opened a drawer and said “How many would you like?” We asked for four and she pulled four out and gave us names and phone numbers. We called all four and they all invited us over to see the work. We went to the first two and were just blown away by the raves about the workmanship and integrity. They had major renovations rather than just a counter top. We asked the second one if she would mind telling us how much it had cost. On the way to the third reference we decided we wanted to do the entire kitchen and we had heard enough about this company that we wanted to do it through them. We never got to that third reference.

I have never been so happy or so proud of anything I owned as I was with that kitchen! They tore down everything and started from scratch – new lighting, new plumbing, new appliances, new tile floor, new door, they even created a pass-through to the dining room. The quality of the work was obvious from day one and I never had a problem for the next five years while I continued to live there. Two people looked at our house when we started looking into selling it. They both made offers. Other than the kitchen, the house was just an average house and it had not been fixed up to sell.

3. We bought a Lexus ES 330 in 2004. It was our first luxury car. But Bill had done very well the previous couple of years, and it turned out to cost only $3,000 more than the top-of-the-line Camry. So we decided to buy it.

I still have it. It has 136,000 miles on it and drives like a dream. We drove it cross country last year. An engineer friend and his wife, who are Camry loyalists, had teased us about spending so much when it was exactly the same as their Camry. That is, until we let them drive it. It is different.

I developed an appreciation of “You get what you pay for.”

Flash forward.

Bill and I had discussed going to the Galapagos with Sylvia and Larry a couple of years ago. But Bill didn’t really want to go and so we dropped it. At Bill’s funeral, Sylvia mentioned that she and Larry had never gone because Larry wasn’t really that interested. So why don’t we go? Wow!

We let a few weeks pass and decided we really wanted to do this. Sylvia and Larry had traveled extensively the last few years, mostly with an outfit called Vantage Travel and they loved it. So she was excited that they had a trip that was just what we wanted. I would have preferred a more upscale group. Sylvia enjoys dining out at local chain restaurants, I would like an occasional fancy restaurant. More for the ambiance than the food. I checked out Vantage on the internet and there were quite a few complaints. Not about the trips, but about customer service if something went wrong. But I looked at the price of the Tauk and Lindblad and Colette and decided it was not worth the difference in price. So, I said “Okay, let’s do it with Vantage.” Sylvia set up a 3-way conference call with Curt at Vantage travel. We were discussing dates and prices. The brochure said the airfare from Miami was $699 in June and listed dates of June 10 and June 17. But the internet, and Curt, also had a trip for June 24, at $200 less than those dates. But Curt insisted that the price of airfare for the June 24 trip was $899 because it wasn’t listed in the brochure. I said “Wait! I want more time to think about this!” It really, really bothered me that this could be such a schlock outfit. Sylvia thought I was ready to back out, whereas what I was really doing was reconsidering going with the less expensive group. I was determined to go before I was too old to handle the physical aspects of the trip. So I spent another couple of days, checking out Vantage, and comparing trips and prices. The more upscale trips would be more than double. And this was far from inexpensive.

Here was my conundrum: I was going to spend an awful lot of money for my trip, did I want to go with a group that would likely be missing the quality I had come to appreciate? In the end, I decided the trip was more important to me. But I know I will enjoy it because I made a conscious decision to do it this way and I won’t have any regrets. If I had felt pushed into it I would have risked resenting it.