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11/16/2003: "Blogging from Heathrow UK"

Wow this trip to Europe is finally over.

I saw all the touristy things ate at all the touristy foods.

On the whole, I've decided that I don't really like Europe much at all. Maybe its an acquired taste, but it also could have to do with the fact that I'm just used to courteous service at restaurants, hospitality at hotels, the ease of Californian driving, the ability to drive, warm weather, cleanliness on the streets, and California's wonderful no-smoking in public area law.

Lowlights of the trip included:

Dragging two suitcases and two backpacks through both the British underground and the French metro. Both places smelled of human urine, had litter both in the subways as well as on the trains. I'd like to add that there were a ton of pickpockets on both and that for some reason the British Airport underground stops have several deterrents for people with luggage, including but not limited to bars in the center of the entrances to stop you from getting through. It's really ridiculous if you ask me, since people that are leaving the airport all have luggage!

The feces (dog/human?) on the sidewalk on some of the streets in Paris. Also the phlegm, spit, and cigarette butts also the street, green nasty phlegmy stuff, all over the streets. On one particular sojourn in Paris, I counted no less than 5 different feces on the street and more than 5-6 people spitting nasty junk on the streets.

I got mugged on the French metro and the thief managed to punch me in the eye with his nokia phone after I spotted him trying to steal shit from my backpack. Left a pretty wicked bruise and a deep scratch.

Wendy almost had her things stolen on the street in Paris as the thief opened both zippers on her backpack.

Expedia.co.uk booked our hotels in Paris but neglected to issue airplane tickets from London to Paris. They wanted us to pay ~1k US for the difference in flight or refund taxes on the tickets only and charge us cancellation fees for both. We're going through the credit card agency to dispute those bastards.

We had to rebook last minute tickets for $517, found another train to take us from Gatwick airport to Luton airport and rebooked hotels. We wasted hundreds of dollars and nearly half the day rerouting in train and airfare fees and paid more for the hotel.

On the last day checking out of our hotel. They hiked the rate we had agreed upon based on our confirmation number!

Finally we found ourselves with no hotel the night we were supposed to return to England and wasted several hours at the internet cafe trying to book new reservations only to find that the browser seemed to fail on ssl based connections!

Then we decided to use a shuttle bus which we book through the hotel. They inform us last night that we need to be up by 6:15am despite my flight being at 1:30pm. We arrive at the airport which resembles a zoo right now, and find that British Airways doesn't even let you check in until 2 hours to departure. They're terribly understaffed and seem seriously incompetent. The lines are 7-8 people deep (if you imagine people in a snake formation) which at times gets so bad that it blocks the walkways altogether.

Anyhow I should check again to see if I can get *in* line-- write more later.

Replies: 3 Comments

not to mention the fucked up exchange rates.. goddamn Euro hit an all time high

and the US dollar is weakening!

heh your trip to London/Paris sounds like a nightmare compared to mine :(

Jason said @ 12/03/2003 10:53 AM PST

This article sums up everything that's wrong with France: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=518&u=/ap/france_wine_and_driving&ncid=

Dennis said @ 11/16/2003 12:33 PM PST

"On the whole, I've decided that I don't really like Europe much at all"

To be fair, what you describe after that isn't America... it's just California. And not even all of California... clean streets in SF? Forget about it. Non urine smelling subways in NYC? Forget about it.

Sorry to hear that you got screwed over there though. That is one thing that annoys me, there's so much less customer oriented there.

The BA 2 hours thing, and the dirty streets in London, are all results of anti-terrorism efforts. I'm surprised to hear that they're incompetent though... they're supposed to be the best of the best.

You're just unlucky... remind me not to travel with you :)

Dennis said @ 11/16/2003 12:30 PM PST