Cape Town, Day One

A full first-day of sightseeing here in Cape Town.  Weather was very moderate, about 75, low humidity, and cloud-free.  We had a late breakfast in the Green Market Square, then went to the Castle of Good Hope (via the Parade Grounds, next to the District Six Museum, on to the South African National Gallery, and then strolled through a botanical gardens and The Company Gardens.

On our way back from the gardens we made a failed attempt to visit the De Waterkant neighborhood:  we didn't find what we were looking for and, when the area started to feel unsafe/uncertain, we threw in the towel, stopped for a snack, did some souvenir shopping, and headed back to the hotel for a bit of rest and blogging.

Here are some photos of our day, with, of course, more to follow later on my website; City Hall from the Parade Grounds (Table Mountain in the background); Castle of Good Hope; Green Marketplace:

Uneventful Travel is Good Travel & Seeing Cape Town in Daylight

We made it to Amsterdam and onward to Cape Town without any issue whatsoever.  Even through travel tales-of-woe make for interesting story telling, they're never fun to experience in the first place, so I'm glad to have nothing exciting to offer.

That said, here's a quick rundown:  our flight from Dulles left on-time and owed to a strong tail wind, arrived into Amsterdam about 6 1/2 hours later, which was almost two hours early.  Our Cape Town flight left on-time as well, lasted it's nearly twelve hours, and we arrived into Cape Town about five minutes early.  Bags arrived in-tact and on-time, and our driver was there as expected.  The hotel check-in was a breeze and the room is wonderful, including its views.

Here are photos taken from our suite's living room.  It was dark when we got in this morning, so imagine how breathtaking to see this as our first daylight impression!  (Lot's more narrative and photos coming on my website in a couple of weeks.)

Packing Hell

For me, the worst part of the trip may be the packing to go on it.  It seems like such a chore:  figuring out what to take, figuring out what to exclude, and trying desperately not to forget anything.  I can only imagine what my former colleague is going through as he plans for a year-long tround-the-world trip!  My mother once said:  "As long as you have your passport and your American Express, you've got all you need.  Buy the rest when you get there."  I try to keep those words in mind.

In the end, we ended up comingling our stuff into two bags, a garment bag and a standard, expandable wheelie.  We each have a carry on and a shoulder bag for our aboard crap.  Not too bad.

As I type I'm at Dulles, awaiting boarding time.  Ahead of us lies about twenty hours of flying.  It's about five o'clock now and we won't arrive into Cape Town until eleven o'clock tomorrow night, and likely not to the hotel until the wee hours of the day after tomorrow.  From everything I've seen, South Africa will be well worth it.

Oh, good news on the seat front, if anyone read my earlier blog posting:  we got our requestged seats at check-in.  I still think that these "alliances" need to do some work on integrating their operations in a way that helps the passenger and not just the airlines.

Cape Town, here we come ... well, really Amsterday, here we come ... then Cape Town.  :-)

Airline "Alliances": How Delta Does a Craptacular Job With Theirs

We're caught in the hell that is airline "alliances."  The airlines present these codeshare and marketing agreements as ways to seamlessly travel across the globe, on different airlines, without any problems.  Wrong.  When we booked our flights to South Africa back in December, we chose to book on Delta's website, on a KLM plane, with a Delta number.  We did this because we got the same fare as KLM was offering, but KLM's wouldn't allow us to earn Delta miles.  (First not-seamless issue.)

 

We bought our tickets, chose our flights, and thought we were all set.  Wrong again:  we'd requested seats on the seat map that Delta had on its site that were premium seats that cost hundreds of Euro more.  Of course, the site didn't tell us this or give us any hint.  What it did do was put us into seat-selection purgatory.  When we discovered our error (about a month before departure), Delta could do nothing about our seats because we were flying KLM; KLM could do nothing about our seats because we had bought the tickets through Delta.  Seamless, right?  No.

 

KLM opens its online check-in winder thirty hours ahead of departure, so I went online to check in today.  Of course, we can't.  KLM's site won't let us, neither will Delta's.  Calling KLM gets us connected to Stateside Delta; Stateside Delta tells us to call KLM web support.    It's particularly frustrating because both of our flights are full and the idea of a middle seat for twenty hours of flying is discouraging, to say the least.

 

I've had similar issues with codeshares over the years, so it's not unique to Delta or Sky Team, but it is infuriating nonetheless.  What I think is that, if airlines are in these codeshare agreements, such that I have a Delta flight number, it should be a seamless experience.  Hell, even if it weren't seamless they could be more transparent about what's going on behind the scenes.  (Try this:  "If you choose these seats they will cost $XXX extra.  Once you choose them you cannot change them until you check in at the airport.")  Honestly, no industry, except maybe the mobile telephone industry, is so adept at alienating it's customer base.

 

All that said, twenty hours in between two strangers wouldn't be the end of the world, not even by a long stretch.  But, it's just frustrating when a customer does everything the correct way, unaware that the system is designed for failure.  Silly and pointless.

 

Okay, on to packing for the trip!

Snow Day. Sort Of.

Wednesday morning we awoke to a dusting of snow, with sleet piling on top of it.  Quickly that all changed to rain and we dealt with a day of cold rain.  About three o'clock in the afternoon it all changed--very quickly--to snow.  Very heavy, very wet snow.  And it was coming down so hard that, even though it was still 35 degrees, it wasn't melting as quickly as it was falling.

All of this made for a disastrous commute--for those driving.  People reported twelve- and fifteen-hour commutes.  Myself, well, I made it home in twenty minutes and thought that, at least this month, my exorbitant rent may have been worth it.  (Nightmarish tales of 1/2-day-long commutes here:  http://www.wtop.com/?sid=2250574&nid=25)

Some photos Philip took of the snow from the balcony:

Yesterday (Thursday) we were allowed to work from home.  I took advantage of that:  I slept until 8:20, then booted up my computer, and went about my normal routine, though in my house clothes, and with ready access to the water-cooker and tea.  Very nice--and productive--day.

Metro. Broken.

Another fun commute home on metro:  it took twice as long as normal.  First, the train ahead of ours had a door problem and had to be off-loaded, which took about ten minutes.  So, in the tunnel we sat.  But that was still better than being on the train being off-loaded!

Then, when we pulled into Metro Center, the platform was so full that I could barely get out of the train to head upstairs to the Dread Line platform.  When I got up there, trains were due in eight, 18, and 20-something minutes.  That'd be fine on a Sunday morning, but not at rush hour, where anything less than every three minutes just doesn't work.

By the time the Red train did arrive, the platform was so thick with people that it was impossible to move.  We boarded the train, but left a crowd of people six deep behind.  At Farragut, hundreds more left behind.  At Dupont the operator couldn't get the doors shut and threatened to empty the train.  Tack on another five minutes for that.

Just another symptom of a transit system that is starved of money and broken.  When I read about what huge increases in ridership are on the way, well, it makes me laugh.

Oranges

I had dinner the other night with former colleagues Jamie and Peggy.  At the end of the meal Peggy surprised me with oranges, grown on trees in her backyard and picked just two days before.  They're yummy!