Real stories from travel agents

Following are some actual stories about Americans traveling, provided by travel agents:

I had someone ask for an aisle seats so that his or her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window.

A client called in inquiring about a package to Hawaii. After going over all the cost info, she asked, "Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii?"

I got a call from a woman who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information when she interrupted me with "I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts. "Without trying to make her look like the stupid one, I calmly explained, "Capecod is in Massachusetts, Capetown is in Africa." Her response ... click.

A man called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state. He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state."

I got a call from a man who asked, "Is it possible to see England from Canada?" I said, "No." He said "But they look so close on the map."

Another man called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas. When I pulled up the reservation, I noticed he had a 1-hour lay over in Dallas. When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, "I heard Dallas was a big airport, and I need a car to drive between the gates to save time."

A nice lady just called. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:20am and got into Chicago at 8:33am. I tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of llinois, but she could not understand the concept of time zones. Finally I told her the plane went very fast, and she bought that!

A woman called and asked, "Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know who's luggage belongs to who?" I said, "No, why do you ask?" She replied, "Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said FAT, and I'm overweight, is there any connection?" After putting her on hold for a minute while I "looked into it" (I was actually laughing) I came back and explained the city code for Fresno is FAT, and that the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage.

I just got off the phone with a man who asked, "How do I know which plane to get on?" I asked him what exactly he meant, which he replied, "I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these darn planes have numbers on them."

A woman called and said, "I need to fly to Pepsi-cola on one of those computer planes." I asked if she meant to fly to Pensacola on a commuter plane. She said, "Yeah, whatever."

A businessman called and had a question about the documents he needed in order to fly to China. After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded him he needed a visa. "Oh no I don't, I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those." I double checked and sure enough, his stay required a visa. When I told him this he said, "Look, I've been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express."

A woman called to make reservations, "I want to go from Chicago to Hippopotamus, New York" The agent was at a loss for words. Finally, the agent: "Are you sure that's the name of the town?" "Yes, what flights do you have?" replied the customer. After some searching, the agent came back with, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a Hippopotamus anywhere." The customer retorted, "Oh don't be silly. Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!" The agent scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, "You don't mean Buffalo, do you?" "That's it! I knew it was a big animal!"

Notes from Perugia

I always promised that this would be an eclectic blog, so - in that vein - here is the latest diary entry of a peripatetic friend of mine, Dino Deconcini. As with each of my entries, may it inspire you to a pleasant experience you might otherwise not have thought of pursuing:

The first thing we see every morning looking out our 4th floor bedroom window is the Campanile di (bell tower of) Santa Maria Nuova, added to the church in the 17th century by a locally renowned architect named Alessi. The church itself was built in the 13th century and rebuilt in the 16th. Our apartment is on the 4th and 5th (top) floors of the adjoining convent cloister, built in the 18th century. A few years ago the owners, the Frati Servi di Maria, closed the church, moved some of their great art to the National museum, and sold off two sides of the cloister to private interests. Franco and Anna C_______, our landlords and now friends, bought the top two floors and did an exquisite restoration - into a 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment.

When I go upstairs to the kitchen every morning to make coffee and breakfast, the first thing I see out to the Northeast window over rooftops and the deliciously green Umbrian paesaggio, is Mt. Subassio with Assisi on its flank, about 25kms away. From the dining area of the great room on this higher floor, I see the Campanile again and some more rooftops with tiles of varying age and colors of red along with chimneys and TV antennas. The Southeast window overlooks some terraced, overgrown gardens leading up to the massive, medieval city wall with a park at the top. The railing of the park is lined with flower boxes, now blooming bright red, and there is a gazebo where we sometimes go for a picnic lunch. From the terrace where we have breakfast and supper, we look to the Southwest and can see a broad jumble of rooftops, churches with their campaniles, a few construction cranes (mostly involved in restoration projects), and the Palazzo Galenga, the main headquarters and main building of the University for Foreigners, about a 5-minute walk.

Palazzo Galenga was built in the mid 18th centure by the Antinori family, now more famous for fine wine, and sold sometime later to the Galenga-Stuart (as in Stuart dynasty) family. It was acquired by the University a few years after it opened in the 1920's.

Beth and I are both having a good learning experience. I'm at the 5th level on the Linguistic track, which is a bit esoteric but provides a good way to think about the language and hear it spoken extremely well. There are also lots of classes on history, music, art, literature. Beth is on the second level, having started at zero two years ago, and is making very good progress. The University provides more extra-curricular activities than we can absorb--concerts, movies, lectures by eminent authorities, and weekend trips to all over.
See stu@unistrapg.it for more information if you wish. Beth has turned up two other Italian teaching institutions of good reputation, but we have not had time to check them out yet.

Perugia is a neat little city with architectural reminders from Etruscan, Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Fascist and modern periods. It was a fortified hill town that seemed to be mainly interested in warfare for most of its life, but now provides every type of desirable peaceful pleasurable product and activity, e.g. numerous museums from the Etruscans to the National Museum of Umbria, with an unsurprising large collection of paintings by Piero Vanucci, aka Il Perugino. Umbria Jazz deserves its worthy reputation and Spoleto is only an hour away. Other music, art and agricultural festivals are going on all over Umbria.

The micro scale is even more interesting. Most neighborhoods are like an upscale village with restaurants, coffee and wine bars, grocery stores, delicatessens, green grocers, pastieros (turning out all varieties of fresh pastas daily), butcher shops, internet points (the fastest growing industry in Italy), clothing boutiques, book stores, arts and craft shops, and on and on. We've gotten acquainted with some of the owners and really enjoy the walking\shopping tours.

Perugia also enjoys a great location on a hill overlooking the Tiber valley--two hours from Rome, 90 minutes from Florence and Urbino, 60 minutes or less or less from Siena, Orvieto, Spoleto, Gubbio, Cortona, Arezzo and a dozen other hill towns and places worth visiting, all reachable by bus and train as well as car. We got around a lot the first two years but are now content to spend spare time just walking around Perugia.

Some chocolate recipes to pass the time...

These recipes should update to the day you are visiting this site...let me know if this doesn't work.

Well-adjusted malapropisms

As a follow-up to my posting of May 9^th, here are the top “redefinition” entries to the *other* Washington Post's Mensa Invitational, where readers were asked to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition:

1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

3. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

4. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

5. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

6. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

7. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

8. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

9. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

And the pick of the literature:

18. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

my excuse for sporadic entries...

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
Henry David Thoreau

Cultural events side note - courtesy of QofV

Fri, Jun 3 6pm-12am $5 donation
LA ART FEST OPENING NIGHT RECEPTION
405 Mateo St, Downtown L.A.
Kickoff event for a free outdoor community arts festival that runs through Sunday featuring art, music, performance and culture.

* * * * *
Sat, Jun 4 11am-2pm Free
MULTI-HOUSEHOLD SWAP MEET & FAMILY FAIR
Food, music, games & other kids activities, plus raffle ($5 a ticket) for a complimentary 2-night stay at Hacienda Hot Springs Inn.
Proceeds benefit Bridges Community Charter School.
Westside Children's Center, 4600 Lindblade Dr, Culver City

* * * * *
Sat, Jun 4 7-10pm Free
3 WEEKS IN MEXICO ~ GROUP PHOTO SHOW
“4 dudes, 4 Holga cameras, 80 film rolls, 3 weeks, 7 boards, 1 van, 2 new friends...”
Presented by Freshjive, GONZ!, The Propagandist and VICE magazine
The Lab101 Gallery, 8530-B Washington Blvd, Culver City

* * * * *
Sun, Jun 5 7-11pm $15
SHAMAN'S DREAM CD RELEASE PARTY & PERFORMANCE
Music, dance, ritual and community in support of Earthdance & The World Festival of Sacred Music.
Writers Boot Camp, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica

* * * * *
Mon, Jun 6 8pm Free
“BEHIND THE SCENES LORDS OF DOGTOWN” ~ BOOK SIGNING
Meet director Catherine Harcwicke (Thirteen) and screenwriter Stacy Peralta.
Based on his documentary "Dogtown and Z-Boys," their feature film follows a group of teenage surfers who pioneered a revolutionary new style of skateboarding.
Vidiots, 302 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica
(310)392-8508

* * * * *
Sat, Jun 11 7-10pm Free
ARTIST RECEPTION & “VENICE BEACH” BOOK SIGNING Paintings by Corinne Chaix and Shirley Kaufer; "Venice Beach: California Carnivale" photography by Helen Kolikow Garber.
801 Ocean Front Walk, Venice
$5 Parking 2 blocks north at 601 Speedway (@ Sunset)
Info: 310-255-1905

* * * * *
Sun, Jun 16-Wed, Jun 26
LOS ANGELES FILM FESTIVAL
"Championing the cause of independent film and raising awareness for emerging artists...”
Check out the schedule -- some great films and events. Tickets on sale now!
DGA, Leammle Sunset, Ford Amphitheater and other locations

* * * * *
Sun, Jun 19 10:30am $5 Members/$10 Non-members
FATHER’S DAY KLEZMER BRUNCH
Bagels, lox, and old-timey Jewish music by The Workmen’s Circle/Sholem Community Klezmer Orchestra and Mit Gezang Yiddish Chorus.
Call (310)552-2007 to RSVP
The Workmen’s Circle, 1525 S. Robertson Blvd, L.A. 90035

* * * * *
Fri, Jun 24-Sun Jun 26 Free
BACHWERKE: THE COMPLETE ORGAN WORKS OF JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
Performed by members of the American Guild of Organists. The event will feature the church's 3-Manual, 45 rank Rosales pipe organ, built by the builder of the new Disney Hall organ.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem Church, 15520 Ventura Blvd, Encino

* * * * *
Sat, June 25 12noon-10pm Free
4TH ANNUAL CARNEVALE! VENICE BEACH
An outdoor festival featuring live entertainment, dancing, food, booths and a costume competition.
Windward Circle, Venice

* * * * *
Sat, Jun 25 9pm-? $10
CLUB CARNEVALE: A MASQUERADE PARTY
Following the Carnevale festival, join friends for this Venice Centennial celebration at a great, fresh venue just minutes away.
Stay tuned for line-up, directions & other details.

* * * * *
Sun, Jul 31-Thu, Aug 4
SIGGRAPH 2005
The 32nd International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques Los Angeles Convention Center