Little Black Guidebook

, originally uploaded by ** GON.

Hubby just brought me my Friday tea with a couple home made cookies. Yummy! It makes me feel cozy, just like today’s photo. Have a cup!

Palm Tree Sunset, originally uploaded by ilovepics11.

Ok, maybe I’m kidding myself by asuming I have readers this early into the blog, but I really want to create a community of people who are creating their own little black guidebooks to life and travel.

We are planning a 7 day trip to Honolulu over labor day. Hawaii sounds like a more common destination, but I’ve never been there so I thought I would ask: Have you been to Hawaii? What did you like/do/see/eat? What was your experience?

Not that I really have a choice of airlines most of the time, given Alaska Airlines near monopoly, but I found this table interesting:

via: http://lifehacker.com/5344215/the-safest-airlines-to-fly-on

Ah tea, it revives me so. Have a cup! Today’s lovely photo forwarded by a friend who is a fan of Sally Scott photography. I wish I had a cute little hat like that. The leaves have just started turning so I’m on the lookout for cute warm clothes for this short period of time when you can actually wear them, before parkas and ski masks are needed.

After getting our own iPod Touch I updated this post with an actual list of travel Apps on: 8/25/2010

I recently lost my iPod Video on a flight back from Mexico. After being mad at myself for a couple days for my carelessness I began to get excited because this would be my excuse to finally get an iPod Touch. I love my Nokia N95 phone, but I feel a little pang sometimes when I see an iPhone. Of course their battery life and general international pain-in-the-***ness keeps me from getting one, but I’ve been wanting to get an iPod touch and start using some of the nice apps and touch-screen goodness for awhile. Of course Alaska Airlines had to go and crush my dream by finding my iPod in my seat pocket and next day airing it to me. I didn’t even report it missing! That darn airline, they are too nice to their customers. Oh well. I’ll just have to wait. And I was so happy to read this post on iPhone/iPod Touch travel apps. *sigh* The list should also include the Tripit app, which as an avid Tripit user I’m dying to use.

I felt slightly guilty for going to Chicago and not posting anything about here. Since it is my third trip there I didn’t feel the need to take another day off of work to see the city so I just bugged in and out over a three day weekend. However, I don’t want to leave you empty handed. Here is a Matador network post on Chicago on a Budget and I will add the following. Staying downtown can be pricey. If you’re going for a short trip you’ll be going to and from downtown in a cab or on the “L” at least once to stay downtown. Instead I would suggest staying at the airport, taking the “L” downtown and seeing your sights and then taking the “L” back. If you’re only going to do this once roundtrip then you’ll save time as you already would have had one roundtrip just getting to your downtown hotel. Even if your event is downtown you can take the train downtown, go to your meeting or whatever, do your sight-seeing and return. Sleeping by the airport is also pretty convenient for early flights as you can’t depend on Chicago traffic if you’re in a cab and the “L” can be a pain the morning, especially with baggage. Waking up, checking out and walking straight to your gate after getting your boarding pass in the lobby couldn’t be easier. It really makes Chicago so much less of a hassle.

Any locals have some tips? I have always found Chicago to be difficult to budget travel.

Yesterday’s post on traveling to the Bush reminded me of this website on travel etiquette. Some people have really negative experiences when they travel because they have expectations that aren’t met and because they don’t make the effort to understand the culture they are going to before they travel. Check it out here.

Sorry for the general lack of posting in the last week. I got back from a quick 3 day trip to Chicago (not really worth posting about because I spent the entire trip in the Airport hotel) and then flung myself into work before going out on a work trip. This was my first time visiting an Alaskan village and I wish I had more time to explore. My biggest experience was with village travel and small planes.

Left FAI (Fairbanks) for ANC (Anchorage) the night before, slept in ANC for a few hours and then flew to BET (Bethel) at 7am in a 737 which was half full of cargo. Then was put on a 4 man Cessna charter and flew at about 500 ft. out to MOU (Mountain Village) which took about an hour. It was like a flight-seeing tour over a completely alien landscape. I fly over Alaska all the time, but the view is different when you’re above the clouds in a 737 than it is when you can see the moose a couple of hundred feet below you. The flight out was freezing cold as the door barely closed and the window leaked air through a couple inch gap. I plugged some of the holes in the plane with napkins so that I wasn’t being sprayed with water that was running through the gap in the window and that helped a bit. Pretty miserable, but got great views. Unfortunately my camera was in my bag below the plane so I was taking photos with my camera phone. The N95 takes pretty good photos, but I would still have preferred by camera. I about lost it out the door when I dropped it during some turbulence, but rescued it just in time.

I was boots on the ground from 11am until 3:45pm when it was time to go meet the plane. Now if you’ve only flown commercial flights in and out of major cities you need to reset your mental picture of this. Basically 3 trucks with people who were on the outgoing flight pull up to this big gravel pad a little ways outside the village. There are some lights stuck in the ground and a windsock, no terminal, no staff, nothing. Eventually one of the other trucks pull up and say they just spoke to the airline on their radio (from their car) and that the plane is delayed by an hour (or so) so we continue sitting there. Eventually everyone gets out of their trucks and starts talking, a few people walk off to the side of the gravel pad an pick some wild blueberries for snack food on the plane. Nobody stresses, because really there isn’t anything you can do about it. Eventually someone hears something and we all go quiet. You can hear a motor coming and eventually someone spots the plane. When it lands and the passengers get out, we realize its full of all the teachers who are coming back to work at the village school. Talk about packing light, they have to live for a school year out of a duffle bag, no rollybags in sight and no, there won’t be any other bags coming on future flights. At $1.35/pound, you learn to condense your needs into as little luggage as possible.

This plane is huge compared to the one I came in on, it holds all of 8 people and is a slightly larger Cessna. Still no oxygen masks or boarding passes, but hey the doors actually seal. The only thing they ask before boarding is “How much do you weight?” This time I have my camera, but the flight is higher off of the ground since the plane is larger. Midflight the pilot turns around and yells back that our connection from BET back to ANC is still good as they are delayed an hour there as well. Nobody stresses. My biggest concern on this flight is that since we are at a slightly higher altitude we are basically flying through, not above, not below the clouds the whole time. And since its such a small plane, I see what the pilots are seeing, which is not much besides white puffy clouds. Good thing they have instruments. The air is also choppier since we are going through the clouds, blech. Eventually the heater kicks on and my jaw stops chattering and we arrive safe and sound in BET.

BET feels far more civilized after leaving MOU. It has a counter and boarding passes and everything. Well the computer can’t print my boarding pass so nobody worries about it. Again I’m asked my weight and we all board another plane, this time it probably held almost 20 people and felt enormous. The altitude went up again to just above the clouds and the ride was smooth enough that I got a few winks on the flight. Having been up since 5 am and on my 4th flight of the day I was wiped. ANC to FAI was uneventful and I look back on the whole day as a pretty unique experience. Life is just different in the village. It isn’t rude to stare, everybody knows everybody, mot people are related and half of the construction crew had the same last name. They were genuinely friendly and would strike up a conversation without reserve. I was offered more food than I could ever eat and genuinely felt welcome to be there. I wish the trip could have been longer so I could have seen more of the village than the project.

A few lessons learned:

1. Be friendly, it pays in having a richer experience
2. Be flexible, you can’t control the weather/flights
3. You’re on village time now, the bush has its own pace, speak more slowly and learn to listen
4. Nothing stays clean for long, be prepared for mud
5. If you need it, bring it with you, be prepared to stay longer than you planned if the weather doesn’t cooperate and pack accordingly
6. Bring cash, if you do need anything don’t expect either an ATM or credit being accepted

   

   Our baby plane

   

   Beautiful changing colors

   
   

   

   The pilot’s view

   

   Leaving Mountain Village, what a beautiful airport

   
   
   

I’m in Chicago this weekend, enjoying the fact that I have 11 pounds of luggage with laptop and that I’m no longer in Fairbanks with all the forest fire smoke. I had airplane tea today instead of my usual cuppa, but it wasn’t horrible. It really revives you to have a nice hot cup on a long flight.

Century Finds tea cup $15.50

I feel like I’m the only Russian studies major who hasn’t actually been to Russia. After 5 years of studying the language and getting my Bachelor of Arts in Russian Studies, countless culture, language and literature classes, my most exposure to Russia/Russians since I graduated was haggling over a TV stand at my garage sale this weekend. Russia is at the very top of my wishlist of places to go. But on my own dime I rarely go anywhere other than to see family so it may be awhile. I feel like my Russian fluency is fading and I need to find a way to reactivate and maintain it. In the meantime I keep dreaming by reading articles on Russia, Russian news and best of all Russian travel and keep up with my Russian literature appreciate with a steadily growing collection of Russian language books salvaged from used bookstores. This week I was disjointed to find this article on: “Should People of Color Go to Russia?” I am not surprised by this article at all. My Russian literature professor was from Bangladesh and even 20 years ago when she went to school she dealt with hooligans and Russian nationalistic attitudes. In some ways since the fall of the USSR the issues with Aryan supremacy have become worse. I know I am glad of my blonde hair and blue/green eyes when going through customs in most countries and only think it would serve me more in Russia. In South America I hate my hair because I get unwanted advances constantly, but I think it would make me more comfortable in Russia.