Neither Here Nor There

Well, I'm back, in more ways than one. In late April, we took a cruise around Hawaii on Norwegian's Pride of America. I took notes so I could tell you all about it. Before I could get those blogs written, we had a car accident that broke my right arm. No typing for me for several weeks. In the meantime, late in May, we flew to London to catch a cruise up through Scotland and the fjords of Norway. Even a broken arm couldn't keep me from that, but I didn't get any notes taken. And I already find my fond memories of these countries getting muddled in my mind, so I'm going to take these trips out of order and type/post the blog on Scotland/Norway before I go back and do the ones about Hawaii. Yes, I can type again!

The trip to get to the cruise ship was full of stress and worry, but that seems to be par for the course whenever we have to fly to the ship's port. We drove to the airport, parked our car, took the shuttle the rest of the way, checked our bag, got our boarding passes, got through TSA... That was a chore! If I went through the normal metal detector, my artificial knees would set it off, and I couldn't raise my right arm to go through the round metal detector. So they sent me through the normal detector, and then I got a thorough pat-down before we could go on to our gate.

By the way, TSA is now posting how long it will take you to get through the line, but that's just to get past the agent who studies your passport and boarding pass. You still have to get through the metal and explosives detectors.

Okay, the pat-down was done, and we went on to our gate, where we caught our flight to Montreal. Once there, we caught our over-night flight to London, where I had booked a night at one of the airport hotels. First, we wanted to recover from the flight, since we don't sleep well while flying. But also, we had to catch a shuttle from Heathrow to the Southhampton docks. Second, the shuttles picked people up between 9:45 and 10:45 am, but because we got in at 9:30 am, I wasn't sure we could collect our luggage and find our way to Terminal 4 by 10:45. We didn't, so it was a good thing I had booked our shuttle for the following day.

After walking what seemed like miles in Heathrow, we gathered our luggage, asked questions, had to go outside, take an elevator down to the underground level, walk long miles to get to the ticket station, take an elevator, get on the underground to Terminal 4, get off and take an elevator up. Luckily, just outside that elevator was a door with a sign that said, "To Terminal 4 hotels", so that wasn't hard to find. We walked a few more miles to get to the entrance to our hotel.

It was too early to check in, but we did go to the cafe and grab some lunch. By then, they had our room ready, so we went up and when we got to our room, we closed the curtains and took a nap. Later, Hubby wanted to go and search for the place where the shuttle would pick us up, so we walked another mile or so to find the Hilton. Having found it, we went back to our hotel, had supper and settled in for the night.

The shuttle was supposed to pick us up at about 10:45. We got there about 9:30 and tried to pass the time by watching other people get picked up by their rides. Probably a bad idea, as by 10:30, Hubby was positive we had missed our ride. Finally, we gathered all our stuff and moved outside (It was chilly and windy.) Our shuttle finally arrived about 10:55, having picked other people up in downtown London before it came to get us. At least that gave Hubby people to talk to during the 1.5 hr trip to the ship, so he got a chance to calm down.

The trip started out a lot chillier than we expected. Our first full day on the ship, during which we were headed for Edinburgh, Hubby made the comment, "I think I'm coming down with a cold." And of course he did.

We had a shore excursion scheduled for every day except the last, because the ship wasn't getting into Tromso (Norway) until 7 pm. And we had to get up at 4 am to get to the airport. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The shore excursions were lots of fun. The first week or so, I was super protective of my broken arm, constantly worried it would get bumped too hard, or I would fall and do more damage. So I enjoyed the bus drives, looking out the windows, but I was too afraid to get off and explore Edinburgh Castle, because they said it was crowded and we'd be walking on cobblestones. Eventually, I did become more relaxed about my arm.

I did fall, a couple of times, but did no damage to my arm. Once when I was trying to climb onto an antique street car. The steps were really steep, especially the top one, and the tour guide was acting as my handhold, but the step was too deep, and I went down onto my right knee. It took both the tour guide and Hubby to get me back on my feet so I could find a seat. But no bleeding, so I was fine. The 2nd time was in Dublin, but I'll get to that later.

The Sheffield Islands (Scotland) have stone rings similar to Stonehenge. The Shetland Islands (also Scotland) have Shetland ponies, and I think that's where we saw an archeological site of a Neolithic village on the beach. The homes were built of stone slabs, and the furniture was made of stone, too. Plus assorted furs for the beds. I got off the bus for that and walked to the site, walked all around it. There was a Laird's house not far away that was open as a museum, but as slow as I walk, I didn't figure I had time to go there, so I went back to the bus. This was the place where the tour guide lost one of our group. The guide had said to get back to the bus by 11, and everybody had except one. After looking for her for 10 minutes, the guide made arrangements for the other buses to keep an eye open for her, and then we left. A little ways down the road, she announced that one of the other buses had collected the wayward woman and she was safe.

Norway's fjords are beautiful. The mountains are beautiful. At that time of year (early June), the snows are melting, and the waterfalls and rivers are raging, which is more interesting to see that 'stately and sedate'. The daily high was always predicted to be 52F, but at least one day, it got up around 60F, so you never quite knew if you would need a jacket or not. We had a great time, except for John's cold.

Now, remember how I said the trip there was stressful and worrisome? The trip back was much much worse. We got up at 4am and went to the buffet for a continental breakfast, which consisted of not much. We were supposed to meet at the Aqua lounge at 5am, and at 5:30, they would take us out to the shuttle. We got to the Aqua about 5:05, and they were already hurrying people out. There were 2 shuttles, and both of them were packed full. The one we got had no luggage capacity, so our carryon had to ride inside with us.

We got through Norway's TSA okay, which led us to Gate 32. There weren't enough chairs in the gate lobby for everybody to sit down, so they brought in folding chairs. The plane was supposed to take off at 8:35am. That's when the flight crew for the charter flight arrived, however, so it was more like 10am before the plane took off. Naturally, it got into Dublin late, and then, the luggage took over an hour to arrive at the carousel. Consequently, by the time we had our luggage collected, we had missed our flight to Philly. We trudged our way to the American Airlines ticket counter to see what could be done. Us and about 100 other people who had been on that charter flight.

Luckily, there was a cruise line representative there to help us with this problem! Over the course of several hours, he saw that we all got booked on the next day's flight, gave us bottles of water, sent us to the food court to grab some supper (and keep the receipts!), got us all booked into various hotels for the night, and arranged shuttles to get us to those hotels. It involved a lot more walking to get to the shuttle, which was parked 3 or 4 blocks away... felt like a lot more than that.

And now, the time I fell in Dublin; It was while I was getting off that shuttle at the hotel. I was on the stairs to exit, and somehow I lost my balance. I fell backwards, against my hubby, who staggered, but didn't let me hit my head on the driver's seat. So, no damage done, I got back up and got off the bus, and we chatted with the driver for a moment, then went inside. Very nice hotel, but we were exhausted and went to bed about 7pm.

In comparison, the following day was a breeze, but it had its snags. We were concerned when the shuttle didn't pick us up until 10:30am. We'd been thinking we would need 4 hours to get through the airport, and the plane took off at 1:55 pm. I needed help getting through the automatic kiosk, but it seemed a lot faster than going through the regular line. Then the kiosk printed out only one piece of paper, which said, "You have been selected for a Traveler's Survey". My helper told me to take it up to the bag check window, and they would help me. The survey was apparently only 1 or 2 questions, but the guy's machine didn't want to read our passports, so he had to enter the information manually. Finally, we got our boarding passes and could head for our gate, except we didn't know what gate!

We got through Ireland's TSA, complete with pat-down for me. Then we had to go through the US TSA, only when we found it, they sent us through a line that didn't have anybody manning it, which was worrisome as well as a relief. Then we walked and walked and walked until we finally found our gate, where we could sit down for 20-30 minutes. The flight was full, of course, with all those left-overs from the day before. Hubby and I weren't sitting anywhere close to each other. And the entertainment wasn't working. I slept for about 1.5 hrs, and hubby read his book.

We got to Philly and found our next gate. We had about 3 hours to wait. Eventually, we boarded that plane and started the last leg of our journey, to Orlando. The plane would touch down about 10:05pm.

In Orlando, we gathered our luggage and said good-bye to the shipmates who had made the entire trip with us. We found the pick-up location for the parking lot's shuttle, and called to let them know we were ready. This was about 10:55 pm. We saw lots of shuttles come and go, but not ours. At 11:20, we called them again. And several times after that, but they either didn't answer or hung up on us. Finally, about midnight, our shuttle arrived and was packed solid in no time. The driver was smiling and upbeat, as if nothing was out of the ordinary. And when I went to the office to pay for the extra day that we were stuck in Dublin, they didn't charge me $7, like for a full day; they charged me $10!

Anyway, we drove home, and got here about 2am on Wednesday. Here it is Sunday, and we're still recovering.

We really like cruising. It's the flying back and forth that drives us crazy.

Love is in the Air

Do you read romances? I have. At times, I would read dozens of romances, one after another. Eventually, I would set them aside and move to another genre.

Mostly, I didn’t find romances very... satisfying. I couldn’t ‘identify’ with the characters.

For one thing, money never seems to be a problem in a romance. Whatever one of the protagonists wants, they buy. With hardly any thought about it. I can’t remember a single instance of the heroine realizing she needs a new coat, but doesn’t have the money for it. Or the hero’s frig is bare, so is his wallet and checkbook, and payday is still several days away. Or one of them has a sofa that’s missing a leg and a hole has duct tape covering it. Apparently, these types of things don’t happen in a modern romance.

That makes it hard for me to ‘suspend my disbelief.’ I grew up on the poor side of ‘middle class’, and I’m still there. I suspect the authors don’t want to anger their readers by making the woman struggling to make ends meet, because that would be ‘sexist’. And they can’t make the man financially struggling, because that might seem to be ‘man hating’. No, they figure both members of their couple need to be strong, independent, self-sufficient... equal.

But people can be strong and capable without having a fat bank account. The world is full of strong and capable people who have to pinch their pennies.

Another thing I find hard to identify with is the chosen location. As I remember, the vast majority of them happen in a huge city - New York, Los Angeles, London, Rome... Okay, I’ve attended conventions in Los Angeles and London, but I can’t say I really know anything about them. I can’t even imagine other huge cities like that, because the biggest city I’ve ever lived in is Kansas City. I remember just about enough about that city to not get lost... as long as I stay on the interstate! So, how am I supposed to identify with people who live in a place so alien to what I know?

You’d think, since I have such strong feelings about the romances I have read, that I would simply avoid the genre. Yet, from time to time, I find myself writing romances, using the pen name ‘Linda Joy’.

When I do write a romance, the location is usually a small town, often one I’ve actually lived in. My main characters may not obsess about money, but they are careful with it. They have jobs/careers that might afford them some degree of comfort, but if they suddenly find they need a new coat, or a new car, they’ll look for a bargain. And hope they don’t hate the color.

My theory is, Love can be in the air anywhere, not just in big cities. It can develop between the struggling and the have-to-be-careful just as well as the well-to-do. But if I can’t identify with the characters - at least a little bit - I won’t be happy with it. And if readers can’t identify with the characters, I will have wasted their time. My readers (AND my characters) deserve better.

2014 World Con Report

This year’s World Science Fiction Convention was held in London, England. We don’t normally go it is overseas, but we decided if we were going to do any traveling, it was time to get started. I won’t go into details about our trip to get there, except that a storm in Atlanta (Georgia) made our trip an endurance battle.

The convention was held in a huge convention center located in the dock area on the Thames River. There were several hotels in the immediate area, but they were expensive, and by the time I had figured out our plan early this spring, I couldn’t find one in the area that had a room available for our entire stay. We wanted to do some site-seeing, too, so I found a cheaper hotel closer to London Central... and only 4 or 5 blocks from a major underground station.

London doesn’t have street signs like America. The names of some streets are on the side of the corner building, if you are lucky. Some streets are no wider than an American alley. It made reading my map difficult, especially after our marathon of non-sleeping to get there. When we finally paused and asked for directions at a cafe, we had turned a block too early.

I had been told that European hotel rooms are smaller than American, but when we finally got to ours, we were stunned. The room was the size of the bed with about a foot of ‘walking space’ on 3 sides and an attached bathroom that’s smaller than ours at home (which is definitely ‘dinky’). There were no chairs, no table, no drawers or shelves to put your clothes. Very claustrophobic! The first thing I did was fall on the bed and sleep for 15 hours.

We figured out the underground system and crammed 4 days of site seeing into 3. We didn’t have time to do the Jack the Ripper Walking Tour, but eventually I realized our hotel was IN his ‘hunting area’. (How exciting!) We weren’t afraid to ask questions, so it wasn’t difficult to add a ‘Docks Light Rail’ route to our pattern to get to and from the convention center, but it did mean we were riding the underground during the morning rush hour. Crammed like sardines.

The convention itself was good. There were a couple of space organizations giving lots of science panels, which always seemed to be over-crowded. Many times, people got turned away because all the chairs were full, and sometimes that wasn’t a science panel, either. There were times when I had to go to my 3rd choice of a panel, because both of the first 2 choices were full.

The convention had registered over 10,000 people, but on any given day, there were about 5 or 6,000 people in attendance.

Food and drink was probably over-priced, since it was all brought in by businesses within the convention center, but we were dealing in Pounds, so it was hard to say. I can’t say any of it was good.

Registration had a looooooong line every morning, but seemed efficient when my turn came. The freebie table, however, was way too small. This one table had fliers, books, business cards, book marks, pens and who knows what else, all jumbled together because there wasn’t room to lay things out nicely. As soon as somebody tried to organize an area so their items could half-way be seen, somebody else came along and slapped down a stack of... something right in the middle of it.

To sum up London: metropolitan, crowded, fast paced, efficient mass transportation, confusing; but if you can get a local to slow down, they will answer questions. As an introvert, I was stressed because it was so cramped, which I couldn’t escape, but I lived through our 10 9 days there.

LonCon3, the 2014 World Science Fiction Convention, was also crowded, but fun. Some things could have been better, like more freebie tables, or more room for photographers of the costumes in the costume contest, or a better method of presenting art workshops. (In the art show area was too noisy, especially without a microphone, and only those in the front of the crowd got to see what the artist was doing.) But they did have tables and chairs in the hallways, as well as water coolers.

Make a note; there are no water fountains in London. You are expected to buy your drinking water.