Sunday, October 28, 2012

Observations of a Traveling Nomad

10/28-11/2: Dallas, TX ~ Austin, TX
~ don't get too excited when your flight is miraculously on time even though there is a hurricane scheduled to pummel your city. Inevitably there will be an engine problem, you will have to deplane, wait 45 minutes, board a new plane and sit on the runway for another 45 minutes before you take off. 
~ it will take the counter attendant a minimum of 10 minutes to decide it will be ok to let the passengers go through gate A6 because the door to gate A8 is locked, and for some reason will not unlock. Your flight may already be running 2+ hours late and you will receive an apology saying "We apologize for the inconvenience and we are sorry you have to go out of the way" (by  a whopping 2 feet). Probably not the inconvenience they should be apologizing for. 
~ you may sit next to someone in the first row, in first class (AKA closest to the cockpit) that starts to creep you out because they keep staring at people but they don't say a word. Not even when everyone around them is talking about the pending hurricane, delay, lack of in-flight internet service, etc. You may start telling yourself your seat partner is the freak that's going to try to take down the plane or something like that. Then you may hear him on his cell phone speaking another language and realize he does not speak English.
~ getting your rental car can be an hour+ process on a Sunday night after 9pm, who woulda thought? Between waiting for the rental car shuttle, driving to rental car building, waiting in line forever (ok, probably more like 30 minutes but it felt like forever), inspecting the car with rental car agent and finding your way the hell out of Dallas airport. Dallas needs to figure out a way to have on-sight car rentals, just sayin. 
~ you may find your sense of direction just when you're about to lose any patience that may still be lingering within you. Your cell phone will be dead, your car charger won't work and you will have to figure out how to get to the highway and then the hotel without GPS. You always thought you born with no sense of direction, but now there is a teeny, tiny glimmer of hope. You will be thankful you have a 5% charge when you get off downtown, just enough to tell you you're only .4 miles away, yippie!
~  when in Texas, you will likely pass a huge billboard with bright while letters against a black background that say "GUN SHOW- GET YOUR GUNS BEFORE THE ELECTION" and pictures of guns. Now this just made me laugh, and I wish taking a picture wouldn't have put my life at risk (I was, in fact, driving) because evidently Texans don't know Obama's lenient (much too lenient in my opinion) stance on gun control. There goes that Obama guy again, taking all your rights away. 
~ after a trip like this you will arrive to your hotel hungry, but you will have no idea if you're in a "good" or "not so good" part of town, and either way, you probably aren't going to walk around alone looking for food. So...you will order chips & salsa with guacamole to hold you over until tomorrow. While waiting for your order you will see the "chef" squeeze the 'fresh' guacamole out of a huge plastic bag. You are now convinced the majority of restaurants do the same thing (except for the authentic Mexican places that make it right in front of you.) Those Wholly Guacamole packets have always seemed "familiar" and now you know why! 
~ driving here is horrible, we'll just leave it at that. 
~ if you tend to have a lead foot you will surely enjoy the 75 mph speed limit along a good portion of highway. However, TX and VA both seem to think it's fun to change the speed limits (what feels like) every 4 minutes. It goes kinda like 75-->65--->70--->60--->75 and so one. So unless you are really focusing on speed limit signs, you never know if you're doing the correct speed limit. Also, you may want to use cruise control, I found it handy on my 6+ hours of driving in the last day. 
~ you will find it hard to tell if downtown is safe or not. Sadly there are a lot of homeless people, and I strongly feel everyone has a story and hate to see people so down on their luck. However, you will also see several crazies yelling out loud and dumping over garbage cans. This doesn't make anyone, especially a female, very comfortable. There are not a lot of people around so it's very different from NYC or Center City, Phila. So you will spend too much time trying to decide where to go to dinner while considering how close the restaurant is to the hotel, if there's parking nearby, if it's safe to walk and if there's something on the menu you actually want. So.....
~ you will go somewhere .8 miles from the hotel, but it's not safe to walk at night, so you drive, and it takes 45 freaking minutes to get back because all of the streets are one ways and merging getting on/off main road is a nightmare in this city!!!!
~ you learn dining at the Spaghetti Warehouse one time is more than enough and will actually take Yelp's review more seriously next time. I had to go for "the experience" since it sounded fun and it's the original location.
~ 5 days in Dallas is more than enough for a lifetime. Its best assets (for me) was Dealy Plaza and Sonny Bryan's BBQ.
~ your love affair with the ALoft will probably subside after being in one with a poorly lit parking lot in an unsafe area & broken elevators and another with no hot water. In light of everything that happened this week I didn't really even care that much but I don't know how long the fun decor will keep me coming back.

~ you will appreciate the extra room in first class, but will wonder how anyone can possibly eat the "meals" they serve on-board. The smell is nauseating and they look less appetizing than a TV dinner.
 











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