Westward Ho!

May 9, 2002-Complaint Department

We had a lovely evening with relatives of some Akron folks. He filled David in on the situation in South Africa as he sees it while his wife and I talked about grand kids. He said that the fear about crime here is real. Even in good neighborhoods he would only walk with groups of 5-6 people but never just the two of them. There are 80,000 Jews in South Africa with most living in Johannesburg. Growing fundamentalist orthodoxy is fragmenting the community and the ultra-right wing orthodox don’t recognize the middle of the road orthodox. Young people are emigrating for economic reasons with most of them leaving the Johannesburg area. It doesn’t sound good. Many of you replied to my inquiry about a rise in anti-Semitism at home. Thank you for that. The news from the San Francisco and Bay area sounded worst of all. I’m so fed up with Jews not being supportive of other Jews. How can we expect outsiders to care?

Our morning started well enough, but began to go downhill. This is my litany of frustrations. We went to the waterfront for breakfast and to do email. We picked up a virus on our floppy at the Holiday Inn the last time we used their facilities so decided to try an Internet Café. We got on line only to realize they didn’t have a disk drive. They only had CD ROM. We read our mail but couldn’t send.

We then went to the South African Jewish Museum and got as far as the synagogue that was built in 1862. There was a charge to go further and we didn’t have enough Rand left to pay that and fill up the rental car before we returned it. Remember, they don’t take credit cards at gas stations here. When we did get to the gas station David was watching the Rands add up at the gas pump and gave a sigh of relief when it clicked off at a price we could pay. We went on to the airport.

Our luggage is lighter now that we’ve consumed all the bottled water and eaten the two-day old pizza. As I mentioned, we’ve managed to destroy two cameras on our journey. That will be a purchase we make in Akron. I’ve also trashed a purse, a pair of cargo pants and shorts. There’s nothing like conspicuous consumption to lighten a load.

I became angry with KLM even before we got onto the plane. We were at the airport three hours before flight time and were the second in line as the check-in gate opened. We always ask for exit row or bulkhead seating and are able to get it quite often. Exit rows are usually not assigned ahead of time since they want to see that you’re physically able to handle it in an emergency. KLM must have a different system, because there were none available. Bulkhead seating is assigned to people with babies first, so I have to assume there will be a lot of them on board.

When we tried to use our American Express Platinum card to enter the Northwest/KLM lounge, we were denied access. We paid $300 for the card so we could use the lounges on long layovers and it’s been useless so far. We thought it would certainly be good when the sign said NW/KLM. We called the AmEx collect number in the States and were told it’s good in Northwest lounges anywhere in the U.S., but is only good in four airports overseas. That certainly wasn’t clear in the literature we got when we bought the card. We also purchased it as insurance for medical evacuation in an emergency. They’ll evacuate to the nearest appropriate hospital at no charge. That sounded good until I realized that if we needed it on safari I’m sure that the “nearest appropriate hospital” would have been in Nairobi. No thanks. I’m not at all pleased with the money we spent for something that didn’t suite our needs. Now all seventy-three of you know about it and all the people you forward this email to do as well.

My last beef in what I hope is the end of my list of complaints is that when we were already past security and found out we couldn’t use the lounge, I asked about Internet facilities. They were only in the main section of the airport and we weren’t permitted to go back there.

So far it’s been a long day and we face a night flight and arrival at our hotel early in the morning with no room booked until the afternoon. I plan to stretch out in the lobby at the Park Hotel in Amsterdam. Let them throw me out.

May 10, 2002-Re-orientation

The flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg was two hours. We had to stay on the plane for security reasons since it was going on to Amsterdam. We left after 1-½ hours and flew another 10 ½ hours to Amsterdam. Fortunately, the hotel had our room available and that’s where we are. They didn’t even try to charge us an extra day for early check-in. The prices here will have us in sticker shock. Our Akron travel agent got a great rate at the hotel, but the price they’re quoting now is almost $450/night. Believe me, it’s not a $450 room. It’s 7 AM and I’m going to join David in a nap. The Park Hotel is about 150 years old and the rooms are European small. We stayed here in 1974 on our first trip to Israel. Nothing about the hotel looks familiar.

Security leaving South Africa wasn’t tough at all and we had no immigration forms to fill out when we entered The Netherlands. David doesn’t think they care why we came. It was all very loose.

There were a couple of hair-raising moments when we became disoriented on the taxi ride from the airport. We definitely have to get used to right side driving, especially left turns and roundabouts.

It’s hard to believe we’re back in the Western world at last.

Toby