I’m Baaaaack!

Recovering from jet lag over here and digesting/uploading trip photos. Tons of experiences and stories to tell…some lessons learned and amazing things seen! Sorting through it all and will share soon!

Really Crunch Time…

Only a couple of weeks left before the big “I do!” Very excited and a little nervous. We’ve been fitting in SCUBA dive certification classes for the honeymoon and I wanted to report that I passed my online course with a 92% (I beat James, ha). After we learned on paper about all of the ways you can die whilst scuba diving, we then learned about the equipment hands-on, and had two pool sessions with an instructor to learn some practical knowledge. There is a lot to learn!

Learning the basics in a pool is a good way to practice skills and gain confidence before going into "open water."

Some key takeaways for those considering scuba diving:

• When you have air, you can do anything! I was mainly nervous about the whole scuba diving thing because the thought of being underwater for a prolonged period of time just seems unnatural. But, when you have a regulator providing constant oxygen, it’s pretty freaking cool. I didn’t have to “hold my breath” or be nervous I couldn’t hold it long enough, and I could worry about doing other things, such as looking around and controlling my buoyancy, without even worrying about breathing. I even jumped backwards off the side of a pool with all of my equipment on, and wasn’t nervous at all because I was breathing the entire time. So for someone nervous about water in general, this is a major benefit!
• Equipment is heavy and that sucks. You have to strap on an air tank AND a weight belt to offset the buoyancy of your wetsuit and everything else. I didn’t enjoy having to do drills like taking off and putting on a 16-lb weight belt while floundering around under water. However, on the upside – I had air!
• Being bald is a plus in this activity (yay for James). My hair was a big nuisance in this activity, getting caught in my mask and tangled in everything (despite being tied up). I resorted to wearing a swim cap the second session. I figured, I already looks pretty retarded in this wetsuit, how much worse could it get?

Watch out! I'm special.

My instructor was pretty proud of me for completing all of my emergency skills and not panicking in the water considering I just learned how to swim and have had a general fear of water for years. I have to say…I am, too! I’m now trying to build up confidence for our next challenge – the open water dives at the Rockaways where the visibility will only be a few feet. If I can survive that, I think I can scuba dive anywhere…

Bad Blogger

It’s crunch time…our wedding is coming up, but a more immediate deadline I’m concerned with is our SCUBA certification course.  Next week, James and I will be spending a few hours in a local pool learning and showing our skills in operating SCUBA equipment and getting around under water. This is an even bigger challenge for me, particularly, since I just learned actual swimming skills this summer (which I’m still working on).

So, I don’t have much time to reminisce about my favorite vacation spots what with the being busy learning about the millions of ways you can die while SCUBA diving in my online coursework. For example, remember that really bad dentist you had a few years ago who gave you a filling? Well, if there’s air in that filling, you’ll be in for a painful SCUBA diving experience via “TOOTH SQUEEZE.” OK, it’s not necessarily fatal, but do I really need to worry about that too??

Anyhoo, I’ll likely be holed up in our apartment studying so I can become an informed SCUBA diver…I promise the stories will be priceless!

SRSLY?

I know this blog is supposed to be happy/funny/silly anecdotes on lovely & exotic international destinations, but how am I supposed to get to these places with the airlines on a serious FEE BINGE?  Travel writer Chris Elliott writes that airlines’ revenue from fees was up 345 percent last year to $10 billion!  And it’s only going to get worse. This “unbundling” of fees – which I like to refer to as, um, nickel and diming – is creating confusion, surprise and frustration for air travelers (in that order).

I just want to know what the total cost of traveling with an airline will be at the end of the day. I could book the lowest-fare ticket at first thought, but end up paying more in the end because of the various broken-out fees that I don’t know about until I get to the airport. When you’re reviewing fares online before purchasing a ticket, these extras should be spelled out as well so you can make a fair “fare” comparison – kind of how the taxes are broken out when you’re buying a ticket. Is this too much to ask?  Apparently, yes, because the airlines are only thriving BECAUSE of this confusion.

Unfortunately, the airlines know they have us between a rock and hard place…the people who really want to (or need to) fly will fork up whatever fees they’re given.  Sigh.

Yay! and Ut-Oh…

Last weekend two very special people got married – one of them my future sister-in-law, and the other the only dedicated reader of this blog (besides James) – her new husband Jim.

Love...ain't it grand??

One thing I love about my future sis, Jennifer, is that she too loves to travel internationally.  She’s been to New Zealand, Australia, Poland, Greece and a bunch of other fun places.  We had a lot of fun talking about  our respective honeymoon plans, and  was happy to hear they chose Fiji (BULA!).  I’ll get more  details on their très exclusive  resort when they get back, but for now we’ve only gotten a cryptic update through James’ parents that they arrived in Fiji fine, but…sans luggage.

SIGH.

Is that not the ultimate travel nightmare? OK, I guess it could be worse, but what a frustrating way to start out your (much needed) vacation on a tropical island…without your bathing suit! I know the experts say to pack spare underwear and a change of clothes (etc.) in your carry-on, but who really does that??  No one packs for a vacation seriously thinking their luggage may actually get lost – but it does happen.  A lot.  Sometimes you’re lucky and you get your bag in a couple of days, but sometimes your luggage is lost in a black hole (or on the black market?) and never to be seen again.  The Wall Street Journal has a chart of different airlines’ baggage mishandling stats here.

Some experts recommend travel insurance. I did it once on a whim – not sure why – while at the airport waiting for my flight to Australia.  Because my flight was ready to leave the airport, I was charged significantly less than my travel companion, who bought hers weeks in advance. Go figure.  If you’re interested in some tips on decreasing the odds your luggage will get lost, check out this ABC News article.  Hint – there’s no foolproof method!

On a happier note, I am sure Jen & Jim thoroughly enjoyed their Fijian honeymoon with or without their luggage…Congrats to the newlyweds!

New tagline they should consider: "Fiji...one of the few places you can probably get by without your luggage."