We're going away over new years, so in our hunt for cheap tickets on dates that actually suit us we discovered Czech Airlines.
We booked a couple of flights online, just as you would at any other airline around the world these days. Annoyingly the prices of the tickets went up during our booking, and we ended up doing two bookings one for Polina and one for myself this way one of us still got the cheap flight. Booking completed we didn't get E-Tickets straight away which was a bit odd, we got reservation numbers and a thing saying "Payment Pending". It was the middle of the night on a weekend too so we didn't think too much of it. Checking the next day our credit cards have been charged roughly the right amount, so we think everything is good.
A couple of days later, still no information the link with the reservations no longer works so we call them up. Nope sorry your flights were cancelled as you haven't paid. Um hang on - we can see the money is missing from our credit card. Back and forth back and forth over the course of three days, they ended up refunding the card money, and issuing us new tickets at a new price of course. Through dint of much persistence and "can we speak to your supervisor" they finally dropped the service fees and allowed us to pay in US dollars letting us get the tickets at almost the same price we had booked them for originally.
The best part is that at least three call centre staff told us that their online booking system doesn't work *sigh*. If you can't manage an online booking system outsource it to someone who can, or get rid of it!
The moral of the story? If you want to fly with Czech Airlines (we'll keep you posted if the actual flights are any good) then you definitely don't want to book the tickets online.
Call the call centre and get them to do it for you, don't forget to ask them which currency it's cheaper to pay in as well ;-)
Happy Travelling from a now much less stressed Jack and Polina...
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
on emails
It's something that's been on my mind for quite some time now. I know with this whole electronic, extra-fast, extra-conventient modern age we all have less time even though we have more appliances to make our lives easier and to have more time. Everyone knows it, but no-one is doing anything about it.
Certainly I've complained to many of you how I miss writing letters (real paper letters that one can touch, feel, put next to oneself and know that the authors hands also touched it), and I really do miss writing long emails. Somehow nowadays whenever I write to people it's a lot more goal-oriented, such as - organising a get-together, organising a phone call, asking for a specific favour or advice... I find myself very rarely writing an email/letter for the sake of writing one - to share my thoughts and feelings, to ponder some questions that's been on my mind, to find out how the other person is... And whenever the opportunity presents itself I am usually thrilled.
An easy way would be to blame the world and to say that people don't reply to me when I do write longer emails... which is partially true. But I guess I've also given up on it and when before, whenever I gotten an email I would reply to it almost straight away... now I usually leave it for a couple of days or weeks even, before I find the time to respond. Sometimes it has to do with time... but sometimes I just feel that very intense, regular communication is something to be avoided for fear of "not sure what". It's been a self-reflective weekend so far, you see...
A part of me realises that when everyone is so far away, everyone has their own lives to live and not much time for anything outside that. However it's not just an issue of geographical separation. Even when we lived in Melbourne I found that we would all see each other a couple of times a year, sometimes more often... so I think it's not just to do with everyone being in the same place, although that helps.
I believe this age of emails, googles, facebooks is on one hand doing a great service for people to be able to stay in touch... but is this "staying in touch" the same quality as the old fashioned "staying in touch"? It feels like trying to compare on one hand sitting in a little cafe on a piazza in Venice on a warm evening, sipping wine and overlooking one of the canals, and on the other sitting in an italian restaurant somewhere else in the world and looking at a photo of a venetain canal on the wall. Both might be pleasant, but it's only that one is that so much better.
Certainly I've complained to many of you how I miss writing letters (real paper letters that one can touch, feel, put next to oneself and know that the authors hands also touched it), and I really do miss writing long emails. Somehow nowadays whenever I write to people it's a lot more goal-oriented, such as - organising a get-together, organising a phone call, asking for a specific favour or advice... I find myself very rarely writing an email/letter for the sake of writing one - to share my thoughts and feelings, to ponder some questions that's been on my mind, to find out how the other person is... And whenever the opportunity presents itself I am usually thrilled.
An easy way would be to blame the world and to say that people don't reply to me when I do write longer emails... which is partially true. But I guess I've also given up on it and when before, whenever I gotten an email I would reply to it almost straight away... now I usually leave it for a couple of days or weeks even, before I find the time to respond. Sometimes it has to do with time... but sometimes I just feel that very intense, regular communication is something to be avoided for fear of "not sure what". It's been a self-reflective weekend so far, you see...
A part of me realises that when everyone is so far away, everyone has their own lives to live and not much time for anything outside that. However it's not just an issue of geographical separation. Even when we lived in Melbourne I found that we would all see each other a couple of times a year, sometimes more often... so I think it's not just to do with everyone being in the same place, although that helps.
I believe this age of emails, googles, facebooks is on one hand doing a great service for people to be able to stay in touch... but is this "staying in touch" the same quality as the old fashioned "staying in touch"? It feels like trying to compare on one hand sitting in a little cafe on a piazza in Venice on a warm evening, sipping wine and overlooking one of the canals, and on the other sitting in an italian restaurant somewhere else in the world and looking at a photo of a venetain canal on the wall. Both might be pleasant, but it's only that one is that so much better.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
What every man (apparently) needs
This is what every man (according to English Russia) needs. It has good and bad points as you may notice - the best part for my money is the completely absent reactions of the passers by...
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Holiday plans and to-do lists
As you may or may not (if you're using a blog-reader) have noticed, I've updated the blog template. I gotta say - I don't like the way Blogger doesn't really provide an easy way to alter the HTML and CSS, other than in a single xml file which is incredibly hard to work with. I guess it's mainly targeting non-IT people. Oh well - in any case... there's still a few things to clean up/add, but the main work is done.
That has taken up most of my weekend. As with many previous holidays I've made myself a list of things to do, and surprisingly this time around I am actually on track to complete all of them prior to semester start. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that I was realistic and didn't make any plans like "read all psychology literature at home", or making a decision to work only three days a week on holidays dedicating the rest of the time to doing things around the flat and relaxing. It's been a very enjoyable holiday thus far.
That has taken up most of my weekend. As with many previous holidays I've made myself a list of things to do, and surprisingly this time around I am actually on track to complete all of them prior to semester start. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that I was realistic and didn't make any plans like "read all psychology literature at home", or making a decision to work only three days a week on holidays dedicating the rest of the time to doing things around the flat and relaxing. It's been a very enjoyable holiday thus far.
Friday, September 05, 2008
The world up above
Back in Berlinski I've been spending my days organising things around our humble abode. This involves planting a herb "garden" on the balcony, organising all the sewing that needs to get done, cleaning after our trip, some other things and a fair amount of cooking to Jack's great delight... yesterday's dinner included honey chicken, roast potatoes with home-made(!) Spanish tomatoe sauce and Sharlotka (Russian biscuit apple cake)... yep I'm boasting - but I don't get to do this very often, so I'm happy to report when it does happen.
Unix has been very friendly since I picked him up from his "cat hotel" on Monday... I actually think he missed us. To his grieve disappointment he got brushed, de-clawed and washed all in the same week... poor cat. But now he's not as scratchy and silky smooth. The washing didn't really help with the amount of shedding that's happening at the moment... I think he still must be too warm in his coat. Here's some pics of the herbs (yes I know I made a spelling mistake with parsley... BUT it was in permanent marker, so I'm not changing it ok?!), and cat and cat hair.
Unix has been very friendly since I picked him up from his "cat hotel" on Monday... I actually think he missed us. To his grieve disappointment he got brushed, de-clawed and washed all in the same week... poor cat. But now he's not as scratchy and silky smooth. The washing didn't really help with the amount of shedding that's happening at the moment... I think he still must be too warm in his coat. Here's some pics of the herbs (yes I know I made a spelling mistake with parsley... BUT it was in permanent marker, so I'm not changing it ok?!), and cat and cat hair.
The world down under
WARNING: long post!
It is now officially the Friday after... our return, and I thought that if I don't write a post now, I will probably forget all the wonderful experiences and it would be such a shame.
Most of August we spent in the southern hemisphere, visiting Eugene in Singapore and then our home in Australia. First things first... Singapore was humid, hot, sticky and full of amazing food. For a minute I even thought that it had the perfect climate and atmosphere for me - but that was before we stepped onto Aussie shores. Eugene is a great host and showed us the town and the good life. My experiences of Asian big cities are pretty much limited to Bangkok, Hong Kong, some cities in Japan (when I was about 9 years old) and now Singapore. Out of these cities I have to say that Singapore struck me as most relaxed. Of course the fact that we were there on the weekend and on public holiday might have something to do with it.
Even though I really don't like the whole business of hot and humid outside and freezing air-conditioned inside, I love tropical climates. Being able to go out in the evening without taking a jumper is just so so nice. Did I mention the food? Along with many servings of dumplings our cuisine for the weekend included chili crabs, yummy buns on the go, Chinese fried chicken, some strange but yummy cold blackish-greenish jelly stuff (very refreshing), and many more that I can't even quite remember. Eugene also took us for Singapore Sling cocktails at the Raffles hotel which was a great idea because a) they were very refreshing, and b) the hotel is a good example of colonial architecture which I find completely gorgeous, so I was double happy. Along with seeing the town we also managed to find Jack a new phone and drop by to Eugene's office.
Sat evening we also spent on the roof of our hosts' penthouse apartment watching the fireworks for the national day of Sing and drinking champers. This was afterwards followed by a walk along the red-light district where the girls are organised by their nationalities along various street corners (Germany take notes) and lastly we bought a durien (sp?) which is this spiky funky fruit that I kept on wanting to try but in the end got more than I bargained for, because unlike being watery and refreshing (what I was actually expecting) it was more like a mix between banana and avocado... very very creamy and rich. But Eugene helped me out and we even managed to finish this gigantic piece of Gods creation.
There definitely needs to be a "next time" in Singapore!!! Some photos can be found here :)
And so after these two lovely days we took a Qantas flight 06 to Melbourne. Arriving at an ungodly hour of 4am on a Monday morning we went through security very quickly to our great surprise and were met by Emmi on a cold rainy and pretty miserable morning. The climate change was so dramatic that I spent most of Monday curled up in front of the heater in the lounge room while Jack was getting Lady out of the garage.
Since we decided to send some of our stuff over from Melbski to Berlinski it meant spending some time in the shed pulling apart boxes, containers and various pieces of old student furniture which we kept on wondering "why did we ever decide to keep it?"... it probably took us a good four to five days to find everything (well almost everything) that we wanted to take with us and to actually ship it. Hopefully it should arrive to Berlin sometime in the middle of October. Our shed adventures also included locating four dead mice... and no - these little chaps didn't die in the name of science... but more in the name of rat-sack... shouldn't have been so curious! Overall we were happy with the fact that aside from mouse crap all of our things (especially books) were ok... oh and there was one box where ants decided to nest, but we evicted them and that was fine.
Next on our plan was to go to the Grampians and celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary. Quite a few of you were surprised that it has been that many years... well it's pretty surprising for us, too. I mean it feels only yesterday that we met... but it's not. Five years... hmmm... yes - they have been an amazing, wonderful, happy, great, grand, magnificent five years :) In any case we went off to the same place where we got married and aside from the fact that it was cold, miserable, rainy, the car's back breaks breaking on the way there, me having a cold it was a really good time. Nah - it was actually very nice to be back there and to get away from it all. We saw much wildlife and fed kangaroos outside our doorstep... and reminisced in the time gone by as well as booing our Olympic commentators. A selection of photos for your viewing pleasure can be found here.
The rest of our time was spent catching up with our families, friends and Melbourne itself. I must've had the most coffee's this whole year there. I think my grand total was five latte's in one day... but it's SO good!!! We also squeezed in a trip up to Adelaide to celebrate Axel's 40th birthday and catch up with the gang there. Another day was spent driving around the Dandenongs with our folks... even though the walking tracks were very muddy we still did some walking, spotted a Rosella and two Kookaburras and had enormous ice-creams at Miss Marple's Tea House. We had a big catch-up with everyone at Prudence and a get-together for my birthday at Ginger. To my great disappointment they stopped selling the alcoholic ice-creams, but the cocktails were great anyway, so no complaints there. There was one evening spent visiting Mr Marvin and having dinner with his foster parent Paul. All in all, as usual, not enough time for everything and everyone... but we hope to be back for good at some point in the future and then we'll have the rest of our lives to spend together. I think now this needs a quote about something like "the stream of life"... but I really can't be bothered searching for one... you know what I mean! Some photos here.
oh ok, fine! this is roughly what I was looking for:
George Eliot: "The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone."
It is now officially the Friday after... our return, and I thought that if I don't write a post now, I will probably forget all the wonderful experiences and it would be such a shame.
Most of August we spent in the southern hemisphere, visiting Eugene in Singapore and then our home in Australia. First things first... Singapore was humid, hot, sticky and full of amazing food. For a minute I even thought that it had the perfect climate and atmosphere for me - but that was before we stepped onto Aussie shores. Eugene is a great host and showed us the town and the good life. My experiences of Asian big cities are pretty much limited to Bangkok, Hong Kong, some cities in Japan (when I was about 9 years old) and now Singapore. Out of these cities I have to say that Singapore struck me as most relaxed. Of course the fact that we were there on the weekend and on public holiday might have something to do with it.
Even though I really don't like the whole business of hot and humid outside and freezing air-conditioned inside, I love tropical climates. Being able to go out in the evening without taking a jumper is just so so nice. Did I mention the food? Along with many servings of dumplings our cuisine for the weekend included chili crabs, yummy buns on the go, Chinese fried chicken, some strange but yummy cold blackish-greenish jelly stuff (very refreshing), and many more that I can't even quite remember. Eugene also took us for Singapore Sling cocktails at the Raffles hotel which was a great idea because a) they were very refreshing, and b) the hotel is a good example of colonial architecture which I find completely gorgeous, so I was double happy. Along with seeing the town we also managed to find Jack a new phone and drop by to Eugene's office.
Sat evening we also spent on the roof of our hosts' penthouse apartment watching the fireworks for the national day of Sing and drinking champers. This was afterwards followed by a walk along the red-light district where the girls are organised by their nationalities along various street corners (Germany take notes) and lastly we bought a durien (sp?) which is this spiky funky fruit that I kept on wanting to try but in the end got more than I bargained for, because unlike being watery and refreshing (what I was actually expecting) it was more like a mix between banana and avocado... very very creamy and rich. But Eugene helped me out and we even managed to finish this gigantic piece of Gods creation.
There definitely needs to be a "next time" in Singapore!!! Some photos can be found here :)
And so after these two lovely days we took a Qantas flight 06 to Melbourne. Arriving at an ungodly hour of 4am on a Monday morning we went through security very quickly to our great surprise and were met by Emmi on a cold rainy and pretty miserable morning. The climate change was so dramatic that I spent most of Monday curled up in front of the heater in the lounge room while Jack was getting Lady out of the garage.
Since we decided to send some of our stuff over from Melbski to Berlinski it meant spending some time in the shed pulling apart boxes, containers and various pieces of old student furniture which we kept on wondering "why did we ever decide to keep it?"... it probably took us a good four to five days to find everything (well almost everything) that we wanted to take with us and to actually ship it. Hopefully it should arrive to Berlin sometime in the middle of October. Our shed adventures also included locating four dead mice... and no - these little chaps didn't die in the name of science... but more in the name of rat-sack... shouldn't have been so curious! Overall we were happy with the fact that aside from mouse crap all of our things (especially books) were ok... oh and there was one box where ants decided to nest, but we evicted them and that was fine.
Next on our plan was to go to the Grampians and celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary. Quite a few of you were surprised that it has been that many years... well it's pretty surprising for us, too. I mean it feels only yesterday that we met... but it's not. Five years... hmmm... yes - they have been an amazing, wonderful, happy, great, grand, magnificent five years :) In any case we went off to the same place where we got married and aside from the fact that it was cold, miserable, rainy, the car's back breaks breaking on the way there, me having a cold it was a really good time. Nah - it was actually very nice to be back there and to get away from it all. We saw much wildlife and fed kangaroos outside our doorstep... and reminisced in the time gone by as well as booing our Olympic commentators. A selection of photos for your viewing pleasure can be found here.
The rest of our time was spent catching up with our families, friends and Melbourne itself. I must've had the most coffee's this whole year there. I think my grand total was five latte's in one day... but it's SO good!!! We also squeezed in a trip up to Adelaide to celebrate Axel's 40th birthday and catch up with the gang there. Another day was spent driving around the Dandenongs with our folks... even though the walking tracks were very muddy we still did some walking, spotted a Rosella and two Kookaburras and had enormous ice-creams at Miss Marple's Tea House. We had a big catch-up with everyone at Prudence and a get-together for my birthday at Ginger. To my great disappointment they stopped selling the alcoholic ice-creams, but the cocktails were great anyway, so no complaints there. There was one evening spent visiting Mr Marvin and having dinner with his foster parent Paul. All in all, as usual, not enough time for everything and everyone... but we hope to be back for good at some point in the future and then we'll have the rest of our lives to spend together. I think now this needs a quote about something like "the stream of life"... but I really can't be bothered searching for one... you know what I mean! Some photos here.
oh ok, fine! this is roughly what I was looking for:
George Eliot: "The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone."
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