Never Fly Vueling Airlines

I need to do something productive with my time while I wait for our bags, so I figured I'd take a few minutes to eviscerate a terrible company. If the title of my post didn't make it clear, I'll repeat, Never fly Vueling Airlines. Vueling is the discount carrier of Iberia Air, Spain's largest airline. And they suck at everything they do. A 4 hour delay for any reason is bad, but when you get zero explanation as to why, that makes it worse. It's also really shitty to tell your customers they can pay to ensure they choose their seat on the plane and then change last minute to an open seating policy 10 minutes before boarding. 

It also must be very convenient for them to have 2 bag check staff while the queue to check bags grows infinitely longer by the minute, extending  deepinto the train station. And let's not forget about their staff who didn't exude the slightest bit of hospitality and were downright rude at times as well.

To top it all off, and to ensure the journey completely sucked from the first minute to the never ending last, it took 45 minutes from the time the plane arrived at the gate until a bag showed up at baggage claim.

Look, I've flown discount European airlines before and understand the no-frills approach to flying. But the operational miscues from start to finish are completely inexcusable for any business. 

So I urge you, never fly Vueling Airlines while in Europe. I promise you'll regret it if you do. 

Jeff

PS - can't wait to fly with these guys again in a few weeks to Ireland!

The Trip Explained

This probably should have been the first thing I posted, but I'd rather post late than not at all. Many of you have asked about the rationale, origin, and purpose of this trip. In short, when you get the chance to travel the world you take it, right? The end.

It's actually much deeper and more meaningful than that. The origins of this trip really started almost 10 years ago when I went to visit my friends in London who were studying abroad for a semester. I had the most amazing time with them, and while the trip only lasted a week, it opened up a lifelong passion for travel. It also made me realize I had made a huge mistake by not taking a semester to live abroad. Pitt had even provided me a global research stipend to travel abroad and I never took advantage of it. I decided after that trip I would never miss the opportunity to travel abroad again. And if I ever got the opportunity, I would live abroad as well.

In the nearly 10 years since that first trip to London, I've been abroad 3 times - another trip to London with a stop in Dublin, a third trip to London with 4 days in Barcelona, and the all important trip to Israel 3 years ago. Shortly after Rachel and I met, we discussed our aspirations to live/travel abroad. We decided that living abroad wasn't really going to work for us because of Lea and our desire to spend as much time as possible with family. Instead, we created a bucket list of places to visit and kept it in our back pocket. About a year later, I started to set the wheels in motion to get enough time off of work that we could take a trip of this magnitude. PwC is creative with employee benefits and will work with long tenured, loyal people to help them meet their life goals. I had a conversation with my partner about my desire to travel abroad, and we agreed that I could go on unpaid leave the summer of 2016. Fast forward about 6 months to when I was considering moving over to Comcast, and I thought I might have hit a snag - how would I be able to take my trip when I was moving over to a new company with no tenure built up? I brought up my trip to my future boss and told him how important it was to me, and that if I was going to change companies I still wanted to go. Luckily, I work for a pragmatic, understanding boss who also has a passion for travel and without hesitation he told me we'd make it work, shook my hand, and that was that.

When Rachel and I were planning the trip, we went through a long, sometimes painful process to figure out where we wanted to go. Since our bucket list was so varied (Australia, Machu Picchu, Thailand, Italy, etc.) we had to figure out how to visit countries we wanted while not creating a logistical and financial nightmare for ourselves. We eventually figured out that it would be really cool if we could travel around the world. I looked into those around the world passes that the airlines offer and found them extremely expensive and while the flexibility of being able to fly whenever you want is nice, the inflexibility of having to use partner airlines really blows. I knew there was a better way and I used our secret weapon to get there.

Since we had been planning this trip for about 2 years, I decided to sign up for a bunch of credit cards with great travel offers as enrollment bonuses. On many cards you can get miles, points, etc. that can be redeemed for free flights on premium airlines if you play your cards right. Playing the credit card game could be a totally separate post, but if you're interested, visit www.thepointsguy.com to learn more. When I was ready to book, I reached out to my buddy Shri who has mastered the credit card game and regularly travels abroad a few times a year. Shri helped us find the right sites to do research which allowed us to maximize the value of our points and miles. When all was said and done, Rachel and I signed up for 5 credit cards and had enough points/miles to pay for all of the flights (10 each) except for about $2000 for some short flights, taxes, and booking fees. I say all this because I want all of you to realize that with a little planning and an assist from the credit card companies, you can travel abroad for way less than you think. It seemed like an impossible dream at first, but it just required some patience, research, and confidence to book everything without assistance.

This brings me back to the beginning as to why we took this trip. Rachel and I both wanted to take a trip that didn't just feel like a short vacation but also allowed us to feel like we were living abroad. This is not something you can do in a week or two. That's why even though we're jumping from country to country for most of the trip, we decided to take almost a month of time in Spain. While in Spain, we're taking some time to live at a home stay with a woman who teaches Spanish lessons. During this part of the trip, we're not going to be rushing around to see as many sites as possible, but instead will make a concerted effort to converse with the locals and get to know the people. Our hope is that beyond coming home with tons of pictures and a few souvenirs, we also come home with a greater appreciation for the Spanish culture and an ability to communicate in Spanish. It's crazy that in every single country we've visited so far, we've been able to converse in English, even though English isn't the first language in any of these countries (except Singapore). When we return, our Spanish should be much better than it is now, and we hope to continue to practice going forward.

One of the other reasons for the trip (and more Rachel's than mine) is so we can sample the cuisines in every country. We've had a food list in every place we've been, and it has been fun and delicious to knock these items off the list, especially when that list includes Swiss chocolate. There's also the YOLO pictures. You can't have a Kaplan vacation without YOLO pictures. Rachel actually bought us some updated t-shirts that we'll be debuting on the trip. For those of you who don't know, Rachel and I bought these obnoxious YOLO T shirts on our first trip together to Puerto Rico. It's been a tradition ever since to wear them at famous tourist sites wherever we go. So far the YOLO shirts have been to the Golden Gate Bridge, Bourbon St, Newport, Firefly Festival, and many others. It will be a lot of fun to look back one day at all the places we've been to in our crazy shirts.

Finally, there was an element of timing to this trip that can't be underscored. We both just turned 30 and it's no secret that at some point relatively soon, we'll want to start a family. You can't take 3 months away from your job and visit 9 countries when you have kids - it doesn't really work. When we began planning this trip, I vowed that I would let nothing get in the way of completing it. There would always be excuses not to go - need the money for a house, busy at work, etc. But if we didn't go now, we wouldn't be able to for another 25 years, and life is too unpredictable to take that chance. So we plowed forward and made it happen, and I'm so glad we did.

We miss everyone back home and can't wait to tell you about our adventures when we return. Zurich awaits!

Jeff

Switzerland and Its Beauty

When it comes to natural beauty, Switzerland has no shortage. When it comes to man made beauty, Switzerland has no shortage. It's like the world had a draft lottery for beauty and Switzerland kept winning the #1 pick. Or maybe Switzerland was so awesome that all of nature's top free agents decided to sign here when the salary cap went through the roof. As I write this, I'm sitting on a train from Lucerne to Interlocken in central Switzerland. Since we departed a half hour ago, we've been surrounded by rolling green hills, majestic mountains, small picturesque farm houses, and bright blue lakes. Everywhere you turn is better than the last view, and we haven't even reached our destination yet.

Interlocken is a small city in Switzerland situated between 2 lakes, Brienzersee and Thunersee (Lake Brienz and Lake Thun). As a side note, I've learned that German is so intimidating because they shove 2-4 words together in every word. If they used spaces just a little bit, the rest of the world wouldn't be so terrified by it. Half the words are cognates and if you just sound them out, many sound like their English equivalent (e.g., table water is tabblevasser). Back to Interlocken, the city promises breathtaking views of the Swiss Alps in between its 2 lakes. We chose to forego the trip to the highest train station in Europe so we could take the day to explore Interlocken. Our goals are to find a nice cafe for lunch, explore an old castle, and get soaked on a jetboat tour of Brienzersee. 

This is an addition to the time we've already spent in Lucerne, a picturesque city between a lake and a river which exudes Swiss charm. There are ample cafes, an Old Town with cobblestone streets, and mountain views everywhere you look. We're staying at an Airbnb in a couple's apartment - a short 10 minute walk to the central part of town. The gem of the city has to be Kapellbrucke, an old castle from the 1400s situated in the middle of the river. In the bridge to the castle are old pieces of artwork, and the views from the bridge are so peaceful and serene it makes you want to stay there forever.

Pardon the interruption - since I began writing we now have to add a series of waterfalls each over 100 feet long to the list of incredible sites during the train ride.

In short, central Switzerland is amazing and seems to be one of the world's hidden gems, as it never gets the popularity or buzz of a Barcelona, London, Tokyo, or New York City. That's fine with me, I'll gladly take it as is.

Jeff

Asia Concluded

The latter portion of the Asian segment of our trip was fantastic. We were able to visit Phi Phi island, swim with fish, sit on beautiful beaches, and I even managed to fall out of a Thai Longboat and bust up my knee and elbow. If that's the worst thing that happens to me on this trip, I'll consider myself pretty damn lucky. Also, Rachel got a nice kick out of my fall, so all is not lost.

Our last day in Thailand was almost a total washout. Luckily, we planned our indoor activities for the day - massage and a Thai cooking class. The massage was fantastic and the food we made at the cooking class was delicious. We were the only 2 who signed up for the class so we had the chef to ourselves and had the opportunity to make 4 different dishes (a papaya salad, chicken with cashews, coconut soup with chicken, and pad Thai with chicken). We managed through the chef's broken English and walked away absolutely stuffed.

Then came what will definitely be the longest and most strenuous day of our trip. We woke up in Thailand, grabbed an early breakfast, and left for the airport. We landed in Singapore shortly after 1pm, spent the day touring the city, and headed back to the airport (where I'm currently sitting) for a 1am flight to Switzerland. When we land, it will be 8am Swiss time and we'll spend 3 whirlwind days in Lucerne and Zurich.

Some quick observations on Singapore:

- Changi is the best airport in the world, hands down. Clean, modern, spacious, plenty of shopping and dining options, and short queues through immigration. To top it off, most of the airport staff is super friendly.

- The city is very clean and very rich. Singapore is superbly maintained, there are no homeless people, and it feels very safe. There is also a ton of luxury shopping, lots of rich businessmen, and ample fine dining selections. Singapore is regularly ranked as the most capitalist country in the world based on fiscal and social policies and has the 3rd highest GDP per capita in the world.

- The skyline is majestic and the architecture in the city is beautiful and diverse. It looks like a lot of the same architects who lent their efforts to building out London also took a turn in Singapore. 

- Cabs don't stop if you hail them. Apparently, there are designated areas where you can hail a cab, but we couldn't find any. We had no fewer than 30 available cabs drive right by us as we tried to hail a ride to the airport.

- There's no traffic in Singapore even though it's one of the most densely populated countries on earth. Why? It costs $100K USD to buy a Camry, and you have to pay $40K USD for a Certificate of Entitlement just to have a car (think seat licenses in NFL stadiums). Btw, this is according to our cab driver - I have not independently verified this information.

Well, we're about to board the flight to Zurich and I'm dead tired so I'm signing off for the night. Thanks for reading. I'll see you in Europe.

Jeff

Hamilton Biography Recap

Today I completed a task started nearly 2 months ago - I finished Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton. This behemoth weighs in at over 800 pages and the audiobook takes over 36 hours to complete (I did it the old fashioned way). The biography was completed around 2008 and inspired Lin Manuel Miranda's Broadway phenomenon, Hamilton.

One of my goals for the trip is to get a significant amount of reading done, so completing this one was a big step to that goal. Ashlee Vance's biography of Elon Musk is up next. Full disclosure - I only read non-fiction. Haven't picked up a fiction book since I read Angels and Demons in college 10 years ago.

Back to Hamilton. For an 800 page biography on one of our founding fathers, this was as close as you get to a page turner. The beginning chapters about Hamilton's childhood were a bit dense and challenging to get through, but once Hamilton came to America on the eve of the revolution, it really picked up the pace.  My only other complaint is Chernow's incessant use of vocabulary that no one outside of a high school English teacher would understand. Seriously, you'll need a dictionary to get through some chapters. Even with all that, you find yourself rooting for this brilliant but deeply flawed man even though you know exactly how the story will end.

What I found most interesting about Chernow's effort, besides the tremendous amount I learned about the founding fathers and the infancy of our country, was the ability to judge for myself Hamilton's character and place in American history. In short, I'd be willing to debate anyone that no founding father had a greater impact on the current state of our country than Alexander Hamilton. Over 200 years ago, this man envisioned modern America, a country who generates its strength from a powerful federal government, access to credit, strong trade with rival nations, and armed forces ready to protect the country from its deepest threats. He is the foremost interpreter of the Constitution through the Federalist papers and ran a significant amount of the government during the Washington administration when every decision set a new precedent for our country. He was also a self-destructive maniac who imploded his own career and ultimately his life because he was so set in his moralistic views. Reconciling these two truths was fascinating as it frequently is with the world's most influential people - can you be truly great while maintaining a healthy life outside of your career pursuit? Most of the evidence out there points to a sobering truth - it's nearly impossible.

If you have any interest in American history or if you just love Hamilton and want to learn about the source material behind the play, I highly recommend this read. You won't be disappointed.

Jeff

Thailand - Refreshed

Thailand is a refreshing change of pace from the nonstop hustle of Manila. In Manila, we were constantly surrounded by people, traffic, noise, and everything else that a city brings. In Thailand (we're in Phuket), we're staying at a relaxing resort miles from any major population centers. We took a day to sit in the pool, swim, relax, and enjoy the pool bar. The bed is extremely comfortable, the shower is amazing, and every need is taken care of. We could not ask for a better atmosphere.

The food in Thailand is fantastic. They have a huge spread every morning with Thai food, fresh fruit and juices, soups, every kind of bread and pastry you can imagine, as well as salads. The price is good (free - thanks SPG Platinum!) and you can eat whatever you want. For dinner, there are 3 restaurants on the resort, 2 of which serve Thai food, and we've been sampling their best since we got here. No complaints from me.

The last few days have been the relaxing respite I needed. This resort has refreshed and revitalized me, and we haven't even had our Thai massages yet. Today we'll be visiting Phi Phi islands (pronounced pee pee) which are supposed to be some of the most breathtaking islands in the world. I'm currently sitting on a speedboat enjoying the beautiful scenery on the 40 km trip out. More to come later.

Jeff

Philippines - Family

Even though we're barely more than a week into our trip, I have already experienced what will surely be one of the best highlights of our journey - meeting and becoming a part of Rachel's family in the Philippines. Never before have I met such a warm, welcoming group of people so willing to go out of their way to make me comfortable and feel at home in their country. 

Before diving into details, some quick background. Rachel's mom has 8 brothers and sisters, 4 of whom are in the US. The rest (and their families) along with Rachel's grandparents, are in the Philippines. Prior to our visit, I had only met Rachel's grandparents who flew in for our wedding last year.

From the minute we landed, it was like we were celebrities receiving VIP treatment. We had a small entourage waiting to pick us up at the airport and drive us to our hotel. When we arrived there, Rachel's grandfather (Tatay as we all call him), was waiting for us and had a dozen San Miguel beers waiting in the fridge for me to try. The next day, a national holiday (fiesta) was taking place, so we had a family reunion at Rachel's grandparents' house. Everyone pitched in and made all of Rachel's favorite Filipino food and made sure to make most of the dishes with chicken instead of pork, because they know we don't eat pork. The food was delicious (pancit and chicken adobo for you Filipino foodies out there), and I had the best mango I've ever tasted. 

The rest of the week consisted of my new family shuttling us from tourist site to tourist site (Corregidor and Intramuros), around their barangay (neighborhood), or wherever else we wanted to go. When I got sick (read Rachel's blog for the details, they're too painful to rehash here), all of the mothers took care of me and Rachel's grandmother (Nanay) came over to our hotel right when we woke up the next morning with fresh lugao (rice porridge) to help settle my stomach. At the end of the week, we were presented with a variety of gifts to commemorate our stay, when we absolutely should have been giving for the wonderful hospitality we received.

To my new Quezon City family, I could go on for many paragraphs about how incredibly I was treated over the past week. Every single member of the family played a part in making me feel welcome and I will be forever grateful for that. You made the beginning of our trip so special and memorable, and I will always think back fondly to our time with you. My only wish is that one day Rachel and I will be lucky enough to return the favor of your hospitality. You are all truly special people and I look forward to seeing you all again soon. And as McArthur said upon leaving Corregidor (but actually in Australia as we learned this week), "I shall return." Bless you all.

Jeff

Post note: for those of you who know Tagalog, you're probably thinking I made some critical understanding error in calling Rachel's grandparents "Tatay and Nanay." Normally, you'd be correct (Tatay is father and Nanay is mother). In our family, EVERYONE calls them Tatay and Nanay, regardless of relation to them. This quirk will become funny when Rachel and I have kids as they will call their grandparents Lolo and Lola (grandfather and grandmother), but their great grandparents Tatay and Nanay (dad and mom). Go figure!