Tech & Travel, Then and Now

On the 2010 trip that started this blog, I did have an iPhone and a laptop with me, but so much has changed in fourteen years.

• Then: faxing hotels to make reservations, because it's not safe to send a credit-card number via email.
  Now: online reservation forms
• Then: limited data (I have an email receipt showing I paid for 20MB of global data for a month)
  Now: I'm pretty certain I use more than 20MB per hour, given my Pokémon Go addiction plus mapping & social media & whatever else I do during the day
  
• Then: Internet cafe (in Rome, at least) in order to blog
  Now: would never book a hotel without wifi!
• Then: navigating by paper map (and in Venice, by signs on the buildings)
  Now: Google Maps with turn-by-turn directions (although walking directions sometimes leave something to be desired: getting from the subway station to the train station in Prague involved finally deciding to ignore what Google was saying and just walking in the right direction until signs appeared)
• Then: mini paper dictionary/phrase book for each country, and if what I was looking at in a grocery store wasn't in the dictionary, making a best guess as to what kind of sausage I was buying
  Now: Google Translate using phone camera; not always perfect (the pastry on the right must have some sort of colloquial name), but such a big help!
  
  
  
  
  
• Then: laptop, in order to blog and post to social media when on wifi
  Now: phone with Bluetooth folding keyboard and cellular data
  
• Then: digital camera, with photos uploaded to the laptop every night
  Now: phone camera, directly uploaded to blog and social media every night
  
• Then: taxi, arranged by telephone
  Now: Uber app
• Then: paper train passes & tickets
  Now: RailEurope app (although I carried printed copies as a backup)
• Then: buying subway tickets & passes from machines
  Now: buying subway tickets & passes on apps (and sometimes still from machines)
  
• Then: paper guidebook
  Now: some paper guidebooks and some on Kindle app. Paper ones are easier to read in the sun, and also easier to flip back and forth between map pages and description pages, but boy they weigh a lot.
• Then: not knowing where your checked bag was (not that I checked any for the 2010 trip, but I certainly did for other trips in that era)
  Now: stick an AirTag in your luggage and watch it go
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Then: having no way to contact other members of your party if you were separated
  Now: everyone has a phone with data, so texting, WhatsApp, and location sharing
• Then: having to email in advance to meet up with friends while traveling
  Now: I didn't manage to see everyone I tried to, but was able to use my phone to coordinate with different people via texting, WhatsApp, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and Discord.
• Then: walking into the nearest gelato place and hoping it was good
  Now: looking on Google Maps for the highest-rated gelato place nearby and hoping that the line isn't too long when you get there
   

 

 

Airports x 3

A long, long travel day. After my experience two years ago at the Munich airport, I made sure I arrived three hours ahead of time. Fortunately it went a lot more quickly this time, and I was at my gate within 45 minutes of arriving. (No Covid-document checks this year, and my overall route through the airport was much shorter, possibly because my itinerary went through London, rather than having a direct flight to the US.)

I had ample time to relax in what looked like some sort of popup lounge in Terminal H:

Water fountains are a bit harder to find here than at US airports. I checked near the restrooms I walked past on the way to my gate, but didn't see any. I decided to Google, and of course there's an entire website devoted to finding drinking fountains in airports! Turns out I only had to go one gate further to fill my bottle — thank you www.wateratairports.com !

About 45 minutes before our departure from gate 34, they announced yhat we all had to have our passports checked at gate 33. For those of us with mobile boarding passes, they put the sticker on the backs of our phones.

At Heathrow, we had to go through security again. I think this was the first airport of this trip where I had to go through the whole remove-your-laptop-and-liquids routine, but at least we get to keep our shoes on now.

Since I had three hours to get to my gate, I decided to have a sit-down lunch (I had a light breakfast at my hotel many hours earlier.) Google Maps said the best place near me was a Chinese restaurant, so I settled in for dim sum and a Diet Coke. The dim sum was very pretty.

It was a long hike to my gate (the very last B gate). Along the way there were murals, ample drinking fountains (near each restroom as expected), and Ben & Jerry's vending machines.

During my London layover, I took the time to look at my flight info in the United app, and I clicked on the "change your seat" button out of curiosity. It was a good move: I was able to change my seat to one in another row in which only the window seat was already occupied, and the middle seat remained empty.

The last leg of the trip was long but uneventful. Arrived safely at home, 22 hours after leaving my hotel.

Au Revoir

We are home, safe and sound. I'm almost done unpacking and editing photos (we took over 1500, and are printing about 2/3 of those) and tying up a few loose ends from our trip.

Lessons learned for future trips:

1. Honda Odysseys should be started and driven more often than every three weeks. It's a good thing we were picked up at the airport, rather than parking our car in long-term parking, as we had to call AAA for a jump start. Our Saturn, on the other hand, started up with no problems this morning, despite having been parked for probably four to five weeks.

2. Bank of America is very fussy about travel. Apparently contacting them directly through their secure e-mail system is not enough to prevent them from cutting off access to your debit card while traveling overseas--you have to call a special phone number (NOT the one listed on the back of the card) to make this happen. It would have been nice if they had mentioned this when I sent them the initial e-mail, rather than suddenly blocking my card halfway through our trip. And it would also have been even nicer if their phone system hadn't hung up on me the first two times I tried to call today.

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This will be the last post for a couple of years, until the next time we travel overseas. Our kids have been bitten by the travel bug, so there are many options for the next trip. China, Germany, and Greece are some of the countries being discussed, plus we all loved Venice and Paris and would like to return sometime. Au revoir!