Mokka mit Schlag » Travel

Yesterday the U.S. Federal government arrested a British Internet gambling executive as he changed planes in Texas on his way to Costa Rica. I don’t know how the Dallas airport is laid out, but he may not even have tried to clear customs.

I can’t help but wonder how the U.S. government even knew he’d be on the plane. Might it have something to do with the U.S.’s insistence that any plane landing in the U.S. provide complete details on all passengers to the U.S. government? We were told this was necessary to prevent terrorists from entering U.S. soil. Why am I not surprised to find it instead being used to prosecute victimless crimes and enforce the Bush administration’s questionable morals? Perhaps the EU shouldn’t have been so fast to cave in to U.S. demands that violated their own laws.

Meanwhile, in a practical sense, to all my friends outside the U.S., I have to warn you to stay away. In particular, do not change planes in the United States, even if your eventual destination is elsewhere. This is not an isolated incident. The U.S. government is routinely pulling international travelers off of planes that land here and maltreating them.
(more…)

I’m a very light cell phone user, except occasionally when I travel. Currently I’m on the very bottom-of-the-barrel T-Mobile monthly plan that they don’t even offer any more. Only 60 minutes a month + weekends, and I very rarely even use that. Looking around it seemed I could save quite a bit of money by going to a prepaid plan. That wouldn’t cost me more than about $100 a year, roughly 20% of what I’m paying now. I was just going to switch my T-Mobile phone over, but apparently the roaming on their prepaid plans isn’t so good.

What are people recommending for prepaid phones these days? I need:
(more…)

There seems to be one special rule for driving in Maine. Whatever road you’re one, whichever lane you’re in: left, middle, or center, it will eventually turn into a right turn only or left turn only lane. You cannot drive straight in this state.

During the boom years it felt like I was travelling to San Jose or the Bay Area every month or two. I usually flew American. Round trip was about $2200 without a Saturday stayover. I saved up my frequent flyer miles primarily for first class upgrades on these cross-country trips.
(more…)

As useful as MapQuest and Google Map driving directions are out in the Boonies (i.e. anywhere West of the Hudson, north of the Bronx, or south of Coney Island) they’re rather pointless here in the center of the universe, where:

A. No one has a car.
B. Even if you have a car, you can’t park it anywhere near where you’re going anyway.
C. And it will probably take you longer to drive there than to walk.

In fact, both Google and Mapquest maps usually don’t even bother to show such critical information as subway stations, much less bus stops; forcing most New Yorkers to resort to traditional paper maps most of the time. Thus I was quite pleased to learn yesterday about HopStop, a map service that actually works for people who rely on mass transit (and in New York that’s essentially everyone, at least some of the time.)
(more…)

Apparently not having learned from the Epcot disaster 20 years ago that tourists don’t want to educate themselves on their vacations, Disney has repeated their mistakes across the country at the new California Adventure theme park. Here you can pay the same price for half the rides, which include such thrilling excitements as watching bread bake! And if that isn’t exciting enough, you can go across the street and watch a different kind of bread bake! After which it’s only a short walk to the theatre where you can see a classroom filmstrip about the history of California! And then learn about California crops! If you’re all tuckered out from these exciting adventures, you might want to learn how to draw. Hard as it is to believe, I am not making this up. These really are “attractions” at California Adventure.

If after all this, you find yourself just too tired to ride one more ride, (more likely too tired to stand in one more line) you can sit in air conditioned comfort while watching an hour-long musical adaptation of a Disney movie. You’ve heard of straight-to-video movies? Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular is the stage equivalent: it skipped Broadway and the national tour to go straight to theme parks. The Lion King this isn’t. Heck, it’s not even Aida. Frankly I wouldn’t be surprised to learn the music and lyrics were written by the Orangeview Jr. High School band director, and performed by its drama club. (And if anyone from Orangeview Jr. High School is reading this, my apologies in advance for calumnying you that way. I’m sure you really are better than that.)

Of course I am picking on some of the most boring experiences there. There some nice touches too. The Tower of Terror is genuinely terrifying. Soaring Over California is a lot more exciting and fun than it sounds. It’s Hard to be a Bug is amusing; but that’s pretty much it. For the same $56 it costs to get into California Adventure, you could buy a one day pass to the Magic Kingdom with many more interesting rides to choose from.