If you read my blog, you probably know by now how long it took to get to Slovenia. The spouse and I both wrote out online complaints to Delta. The husband wrote his out in Atlanta. I didn't write mine until after I had scrubbed out my khakis in the sink with hotel soap because they were bloody and I didn't have any luggage.
So, what happens? My husband gets a reply first. Expected. Then they start sending him gift cards. Then they start sending him gift cards with my name on them.
It took a week for me to hear back from Delta. He heard back in about a day.
The email I eventually got said I would be getting $350 in gift cards. In reality, $200 in my name was sent to my husband's email account.
The survey for how Delta handled my complaint was sent to my husband's email account.
My husband continued to get gift card offers. He racked up $400.
The Delta email person said she could get me a refund for my hotel stay - $99. That came in today. It was addressed to:
My Name
c/o Husband's Name
Our Address, etc.
What the fuck! First you lie to me. Then you send all of my shit to my husband's email account, because I'm some kind of incompetent housewife. Then you mail me a check, but it's not really to me? I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. #DeltaSucks
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Slovenian Miscellany Part II
One day we were walking down the main drag in Old Town and a guy on a bike went zooming by. He was wearing a red sweatshirt that said Woo Pig Sooie on it! On the front, it had a hog picture and I think it said Arkansas.
There's a lot of graffiti in Ljubljana, but don't let it scare you. It's not like NYC or Detroit. Some of it seems to be political, and there's a lot of students, too. But I could see many Americans freaking out about the graffiti, thinking they were in a gang area. You're not.
There's a lot of graffiti in Ljubljana, but don't let it scare you. It's not like NYC or Detroit. Some of it seems to be political, and there's a lot of students, too. But I could see many Americans freaking out about the graffiti, thinking they were in a gang area. You're not.
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Day 9: Heading Home
We had to leave at 5 am to get to the airport for our flight. This one was Adria Air, I think that's the Slovenian airlines. I somehow managed to set off the metal detector. I'm guessing it was all the metal in my bra. That's all I had. The plane ran about 15 minutes late, but that wasn't bad. The plane itself was one of those small ones, but it had plenty of legroom and room for our bags under the seat.
So, we got to Munich, and then had to take a bus to the terminal. We were in Terminal 2 (I think) and needed Terminal 1. The airport dude told me I could wait for the bus (about 15 minutes) or just walk it in 10 minutes. My feet felt okay, so we walked it.
Apparently, "walking it" meant leaving the security area. Because there was no other way that we could find to get between terminals in the secured area. Unless the bus did that.
So we walked and walked. There were some amazing looking restaurants along the way! We finally got to the terminal and the Delta counter was right there, so we went there. And the woman was like "Why did you come here if your luggage is already booked?" We said we were told to come here for our boarding passes, which is what the Adria guy had told us in Slovenia.
Then she had to ask us a lot of questions like "Who packed your bags? When were they packed? Has they been out of your possession? Did anyone ask you to carry anything?" Etc. I hadn't heard those in forever. In the US the airports play messages over and over telling you to keep track of your bags and stuff like that.
We finally got through our next security and then to our gate. This section was really a crappy little section of the airport with 1 cafe and 2 stores. The women's bathroom was up here, but Frank had to follow a bunch of signs downstairs and through several hallways to get to the men's room. Weird. And when I bought water and candy at the store, they had to scan my passport. Maybe for customs, like Duty Free? I'm still not sure why.
When we went to board, it was more questions. I was kind of confused. The woman asked me if I'd bought anything. I said yes, I bought water at the store. Then she asked if I'd received anything. I said, yes, the water I bought. I really hate questions like that, because I feel like they're supposed to be easy questions but I'm just not getting it. Am I thinking too much about them?
The flight back was on a 767, which mom hates, and I now understand why. The seats were small. Our bags barely fit under the seats, too. They fit fine on the tiny aircraft, but not the 767? The only thing good about this flight was the food. The flight attendants were nice, and I'm guessing since the only food source was Europe, they couldn't give us crappy food. We got several snacks. The main meal I had was chicken with rice and peppers in a nice sauce. The cheesy salad came with an olive oil-balsamic dressing. And they had bread and cheese.
They had fewer movies, which meant I couldn't finish watching the Lupin the Third movie I'd fallen asleep during on the flight out. Crap.
We got to Atlanta, and started the whole customs process. It's all electronic now and went fairly fast. Then I got some Chick-fil-a. Then we headed to our gate to eat and relax.
So, our flight was delayed 17 minutes. Then another 5 minutes or so. It gets here, we get on it, and head out to take off. But we can't take off. There's bad weather to the north. We're taking off to the east, but some of the planes in front of us in the line are taking off to the north. So we have to wait. And wait. I slept through most of this, until Frank poked me when the stewardess brought around snacks. Then back to sleep. Apparently we spent an hour in line. I didn't wake up until we were landing at XNA.
So, we're home, the dogs are home, and it's all good! I'll try to get pictures up later.
So, we got to Munich, and then had to take a bus to the terminal. We were in Terminal 2 (I think) and needed Terminal 1. The airport dude told me I could wait for the bus (about 15 minutes) or just walk it in 10 minutes. My feet felt okay, so we walked it.
Apparently, "walking it" meant leaving the security area. Because there was no other way that we could find to get between terminals in the secured area. Unless the bus did that.
So we walked and walked. There were some amazing looking restaurants along the way! We finally got to the terminal and the Delta counter was right there, so we went there. And the woman was like "Why did you come here if your luggage is already booked?" We said we were told to come here for our boarding passes, which is what the Adria guy had told us in Slovenia.
Then she had to ask us a lot of questions like "Who packed your bags? When were they packed? Has they been out of your possession? Did anyone ask you to carry anything?" Etc. I hadn't heard those in forever. In the US the airports play messages over and over telling you to keep track of your bags and stuff like that.
We finally got through our next security and then to our gate. This section was really a crappy little section of the airport with 1 cafe and 2 stores. The women's bathroom was up here, but Frank had to follow a bunch of signs downstairs and through several hallways to get to the men's room. Weird. And when I bought water and candy at the store, they had to scan my passport. Maybe for customs, like Duty Free? I'm still not sure why.
When we went to board, it was more questions. I was kind of confused. The woman asked me if I'd bought anything. I said yes, I bought water at the store. Then she asked if I'd received anything. I said, yes, the water I bought. I really hate questions like that, because I feel like they're supposed to be easy questions but I'm just not getting it. Am I thinking too much about them?
The flight back was on a 767, which mom hates, and I now understand why. The seats were small. Our bags barely fit under the seats, too. They fit fine on the tiny aircraft, but not the 767? The only thing good about this flight was the food. The flight attendants were nice, and I'm guessing since the only food source was Europe, they couldn't give us crappy food. We got several snacks. The main meal I had was chicken with rice and peppers in a nice sauce. The cheesy salad came with an olive oil-balsamic dressing. And they had bread and cheese.
They had fewer movies, which meant I couldn't finish watching the Lupin the Third movie I'd fallen asleep during on the flight out. Crap.
We got to Atlanta, and started the whole customs process. It's all electronic now and went fairly fast. Then I got some Chick-fil-a. Then we headed to our gate to eat and relax.
So, our flight was delayed 17 minutes. Then another 5 minutes or so. It gets here, we get on it, and head out to take off. But we can't take off. There's bad weather to the north. We're taking off to the east, but some of the planes in front of us in the line are taking off to the north. So we have to wait. And wait. I slept through most of this, until Frank poked me when the stewardess brought around snacks. Then back to sleep. Apparently we spent an hour in line. I didn't wake up until we were landing at XNA.
So, we're home, the dogs are home, and it's all good! I'll try to get pictures up later.
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Day 8: Our last hurrah
So, it's our last day in Ljubljana :( We're taking it easy and packing things up. We left the apartment about 10 am to head towards a good restaurant we'd looked up: Sokol. We got there about 10:20 and the church bells across the street were ringing, so we headed inside.
Inside looked kind of like what you'd think a German restaurant would look like, with lots of wood, and the light fixtures were clay pots hanging from thick rope.
I got a Coke and Frank got a house beer, then we settled down to the menu. My goodness, there were a lot of choices! Frank decided to get an appetizer, but I wanted a dessert, so I didn't. He got the Mushroom Soup in Bread Bowl.
It tasted amazing! And there were at least 6 different types of mushrooms in there, including fungus.
Frank got the Country Feast for lunch. It had sausage, black pudding, "bacon," roast pork, dried pork chop, sauerkraut, pickled turnip, buckwheat mush, and bread dumpling. He made a mighty dent in his meal and finished all the meats!
I got the Venison Goulash in Bread Bowl. Mine was in a rye bread bowl and it was delicious! I could only eat about half, though, because I got full. This bowl was shorter than the mushroom soup, but a lot bigger around.
Sorry for the crappy picture. This was my dessert - Gibanica. It has become my nemesis. As I type this, it is sitting next to me, staring me down, daring me to eat more of it. Frank was so full he refused to help me, so the Gibanica followed us home and may even be here tomorrow.
After that, we walked back via the flea market and took a nap. Now it's time to pack.
Inside looked kind of like what you'd think a German restaurant would look like, with lots of wood, and the light fixtures were clay pots hanging from thick rope.
I got a Coke and Frank got a house beer, then we settled down to the menu. My goodness, there were a lot of choices! Frank decided to get an appetizer, but I wanted a dessert, so I didn't. He got the Mushroom Soup in Bread Bowl.
It tasted amazing! And there were at least 6 different types of mushrooms in there, including fungus.
Frank got the Country Feast for lunch. It had sausage, black pudding, "bacon," roast pork, dried pork chop, sauerkraut, pickled turnip, buckwheat mush, and bread dumpling. He made a mighty dent in his meal and finished all the meats!
I got the Venison Goulash in Bread Bowl. Mine was in a rye bread bowl and it was delicious! I could only eat about half, though, because I got full. This bowl was shorter than the mushroom soup, but a lot bigger around.
Sorry for the crappy picture. This was my dessert - Gibanica. It has become my nemesis. As I type this, it is sitting next to me, staring me down, daring me to eat more of it. Frank was so full he refused to help me, so the Gibanica followed us home and may even be here tomorrow.
After that, we walked back via the flea market and took a nap. Now it's time to pack.
DeltaSucks Update
You may remember my saga with DeltaSucks. Well, I filled out an online complaint in Paris, and I finally heard back from them. The gist of it is, We're so sorry. But they also sent me gifts. I just filled out the forms and hypothetically I should be getting a $50 and $150 Amazon gift cards in the mail. Huzzah! I'm still pretty mad but I'm slightly mollified. Only slightly. I'm still concerned about the trip home. The last time I flew DeltaSucks (before this trip) my luggage got home a day later than I did. And no one could tell me where it was until it showed up someplace.
Day 7: Posting about posting
I slept in today and took a shower, while Frank decided to head out to the Post Office and send some postcards. I'm guessing we may get home before they get there.
Most stores seem to open mid-morning so we went out then and did a little shopping for family presents. Found a few cool things. I picked up a neat looking journal at the "flea market" set up on our side of the river.
We had heard about a falafel place past the market, so we kept walking thataways. I was kind of hurting, but not too bad. I wore some easy slip-on shoes for the airplane ride out of XNA, never thinking I was going to be running the Atlanta airport in them or tromping all over half of France looking for my concourse. So I got a huge blister between my toes and the ball of my foot. Once we got to Ljubljana I switched to my sandals, but I was walking funny because of the blister, so I developed another blister on the side of my foot from that. Sigh.
So we walked and walked. We knew approximately where the falafel place was, but not exactly. Eventually we turned up a lane to head back and stopped at a cafe for a bit. We asked the waitress and the falafel place was about 100 feet down the road on our new path.
So we finally get to the falafel place. It had 2 tables outside, and some stools inside. Basically, you ordered at the front and a few people could sit at a bar on either wall. Very tiny. We got the basic falefel sandwich for 3.50 Euros.
OMG! She took the "dough" and made the falafels fresh while we waited. Then they were wrapped up in a huge sandwich with lettuce and onions and turnips and sauce. They were incredible! The falafels literally melted in your mouth. We'd been reading reviews saying how good this place was, and it really is that good.
After falafels we decided to head towards the City Gallery again. I really wanted to see it. Our Ljubljana cards are expired, but since they were closed when we tried to get there, I thought maybe I could convince them to let us in. I never made it that far. We took a slightly wrong turn off the plaza - there's like 6 roads leading off of it. We stopped in a park to rest my feet and decided to head back. Luckily, a Kavilir appeared!
The city had these little electric golf cart thingies driving around Old Town that you can flag down for a ride. This one was empty so we got on. We had to make a few stops and pick up some other people, but that let us see more of what was going on. It's Saturday, and Old Town was packed. There was even a wheelchair basketball exhibition by the market area.
We got to the end of Old Town and got off, and I made it back to the apartment. I also picked up a few Bounty bars. They're 43 cents at the grocery. In the US, they often charge $2 for them!
I'm taking a class at NWACC corporate which started Monday. Luckily, all I had to do is read and take a quiz. Argh! I finally finished the darn quiz. Some of the information in the book is out of date, and some of the quiz questions were confusing. And I'd swear one or two were just wrong. But I finally got enough correct answers that they wanted, so I'm done until next week! Yay!
After a rest, it was time to figure out supper. I didn't want to walk too far, after our long walk this morning, so we settled on Indian, which wasn't too far away. It was pretty good. There was a lot of food and the naan was huge. After that, back to the apartment. Tomorrow we'll start packing up so we can start the voyage home. Hopefully there's less drama than on the way here.
Unfortunately, we're on Delta again, from Europe to XNA. Frank made a complaint and heard back from Delta. I made a complaint and all I got back was the auto-response. So who knows what's going on with that.
Most stores seem to open mid-morning so we went out then and did a little shopping for family presents. Found a few cool things. I picked up a neat looking journal at the "flea market" set up on our side of the river.
We had heard about a falafel place past the market, so we kept walking thataways. I was kind of hurting, but not too bad. I wore some easy slip-on shoes for the airplane ride out of XNA, never thinking I was going to be running the Atlanta airport in them or tromping all over half of France looking for my concourse. So I got a huge blister between my toes and the ball of my foot. Once we got to Ljubljana I switched to my sandals, but I was walking funny because of the blister, so I developed another blister on the side of my foot from that. Sigh.
So we walked and walked. We knew approximately where the falafel place was, but not exactly. Eventually we turned up a lane to head back and stopped at a cafe for a bit. We asked the waitress and the falafel place was about 100 feet down the road on our new path.
So we finally get to the falafel place. It had 2 tables outside, and some stools inside. Basically, you ordered at the front and a few people could sit at a bar on either wall. Very tiny. We got the basic falefel sandwich for 3.50 Euros.
OMG! She took the "dough" and made the falafels fresh while we waited. Then they were wrapped up in a huge sandwich with lettuce and onions and turnips and sauce. They were incredible! The falafels literally melted in your mouth. We'd been reading reviews saying how good this place was, and it really is that good.
After falafels we decided to head towards the City Gallery again. I really wanted to see it. Our Ljubljana cards are expired, but since they were closed when we tried to get there, I thought maybe I could convince them to let us in. I never made it that far. We took a slightly wrong turn off the plaza - there's like 6 roads leading off of it. We stopped in a park to rest my feet and decided to head back. Luckily, a Kavilir appeared!
The city had these little electric golf cart thingies driving around Old Town that you can flag down for a ride. This one was empty so we got on. We had to make a few stops and pick up some other people, but that let us see more of what was going on. It's Saturday, and Old Town was packed. There was even a wheelchair basketball exhibition by the market area.
We got to the end of Old Town and got off, and I made it back to the apartment. I also picked up a few Bounty bars. They're 43 cents at the grocery. In the US, they often charge $2 for them!
I'm taking a class at NWACC corporate which started Monday. Luckily, all I had to do is read and take a quiz. Argh! I finally finished the darn quiz. Some of the information in the book is out of date, and some of the quiz questions were confusing. And I'd swear one or two were just wrong. But I finally got enough correct answers that they wanted, so I'm done until next week! Yay!
After a rest, it was time to figure out supper. I didn't want to walk too far, after our long walk this morning, so we settled on Indian, which wasn't too far away. It was pretty good. There was a lot of food and the naan was huge. After that, back to the apartment. Tomorrow we'll start packing up so we can start the voyage home. Hopefully there's less drama than on the way here.
Unfortunately, we're on Delta again, from Europe to XNA. Frank made a complaint and heard back from Delta. I made a complaint and all I got back was the auto-response. So who knows what's going on with that.
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Slovenian Miscellany
Edited twice (see bottom)
I just wanted to ramble on about a few things here.
Overall, the people are very friendly. And there are dogs everywhere. Every day we see people walking their dogs. About a third aren't on a leash. So it's very dog friendly. There's also tons of strollers, too.
There are a lot of bicycles and they are usually in a hurry. So you need to stay out of the bike lane and keep an eye out for them.
Several restaurants have given us a side of bread with the meal, but none of them included butter. I guess bread is more for sopping up. But as Americans who are used to crappy bread, we would happily eat the bread with just butter on it.
The restaurants are fairly inexpensive by European standards, but they like to upsell. For instance, when we got our chicken meal at Eksperiment, the waiter asked if we wanted potatoes or french fries. That was a separate dish, not included in what we had ordered. In the US, they generally only ask you what you want if it's included. Or they'll say, did you want to get anything else with that, like blah blah blah?
This is a coffee country. Many places do have hot tea, but it's usually some kind of berry tea. It's quite good, but if you want caffeine, go for a Coca-cola. Even the supermarket had 1 package of black tea and a whole floor to ceiling shelf of berry style teas.
Edit1:
Ljubljana definitely has the cafe culture. You can sit at a cafe for an hour and that's considered normal. Because of that, the service can seem slow to Americans. Sometimes we'd sit at a cafe and it might be 10 minutes before they notice you. After you get your order, you can sit for a long time. We sat for about 45 minutes. After you finish your order, you'll probably have to flag down a server to get your bill. Even at a restaurant, they expect you to sit for a while after you eat, even if you don't get an after dinner coffee. It's really bizarre, compared to the American culture where they just want you out of the restaurant as quickly as possible. I like the cafe culture much better.
Edit2:
We've seen tourists from all over the world. There's been a handful of English-speakers, mostly American and a few Brits. Some Italians, which makes sense, considering the location. And lots of Asians. There's been several tour groups of Asians, including a Korean Airline group.
Most of the cafes here are also bars. And they're open at the same time. I don't mean bars, like, they carry a few beers. I mean cafe-bars like they have a huge booklet of drinks, starting with hot drinks (coffees, teas), cold drinks (coffees), non-alcoholic drinks (water, juices), then moving on to beers, wines, spirits, vodkas, cocktails, etc. Sometimes including smoothies. It's not unusual to see somoene drinking a beer at 10 am.
I just wanted to ramble on about a few things here.
Overall, the people are very friendly. And there are dogs everywhere. Every day we see people walking their dogs. About a third aren't on a leash. So it's very dog friendly. There's also tons of strollers, too.
There are a lot of bicycles and they are usually in a hurry. So you need to stay out of the bike lane and keep an eye out for them.
Several restaurants have given us a side of bread with the meal, but none of them included butter. I guess bread is more for sopping up. But as Americans who are used to crappy bread, we would happily eat the bread with just butter on it.
The restaurants are fairly inexpensive by European standards, but they like to upsell. For instance, when we got our chicken meal at Eksperiment, the waiter asked if we wanted potatoes or french fries. That was a separate dish, not included in what we had ordered. In the US, they generally only ask you what you want if it's included. Or they'll say, did you want to get anything else with that, like blah blah blah?
This is a coffee country. Many places do have hot tea, but it's usually some kind of berry tea. It's quite good, but if you want caffeine, go for a Coca-cola. Even the supermarket had 1 package of black tea and a whole floor to ceiling shelf of berry style teas.
Edit1:
Ljubljana definitely has the cafe culture. You can sit at a cafe for an hour and that's considered normal. Because of that, the service can seem slow to Americans. Sometimes we'd sit at a cafe and it might be 10 minutes before they notice you. After you get your order, you can sit for a long time. We sat for about 45 minutes. After you finish your order, you'll probably have to flag down a server to get your bill. Even at a restaurant, they expect you to sit for a while after you eat, even if you don't get an after dinner coffee. It's really bizarre, compared to the American culture where they just want you out of the restaurant as quickly as possible. I like the cafe culture much better.
Edit2:
We've seen tourists from all over the world. There's been a handful of English-speakers, mostly American and a few Brits. Some Italians, which makes sense, considering the location. And lots of Asians. There's been several tour groups of Asians, including a Korean Airline group.
Most of the cafes here are also bars. And they're open at the same time. I don't mean bars, like, they carry a few beers. I mean cafe-bars like they have a huge booklet of drinks, starting with hot drinks (coffees, teas), cold drinks (coffees), non-alcoholic drinks (water, juices), then moving on to beers, wines, spirits, vodkas, cocktails, etc. Sometimes including smoothies. It's not unusual to see somoene drinking a beer at 10 am.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)