October 2008

by Lew Toulmin

There was a write-up of Rick Steves’ handy little black (now in other colors) backpack (July ’08, pg. 84). This little item saved my backside on my April 11-May 11, 2008, trip.

Now that we have the TSA randomly going through our baggage, I pack clothes in gallon-size zip-lock bags.

My husband, David, and I thought we were pretty savvy travelers. On an August ’07 trip (Aug. ’08, pg. 52), we packed a few things in each other’s bags, double-checked the destination tags the airlines put on our checked bags, locked the bags with our TSA locks and had our 3-1-1 baggies present and accounted for, but we still ended up in hot water when our bags did the Charles de Gaulle shuffle and failed to arrive in St. Petersburg, Russia. Our entire concept of carry-on bags changed in mere minutes.

The website www.seatguru.com lets you see the seat layouts and dimensions (with comments) for each airline’s planes. I didn’t see a table listing the dimensions; you have to look it up plane by plane for each airline.

My partner, John, and I, were on Easter Island, Feb. 6-11, 2008, attending this year’s Tapati Festival. In Hanga Roa, the island’s only town, we found that restaurants often serve only one item.

One of the restaurants my granddaughter, Michaela, and I enjoyed during our March ’08 visit to Amsterdam was Lieve Belgisch Restaurant (Herengracht 88, 1015 BS Amsterdam, Netherlands; phone [020] 624 96 35, www.restaurant lieve.nl).

My wife and I, both experienced world travelers, transferred through the Frankfurt, Germany, airport en route from Los Angeles to Lithuania and back in July ’08. We found landing at Terminal 1 and transferring to Terminal 2 (and vice versa) extremely difficult to accomplish.

There was construction going on in much of the area, and though my wife speaks German and could read all the signs (some of which were in English), they were confusing and not adequate. In addition, the distance between terminals was enormous.

My Florida cousin, Beverly, and I returned March 18, 2008, from a 2-week trip to the Azores, where we visited four of the nine islands. This was arranged by Abreu Tours (New York, NY; 800/223-1580, www.abreu-tours.com) and cost $3,002 per person, including airfare.

Accommodations, sightseeing, etc., were very good. Breakfast was included with every hotel as was a half day’s sightseeing on each island. On Pico Island we got lucky and our private tour lasted almost the entire day.