Sweden

Sweden, hmmmm. What thoughts conjoured up anticipating a visit to Sweden? A proud yet understated people, true believers in a cradle-to-grave socialist model. Exporters of high-quality (Volvo, Saab, ABBA) or highly-efficient goods (H&M, IKEA). A country that must be green/beautiful and well-run.

Did we see and experience this? I guess so, but Stockholm is more like the Oslo we saw last year (than some nirvana)- very middle-class, lack of majestic buildings or architecture, expensive. It's clean but not stunning and this explains why it's not a tourist draw like Italy or Greece.

The place is built for the residents- the country doesn't need tourists to succeed. They have palaces and old squares but they would lose out in any popularity contest to ones in Rome or Prague or Madrid. The hotels and public spaces it looked like they tried hard to be clean and mildly upscale but stopped at an early point because it either got too expensive or further gaudiness would not be worth any perception of prestige or trophiness.

That all said, clean is good to us and what we saw was upper middle-class clean with a mininmum of run-down seediness. Their harbor is pretty without any stunning buildings but still a clear plus over Copenhagen's unspecial bay. Their grungy, grindy working class neighborhood has just a bit more dust than Copenhagen's Christianshavn and no pretty canals. If I were to choose where to live among the two, I'd choose Copenhagen. CPH made the favorite city list (on living appeal not tourist appeal), but Stockholm won't quite.

The shock of Norway and Copenhagen prices last year on worse x-rates made it a lot easier to deal with Stockholm, plus a nearly free hotel and independent decisions to eat light. We kept spending down without sacrificing enjoyment, happily. It's just that we were in Stockholm city only 43.5 hrs, a few less than Berlin or Amsterdam and those extra couple made a difference with shops/museums closing so early and opening late in Scandinavia. We still love Scandinavia but it's for visiting, not living.

Little Venice

Should we have been embarrassed we didn't now about an area of London called Little Venice? At first we were but after seeing it, it can recede back to the netherworld.

We tried to replicate a paid walking tour of the area done on walks.com. We didn't do it all and probably we shortchanged ourselves by missing some key areas. However, we weren't impressed.

The south of Maida Vale looks nice enough- the canal is highly overrated to use a nice term. Little Venice itself is just a triangular shaped urban pool (i.e. polluted) with a couple of boats masquerading as cafes. Walk along an old canal with countless cigar boats and plants that look like weeds and the attraction is the neighborhood architecture more than the canal itself.

We were majorly mistreated at Cafe Laville, a little place overlooking the canal at Edgeware Road. We were told there were no hot drinks while they were in the middle of serving hot drinks to another table. We thought they were nonplussed we weren;t ordering food; either way, we stormed out. Dirtbags.

We exited at the canal at Lisson Grove and walked through that shabby neighborhood on the (long) way to Marylebone. We missed Saint John's Wood and probably a big chunk of the supposedly trendy Marylebone, ending up at Oxford Street and thinking we could have had a better day.

New Yorkers get double miles!!!

Double miles is a yawn to most normal people, but to a mileage follower (if short of addict) on an attainable goal, it's a nice little gold mine.

American Airlines giving double miles to anyone who flies American anywhere IF they live in New York, Connecticut or New Jersey on any flight 7/29 - 12/31/09. Use code NYDBL. Conveniently, they are a default (if not automatic default) for these two NYLONs as they commute between New York and London.

If you want the double miles and don't live in NY CT NJ, just change your address on your profile and pray.

Dublin

Running through Dublin resulted in some interesting conclusions, driven perhaps by our biases. It feels like a charming city to live in but not to visit. It was hardly a tourist destination, even to Americans beyond 10 years ago – then the Irish Celtic Tiger boom and the advent of cheap no-frills flights combined to make the place more cosmopolitan.

If from Dublin, I would think the city very quaint with a number of beautiful parks close to city center we saw plenty of suits on a Monday enjoying their lunch in. More than enough main streets whether automotive or pedestrian are quite clean and well-maintained with elements of grittier neighborhoods nearby if that suits your boat.

It is a major plus that the city is completely walkable, but what there is to see as you walk could leave one wanting. Georgian architecture strikes me as easily mistaken for low-income housing- said to reflect a certain modesty in outward appearance for upper-class Dubliners, I will have to take their word for it as we skipped any houses serving themselves up for a tourist fee. Their museums had standard visual and decorative art but surprisingly less emphasis on history than I would have thought. We couldn’t enter Parliament as civilians, had to get some embassy permission for a tour. The art scene was lacking.

However, there is nothing to hate about the traditional Irish bars (and Irish music) with the proverbial dark scene and gold lettering around every single corner with cheap Guinness. The wine bar and restaurant scene excels also with modern bistros scoring particularly well- again a point for living but insufficient just for visiting.

The city indeed has infrastructure bottlenecks- lots of buses belching noise and clogging whatever streets are not closed off to be pedestrian; a start-and-stop route to the airport that would have been a lot worse with traffic; an overcrowded old airport with its own security bottlenecks- that new Terminal 2 in the distance cannot be finished quickly enough.

The week in Ireland is understandably the best way to do now – Dublin isn’t enough for a trip by itself unless you plan on drinking it away with some friends; you have to see the countryside with it.

Mileage Craze Extravaganza

In case anyone doubts the airlines are doing really really badly, behold all the airline stumbling over themselves in the last few days offering double and triple miles toward qualification and crazy mileage promotions:

Just today, Delta offered triple elite miles for first/business/full-fare coach (delta.com/elite) thru June 15 and Continental over the weekend offered double elite miles for all flights March 20 - June 15, even if you booked before the bonus was announced (https://www.continental.com/web/en-US/apps/onepass/promotions/registrationDetails.aspx?promoCode=TB8M05&SID=E05B19D090C541759F8486CB7E2553A2). THe latter is going to help crescent quite a bit, living in Continental's most profitable hub.

United beat them to the punch on Thursday, united.com/eqmoffer

These deals generally matched one I think started by American on Wednesday who is going overboard by also offering a crazy 50,000 miles for first or business class to Britain (London or Manchester), the most I have ever seen for flying just roundtrip.
http://www.aa.com/aa/AAdvantage/viewAirlineSpecials.do?anchorEvent=false

Feels like the good old days....

The Travel Map

OK, this is an exercise in egotism, but why do a travel map complete with celebratory pins over where you've been if no one can see it?

http://www.tripadvisor.com/MemberProfile?uid=87E90BCAFFC0F85E8CA58D5665AEA573&c=pt&public=1

Malaga

Thanks to Delta, there is a direct flight now New York-Kennedy to Malaga, on the Costa del Sol, Spain's Mediterranean coast. I'll admit my lack of knowledge of this city being the Spanish coast's gateway and the new Delta flight spurred my interest. Plus last year's icefest same weekend in Berlin.

No thanks to Delta we paid maybe 100 more bucks than we had to as fares collapsed in the buckling economy between booking and flight time.

No thanks to Delta for not renovating their horrid Terminals 2/3 at Kennedy and sending us on a Groundhog Day-like circle looking for a way in after the obvious entrance was closed for the night. Not a great flt over- unusually cold, no map, packed full flight. Families and older folk, no yuppies like us- what does that mean?

But all worth it as we strolled over to the airport train in 65-degree dry Mediterranean heat at noon on Valentine's Day in Malaga.

They say 1/3 of traveller to the region never see the working-class Malaga when they come, bypassing it for the builtup resort towns. We did the opposite on our 48 hour plan, never venturing more than 2 km from our old city 4-star hotel.

Pedestrianized old cities of Europe never get old as they are lined with shops, cafes, churches, and tapas bars (in Spain)- beckoning one to enjoy the long weekend and in this case demanding it during Carnaval.

Malaga Carnaval would never compare to Rio or Barcelona but for our first time, it works- the spontaneous singing guy groups in the squares and the random music players are unforgettable and would seem lamely and sadly out of place in the US.

Not much in the way of conversations- an old full-white-bearded Irishman lying to us about being on vacation (while dressed in a suit during Carnaval), racist Spanish kids yelling Chine at us and sticking their thumbs up at us, and an adorable boy dressed up as a tiger as if it was Halloween (well it was- it's Carnaval)

Malaga has a nice castle/fortress well worth the 20-min walk up and a surprisingly impressive cathedral, a great showpiece beyond the expectations for a mid-sized city. Tapas and Spanish wine (both the reds and the sweet whites) were revelations. No touristy BS and no rudeness- big pluses.

Pleasant trip back thanks to a 70 pct full flight- beautiful views of the Mediterranean, Seville, and especially Lisbon from up above.

How $100 becomes $160

Look, I consider myself as savvy as anyone in finding cheap airfares and not being surprised by hidden stuff or what gets charged for after the airlines brushed with another bout of dissolution when oil was $140, but adding 60% really calls for an illustration:

$100 Stated fare Spirit Air - New York to Fort Lauderdale

$+11 Taxes, ok fine we all know those are coming on the next page...
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$+9 Not using a $9 Club Sale Fare - hey I thought you just join and accept their emails and you get the discount - I didn't think you had to pay for the Club!
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$+30 Oh, it's higher if you don't buy a round-trip
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$+10 Oh, you want a seat on the flight too - well you have to pay to reserve that.

= $160

Plus it's something called Spirit with all the potential adventures of any unknown airline. This ought to be fun