New Tips and Comments

May of 2000 was the last time we visited Madrid. On the way back to Houston, we caught a connecting flight at JFK (in probably the crappiest part of the airport). I couldn't figure out why our connection seemed to be running late and yet everyone was acting like nothing was wrong. My watch said the flight was late even though the monitor stubbornly said, "on time". Was it on time? Was I going crazy? Why hadn't they started boarding, yet? I soon received an education in the wackiness of time zones. You see, even though the U.S. had "sprung forward", Spain had not. So, I had adjusted my watch back 6 hours from Spain but then reality was that the time difference was more like 5 hours.

It turns out this is more common than you might think. Another example, this week I had a conference call scheduled for 10:00 AM with a client in Mexico City. I called at 10:00 and he told me, "OK, let me confirm that the call is still on at I'll send you an e-mail". Hmmm... OK. If it's on for 10:00, shouldn't you just call me back? Well... it turns out that while it was 10:00 here, it was still 9:00 in Mexico City.

That being said, don't make time zone assumptions when traveling since there may be variations in what you think the time might be. To help avoid confusion, you can check out current local times in major cities around the world. Yes... I'm typing this at 10:23 in the morning - that would lead me to believe it's 5:23 in Rome. Well, it's actually 4:23 - a 6 hour time difference and not the usual 7 hours.


A New Planning Site

On to a different topic. Today I found out about a page called Airfarewatchdog.com - I'm adding this to my links on the left. The site provides insight on last-minute deals and the best fares running from your home airport. Looking at it today, I found two week advance fares on Continental from Houston IAH to LaGuardia for only $158 (!) - that's a great deal. It also provides updates on new airline-run specials like a current sale from LA to Auckland, New Zealand for only $798 with a stopover in Fiji or the Cook Islands.

Getting Your Tango On...

A couple of posts ago, I had provided some tips on enjoying tango in Buenos Aires. As we were looking through some old papers, I found a brochure for TangoStore.com - a store we visited in the Congreso area of BsAs. If you go to Buenos Aires, you can drop in the store and pick up your fair share of tango CDs. You can even order from the U.S. - CDs will run you about $8.00 - $12.00 with shipping via DHL.

And now... a tango clip from La Viruta in the Palermo Viejo district of BsAs, courtesy of a poster on YouTube. Prior to the lessons, the instructors demonstrate various styles of tango. It's very impressive and this video seems to capture the experience relatively well...