Hotel Balzac fails to impress me

In my previous post I mentioned that I was up late because I was suffering from jet lag.
The hotel I’m in isn’t my “usual” for Paris. I usually get to stay at the Sofitel, but in September, Paris is a crazy place and I was only able to get in to the Hotel Balzac.

I was told that the rate is Euro 380 (US$ 461) per night and the hotel’s web site seems to show that it is rather prestigious so I was quite looking forward to my stay here.

My first impressions of my room were not good. Even though it is supposed to be a non-smoking room, it certainly smells like people have smoked in here. Not as bad as a real smoking room, where the nicotine has worked its way into every thread of the curtains, carpet and chairs, but it still smelled like cigarette smoke to me.

Anyway, they promised me that it wasn’t a smoking room. I was tired and didn’t have the energy to argue.

Next, the room is tiny! The bathroom is minute! The bathroom is so small that the toilet and bidet are stuck behind the bathroom door. It doesn't look anything like the one on their web site.

The room looks very old and everything appears to be worn. They don’t have broadband in the room either. They only have dialup! Most hotels these days (and at least for the last few years) have broadband of some kind, be it a cable or WiFi.

Luckily for me, I fired up my trusty NetStumbler and found a completely open WiFi router. I have no idea who it belongs to, but all I care about is that I now have an IP address and a pretty decent connection. It is wide open and its SSID is linksys. Sigh! When will people learn?

Maybe I’m missing the whole point of this hotel. Maybe people feel happy paying very high nightly rates for hotel rooms like this. Maybe the whole point is that it’s old and homely or something. I don’t know, but I do know that I wouldn’t every pay $461 per night for a room at this hotel.

Now, the hotel does have some redeeming factors. Their room service is good and their food is great. I suspect that their services side of things will turn out to be good (although this is only the first night).

So, my final thoughts on the Hotel Balzac.

If money is no concern and don’t really care about over priced hotels where there is no apparent value for the money, and you expect good service levels, then Hotel Balzac is for you.

American Airline needs to update their fleet

Here I sit in my hotel (more about that in the next post) in Paris at 3:30AM, unable to sleep.

Instead of lying here trying to convince my body that it absolutely needs to keep still and my brain to stop continually jumping from subject to subject, I decided to write some blog entries.

This project I’ve been managing and helping to execute has had me traveling a lot more this year than in any given year.
Most of my trips have been on America Airlines and mainly to Europe.

It seems that AA flies 767’s as their plane of choice to Europe and that in itself isn’t a problem. The problem, as I see it, is that they have fallen depressingly behind in keeping their 767 fleet up on modern conveniences.

I am no newbie when it comes to international travel and am therefore used to seeing planes with modern conveniences in business class like LCD screens that pop out of the middle arm rest (or in older planes, mounted on the seat in front of you), seats that go almost horizontal which allow for a great sleep, and seats that are controlled by electronic motors (instead of what appears to be air pressure).

To start with, the AA fleet of 767’s have a tiny business class. Only 6 rows. The 6th row is annoyingly close to the engine hanging off the wing. I’ve had the misfortune of sitting in that row on a few trips and I can attest ot the fact that its noisy. Thanks to my noise canceling headphones, I was able to listen to my iPod in relative peace.

Most planes have a “TiVo-like” system where you can start movies whenever you want, pause them, rewind, fast forward, etc. The AA fleet of 767’s have no personal video system of any kind. On top of that, there is no LCD mounted on the seat in front of you or one that pops out of the middle arm rest. Instead, they have this quaint ritual of handing out portable DVD players with AA branded DVD’s in them. I mean, come on!

In addition, they have those annoying projector screens showing programs in a sequence and the light from these keeps you awake becasue the plane can't get close to darkness when you want to sleep.

This last flight was particularly annoying for another reason completely. The flight was packed so I didn’t get my usual window seat with an empty seat next to me so I had to sit in an aisle seat with someone sitting right next to me.

In itself this isn’t too bad but what made it almost unbearable was the passenger. He would not keep still. He was constantly making violent movements like waggling his legs, kicking his legs, banging the tray table with his hands, and jerking his body around. I couldn’t sleep at all! Even when he was sleeping, he was jerking around! Anyway, this is probably the reason I’m up so early in the morning with jet lag.

On the positive side, their air hosts and hostesses are nice and their food is great. In general AA is a great airline, its just that they really need to upgrade those planes.

The HitchHiker's Guide To The Galaxy Movie

I'm such a huge fan of Douglas Adams' work, especially The HitchHiker's Guide To The Galaxy and have been waiting so long for a movie version to be made.

Sure there is already a movie version, but it was done by the BBC back in the 1970's and the special effects are terrible. It is quite true to the books and quite enjoyable but it left you yearning for a remake with better special effects (I mean things like Zaphod's second head can be all CGI now).

For a bit of history into my love of THHGTTG we must go back a few years.

In the early to mid 1980's, I was in high school and became interested in computers. Our school was given about 20 Apple ][+'s and a few Apple //e's. I became hooked.

Amongst the games I played on the old Apple's were text adventure games by Infocom. Infocom is now owned by Activision but they have stopped selling their games. There are many web sites that keep the memory of Infocom alive.

Anyway, back to my memory lane...

Amongst the Infocom games was, or course, The HitchHikers' Guide To The Galaxy. Once I saw this game and started playing it (you can still play it on-line today via telnet - I use Idokorro's telnet client on my BlackBerry but any telnet client will work on any PDA, PC or Mac), I started my quest for the book. I was a bit late to the party because THHGTTG was a 70's hit and was nowhere to be found.

I eventually convinced a local book store to import them from England. They arrived after some months and I read the first book. Now I just had to get all of the books in the "Trilogy".

I read all 6 books in the "Trilogy" over the next few years (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe and Everything, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish, Young Zaphod Plays it Safe, and Mostly Harmless) and also the wonderful Dirk Gently books and during the 90's the word started to spread about a possible new HHGTTG film.

Rumors about Jim Carrey playing Zaphod (wouldn't that have been great!?) were posted on-line and I got really excited.
Sadly, Douglas Adams died in 2001 and I lost all hope of ever seeing a movie.

I am really happy that Disney is making this movie (although I still want to see Jim Carrey as Zaphod) and can't wait for it's release next year.

All South African’s now under Suspicion

Last week I returned from a business trip in Europe and as a Green Card holding South African (the opportunity to apply for US citizenship comes up for me next year), I normally have no issues passing through Customs.

This time however, the Customs’ Agent asked me to “come this way” and led me into a waiting room. I immediately wondered what the problem could be and whether there would be a full cavity search involved.

I was quickly called up to the front of the room where another agent asked me if I had had my passport for long. I answered that I had. She asked the question again. Once again I answered that I had indeed had my passport for a while.

The agent then informed me that I would be stopped very often, if not always, from now onwards. Very surprised by this statement, I asked her why. She then dropped the bomb shell. She told me that recently, 10,000 South African passports had been stolen!

She stamped and signed my passport and I walked out of the room feeling slightly embarrassed because of the looks I received from people.

When I arrived home, I Googled the subject of stolen South African passports and found a few news articles on the matter. Apparently, someone has been selling real South African passports (not forged) at US$77 per passport to al Qaeda members and other people.

TYPICAL! Corruption within the South African government. Yet another example of it, but this time an example that affects any South African traveling on trains and planes between countries anywhere in the world. Now, any passport carrying South African is a suspected terrorist.

This sad fact made me cast my mind back to the flight I had just stepped off. Throughout the entire flight, all of the crew members kept looking over at my seat. I kept telling myself that I was imagining it and what reason would they have to “keep an eye on me”.

When I went through Customs it all made sense.
Obviously I was flagged at my port of departure and the crew was treating me as a potential terrorist. I noticed them continually looking at me. Anytime the cockpit door opened, a crew member would “stand guard” outside and look at me.

Unbelievable isn’t it!? I am the most unlikely person on the planet to ever be involved in terrorism. I don’t have a weak mind that can be influenced by religious and other ridiculous ideals. I think for myself, but here I was being seen as a potential threat.

So, now I have even more yearning to give up my South African passport and get my US Citizenship and passport. Not only do I ALWAYS have to stand in pathetically long lines at embassies and consulates to apply for visas anytime I travel while my American colleges just sail in and out of any country on the planet, but now I will be stopped at every passport control point and be watched on every flight I take.