#i genuinely love flying so much. not domestic travel but international travel is what my entire life revolves around and i am allowed to

[fulcrvm]

I am thinking thoughts about airports and flying again. And Dreamling, of course.

So. Human AU. History professor Hob has to fly around a lot for work, perhaps for conferences or smth of the sort so it's always to a small handful of the same nearby cities. He's pretty neutral on the idea of flying in general, though he wishes it was a bit more environmentally friendly, but Hob is a sucker for a nice airport and especially a nice airport lounge during layovers or before boarding.

Hob has begun to frequent a small local airline (White Horse Air, the logo is a coat of arms with a little pegasus, wyvern, and hippogriff on it, haha) when traveling because he likes their service (they've never lost his bags, not even once!) and their flights are never fully booked, which makes them quieter and easier for hob's chronic pains. He always picks seats with no one next to him so he can sprawl out and so it's easier on his knees.

Until, one day, he boards the little plane and there's someone in the seat next to his. Hob's sure that when he booked his seat, the other one was empty. Oh well, whatever, Hob's not going to bother the other man already sitting there for one flight— he'll just have to be a little more mindful booking next time. Hob shuffles into the seat, and notices that the stranger sat beside him is reading Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur! Hob gets excited because! That's a William Caxton publication! And Hob has so much to say about Caxton! He turns to the stranger to strike up conversation about it and... is immediately lost at how pretty the stranger is. Handsome, gorgeous, yes of course, but pretty, with the shell pink lips and focused blue eyes and slight frown at the book in his hands. Hob picks up his metaphorical jaw off the metaphorical ground and strikes up conversation with the stranger. Though the other man starts off apprehensive, somehow the two hours of flying fly by and the two of them end up talking about all sorts of art, history, and everything in between. Hob learns that the stranger works in publishing, thus his interest in Caxton.

Their flight lands, and the two of them disembark at the gate, still attempting to continue their conversation while Hob tries to wrangle his carry-on bags. (The Stranger only has a small laptop bag on one shoulder and a suit jacket folded over his other arm with him.) Then Hob has to check the time and begrudgingly says that he should probably head towards his next gate soon— this is just a layover after all. The Stranger looks ever so slightly disappointed and admits that this is his actual destination and he needs to meet his sister soon. They part ways, and Hob tries to dwell on the strange warmth in his chest. He thinks about the Stranger for his entire work trip afterwards.

This, somehow, happens a couple times. Turns out they both frequent White Horse Air, and though they're never in booked seats next to each other again, the flights are always empty enough that they can shift to sit next to each other once the plane's in the air. They chat the flight away, and then part ways once they disembark, with the Stranger headed to the baggage claim and Hob to his next flight. One time, the Stranger even requests the hostess to bring out a special bottle of Chateau Lafitte 1828 just for the two of them to share. Hob's in awe. He really enjoys their conversations, it's nice to be able to talk about his interests in a non-academia environment. The Stranger always has the most intriguing and eye-opening perspectives on everything, too. It doesn't really help that Hob thinks... maybe he's developing a tiny, teeny, really inconsequential really crush on his Stranger. He's not in grade school anymore, how does he feel like this about someone he doesn't even know the name of yet!

This all comes to a head when Hob mentions to the Stranger that his layover is a bit longer than it usually is, and if the Stranger is in no rush, they can continue their conversation in one of the airport's lounges. White Horse Air is a bit too small an airline to have their own lounge, but Hob's collected enough miles to get into one of the other airline lounges and is fully willing to pay to get in one if it means more time with his Stranger.

The Stranger is extremely enthusiastic about the idea— which shows up physically as a subtle, coy upturning at the corner of his mouth and a little sparkle in his eye. (Hob feels proud that he can read this reaction so well.) He's so enthusiastic, in fact, that the Stranger offers to get them both into a first-class lounge. Hob doesn't even pretend to hesitate to say yes.

Let's just say they get to the lounge, split some cheese and wine, and the proceed to get even more enthusiastic with each other in a private room. Hob's lucky he brought a change of clothes in his carry-on. (Maybe Hob's not so lucky and can't sit comfortably during his next three-hour flight.)

Hob gets a bit emotional when he has to leave for his next flight (already missing being able to hold his Stranger's face so gently, being able to card his fingers through his soft, smokey hair) and gets his guts together to ask if the Stranger wants to exchange phone numbers or something, so they can be in contact more regularly. Perhaps even, meet on purpose maybe? The Stranger smiles and kisses him lightly on the cheek when he slips a business card into Hob's hand.

Hob's so caught up in it all that he doesn't check the business card until he's fully boarded and sat on his next flight. And he gawks.

Morpheus Aion The Dreaming Publishing House

As in, one of White Horse Air's biggest shareholders? Aion, as in, probably the sibling of Teleute Aion? As in, Teleute Aion, the CEO of White Horse Air?! Hob almost passes out.

In the end, Morpheus and Hob laugh it out. Morpheus promises he never abused his sibling privileges to invade Hob's privacy, but used the sibling perks to frequent White Horse Air flights a little more than he even needed to just for the chance to see Hob again. They're both happy to not need to keep flying just for that chance anymore, haha. Idiots in love! Turns out, while Teleute lives where Hob keeps having his layovers, Morpheus and Hob actually live just a few hours driving from each other from their shared initial departure location. It all works out perfectly, and Morpheus self-restraint from inviting Hob to move in (so they don't have to keep travelling to see each other, no matter how small) lasts not even a year after they officially start dating. Hob doesn't even pretend to hesitate to say yes :)

(Years down the line, much after they're married, Hob finally has enough miles to get them back into those first-class lounges to have more fun. It's all very lovely.)

[clumsyclifford]

i can’t focus when you’re with me (i can’t sleep when i’m alone)

hello i wrote some jalex because i had XO by nightly stuck in my head and this came from that

thank you @tirednotflirting and @reveriesofawriter for the love i love you guys so much all the time

title from XO by nightly

read it here on ao3

-

It’s on a pink sticky note on the fridge.

back soon. xo

The sign-off is familiar. The sticky note is also familiar, though Alex doesn’t really see why Jack leaves them anymore. There’s no point to the sticky note when Alex already knows Jack will be back and is no closer to figuring out his system for deciding when. Maybe there is no system. Maybe he truly just appears whenever he feels like it. 

Alex knows about variable-ratio reward schedules; he knows how the lottery works, promising an eventual reward and paying up just often enough to maintain the ruse. He isn’t an idiot. He can understand he’s not really winning the lottery when he spends every single night wondering if this will be the one Jack decides to grace him with his presence. One victory is nothing when it’s borne of a thousand failures. But Alex will take one night with Jack for two weeks without, and Jack knows that, too.

So maybe Alex is an idiot, but it’s worth it to be. Nights spent with Jack are some of Alex’s favorites. Mornings waking up without him are just an occupational hazard.

Jack doesn’t belong to him. That was never part of the agreement.

The spontaneity of Jack’s visits also cause a lot of problems in Alex’s life. He can’t plan his work around Jack when Jack has no schedule. And if Jack shows up while Alex is in the middle of something, forget it. As soon as the lock clicks and the door swings open — as soon as Alex hears the familiar footsteps and the toneless humming of Jack’s entrance — everything else becomes static.

It’s distracting. It’s infuriating. It’s intoxicating.

A cool breeze edging on warm sweeps through Alex’s open window tonight. He has a textbook open on the desk and his laptop beside it. The contents of the textbook are entirely failing to stick in Alex’s brain, and he doubts taking notes is helping in any way. It’s important that he learn this, especially when they’re moving on so swiftly from this section of the material; Alex can already foresee the late night he’s going to have trying to reteach this chapter to himself once he finishes reading it.

Three excruciating pages later, Alex decides the textbook can wait for a cup of tea.

It’s quiet around Alex’s place as he treks into the kitchen to put the water on. It’s quiet more often than not these days, as Alex has gotten more and more entrenched in his coursework. He’s had less time to play music. When he has free hours now, he typically uses them to sleep. It’s not an exciting life, but it’s the one he needs to lead so he doesn’t collapse from exhaustion at any given moment.

Still, the staticky hiss from the kettle as it starts to boil is comforting. Alex leans against the counter with his eyes closed, somehow simultaneously trying to refresh his memory on everything he just spent two and a half hours reading and trying not to think about that. As much as he knows he needs a break from all the studying, he’s not sure he can really afford it.

Naturally, this is when the lock clicks and the humming starts.

Alex’s eyes fly open. He stares out across the kitchen. The kettle finally reaches a loud conclusion and clicks to let Alex know it’s officially done boiling the water. And through the open doorway, an off-key rendition of ‘American Idiot’ announces Jack’s presence.

He’s humming the guitar solo. Of course.

Warring parts of Alex’s brain fight to react to this unexpected arrival. He wants to groan, because this is the worst time Jack could have fucking chosen, on tonight of all nights. He’d like to spin Jack by the shoulders and push him back out the door where he’d come in before he gets too comfortable. Sorry, not tonight, too much stuff to do that I can’t afford to let you distract me from, he’d love to say.

But the other part of him is imagining pushing Jack by the shoulders against a very much closed door, and Alex, in his weary state, isn’t disciplined enough to ignore that thought. 

Jack won’t come into the kitchen —  he says it’s too domestic for him. Alex pretends he hasn’t heard the door open and close and makes himself a cup of tea anyway, fully prepared for it to go cold. Maybe Jack will understand if Alex lays it out for him. Maybe if Jack sees the textbook he’ll latch on.

Not that Alex thinks Jack doesn’t understand how much work Alex has. Jack is an intelligent person. He knows. It’s just he doesn’t care. 

And Alex has to take some responsibility, because it’s not like he’s trying very hard to express that it matters to him if he passes his classes. When Jack shows up, Alex gives up. He could try harder to focus on his work, to send Jack away, but he doesn’t want to. He likes when Jack is here. He’d just like it not to overlap with nights when he has an entire textbook chapter to read, memorize, and internalize.

Steam is rising off Alex’s mug like wispy cirrus clouds. He brings it to his lips, burns his tongue taking a sip, and sighs.

Jack is sitting in Alex’s desk chair when Alex finally returns to his room.

He looks up with bright eyes when he sees Alex come in. “Hi, finally.” As he clocks the mug: “Ooh, whatcha drinkin’? Did you make me any?”

“Tea, and no,” Alex says. “I made it for me, because I’m trying to study.”

“Operative word being try,” Jack says.

“Yeah, and hopefully soon I will be succeeding,” Alex says. He’s not sure why he insists on pretending to refuse Jack when they both know with one hundred percent certainty that this is not what Alex wants nor a hill he plans to die on. For his own dignity, though, he has to at least look like he’s making the effort to be responsible. “You wanna learn about childrens’ development in their first year of life?”

“Such a hard no from me,” Jack says. “But be real. Do you want to learn about that?”

“No,” Alex says. “But I have to.”

Jack sighs. He holds out a hand and Alex places his mug in Jack’s grip. “What’s this? The usual?” Alex nods. Jack brings it to his lips, barely drinking any before exhaling harshly. “Fuck, that’s hot.”

“Yeah, I just made it. As you came in.”

“You want me to go?”

Alex sighs. “Obviously I don’t want you to go. I’d love to get some advance notice for when you’re gonna show up, though. Tonight’s such a bad night.”

“Tonight’s a bad night so far,” Jack corrects him, setting the mug down on Alex’s desk. It’s dangerously close to the laptop; Alex nudges it further away, and Jack just shakes his head a little, smiling.

“I mean tonight is a bad night for you to be here,” Alex clarifies.

“Then I’ll leave.”

“But I don’t want you to leave.”

“So I’ll stay.”

“Yeah, but then I’ll be distracted.”

Jack shrugs. “I’m honestly okay with that.”

“I’ll be distracted from my work,” Alex says, although he’s sure Jack had understood the first time. “By you. Like always.”

“And I’m okay with that too.” Jack tilts his head, stretching his neck to look up at Alex, deliberately baring his throat. He drives Alex insane, in whatever way is most accurate to the moment. Alex wishes he had more self-control, but thinking about turning Jack away and instead spending several more hours at a desk reading page after page of information he won’t absorb makes him want to cry. 

And it would be rude, after all this time, to mess with the rules of the game. Jack shows up expecting that Alex will surrender, and Alex being taken aback and generally inconvenienced by this is all part of the guidelines for playing. He signed his agency away the first time he kissed Jack against the door. It’s too late to ask for it back.

(It’s not really too late — if Alex wanted it, he’d have it. He just doesn’t want it.)

Alex holds up one finger and with his other hand he lifts the mug to his lips. It’s still too hot to drink but he lets the liquid scald the tip of his tongue and the roof of his mouth as he swallows. 

“You could call me,” he says.

“I don’t have your number,” Jack says.

“You could ask for it.”

“I don’t want it.”

“It’d make my life a lot easier.”

“But way less exciting.” Jack stands up, and he’s taller than Alex, and he’s so close now that Alex can count his eyelashes as they flutter shut and then quickly open again. “You can’t plan for everything, Alex.”

“Okay, I realize that, but I could definitely plan for you,” Alex returns. “Like if you just told me when you wanted to come over I could plan for that to happen. Instead of just appearing out of nowhere and—”

“What, ruining your night?” Jack casts his gaze to the open textbook. He looks back at Alex, quietly smirking. “I’m so sorry for distracting you from the absolutely fascinating timeline of child development.”

“Yeah, you should be.”

“Alex, this is a rescue mission.” Jack’s fingers land feather-light on Alex’s wrist and travel up his arm, pushing his sleeve up to his shoulder and bracing against the slope of his neck. His grip tightens as he massages the tense muscles under his fingertips. “I’m like your guardian angel. I show up when I can tell you need saving.”

“Saving from the horrors of developmental psychology?” Alex mutters, posture slipping like a landslide. Nobody on the planet can ease the tension permanently at home in Alex’s shoulders, but Jack is welcome to try. 

“Yes,” Jack says seriously. “From the horrors of developmental psychology. And because I can literally feel the tension in your shoulders. When’s the last time you relaxed?”

Last time you were here, is Alex’s real answer. “I’m not clear on the relevance of this.”

Jack frowns. “I don’t want you to be stressed.”

“Then stop showing up out of the blue,” Alex huffs.

“Really? I’m the biggest stressor in your life?" Jack sounds genuinely incredulous at this.

“No, you’re not.” Alex sighs, looking anywhere except Jack’s face. “But you’re not not a stressor. You know I’m busy. You know I like to have a schedule. A little warning goes a long way.”

Jack is quiet for a moment. His fingers dig into Alex’s skin, working muscles that ache under his firm touch. It feels improbably good for something that kind of hurts. Alex closes his eyes.

“Forget I said that,” he mumbles. “We’re not gonna get anywhere. I’ve made my peace with it. You’re just going to be absolutely unpredictable and I’m just gonna be fine with it, I guess, because I like when you’re here, even if you never want to tell me when that’s going to be. It’s fine.”

Jack’s hands still. “I just think you’re overthinking it. I’m not complicated, Alex. I’m so easy. This is easy. If it were that important to you, you would kick me out, and I’d go. But you never do.” He resumes his massage, this time on the back of Alex’s neck. “You’re always working. And I’m here on a rescue mission, like I said. To keep you from drowning in it. It’s just a question of if you’re willing to be rescued.”

Alex groans. Even he’s not sure if it’s from the frustration of knowing he won’t get through anything else tonight or an effect of Jack’s halfway massage, though he figures it’s probably both. They’ve exhausted this topic and they’re making no progress. Alex is out of patience.

“Okay,” he murmurs. “Rescue me.”

Jack’s warm hands move to Alex’s face, and he’s still smiling a little bit when their lips meet.

The sticky note is gone from the fridge. Alex is not surprised. 

Sleep is still clinging to him, weighing from every limb. There’s a stiffness in his neck that has returned from wherever Jack apparently banished it to last night. Out the window, a blanket of clean morning light covers everything it can reach. Inside, a blanket is still dragging on the floor around Alex’s shoulders.

It’s when he’s reaching for the kettle that he remembers his cup of tea.

The blanket drags behind him as Alex treks back to his room, and there he halts in confusion. The mug is gone. He’d definitely left it here last night, and now it’s not here anymore. It had been completely full and now it’s missing.

Huh.

Alex glances at the textbook, open to exactly the page he’d left it at the night prior. There’s a pink sticky note he’d failed to notice earlier.

good luck, this seems boring as hell. xo

p.s. put your tea in the fridge xoxo

A smile crawls into the corners of Alex’s mouth and stays there.

He returns to the kitchen and finds his mug of tea in the fridge, as promised. There’s aluminum foil over the top, which seems pointless but a nice gesture. A confusingly nice gesture. Why is Jack changing the rules of the game all of a sudden? It’s unusual for him to move anything around, for him to leave any indication of his presence other than one single sticky note stuck somewhere for Alex to find.

Now, not only has he moved Alex’s tea, but there’s another sticky note. Alex finds it on top of the mug.

you’re cute when you sleep. xo

Alex stares at the piece of paper until his fridge starts beeping at him that the door has been open too long. He pulls the mug from the fridge and closes it. And then he stares some more. What is happening? What is Jack doing? Is this just going to be another new rule to which Alex is oblivious?

As the microwave reheats last night’s tea — Alex wondering as it spins how Jack had known that Alex is the kind of person to reheat the tea rather than toss it and make a new cup — Alex shuffles into the bathroom to splash some water on his face and deem himself presentable for the day.

And there, on the bathroom mirror, is another pink sticky note.

It reads:

I want to make your life easier. no pressure. xo

Underneath the words, there’s a phone number.

Alex smiles.

[sh3vchenkodmitr-blog]

6 -min. read

Empowerment is one of those terms – like mindfulness, millennial and self-care – with nuances of meaning that become lost through overuse. In relation to travel, there are a myriad ways in which exploring new places can empower. Just Google it: fly abroad in search of fulfilment and return home with a new skill; grow in strength and independence by embarking on a solo journey; empower others by travelling to support those less fortunate than you.

Yagazie Emezi for Tastemakers – courtesy of Tastemakers Africa

“The importance of domestic travel – of exploring your own country – should not be overlooked. From supporting local economies to understanding your heritage, empowerment is intertwined with a strong sense of where you’re from”

Much of the narrative around empowerment and travel focuses on engaging with the unfamiliar, on proving oneself capable in a region that’s far from home. But the importance of domestic travel – of exploring your own country – should not be overlooked. From supporting local economies to understanding your heritage, empowerment is intertwined with a strong sense of where you’re from.

The notion is especially pertinent in relation to travel across the African continent. According to a report conducted by Euromonitor, Africans have historically viewed travel as a non-essential luxury reserved for a wealthy few (who often opt for destinations like London, Paris and Dubai). As a result, there is no widespread culture of saving for holidays, and travel is traditionally reserved for occasions like weddings and funerals. As such, the African travel industry is largely defined by persuading outsiders to come in, rather than encouraging Africans to explore their own surroundings.

Photo is courtesy of Tastemakers Africa

Things are steadily changing, as young generations and growing middle classes are increasingly travelling within their own countries and continent. Governments and corporations are beginning to take note, but there is still much work to be done.

One of the reasons for the increase in domestic travel across Africa (up eight per cent in 2017) is the cultural clout that the continent holds on the international stage. Last year alone, the Nigerian rapper Wizkid collaborated with Drake; the Zeitz MOCAA museum opened up to exhibit contemporary African art in Cape Town; and South African photographer Trevor Sturman shot New York Fashion Week. These events all helped to expand the global narrative of what the continent has to offer beyond the one-dimensional safari trail. In turn, this shift is seeing Africans take greater pride in where they’re from.

Photo is courtesy of Tastemakers Africa

Cherae Robinson, founder and CEO of experience-led travel platform Tastemakers Africa, says: “From a cultural inflection point Africa is on people’s minds, especially for trend-watchers and culture creators. I think that’s beginning to trickle down into a genuine curiosity about the places in which these creative forces are happening, and also a general perception of how Africans see themselves”.

This is a positive shift, but if domestic travel across the African continent is inspired by international acclaim, are we not still viewing Africa from within a western framework? It’s all very well to credit breakthrough individuals for pushing perceptions forward, but sustainable change needs to happen from the top down.

On a large scale, there’s a need for governments to commit to reducing taxes and costly visa programmes, as much of domestic and regional travel is still prohibited by high airfares (it can cost about £650 to travel from Accra to Dakar; you could spend the same amount or less going to Paris). Robinson says: “I would like to see airlines work together on policies that reduce taxes on landing in African airspaces – a lot of policies were formed during colonialism, when African travel routes were designed to take people and goods out (not to move people around).”

There are also issues with marketing travel to African residents. Traditionally the travel industry has targeted foreign travellers, putting little investment into intra-

Photo is courtesy of Tastemakers Africa

continental campaigns. One Ghanaian traveller tells me: “The moment you hear “Paris” it evokes a feeling of what the experience will be like – love, architecture, great food and so on. Meanwhile, Dakar is beautiful, chock-full of history, art and traditions; yet unless you’re from Dakar or an avid traveller and explorer you don’t know this.”

The Kenyan government is leading the change here, with President Uhuru Kenyatta stating that the country should not rely on foreign markets to boost the tourism sector, and that domestic travel is more sustainable. In 2016, the government allowed corporations to pay holiday expenses for their staff who chose to spend their annual leave holidaying in Kenya, which could then be deducted from taxes. It was estimated that this measure would result in over 300,000 additional Kenyan guests in Kenyan hotels nationwide.

Similarly, Namibia Wildlife Resorts promote the NamLeisure card, which offers Namibian nationals a 50 per cent discount on accommodation and tours within Namibia. Meanwhile, in South Africa the tourism board launched a national campaign called in 2016, which encouraged nationals to get out and enjoy their own land.

Photo by Wilderness Safaris

Steps are being taken to engage domestic and regional travellers by corporations, too. Radisson Blu is tapping into the widening market for staycations in places like Lagos and Joburg, where there’s a sizeable middle class, hosting events that engage with local artists and musicians. Meanwhile, Wilderness Safaris promote African Residents rates, as well as a Members Club where they offer last-minute empty rooms for more affordable prices. Chief Sales Officer Dave Bennett says: “There is a perception that African-based safari companies tend to chase international business at the expense of locals who cannot then afford to appreciate the wildlife hotspots of the African continent. We have found that the broader based participation of the local stakeholders plays an important role in our conservation and sustainability goals.”

As much as governments and corporations support domestic and regional travel across the African continent, it is at grassroots level that the shift has taken root in creative ways. Cherae Robinson recently pivoted the model for Tastemakers Africa towards an on-demand experience platform, which connects travellers with creative locals: you can go shopping with a Ghanaian designer in Accra; sift through a market in Joburg with a local artist; go clubbing with a musician in Lagos. Cherae predicts that 30 per cent of her custom will be driven by domestic and regional travellers and has made use of Instagram to spread the word. She says: “Social media has had a big role to play in inspiring a genuine appreciation of home beyond what the west says about it”. Tags like championed by author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, are helping to drive the movement forward.

One of the creatives associated with Robinson’s platform is a Ghanaian actress called

Maame Adjei from Girl Going Places – by Jonelle Boafo

Maame Adjei. She has her own travel show called Girl Going Places (as well as her own tag which aims to encourage Africans to travel their own countries. Maame is adamant that knowing where you’re from is fundamental to progress: “Five years ago I knew nothing about my country besides the capital of Accra, and even that view was very narrow. After exploring Ghana from top to bottom, I found that knowing your own space is so intrinsically tied to your self-esteem. It might sound ridiculous, but it’s so important to know the good, bad and ugly traits of the things you love. Once you do you get a renewed confidence and trust in them.””

“No one can tell me anything about my country that I don’t already know. There’s power in that”

– Maame Adjei, Girl Going Places

Historically, the African travel industry has been focused on persuading outsiders to come in. But it is through encouraging and implementing domestic and regional travel for African residents that the industry can support real empowerment – that is, a more nuanced portrait of the continent for international visitors, and a deeper understanding of heritage for residents. “No one can tell me anything about my country that I don’t already know, says Maame Adjei. “There’s power in that.”

[This article was published in Beyond: Empowered, We Are Africa’s print magazine, in May 2018.]

KATE HAMILTON The former Editor-in-Chief of SUITCASE Magazine, Kate is a freelance journalist who has written for titles including The Guardian, Wallpaper*, Stylist, ES Mag and Refinery29. She is based in London and always travels with books and an excessive amount of stationery.

The post TRAVEL TO FIND YOURSELF appeared first on We Are Africa.

[krystangreen-blog]

When I saw the opportunity to redeem systemwide upgrades from business class to American Airlines 777-300 first class from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, I lept at the chance. We usually fly Cathay Pacific on this route (we used to live in Hong Kong and return often), but airfare on AA was so much lower that I decided to give our primary domestic airline a shot.

I wanted to love it. It was certainly lovely, but if you have flown Cathay Pacific first class on the same route, you will notice differences which are essential given that first class on both airlines can retail for nearly the same cash price. 

Cathay Pacific First Class Lounges at Hong Kong International Airport

Oneworld Alliance (of which American Airlines is a member) Emerald members and first class passengers on Oneworld Alliance airlines can use the glorious Cathay Pacific first class lounges at HKG. These are some of the best airport lounges in the world.

While I prefer the Champagne bar and view at The Wing, First lounge near customs, our flight left right next to The Pier, First lounge at gate 63 and we didn’t have time to enjoy both (which I have done in the past).

Arrive hungry because the food is good. Our go-to Cathay Pacific lounge order (going on seventeen years now) is dan dan noodles. They are just so dang good especially when paired with a glass of Perrier Jouet.

Dishes in the sit-down restaurant arrive at the tables shortly after ordering to accommodate tight flight schedules. A grab-and-go buffet area with desserts, sandwiches, charcuterie, cheese, drinks, and snacks is located near the bar area.

The mini spa in this lounge is a highlight for sure, but I’ve never been lucky enough to score an appointment. They book up quickly.

Boarding

First class may board before other classes but not through a designated aircraft door. Our entire plane boarded through the same door, which was inconvenient given that we soaked up a little bit too much time in the lounge. We found ourselves waiting in line on the jetway with everyone else.

After we arrived at our seats, the flight attendant came around with newspapers, pajamas, Bose headsets, and Champagne, juice, or water.

I declined the pajamas on our outbound American Airlines business class flight but should not have. I took them in first class (where I’m told they are the same) and they are nice. I appreciate their shorter, cuffed leg style (no one wants to drag PJ pants on an airplane bathroom floor, even in first class) and pockets on the front of the shirt. I admit to wearing them at home though wish the cotton was ever so slightly softer.

I took the Champagne, obviously.

American Airlines 777-300ER First Class Seats

These are regarded as the best seats in the entire American Airlines fleet, and I would have to agree. I was comfortable throughout the whole flight.

A digital remote control operates the seats. Mine proved a little fussy to use. Turn on the massage feature if you like. Swivel the chair to use the side area like a desk. This might come in handy should you need to work with the person seated next to you in a middle seat.

Speaking of middle seats, I wrongly assumed that the middle seats would be permanently divided, based on prior experience in first class on other airlines. Had I known, I would have placed my daughter right next to me in the middle seats instead of across the aisle. You can manually raise a small divider between the middle first class seats if necessary.

First class seats offer more space than in business class on the same plane, but it didn’t feel like a massive difference. Carry-ons go into the overhead compartment versus a cabinet on the ground. Every seat receives a comfortable bedding kit with pillow, duvet and a mattress pad if you’d like the flight attendant to help you place it on the seat.

First class on this plane is in a 1-2-1 configuration for eight seats in total. Cathay Pacific first class is a 1-1-1 configuration for six seats in total which means that you have a wider seat, but they are also longer, which makes me suspect that the first class cabin is a bit bigger.

First Class Dining on AA 182 from HKG-LAX

(Apologies in advance for my unusually poor food photos which looked GREAT on the screen of my new iPhone X at the time. I’m horrified by their actual quality so I will use a regular camera next time. While the food onboard was just okay compared to other airlines in first class, my photos aren’t doing the dishes the justice they deserve.)

As our flight left Hong Kong in the evening, the main meal served was a 7-course dinner (or so it should have been). It started with dried veggie straws and olives which are not pictured or mentioned on the menu.

This menu is offered on both the Hong Kong to Dallas and LAX flights.

The flight attendant took our orders but suggested that we withhold our small plate selection until later she said it would be too much food for us. My red flag should have gone up, but it didn’t. My daughter was sitting across the aisle from me, so I didn’t hear her order. Plus, she’s 12. She’s a shy 12 and not one to question an adult telling her that she shouldn’t have the small plate.

American Airlines typically offers an excellent wine list designed to suit palates at 35,000 feet, and this one didn’t disappoint.

We should have been given the option of dining together in the same seat as the flight attendant knew we were traveling together. I assumed this wasn’t an option because the seats are smaller than on Cathay Pacific, where we usually do eat together in first class with one person sitting on the footrest and a table extension applied. It’s a lovely way to chat and pass the time. Later in the flight, I spotted a seat belt on the footrest so I realized it would have been possible. My daughter mentioned after we landed that she saw other people dining together behind me.

The Osietra caviar with savory egg white tartlet starter was a bit misleading as it sounded like you’d enjoy a helping of caviar accompanied by an egg tart. In reality, it was an egg white tart sprinkled lightly with a little bit of mushy Osietra caviar. 

The combination masked the flavor of the caviar, which made me think that it probably was added to print “caviar” on the menu. The chilled kale, apple, and celeriac tasted outstanding, and I (unusually) preferred it to the caviar tart by miles.

I did quite enjoy the lobster saffron bisque course and the real lumps of crab meat in it.

Next, the flight attendant served my grilled beef fillet. She skipped my salad course, and I only noticed later after I looked around and saw others eating salad. I checked my menu, which confirmed this course was skipped. She was not the type of person to trouble if you didn’t have to, so I let it go.

The beef dish was flavorful but well-done and tough. Yes, it’s airplane food, but I’ve eaten glorious medium-rare steaks on planes departing from Hong Kong, which means that others who might take this flight probably will have, too.

I adore the made-to-order ice cream sundaes that American Airlines serves in first class on longer domestic routes and international premium classes. So, that’s what I ordered.

We did not take advantage of the snacks and drinks in the galley. My daughter was served the small plate order of beef sliders (she said they were good) that were withheld from her at dinner. I wasn’t offered the meze plate set aside for me despite being awake for most of the flight but wasn’t hungry for it.

I suspect that part of the reason why the small plates were held back is this flight unusually did not offer any made-to-order midflight snacks like other airlines we fly to Asia do.

Flight attendants served breakfast at passengers’ leisure a few hours before landing. Starving by this point, we both chose the Western breakfast, which proved to be a lot of food.

Apologies again for the terrible photo but I want you to see that it’s quite a bit of food.

After indicating that I’d like breakfast, I was handed the tray above and never offered the yogurt starter. I didn’t realize this until I looked at the menu after the fact. I’m not really in the habit of checking the menu during an inflight meal. 

The flight attendant either forgot to serve some of my courses, couldn’t be bothered to offer all courses, or didn’t think I’d notice if she skipped courses. Not one of these scenarios is typical (or acceptable) for this route and class of service.

In-flight Entertainment

I think that American Airlines offers a robust selection of movies and television shows, but when you fly a lot in a month, choices become repetitive as they do on any airline. Like most AA flights, the Bose headsets were collected about 45 minutes before landing, so it still pays to bring good headphones. The little loaner earbuds you receive in their place are not great. Do ask for a splitter so that you can hear the earbuds in both ears (they exist on flights in limited quantities).

Love the Amenity Kit

I genuinely adore the new This Is Ground amenity kits in business and first class. They’re both made of beautiful leather. The business class kit is smaller and secures with a snap. The first class kit, zips completely around Allies of Skin moisturizer, lip balm and hand cream in addition to a toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash, socks, eye mask, ear plugs, tissues, and some Barclay’s Aviator card (which I have and believe is a less valuable member of my wallet since stripping the EQD benefit) promotional material. However, mine also had a 20% discount code for This Is Ground products which you may want to take advantage of.

I love bringing these kits to the airplane bathroom because they repel water, unlike cloth kits. 

The Bottom Line

I am fiercely loyal to American Airlines and Oneworld Alliance. On this route, my brain is acclimated to an overly-solicitous style of service, which is what we receive on Cathay Pacific and even Japan Airlines when we occasionally fly SAN-NRT-HKG. I wasn’t expecting a perfect service match on American Airlines, but room for improvement exists in spades if they want to win loyalty from frequent flyers on this route.

Is first class a good use of a systemwide upgrade? In my case, yes, as we tend to book straight into premium class tickets, so my systemwide upgrades often go unused. Would I use miles to upgrade? Yes, if I wasn’t short on miles. Will we fly American Airlines to Hong Kong again? Probably, if the airfare is such that it’s a significant saving.

[charmingturkeysandwich]

Knock, Knock Ch. 22: The Long Way Home

Forgive the transit fantasies (USA doesn’t have as many trains as I’m suggesting), but I hope you like this chapter! Stuff is on the horizon.

Read on AO3.

Read from the beginning on Tumblr (links to next chapter at the end of each).

“I think you two are the only non-terrorists I’ve ever known to wind up on the no-fly list.”

Ugh. Leave it to Ruby to find this very terrible predicament they were in just so damn funny.

After security had escorted them out of the airport and Ruby had found them sulking on the curb of long-term parking, Killian had just assumed that he and Emma would laugh it off and enjoy the rest of their vacation (well, the start of it, really). But Emma’s cheeks were still burning red, even an hour after the incident, and the weight of the logistical nightmare they were now dealing with – you know, how the hell do you get the whole way across the country without a plane? – well, he wasn’t exactly laughing it all off himself.

The plus side: Emma wasn’t mad at him. Nor was he mad at her. They knew they were doing something stupid and they were clearly both willing participants. If anything was to blame it was their hormones. Or something. But the downside: not being mad at each other doesn’t make the other glaring problems go away.

“And, what, you’ve got a lot of terrorist buds out there?” Emma snarked back, the first words she’d actually spoken since Killian regaled the Washingtonians with their tale of love, lust, and losing their right to take domestic and international flights for an undetermined amount of time.

“Hey, I’m proud! Wasn’t too long ago you didn’t care enough about anyone to risk that kind of nightmare. It’s a good thing when baby’s in love.”

“Baby is in a fucking mess, thank you very much, Ruby.” Emma was tapping at her phone furiously, whether it be taking out her frustration on Angry Birds or researching alternative forms of travel - Killian couldn’t be sure.

“I might be able to get you on a flight if one of my fancy doctor friends is headed East,” Whale offered, only mostly failing to hide his amusement at this whole… thing.

He was a good guy, Whale. He was good for Ruby and he made such a genuine effort to be part of things, when other boyfriends might be jealous of the circle of friends their girlfriend maintained – especially if it included attractive men. But Whale wasn’t like that. He truly did want to help Killian and Emma, and, more importantly: he was trying to wait until they weren’t in front of him to burst out laughing.

That’s a good man for you.

Emma groaned. “No, it’s OK. Killian has meetings he absolutely can’t miss and I have a lot of preparing to do, so we can’t just wait around until the perfect coincidence happens. It looks like there are train routes the whole way from here to Boston, but it’ll take…” Emma paused, scrolling through what was likely a travel site on her phone. “Almost three full days.”

“But you were only going to be here for four days!” Ruby cried, the gravity of the situation actually hitting her. Finally.

“Looks like that’s been reduced to one. Think you can condense that massive schedule of yours?”

“Fine. But there will be zero time for sleep. Or any more closet sex. You hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” Killian mumbled, entwining his fingers with Emma’s as they locked eyes and telepathically agreed they were idiots.

-

They were literally the world’s biggest idiots.

Who the fuck gets kicked out of an airport for having sex in a closet? It’s not like anyone saw them. It’s not like they were hurting anyone. But it was “inappropriate” and “not tolerated” and all kind of other condescending shit from a TSA agent who was so clearly not getting any.

It was their fault. That much wasn’t lost on her. But her anger still wouldn’t subside. Why could life be like movies, where the couple joins the mile high club in the fucking airplane and when they leave the bathroom they just get a knowing smirk from a fellow passenger and an eye roll from a flight attendant?

Nope, in real life you get caught and banned from flying for 6 months. Or something. She wasn’t quite listening about the details since she was so busy trying to figure out how the fuck they were going to get themselves home.

And things weren’t any better now that she’d found the solution. Miraculously the airline did refund their return trip money, so the $450 in train tickets were covered by money already spent. But three days on a series of trains that probably smelled like stale food and feet? Not exactly the happy vacation Emma had been planning.

They could use that time to their advantage, of course. Emma wouldn’t be flying solo as much when it came to organizing the schedule for the summer, since Killian would be trapped at her side. And they really were about to be apart from each other and insanely busy for quite a stretch of time. So while she’d have loved to spend those 3 extra days with Ruby and Whale… well, at least she wouldn’t be alone.

How weird, not being alone.

Finally.

Ruby whisked them off to her ridiculously fancy loft (“Quite an upgrade from our shitty apartment, huh?” “There are more perks to dating a doctor than him knowing anatomy” “Ruby!”), and the still-mortified pair dropped their bags in the guest room before Ruby promptly opened her cell phone and started re-plotting. Reservations were cancelled and rebooked, new friends were texted and weather was checked and before Emma even had a chance to check her makeup, Ruby was herding them out the door and into an Uber she’d apparently had hailed three minutes before.

“You’d better get ready for a whirlwind, sweetheart!” Ruby flipped her perfectly coiffed ponytail and yanked open the Prius door, motioning for Emma and Killian to slide into the back with her as Whale took the front. He politely shook the driver’s hand – a college kid, without a doubt – and murmured something low about a ‘very promising opportunity’ and suddenly she was feeling like Katherine Heigl in 27 Dresses, having her own personal chaperone for the day, with some very important strings attached (did this mean the night would end in singing Benny & The Jets on a bar? Because that level of humiliation was nothing compared to what she’d just suffered).

Catching Emma’s train of thought, Ruby whispered, “it’s easier to have one driver than a thousand. This kid has been our little cabbie before. He’s cool!”

What on Earth were they getting themselves into?

 The first part of their one-day adventure was all legs. Sure, the Uber kid stuck around to get them the long distances, but everything else was pure sprinting: through the Museum of Pop Culture and Pioneer Square, up Queen Anne Hill to Kerry Park to stare at the Space Needle, and then, of course, to the Needle itself. They took a ferry and stared at the big Ferris Wheel, without stopping to ride it (“I’d have loved to kiss you at the top, love,” Killian had said. “Don’t you think we’ve had our fill of kissing this trip?” she’d responded, smacking his chest for good measure). Finally, they’d moved on to the eating portion of the evening, grabbing coffee at Storyville (“Starbucks is for tourists!” -Whale) before devouring pizza at Serious Pie. Emma may or may not have taken a nap in the Uber, the poor college kid yawning himself, until they hit the clubbing stage, Ruby introducing her to more people in the span of one hour than she’d met in the previous two years.

Drinking was a bad idea. They were barely going to sleep before they had to be at the train station. But fuck it all, Emma had come to Seattle to have fun with her best friend, to take a break from stressful reality, to let loose and just be. And it seemed Sober Emma was actually the more dangerous when it came to breaking international rules of travel and shit, so what was really the worst that could happen with Drunk Emma?

-

It had been the most glorious day. His legs were sore, so deeply sore he’d feel it for weeks, but they’d taken him to some truly incredible places. His lungs were still burning from all the steps and hills and finally the dancing, but maybe a 24-hour speed vacation was exactly what he’d needed. It’s simple. Efficient. And most of all it filled him with a carefree joy he couldn’t remember having since probably his first date with Emma.

Not because his life hadn’t been full of joy since then. It was quite the opposite actually. And truthfully, even that first date wasn’t carefree. No, it had been bliss, but it was also worry. Worry that may have been entirely unnecessary, but had existed nonetheless. But this day: the worst had already happened. He and Emma had landed themselves on the no-fucking-fly list. Was there really a lower low than that? No! So Ruby did what Ruby was best at: she lifted them up and showed them the goodest good time imaginable.

Seeing Emma’s face when they got a glimpse of Mount Rainer from the top of that hill, watching her discover weird and wonderful food, experiencing the pure hilariousness of her trying to convince a bouncer that she was that doctor from House and was obviously on the VIP list – he’d never trade any of that for his freedom to fly on a plane. Never.

(He’d also enjoyed the way Emma had sipped at her rum just a little too often, had let her inhibitions go and had danced against him like they were in some semi-dirty fairy tale at a slightly risqué ball. But that wasn’t specific to the Experience of Seattle or of Hurricane Ruby. That was just Emma, pure, joyous, Drunk Emma.)

For as nearly-royal as she’d looked at the bow of a Seattle ferry, her eyes serene and her golden hair whipping in the wind – well she’d looked the exact opposite now. The college kid had finally had his fill of Whale’s very deep pockets and they’d called for a new driver, an older, fabulously snarky lady by the name of Ursula. She’d vowed deep revenge if Emma tossed her cookies in the shiny semi-new vehicle and half-asleep Emma had mumbled something about Ursula sounding like a fire-breathing dragon. Killian had tried to cough over her words to muffle the half-insult, but Ursula had simply responded: “you have me confused with Mal. I’m the sea witch, and I’ll drown your sorry ass. Got it?”

Emma kept her mouth shut after that one.

They’d gotten back to Whale and Ruby’s place with no more than two hours to nap before their appointment with Pacific Railway or whatever the fuck company was shuttling them across the damn country.

“’Least we’ll see some more of ‘merica. It’ll be patriotic,” Emma mumbled through her knotted, frantic hair, echoes of a few entry stamps having rubbed off from the back of her hand to the apple of her cheek.

“Of course, sweetheart. We’ll sing the Star Spangled Banner through each state we pass. And then I’ll sing some God Save the Queen and really confuse people.”

“Oh, shut up, you stupid Brit or I’ll throw your tea in the ocean!” The threat might have been a little more believable if she hadn’t yawned through it.

Killian wobbled slightly but made it out of the car and pulled Emma along with him. Whale and Ruby – tightly holding on to each other either for cuddling or for structural integrity – unlocked the flat and followed them inside.

The tiredness was setting in pretty heavily so the group of them mostly just mumbled their thanks (and apologies) to each other, the girls getting somewhat weepy in their drunk-to-hungover emotional daze, and they all said their goodbyes since there was no way Ruby and Victor would wake up before Emma and Killian had to bolt.

“I’m gonna miss you,” Emma whined, stroking Ruby’s hair.

“I miss you already,” she responded, reaching her hand out to poke Killian. “You, too, mister.”

-

BEEP BEEP BEEP

BEEP BEEP BEEP

God, she’d thought she liked ferries but these ships wouldn’t shut the fuck up. And why were they trying to make port in Ruby’s spare room, anyway?

A body shuffled behind her, pushing and poking at her as it stirred.

Killian, right?

“Emmaaaaaaaaa.”

Why wasn’t he more alarmed there was a damn ship in their house? No, Ruby’s house. Where was Ruby?

BEEP BEEP BEEP

“Get uuuuup.”

BEEP BEEP BEEP

“Why won’t the ship stop? This isn’t the harbor!” Emma insisted, still unable to pry her eyes open.

She shifted, trying to roll toward Killian so he might do something about this mess. Which was when she moved her head and realized the ship might have run over her skull because holy hell it hurt.

BEEP BEEP BEEP

“Emma Swan, where is your fucking phone.”

Damn, Killian was angry. It wasn’t her fault the ship was…

Her hand grazed over something cool and hard and vibrating.

Her phone.

It wasn’t a ship ruining her nap. It was her phone. Alerting her that she needed to wake up and begin their extremely long journey home.

Once she was physically capable of silencing the alarm, Emma dismissed it and mumbled a few apologies to Killian, kissing all over his cheeks and ears and neck to coax him out of his slumber a bit more nicely.

God, why did they think it was a good idea to act like there was no fucking tomorrow the night before? If you’re going to behave like the world is ending, you damn well better make sure it is. And not that you’re beginning three full days in a tiny train seat (well, several tiny train seats, but that was beside the point).

“Good morning, Swan,” Killian groaned, dropping a kiss on her forehead before sitting up the whole way.

“It’s… morning. I’ll give you that.”

The two of them didn’t have much to do in the form of packing, considering they’d barely had any time to unpack. So they were out grabbing a muffin and some non-chain coffee and hailing a cab within a half hour, giving them plenty of space before their departure time to ensure there weren’t any more travel tragedies in one trip.

“So what’s the game plan?” Killian asked, opening the calendar app in his iPad.

“Well, I have a lot of calls to make to confirm reservations and catering and all that boring crap. But I’m thinking we should sleep off the tornado first? Then we can divvy up responsibilities and get as much done as possible during whatever’s left of the ‘work’ day.”

“Look at us, being all business-y,” Killian smirked, his eyes practically twinkling with pride.

“Killian, I can still smell the vodka seeping out your pores. We’re not exactly in the running for Power Team of the Year.”

“Oh, darling, if there’s anything I learned at Uni, it’s that the important stuff is even greater an accomplishment when you do so while still having fun. ‘Work hard; play hard,’ right?”

“OK, but I’m getting too old to play quite that hard. It was fun, but once we’re on that train I’m going to be out of commission for quite a while.”

“Worth it though?”

She scooted over their bags and took the iPad off his lap, sliding herself into its place. “Always worth it.” She kissed him just passionately enough to convey her feelings – but held herself back so as to keep them from making a scene. (Again.)

-

Wasn’t time supposed to pass more bloody quickly when you were busy?

They’d been on this damned smelly train for what felt like three days already. When it reality it had been only five hours.

They’d slept the first two, but the rails were bumpy or shaky and there was an odd amount of non-mechanical noise considering it was quite early in the morning and it was a long trip. There was a pack of excited schoolkids somewhere prattling on about the goings on of high school. And a couple of businessmen were making slews of phone calls. And a woman toward the front of the car seemed to be playing therapist to her sister who may or may not have slept with her boss and her boss’s cousin? It would have been mildly entertaining if Killian had been at all wanting to be in the world of the living.

Emma was even crankier about it all. He’d gotten out her headphones and she’d shoved them in her ears so hard she might have sustained ear drum damage, but neither of them could get back to sleep, so with the sun still low in the Eastern sky, they started their work.

Emma had made calls and crafted innumerable emails. Killian had checked in with the most recent clients to make sure everything had been satisfactory and to encourage them to write a review. He scheduled a few drafts for the Instagram posts he wanted to put up between now and when he was traveling to take care of the insurance and ownership stuff. It had been three solid hours of getting shit done like procrastinators before a deadline… but when it came down to it, their deadline wasn’t approaching all that fast. Their destination wasn’t approaching all that fast. The only thing that seemed imminent was their combined loss of sanity.

So they agreed to take a little breather. They played some HangMan. Some Alphabet Game. Some Name that Tune and Guess the Celeb and even some I Spy – which didn’t go so well in the spans of uninhabited land.  They finally resorted to playing a few phone apps until their eyes were bugging out from the lack of sleep and excessive screen time. And all that had taken…

Two hours.

They were never going to survive this.

-

It was so good to be spending time with Killian. It was. And they’d been so productive! And had a bit of fun, too.

But lord help her, Emma was about to go to jail for hitting a teenager with his own selfie stick (who even used those anymore?!). She was hungover, tired, and irritable. She was still angry at herself for her inability to keep it in her pants in an airport. And she was deeply thankful for the previous day’s wonderful adventures but sadly those moments were in the past and her present and near future were all mumbling kids and rigid, uncomfortable seats, and trying desperately not to take out any of her frustration on poor Killian who didn’t deserve any of it.

(He’d been her punching bag before and she refused to let that happen again. Not for anything, but especially not when he was suffering just the same as her.)

After Killian had (seemingly intentionally) lost their last life on Candy Blast Mania, Emma took her phone back and put it in her pocket, reaching back over Killian to put away all their other devices and notebooks and any real sign of business.

Deep breath. (This could go badly.)

“Let’s play hypothetical future.”

“Hypothetical?”

“Yeah. Like pillow talk. But, you know, ugly train cushion talk.”

Killian looked half-terrified, which was probably fair. They didn’t talk much about the future. And he’d always been justifiably afraid of her castle-like walls and overstepping and scaring her into bolting.

But that wasn’t her. Not anymore.

“You sure you want to open that door?”

“Babe, I think once you’re on the no-fly list together, you’re pretty solidly in it. Just saying.”

“OK, soooo. Where would you live? If you could choose anywhere.”

“Probably some tiny-ass cottage in the woods away from people like in Snow White. But I’d hire seven servants to cook me food instead of the other way around.”

“What, you don’t trust me to feed you?” Killian quirked his eyebrow adorably, and her heart skipped like she was a twelve year-old sitting next to her crush on the school field trip.

“Oh, they’d feed you, too. We’d be busy doing other things.”

“Other things?”

“Running businesses. Getting kicked out of more places for indecency. The usual. Where would you want to live?”

“Other than on my ship? Probably back in Ireland. It’s breathtaking there. You know I spent most of my childhood in England, but I did have some family near Dublin and I was totally in love. Thought about going there during a few of my darker moments, but I thought that was a place better saved for happier times.”

“Look at you having optimism!” Emma squeezed his cheeks and he scowled at her in return.

“Well, good thing I did or I’d have never found you.” His eyes were bloodshot and so very tired, but she could still see the sincerity there (nothing hypothetical about that).

“I don’t know. I’ve never been very optimistic and I still found you.”

“Nah. You had it on the inside all along. I know you well enough to know that much.”

Instead of answering, Emma tucked her head under his chin, hugging him as closely as she could in the cramped, shaky train seat. “Maybe.”

-

The hours passed much more quickly – and far less painfully – as they named their hypothetical dogs and bought their hypothetical cars and planned their hypothetical vacations. It was soothing to sink into the world of fantasy closely enough related to reality to believe it all could be true in some nebulous someday.

(Hopefully one not too distantly in the future, if Killian had anything to say about it.)

More than once he thought of bringing up their business partnership, of telling her about his intentions to make that far more official – but then he remembered exactly who he was talking to. Emma was soothed by the fantasy part of their pillow talk, of the ability to be honest without it really mattering since it wasn’t imminently real. If he were to have broken that fantasy with talks of actual upcoming real-ness, she very well might have snapped.

(Another part of him, the hopeful part, probably, whispered that she might have been perfectly fine with it. That telling her now might have been the better choice for Future Killian if he didn’t want Future Emma to hate him. But he ignored that hopeful bastard living somewhere deep in his chest and just kept on laughing about Emma’s list of retirement plans, one of which involved raising goats and another being an investigator for Interpol.)

That evening they had a couple hours to kill in a transfer, so they feasted on burgers and absolutely no alcohol, walking around for as long as possible afterward to combat the stiffness in their sore legs. The next train was larger, more comfortable, and for that they were endlessly grateful. They could stretch out as they typed away on their laptops, working on some more business stuff before the time came to sleep.

It wasn’t the worst night’s sleep he’d ever had – at least he’d been afforded the opportunity to sleep the whole night, unlike the previous one – but he slept fitfully, having odd nightmares about tortured baby bears and malls that were booby trapped with IEDs. Emma seemed to have gotten slightly more deep sleep than him, her bright smile oddly radiant when he finally opened his eyes.  They pulled out the tray table in front of them (yes, this one actually had some accommodations beyond a toilet and some bags of chips for sale), and less angrily got to work.

 The next two days passed much the same: sleeping, eating, playing Boggle on their phones, watching movies, and planning out details of their upcoming excursions. Emma had been a miracle worker, getting their schedule almost totally solidified for the summer. She’d worked around all the other community camps to make sure they had the potential for good turnout. She’d partnered with the local daycares and even a Vacation Bible School to have different little outings specifically for them outside of the public camps. Killian had never known Emma to be a particularly religious person, but her enthusiasm at planning how to turn his “pirate” ship into Noah’s Ark was nothing short of adorable – especially when she squealed over the possibility that one of Mary Margaret’s friends might even be able to bring a few animals to the ship for the day, so long as Emma was OK with having to clean their messes.

It’s not like the three days passed quickly necessarily. But they passed without torture. The West Coast slowly but surely became the East Coast and a very tired and sore Emma and Killian were hailing an Uber to take them from the train station to the airport – just so they could pick up the car and keep on driving back home.

It was probably 3am when they finally pulled into the tiny parking lot of their shabby little apartment building. Emma had drank about five cups of coffee and was still on her last leg. And Killian had been using one of his “pirate” rings from his luggage to pinch himself conscious.

 It had been a long fucking journey, but they were finally home to sleep in their bed.

Well, one of their beds, anyway.

The exhaustion was so deep, he didn’t even pay attention to which door he unlocked or where he threw his bags (and hers) – he only knew that for the first time in four days, he and his love were finally sleeping in a damn bed. And nothing had ever felt so good.

-

When Emma woke up, Killian was already gone.

She knew that had been the plan. The reason they’d had to take the marathon of trains home in the first place was because Killian had an appointment he’d had to get to. But Emma had assumed he’d wake her up in the morning – intentionally or otherwise – so she could at least see him off. But no, she’d slept until almost noon and he was probably already waiting at the insurance guy’s office and she was left to make breakfast all by herself.

The quiet was oddly comforting, after several days of absolutely no privacy.

Emma decided on something simple for breakfast – a pair of Pop-Tarts and a nice large mug of coffee – and some Netflix to top it off. There were new Kimmy Schmidt episodes to watch, but Killian wouldn’t forgive her cheating if she watched without him, so she put on an old crime procedural and just zoned out.

It was at least three episodes in before she realized something odd. There wasn’t actually any reason she couldn’t have gone with Killian now. She’d gone into Wonder Woman mode on the business planning and everything she’d been slated to take care of while Killian was off having his meetings… well, they were already done. Emma really had nothing to do beyond a few confirmations and details that could have been coordinated from anywhere – and yet Killian hadn’t asked her to go with him. And he knew how productive she’d been.

He was exhausted, just like her. And she hadn’t realized it until he was hours and hours gone. So that’s probably what happened with him, too.

Right?

The partners on the screen were having some arguments and tension related to miscommunication and misunderstanding and it was all very cliché for these kinds of shows, but quite honestly it was giving Emma some paranoia, so she switched over to Forensic Files and figured if there was anything on that show that reminded her of her relationship with Killian… well, let’s just say that meant she had bigger problems.

She texted him after a case involving a footprint in a hamburger bun, and he texted back a few emojis and exclamations of disbelief. He tried to call her a half hour later, but of course that happened to be when she was in the shower.

So she tried to call him back, but it turned out he’d had another meeting that day and he was in a dead zone on his way to driving there. He called her once he had service and they talked for a couple minutes about some hilarious panicking texts Killian had received from David about his impending fatherhood before Killian had to head into the meeting. When he was out of it, he texted Emma asking if it was a good time for him to call her back, but she was out shopping with Mary Margaret for baby items – apparently it was a two-man job since you needed to look up safety ratings and consumer reviews while walking through the store. (Of course, Emma knew why David had made an excuse to get out of that task the second they walked into the store and Mary Margaret started barking like a drill sergeant.)

She texted him when she was relieved of her shopping duties, but Killian had been on the phone with Will – apparently there’d been some issue with Belle? And before Emma could wonder too long about it, Belle showed up at her door asking for a place to stay.

Ten minutes later the wine was poured and the PJs were on and the words were finally flowing. “So the landlord needed me out for just a couple of days because they had to entirely turn off the water. To the whole building! So I just kind of assumed he’d let me stay with him and he panicked and called me a gold-digger or something ridiculous like that. And then accused me of moving too fast! Emma, I literally just wanted to sleep there. Which, by the way, I have done. Many times!” Belle gulped down her very full glass of wine all in one motion. “I wasn’t suggesting anything. I just needed a place to crash. It’s not like it doesn’t… benefit him, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, Belle, everyone knows what you mean.” Emma good naturedly rolled her eyes at Belle’s attempt at euphemism – it was odd to think of a badass who’s busted up drug rings and organized crime as so innocent at times. But she was sweet down to her core, and truly at a loss for words when it came to Will’s unfortunately predictable behavior.

“Here’s the thing,” Emma started, taking a long breath. “Will’s… kind of like me. He’s been burned before. He was pretty guarded – just in a different way. An assier way if you recall. But that’s what it was. He had walls. And you brought those down! Or at least a lot of them. But now he’s panicked. You stay over after you try half the Kama Sutra and that’s no big deal. But you actually plan to sleep at his house, no post-coital bliss and sleepiness to cover the reality, and his instincts kick back in. I’m not saying it was OK of him to behave that way. I’m just telling you – it’s not you. And I know that sounds cheap and horrible and believe me, I’m down for TPing his place if that’s what would make you feel better. But I think you guys have something good! And I don’t want his knee-jerk reaction make you think he’s only … a jerk, I guess.”

Belle was quiet for a long time, just staring intently at the lipstick stains on her wineglass and the fingerprints she and Emma had both left on the stem. Belle’s brows furrowed and she shook her head like she was trying to erase the memory of the last day and finally she looked back up at Emma. “He’s being an ass and I’m not happy about it. But you’re right. He’s probably just reacting badly because… well, because of the past. I’ll talk to him. You know, after he sweats it a while, right?”

“Right.”

Emma grabbed the wine bottle and they each had just a splash more, before finding a nice revenge movie on Netflix and going to sleep.

-

He’d only been away from Emma for a little over a day and he was going nuts already. They’d texted a little here and there and had gotten brief little phone calls in between all their obligations and unscheduled craziness (Belle and Will were certainly talk-blockers this time rather than the other thing). He wanted to hear her voice and hold her and just exist for a while.

You know, before he told her that he’d legally signed over half his business to her without her knowledge.

That hopeful part of him had risen up on his drive to the city. It had crawled from the back of his heart right up to the front of his brain and said you idiot I’m not some optimistic fool; I’m actually your fucking voice of reason, dumbass (his voice of reason was apparently very profane now that he’d been so vehemently ignored). And Killian knew it was right, too – Emma was going to be confused as hell at best – and very possibly infuriated at worst. Who gives someone half a business without fucking consulting them first? He was a damn, daft fool who was apparently so afraid of fucking something up that he was inadvertently fucking it up even faster.

Fuck.

Hopefully she’d have some free time when he got home. Hopefully they could cook a meal together and take a walk and make fun of Will & Belle and Dave & Mary Margaret. Hopefully they’d connect and relax and have time to just be themselves before he dropped the goddamn bomb that could put a giant fucking crater in the middle of their relationship.

He’d stopped to get gas about a half hour from home and shot her a text (can’t wait to see your beautiful face, love), but hadn’t gotten a response. She was probably on the phone with Belle or caught up with Netflix or charging her phone in the other room. It was impossible that she was already mad at him for something she didn’t know about yet.

Or could she have found out somehow? His lawyer assured him that they didn’t need her information or signature at that time in order to name her part owner. Could he have sent something to her that was meant for the lawyer? Did he accidentally call and confess in his sleep?

He was so caught up in his worst-case-scenario spiral that he almost missed the fire truck roaring up behind him, its sirens blasting and its lights flashing.

Damn, he was clearly in a pretty deep panic spiral if he almost missed that coming up behind him. He forced a few deep breaths and focused totally on the road – he was only about five miles away, so he’d have the relief of seeing happy, normal, not-yet-mad-at-him Emma in just a few minutes. He could deal for that long.

But less than one song length later, more flashing lights popped up in his rearview mirror. He pulled over by the local golf course as two more fire trucks and three police cars passed him. Jesus, was the whole town burning down or something?

He called out to his phone and triggered the voice dial to call Emma – she’d been with Belle who would obviously have a scanner. She’d know what was going on.

But it went to voicemail.

Emma had always been intrigued by these kinds of things – she’d worked alongside law enforcement, after all. Maybe Belle had gotten called to the scene and Emma had tagged along.

(Killian loved how passionate Emma could be about solving crime, righting wrongs. If they made enough in his/their business endeavor, she really could retire into a life of intelligence briefings and investigating or something.)

He finally saw the smoke when he passed the gas station at the edge of town. It was mostly gray on the outsides with some white puffs throughout, but there was a menacing plume of pure black right in the middle. It was still far off – there were blocks of houses and trees between himself and the smoke – but it was definitely within the town limits. People were gathered all over the place, just staring, pointing, doing what people do when something terrible is occurring (just like what he was doing, in all technicality).

Killian kept driving, curving around the mayor’s house and past the high rise for retirees, across the painted 5K race finish line and through the stretch of Chestnut Street that really needed some renovating.  The smoke was getting closer – he could smell it even though his windows were rolled up – and one more sharp left turn later… that’s when the flames were visible.

As was the building the flames were bursting from.

It was his building.

(Theirs.)

The whole roof of the three-story building had caved, most of the damage coming from the East side on the second floor. Charred bricks were falling as flames licked up the structure, smoke twirling through unseen tunnels caused by temperature changes and drops in pressure. The windows had blown out on all floors – including the second and third ones back from the front on the first floor, also known as his window and Emma’s.

A blockade was set up about a hundred feet around the building on all sides, so there was no way he’d be able to get to their parking lot to drop his vehicle. Instead of trying to beg his way past the emergency crews, he pulled into a church lot a block or so away and leapt out of the vehicle without so much as locking it behind him. He frantically tapped at his phone, trying to get to his recent calls to just fucking hit redial, but his fingers were shaking so bad he hit the wrong contact twice (sorry Will). He finally tapped the right line, but Emma’s phone just rang and rang, the cheery lilt of her voicemail message grating at him during this very non-cheerful moment.

The bed and breakfast near their apartment didn’t have any caution-taped Do Not Enter warnings, so he sprinted in that direction, ducking under bushes and through swing sets to get to their parking lot without drawing any attention.

Maybe Emma had gone out with Belle. Maybe she’d been far away and wasn’t inside burning with all of Killian’s worldly possessions.

(He couldn’t watch his heart burn. Not again.)

He hoped and he prayed to every God known to Earth, but lo and behold, when he turned the corner to his building’s designated lot, that silly yellow Bug was parked exactly where Emma always left it.

Fuck.

Killian had thought that today’s worst outcome would be living in a world where Emma was mad at him.

It hadn’t crossed his stupid fucking mind that he could wind up living in a world without her.

[thesnhuup]

Stepping Up Our Game: Climate Change Urgency Heats Up

SNHU MFA graduate Elizabeth Rush is a Pulitzer finalist for her book Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore. It’s a carefully observed survey of America’s vulnerable coasts and the looming (already here) impact of climate change and sea levels on our coastal eco-systems and, disproportionally, on our most vulnerable communities. It also reads as part memoir, elegy, and horror story. That last bit for the way it captures a growing dread (and anxiety and depression) that climate change is worse than we knew, here now, and we are losing the battle.

With unprecedented wild fires raging in the Amazon and the Arctic, record heat waves, major cities about to run out of water (Chennai and Cape Town among them), and climate science deniers in positions of political and regulatory power, it’s hard to feel optimistic.

It’s got me to thinking about my personal choices, my spheres of influence (leading a large organization, for example), and what SNHU can do for its part. Here’s the thing – in article after article, there is a theme that success does not require us all to go to extremes in our daily practices. If we all changed our daily practices just X%, we could have real impact. Three examples in the recent news:

If we drove 10% less than we do today, it would be the equivalent of taking 28 coal-fired power plants off line. Ten percent feels doable to me.

One trip from NYC to London produces 0.67 tons of CO2, an amount equivalent to about 10% of the annual CO2 production or impact of someone living in England (and more than a year’s impact for someone living in Ghana – the developed world is terrible for the environment). It raises the question: can I fly less often?

An alarming UN report on the impact of agriculture on the climate (and the shocking amount of food that we waste every year, thus wasting all the water, labor, land, and resources used to produce it) included this observation: “The WRI estimates that if people in the U.S. and other heavy meat-eating countries reduced their consumption of beef (and other meat from ruminants) to about 1.5 burgers per person, per week, it would ‘nearly eliminate the need for additional agricultural expansion (and associated deforestation), even in a world with 10 billion people.’ “

And we’d all be a helluva lot more healthy, by the way.

The heartening thought I had reading these articles is that I can work on all three of those items and more. I can figure out how to drive less (electric bike, here we come!), to take fewer plane trips, and to move to a more plant-based diet (my family physician will be pleased).

Climate change can feel so overwhelming that one simply stops reading, blocks it out, and trades depression or denial for actual action – a form of surrender. One can also go to the other extreme, translating urgency into only wearing rope sandals, vacationing only in places to which one can walk (anyone know of a great vacation rental in Goffstown?), and eating turnips in winter. The point of the aforementioned articles is that rather than get extreme, if we all could simply be more thoughtful and reasonable, we could actually stabilize things and give the planet some hope. And it’s getting easier. We are seeing more hybrids and now electrical vehicles (EV) on the market, the cost of solar is coming down and is more of a success story nationally than people often recognize, there is now a genuine market for “green” products and they are getting better.

We have an old house in Maine and by adding solar, we reduced our monthly electric bill to just $29 and that’s for the connection to the grid. My hybrid vehicle allows me to do up to 18 miles per day on a charge, which means that on most days I don’t have to use fuel. I love to cook and now I compost – it’s not that hard and the garden loves it. There’s nothing righteous in any of that effort – it’s hardly effort at all – and I need to do so much more. So I’m going to set some goals for myself:

I fly a lot – both for work and for pleasure – and I am going to try to reduce that by at least 25 percent. I’ve counted my domestic and international flights last year and a rough count (recognizing that a single trip often includes multiple flights and connections) suggests something like 60 flights (a number of them exceeding ten hours in length). I can do better.

I’m going for the plant-based diet thing. I do love a good burger and if the UN says I can have one now and then, I won’t feel guilty for partaking.

Our next car will be an EV and we’ll move to solar panels on our house in Manchester. This fall for the latter.

There are a lot of small things that are pretty easy – turns out that it’s easy to wash out a plastic sandwich bag and reuse it, to get a Dunks reusable cup for my iced coffee, to pass on using a plastic straw (I have my metal one when I remember), and to replace the lawn with more interesting and native landscaping (that bees would welcome).

I’ll keep working on my list and I know I won’t be nearly as good at this as some of my friends and family members. I’ll still insist on an occasional family vacation to someplace strange and far away and an In-and-Out burger when in California, but my goal is not absolutism, my goal is to cut back on my carbon footprint, to do my part. As SNHU’s president, I want our organization to also do its part.

Which is why I am going to challenge SNHU’s leadership team to develop an analysis of what it would take to make SNHU carbon neutral within five years. We’ve already made a lot of progress. We have for years had a large renewable energy purchasing plan. We are starting to switch our fleet to EV. We are taking down old, inefficient buildings. I want us to look at our facilities, but also to look at our travel and explore linking our national locations with higher-end video conferencing. We once explored a massive solar array for campus and the cost and technology at the time were not great – let’s revisit that idea. I’m sure there are small, everyday things for which we could do better and we should, but I think there are some really big wins available to us.

I’ve asked Mary Dukakis, our Vice President for Facilities and Operational Services, and Steve Johnson, our Dean of The School of Arts and Sciences, to co-chair a Task Force to outline the road map for what it would take to be fully carbon neutral by 2025. There is also a Sustainability Planning Group, being supported by the Sandbox team, that is working on developing a sustainability plan for the University, beyond carbon neutrality. In other words, we are upping the ante. I will make available to them whatever resources they need and I suspect they will have many volunteers to join in the work.

Most of our employees and a majority of our students have kids. Many have grandkids (all Pat and I have on that front so far is a malamute and while we love Sam, could someone talk to our kids…). We’d all sacrifice anything, do anything, for the safety and welfare of our kids and grandkids. If we don’t get climate change addressed — and quickly – our kids and grandkids will live not only in an unfriendly world, but one that might not sustain life. Chunks of the planet are rapidly getting there now, faster than earlier models predicted. It’s a terrifying vision. We can despair or we can do something. We will do something.

https://ift.tt/2UrDYIo from President's Corner https://ift.tt/34kjExf via IFTTT

[topicprinter]

Let me introduce you to a world where you can make millions of dollars sending emails alerts with hand picked cheap flight deals.I’m going to break down the business strategies and tactics that I’ve seen "flight hackers" employ methodically over time to grow, monetize, and optimize.I’m going to show you how these systems predictably lead to success with the right combination of experience, charisma, and grit.Then I’ll explain how I’m breaking into the market with my own spin on things and realizing my destiny as a 21st-century cheap flight list disruptor. Or something. Meet the players:• Scott’s Cheap Flights (SCF) is a freemium internet service that sends email alerts for cheap international flights.o Scott himself even documented the early days of starting the flight alert service, and has become massively popular with reddit users through a series of highly upvoted AMAs.o Since beginning in 2015, SCF email list has amassed 1.6 million members and they employ a team of over 30 individuals including content marketing managers and IT wizards. It's a legit operation.• Jack’s flight club is a freemium internet service that sends email alerts for cheap international flights specifically from England. He calls himself a flight hacker.o Jack himself even documented the early days of the flight service and has been massively popular with reddit users through a series of highly upvoted AMAs.o Jack now employs a bunch of people and has over a million subscribers.• Fly Almost Free is also a fremium internet service that sends email alerts for cheap international flights. o There seems to be some reddit beef between SCF and FAF due to alleged stealing of content which I have not been able to confirm or deny.o He also claims to be a “flight hacker” and has done massively popular reddit AMAs.There’s also: Dollar Flight Club, Thrifty Traveler, and the list goes on... The Similarities and the RealityWhat these flight alert services all have in common:Well traveled young dude sending links to cheap flight dealsHip and helpful marketing persona that’s accessible to Gen Z through the geriatric.Similar email drip campaigns over the first few weeksSimilar premium subscription offers and pricingBut first of all…Where do these flight deals come from?These flight hacking ninjas will readily admit that the sophisticated technology they use to find these incredible deals is mostly stuff like: • google flights • sky scanner • ITA • momondo, • hipmunk • skiplagged, etc.This suggests that finding good deals seems to be primarily an outcome of putting in the time to look as opposed to any reliance on proprietary technology (though I cannot confirm what tools any given individual may or may not use).My original perceptionI remember seeing one of the Reddit AMAs a few years ago and feeling quite impressed by this man who claimed to be a “Flight Hacker”. This idea of hacking your way to cheap flights—it felt mystical and mysterious and welcoming all at the same time. I now realize that “flight hacking” is less like computer hacking, and more like the hacking up a journalist with a bone saw. The parallel being that you can hack a flight itinerary into sub-component parts to optimize your value.So yeah, it’s different than I originally perceived it to be, but who cares.There’s absolutely still value being offered here.If there wasn’t, there wouldn’t be millions of people subscribing to these flight lists.So what is the real value?The need being met here isn’t about new technology. In fact it’s quite the opposite.It’s about adding the human touch back into a medium that’s become automated and increasingly irrelevant with stupid nonsensical deals.Like, ok: $300 to Paris is a good deal. But I don’t want to make the 39 hour layover in Uzbekistan. It’s not all about price.It’s having someone who’s looking out for you. Like a buddy.Anyone can look at Google flights every day… but honestly who wants to?Wouldn’t you rather just have some friendly well-traveled dude who’s actually been to some of these places suggest flights?The answer has been a resounding SURE WHY NOT. How these launch:From inception to scale, this seems to be the formula of how to jump start the business engine of a cheap flight alert service:Earned media like a magazine interview leads to scale of subscriber base (worth noting that Scott of SCF was a journalist in his previous life)Leverage that subscriber base into massively successful reddit AMA where you interact with your fans in the comments to show how much you are loved.Reddit AMA delivers mucho free traffic to your site because “everyone wants a piece of this flight hacker thing” once it has 17k upvotes.Once they land on your landing page this is the basic sequence: The FunnelPeople sign up for free versionThey get free email alerts for cheap flights. These alerts also display an advertisement for a paid premium version, usually offering more deals and extras.An email drip campaign is employed to build brand familiarity before presenting the paid subscription more directly a few weeks later.A portion of free subscribers convert to paid and money is made.The money is then used for subscriber acquisition, support, beer, etc. But how much money?Exploring the economicsI’ve had a lot of fun building some pretty advanced models in excel to look at different outcomes, but here’s a really simple example to give you a baseline:100,000 Free subscribers 2% conversion rate (SCF claimed 10% in one Reddit post so maybe conservative) = 2,000 paid members X ~$35/yr =$70,000 Revenue - $5700 for email hosting = $64,300 profit/yr (excluding web hosting, design, technical, etc)So theoretically, you could spend up to $64,300 to acquire 100,000 Free subscribers and break even within a year… assuming that you’re able to execute a similar strategy and assuming that free subscribers convert within a year.This works out to a free subscriber break even acquisition cost of about 64 cents.Interesting theory…Let’s try it out. Aiming my sights:I knew I wanted in on this. It was something that large amounts of people genuinely enjoy and get value out of.Now I probably could’ve rushed out and bought AmericasCheapestFlightsByPW.com and started up a copycat with moderate success. But why bother?There has to be some actual unique value I’m providing or I’ll eventually become the lamest offer and fade away into irrelevance.I needed to be differentiated somehow, whether through brand, focus, price, etc.To take on the big dogs who have the scale, you gotta think like an insurgent.So I started looking around for what I DIDN’T see... What I couldn’t find out there:What was missing? What might people enjoy? What pisses people off about the existing offers?Two things stuck out as pain points:1.Domestic flight deals. Everyone seems to be so focused on the international flights. And when they expand, they expand to other countries. I decided to look inward and offer international and domestic flight deals.2.City Specific Focus. I’d get an email alert with a very enticing subject line. I’d hurry to open it so I could jump on a good deal. I excitedly scrolled down the list of 10 airports only to find that my city wasn’t on there! It was like waving a steak in front of a dogs face just to yank it away. Needlessly cruel. Not ok. So I’m focusing on these 2 BIG THINGS:These two major differentiations will become my calling card:1. Cheap flight email alerts JUST for your city.Each city has it’s own individual email list so you ONLY see deals for YOUR departure airport.This also has the added bonus of getting to build a more segmented and intimate relationship with each city. You’ll get to know which deals they really love and look for and can send accordingly.2. International & Domestic dealsAmerica is beautiful, too, and we’re not all digital nomads. Sometimes it’s nice to go see your Aunt Sally’s in Dallas for a weekend. We send domestic deals, too. A quick note on why I'm qualified to run a cheap flight email listI’m a young well traveled dude who knows how to use all the travel search sites and even has some tricks up my sleve from the years of booking flights.I’ve been tracking my deals and I am providing cheap fares that are on par with the major players.I’m A PEOPLE PERSON I’m GOOD WITH PEOPLE!I grew local sandbox site to 6k subscribers and proved a premium conversion funnel that sustains the operation and people love it. I’m actually having fun too, so I want to do more now.So here's how I started testing it out... The Sandbox – PhillyFlightList.comI’ve spent the last 5 months growing a sandbox version of this idea in my own local city (Philly). I honestly never expected it to get as large as it has, but with nearly 6,000 subscribers it’s starting to gain traction. And it’s this positive reception that’s encouraged me to share this with other cities.There was an article written about Philly Flight List early in its existence, and another reporter from a larger publication has reached out to schedule an interview as of yesterday which is promising.I set up a paid premium version for $5 to help cover the email hosting fees which are getting higher as the list grows. The revenue from that is enough to cover the email fees and have some left over to continue investing in the site.The business engine works.And as an added bonus, t’s surprisingly fun looking for flights. When you find a good deal it feels like you finally hit the winning combo on a slot machine.I wonder if getting medically diagnosed as a cheap flight addict would help build street cred?But anyway, it’s going well. People like it, I like it, and it’s sustainable.And very importantly, it’s scalable.Which brings us to… Expansion Time: The Launch of LocalFlightList.comI’m now launching the nationally reaching Local Flight List, which consists of 11 different city-specific flight lists:• Atlanta• Boston• Chicago• Dallas• Los Angeles• Miami/Ft. Laud.• New York City• Philadelphia• Phoenix• San Francisco• SeattleAgain, the distinction in my service is twofold:  1. When you get an email alert you KNOW it's for your departure airport. You don't have to scroll through a long list of airports just to see if it even matters to you.  2. In addition to international flights, you also receive cheap domestic flights. This is something that really isn't being offered but has proven very successful in my initial list. The domestic deals are equally as popular as international. A question for the web experts:Though each city specific flight list is hosted on the same site—localflightlist.com/seattle, localflightlist.com/phoenix, etc… I also purchased some associated standalone domain names just for the hell of it.Would love any thoughts around the idea of hosting all on the same site, vs different totally stand alone sites. Interested in learning more about pros and cons from perspectives of SEO, CX, Branding, etc. if you have any tips. Final thoughts:Congrats if you’ve made it this far. This was a major brain dump and I hope it’s been an entertaining read. I could write another 30 hours about this and not run out of things to say. But I won't.Just a few other things I wanted to tack on before I let you go… Why I singled out Scotts Cheap Flights in the title:Honestly, I have absolutely NOTHING against them! I just figured they’d be the most well known example of a similar service that people would be familiar with. Also since our main offers are somewhat different, I think there's certainly room for both of us.The truth is that we’re still at the very beginning of the cheap flight alert industry development and there is true value being created here by all parties involved. Anyone who makes affordable travel more accessible is good in my book and I’m proud to be serving up flight alerts along side other experienced travelers.Which brings me to my next point…NEVER LOSE FOCUS ON THE CORE COMPETENCY:Yeah, I just spent a bunch of time talking about the strategy and the numbers and the whatever, but the truth is that regardless of your industry, no amount of support structure or strategy can save you if you deliver shitty results.So first and foremost: I WILL CONTINUE TO FIND AND SEND GREAT FLIGHT DEALS!I’m lucky enough to have traveled quite a bit, and I’m definitely excited to bring my personality and experiences to the whole process. It really doesn’t get better than finding a niche that’s both extremely helpful and profitable. So far so good, but I’ll let you guys know. And one last thing: Don’t go rushing off to buy http://yourcitiescheapflights.com 5 minutes after you finish reading this. Because you also need to think about:The websiteThe software and integrationsThe payment systemsThe designThe marketing and communicationsThe email campaignsThe customer support and answering questionsTHE CONSTANT FLIGHT SEARCHINGThe accountingThe legalThe charisma...Don’t kid yourself—it requires a tremendous amount of time and effort. But is it worth it? Who knows.

[1vacationatatime-blog]

In true Katie style, I procrastinated packing my actual suitcases was until the last possible second. Starting to sort through everything I’d unceremoniously stuffed into suitcases at 10pm when I needed to be ready to head to the airport at 7am was ambitious and completely reflective of my overall mental state in preparing to move to Abu Dhabi. Yes, I was excited, but yes, I was also an emotional wreck thinking about leaving the people and places I had loved and called home for the last 5 years. In those last 5 years I had been blessed with the most amazing roommates, and spent the majority of that time with the two GENUINE ANGELS who helped me pack late into the night, despite having their own lives to carry on with the next morning. Tolerating my neurosis in sorting all the clothes I wanted to bring into piles by type, to make the necessary executive decisions at the last second as they helped me literally pack my life into 3 checked, 1 carry on suitcases and 1 backpack is an expression of love I sincerely hope to repay them for some day. I could not have walked out of that apartment in any sort of composed manner if it weren’t for their help and for that I am eternally grateful.

wishing I could pack @sassypatchy into a suitcase and bring her with

The first leg of my journey was the flight from Boston, to New York JFK, as that’s the direct flight hub to Abu Dhabi on Etihad Airlines, with a casual 13 hour flight time. However leaving from a domestic terminal, and not the more familiar international terminal, was unnerving for me. Purely by my own preference, I’d taken at least twice as many international flights as domestic since I’d started a salaried job; and the natural departure point in my mind should have been the glittering tiled globe on the floor of Terminal E directly in front of the security line. The Universe saw fit for me to leave from Terminal C instead, which has by far the best banner compilation of Boston-sports championships I’ve ever seen. So after the slow, tearful goodbye from my family, instead of stepping onto and over a globe to start my move, I’m faced with a winding queue*, back and forth, and back and forth looking at representations of some of the best parts and memories of the city and time in my life that I was effectively leaving behind. Having a layover in New York on my way out gave me time to finish downloading all of the music, podcasts and Netflix series I didn’t want to live without, and continue building myself up that I really was ready and excited for the steps ahead.

I’m not the pickiest flier, but without a doubt the nicest flights I’ve ever been on have been with Qatar Airlines and now Etihad Airways. The way companies are using science to work with the lighting and food in the cabins to make long-haul flights easier on your body as you fly is really outstanding. They also don’t skimp on the in-flight amenities in terms of eye covers, earplugs, mini toothbrushes, blankets, and headphones. It might also help that on each of my experiences with these airlines I was given the gift of having no one in the same row as me, so I was able to stretch out and actually sleep on both flights. Plus their food is excellent and Etihad had paneer as their vegetarian option. So science, goodies, sleep and food, I’m really not hard to please. Having some genuine shut-eye on my flight helped me feel significantly more presentable when meeting all of my future administrators at the arrivals gate too.

yaaaaasss

Getting our UAE SIM cards at the airport with the school staff’s assistance helped our transition into our apartments immeasurably as I immediately had issues in my apartment within about 20 minutes of arriving, and needed to call the maintenance team and our transition coordinator. Apparently, when we turned the hot water heater on, a pipe was loose and started leaking, so my kitchen ceiling was drip, drip, dripping for a while before I even realized what the sound was. Within an hour, two teams had been to the apartment to check it out, had hopped up on ladders, looked around and actually fixed the issue and left. Given that a verrry similar pipe leak had been occurring in my Boston apartment, for the actual last five years, and my landlord had danced and danced around actually addressing the problem, until the ceiling had fallen through with mold, all signs point to my apartment-maintenance experiences in Abu Dhabi will be much better than in Boston. After the leaky ceiling debacle, to be productive on our first day in the UAE, one of my new coworkers and I hopped in a cab to the IKEA at the Yas Mall. God Bless the Swedes and the relentless need for all retail shops to look the same no matter what country you’re in. After some well earned 1 dirham ice cream, we managed to jam all of our goods into the back of a cab. However, once arriving home I realized I didn’t have scissors to open the impossible plastic around the drill I’d bought and would be stuck until I headed to the mall the next day with the school team. I’ve heard the UAE criticized by other travelers for having shopping and malls as tourist attractions, but they undoubtedly didn’t need the free home delivery from Carrefour as desperately as we did, and couldn’t enjoy a leisurely lunch without their massive bags full of home goods the same way.

obligatory IKEA selfie

The way my school transitioned their new teachers, gradually step by step, taking care of so many of the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for us made this move so much less stressful. Other teachers who were new to my school, but have had previous international school experience said that this transition was by far the smoothest they’ve ever experienced. A great example is how our first day of the new teacher orientation started with a casual networking-get to know you breakfast/presentation time with the opportunity for a cash salary advance before loading us all onto buses to the Yas Mall to get more of the essential items to make our apartments feel more like homes. The school’s unofficial motto is that “kindness starts at the curb” and as a new teacher stepping into a new role, system and grade level that really started at the arrivals gate of the airport for me. I couldn’t be more grateful to the people who made my transition easier through setting up the apartment, helping with my visa and flights, and the general understanding from the administration how difficult the transition is, and communicating how supportive they can be for us within their roles at the school. The whole first week was broken into small chunks on general need to know information about the school itself, but also about Abu Dhabi and the UAE overall. So while definitely presented with overwhelming amounts of information, I was surrounded by other people in the same boat as me and that’s made such a difference. A larger school, taking in 51 new teachers in a year is an endeavor to say the least, but each step of the way has been steeped in understanding and kindness, and the overall positivity is something I’m really looking forward to in the school year to come. Outside of school, anxious to actually do some touristy things besides shop, two girls and I bopped around Abu Dhabi during the week and actually ventured up to Duabi on our first full day off. Hitting up the Emirates Palace for a very bougie-cappuccino with 23-karat gold flakes was a definite must. The Palace overall is a wonder of opulence and the giant domed ceiling’s gold and teal colors are definitely something I’m going to try to incorporate into my apartment as I attempt to match the brown couches that were provided with my arrival. Having views of the sea on one side, and a skyline on the other, Emirates Palace seems to embody the harmony of old and new that the UAE has been developing in its 46 years since becoming an independent nation. Later in the week, on the first day of Eid-Al Adha, we got to visit the Corniche, and expanse of beach that runs along the north side of downtown Abu Dhabi. The first day of a holiday, the beach was packed, but the 102 degree heat meant that we were able to walk along, see the view across the water to the ferris wheel on the island opposite, and breathe the sea air before hustling back to the air-conditioned sanctuary of the car. On our first Friday-weekend, we decided to head up to Dubai to visit the Green Planet, a rain forest in a building on the outskirts of the city. Looking out the windows to sandy expanses, while surrounded with vegetation and animals from the Amazon and other tropical rain forest climates was surreal. The optional “encounter” with a sloth was an absolute must for us, and after almost getting pooped on by some birds, we were happy to hang with Liam their male sloth in a meet-and-greet space in the basement of the building. Sleeping for 18 hours of the day, and typically only waking up for 20 minutes at a time to eat, Liam definitely embodies the lifestyle I’ve dreamed of after some long days of working with middle-schoolers. In a seemingly newly developed area of Dubai that had stunning views of the Burj Khalifa, the drive between the cities was easy enough, I will absolutely returning for other weekend trips.

Above all, in the first week in Abu Dhabi what I mostly felt was an enduring sense of gratitude.

Above all, in the first week in Abu Dhabi what I mostly felt was an enduring sense of gratitude. Grateful to my friends and family at home for supporting me in so many different ways in my preparation and actual departure. Grateful to have no one sit next to me on the plane, (seriously, how often does that actually happen?!). Grateful to my new school for taking a chance on me, and being so incredibly kind and welcoming in the first few days. Grateful for my new work buddies who are fast becoming my closest friends here. Grateful for my American passport having an easy (and free) tourist visa entry into the UAE after I had been stressing about the process, and so many additional privileges as an expat here as well. Grateful to the soft-start I had in beginning to actually work. Grateful I didn’t have to apartment hunt, or move the main furniture in while jet-lagged. But truly grateful for this opportunity to use my profession in a way to follow my dreams; this is just the beginning. As “Your Joyologist” would say: I am stepping into my fears, and choosing gratitude as my attitude.

*sorry not sorry for all of the British English phrases that will inevitably make its way into my general expressions; it was bound to happen at some point, might as well start that process now.

PS. Whadddupp Euphoria stage! Can’t wait to return to these graphics when I’ve moved on

PPS. Only two more months until I have a string of days off in a row and can start planning #1vacationatatime 🙂

Abu Dhabi: the final rush in preparation & the flurry of firsts In true Katie style, I procrastinated packing my actual suitcases was until the last possible second. Starting to sort through everything I’d unceremoniously stuffed into suitcases at 10pm when I needed to be ready to head to the airport at 7am was ambitious and completely reflective of my overall mental state in preparing to move to Abu Dhabi.

[phukuaehk-blog]

Third Culture Kid (TCK)

I’m what one would call a ‘third culture kid’. 

My dad is English. My mum is Filipino. I was born in Hong Kong - lived there as well as Dubai half my life and now I’m living in the UK. 

My parents met in Hong Kong back in the later 80s - early 90s. My mum had moved from the Philippines, leaving behind her family, to become a domestic helper to a Chinese family. She grew up in poverty. It, of course, was not an easy environment to grow up in. My dad, on the other hand, grew up in the farming town of West Pennard. He travelled the world after he graduated from Cardiff University with a degree in Civil Engineering and finally settled in Hong Kong. They met in a club in Wan Chai and they’ve been together ever since. 

In 1992, they had my sister, Joanna. Later, in 1996, they had Jessica. And finally in 1998, me. I’m the youngest of three girls, so, like any youngest child, I was the most spoilt. 

I had a lovely childhood in Hong Kong. I went to an international primary school, had a diverse group of friends and was as happy as an eight-year-old could be. My parents would tell u I was a little devil. Admittedly, I was a rotten kid. I had pushed my Grandad off a ledge in the Philippines which left him limping on his left leg for the rest of his life. It shocks me how my mum could love me and spoil me as much as she does, knowing that I had crippled my grandad.

Anyways, when I was eight we moved to Dubai. I went to the ‘English College Primary School’. It wasn’t as difficult transitioning into a new school when I was that young. I made friends easily and unlike Hong Kong, where the majority of the kids there were Chinese, practically everyone was Caucasian. 

In 2009, we moved to Abu Dhabi - I was going into year 7. I had changed school half way through year 7, which meant I had to make new friends twice. Thinking back to it, it wasn’t too difficult for me to do. I was relatively good at making friends. So, from years 7 to 9, I went to ‘The British School Al Khubairat’. The majority of the people there were British, hence ‘British School’, however there was so Royalty there. By royalty, I meant literal royalty. The UAE is composed of seven Emirates, each with their own ruler and of course, these rulers have families. So basically there were a lot of rich expats and ridiculously rich locals at my school. It wasn’t the most harmonious place to go through puberty. There was definitely somewhat of a hierarchy in that school. Appearance seemed to be everything to them. From year 7, all the girls were wearing short bodycon skirts to school with handbags and everything. Everyone wanted to look older than they were. 

It wasn’t until 2012, before my GCSEs, when we moved back to Hong Kong, when I had realised how much I hated it. The constant scrutiny by my peers to look to the part was exhausting at such a young age. It was so ridiculously artificial that thinking back on it, my heart aches for my young self. I just want to go back and tell myself that I was wonderful - that I was smart and succumbing to peer pressure was stupid.

Moving back to Hong Kong was refreshing, but I had changed. I went back to my old school and seen people that I hadn’t even thought about for six or seven years. I had changed whilst I lived in the UAE. I had become far more superficial. I was spoilt and had a blatant disregard for money. My dad had become far more well off whilst we lived in the UAE. It was definitely more of a difficult transition coming back than it was leaving. It was hard leaving the big house, big car - big everything in Abu Dhabi and returning to the more downsized, humble living of Hong Kong. I say humble, but from my first-year experience of living at uni in the Leeds, it was definitely not as humble as I thought. 

In Hong Kong, no one was really bothered about their appearance. I don’t mean that in a sloppy sort of way, but there was an emphasis on education more than anything. It was most definitely the Asian influence. During my final four years of secondary school, I changed for the better. I assimilated to Hong Kong lifestyle quite nicely. I complete the International Baccalaureate (IB) and passed with flying colours - impressing not only myself but my parents too! In my final two years, I became more independent and was overall, very satisfied with who I had become. 

That almost completely deteriorated during my first year of Uni. Right now, it’s actually only the second semester of first-year, but the need to write a brief biography has grown every day - just simply for a piece of my own mind. 

At Uni, I share a five bedroom flat with all girls. As I partially grew up in the UAE, surrounded by British people, and with my dad being English, I knew a lot about the culture. My flatmates didn’t really think of me as an international student - whilst they did point out that I was Asian (banter), we got on really well and as I spent the majority of my summers growing up, in the UK, I reckon it didn’t feel to them, as if I was that different. But I was different. I don’t say that to sound pretentious. Everyone is different I know that, but I’ve recently realised that I am blatantly different. I have different values, different morals, different attitudes to things, a different lifestyle that I am use to. This is all because of the fact that I’m a Third Culture Kid. I’ve got so many different things creating my being. Growing up around the world, I’m just a mixture of things that I’ve picked up along my way. 

It may sound great, it may not but sometimes it’s that fact that I’m so jam-packed with everything that makes me feel empty or rather confused. I went house hunter the other day with my flatmates and I was labelled as ‘spoilt’ when I describe a house as fragile. Whilst I didn’t really think much of that at that moment, I did begin to feel rotten later on. I didn’t know who to blame. Was it my own fault? Was it my parents? Was it because of where I grew up? I don’t know. I genuinely don’t know.

I feel genuinely lost sometimes. I think, being part of so many different cultures and experiencing so many, I’ve lost my own identity. 

They say where you come from affects who you are. Then who am I? Someone please tell me because I have no fucking clue.