Poor service websites

Have had a quick poke around the internet, and found this site that rates airlines by official complaints, guess who cam in second worst, yep United Airlines, also found a consumer site that enables folks to write their own stories. Wish I had found these earlier. Also found a complete site devoted to United Airlines complaints, it seems that the figures on the infoplease.com site are wildly underestimated, judging by the number of angry responses on this site

Airlines and service?

We flew with 3 separate Airlines on our recent journey, Singapore, Lufthansa, and United Airlines (from the US). In hindsight I will *NEVER* fly with United again if I can avoid it! The other two airlines provided stunning service. From the levels of service we received with United it's easy to tell that they are feeling the pinch from the market, in that, they for example would give free drinks on their International flights, but only if you asked for one, Lufthansa and Singapore on the other hand constantly roamed the aisles with soft drinks all night, the flight attendants too, didn't seem all that concerned with people's well being, again Lufthansa service levels excelled here. United's ticket mechanisms is atrocious as well. We had to ask 3 times to be seated next to each other, once we were even told *we* were at fault by not asking for seat allocations when we paid. Still it will be many years before I can write a list of pros and cons on 3 international airlines.

A few facts on our trip

Here's some facts and tidbits about our recent trip. We travelled through 9 airports and they are:-

• Singapore
• Frankfurt (3 times)
• Heathrow (twice)
• JFK in New York
• Chicago
• San Francisco
• Los Angeles
• Melbourne (Tullamarine twice)

Of course we took lots of photos

• Our Photography in digital form comes to over a Gigabyte.
• Analogue film shot 14 rolls or 120

Our daily budget:-

• One hundred Euros in Europe, often ample
• One hundred Pounds a day in the U.K. again ample only because we stayed with friends and relatives
• One hundred Dollars a day, in the US, just adequate, remember to add tax and and tips!

Photography shows visited

• Robert Capa retrospective, Prague
• Cartier Bresson, retrospective, Berlin
• Bill Brandt retrospective, at the Victoria and Albert in London
• A contemporary show at Photographers Gallery London
• A sample of the collection of the archives from the V and A
• A Graduate Show in London
• Contemporary Chinese Photography show at the I.C.P in New York
• A Gary Winnogrand show at Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco
• As well as Ralp Eugene Meatyard Nicholas Nixon,and Richard Misrach, from storage at Fraenkel Gallery
• A contemporary curated show at the SF Camera exhibition space
• And collection of my favourite photographers, from the archives at the CCP in Arizona
• Frederick Sommer
• Lee Freidlander
• Joe deal
• Edward Weston
• Gary Winnogrand

Finally....

Well we finally made it. After a long 13 plus hour flight. Things here at home still seem a little strange, but it was fun buying some basic stuff from a shop yesterday and not having to anything to worry about, like, language or prices or tax or tipping. Our final couple of days were spent in Tucson Arizona. It was hot, and the landscape was stunning, and the real reason we went there, the CCP was everything I had hoped. I saw some stunning prints by Frederick Sommers, and several other of my favourite photographers.

Buddy can you spare some change?

I'm in San Fran now, there are heaps of beggars on every corner and it's saddening to not be able help in some way, it's ironic too, USA is one of the most affluent countries in world and still they can't effectively deal with issues like homelessness?   On a brighter note the trip has been awesome never a dull moment with one high following the next, have gone on a book buying frenzy that i'll be paying for, for many years, still it's worth it.   Ok gotta go it's all running on time here!

Famous faces

At last I find myself in a position to use the Internet non-stop uninterrupted for a flat fee for the first time in the whole trip so far. I am doing this from television monitor in the hotel room we are staying in in New York. The Waldorf Astoria no less! In whose elevator tonight I saw Sean Penn. Who by the way was doing a lousy job of remaining low key. Other famous faces I have seen on this trip include French actor from Amelie, who had an affair with the woman behind the bar,we were in Montmartre at the time, and as always he had that fleeting look in his eyes that suggested he wanted to be left alone, so I left him alone.