I was in the office kitchen a little while ago – just waiting for my soup in the microwave to go ping, when this poster caught my eye.

It wasn’t so much the minimum wage of $7.25 that struck me – although I am quite sure I earned more than that when I worked in restaurants over twenty years ago (wow now I feel ancient). The piece that shocked me was that employers of people who get tips, eg waiters,can pay them as little as $2.13!

It’s pretty typical in the US to tip between 15-20% in restaurants. Which is a lot if you are British and used to tipping up to 10% if the service has been amazing.

I think that’s the issue -and why Brits are notoriously bad tippers. I’m used to rewarding people who’ve done a bit more than just plonk approximately what I’ve ordered down in front of me. I’d expect serving staff to at least be nice, possibly even friendly…in the good old US of A, the tips are pretty much ALL THEY GET PAID.

Which makes me wonder why some of the servers are so grumpy…how much does a smile cost? I remember one time, I was planning to pay the meal by credit card but leave a tip in cash. The waiter shouted at me for not leaving a tip…so I didn’t.

One of the things that stopped me from blogging for a while was my TRULY awful experience getting back from London before Christmas. The plan had been to spend a few days, catch up with family etc then head back.

My return flight was booked for the SUnday before Christmas out of Heathrow. The previous Friday night there was a bit of snow. I do mean a bit of snow – maybe 1.5 inches. On the Saturday some airports were closed for a while, including Heathrow, and the weather reports went into full speed doom-mongering advising all to batten down the hatches and above all STAY INDOORS. Of course I totally ignored all of it. I had my trusty hire car, so I made the most of completely clear but somewhat snowy roads (apparently everyone else listened). I visited a few people in Surrey, then drove up to Surbiton station and took the train into London. I was completely confident that LHR travel would be fully back to normal the next day, not least of all because it was actually reasonably warm and the snow was melting.

Imagine my surprise therefore, on waking on the Sunday, that my 4pm flight had been cancelled. It turns out that those mental giants at Heathrow had pretty much just closed the airport and gone home on Friday. So all the planes parked safely at their gates promptly froze into position. Genius huh? And while the runways were clear on Saturday, none of the taxi routes were, leading to planes getting stuck (have you ever seen an aeroplane with chunky tyres? Exactly). And those that did manage to navigate the taxi ways found that the gates were all blocked by frozen planes. Complete shambles.

Anyway to cut a long story short – I ended up managing to book a seat on the Eurostar to Paris where I caught a United flight home. This was rerouted after much stroppiness on my part with United agents who would otherwise not have been able to offer me anything until after Christmas.

To somewhat complicate matters, the Eurostar service was also having a meltdown. They had stopped service for a few days, then were running a reduced service because of the snow on the lines. *sigh*. They didn’t know what to do with the backlog of people who had Eurostar tickets combined with all those who couldn’t travel by plane. The queue on the Monday was miles long.

Some helpful chap had told me that they were putting people with tickets on trains on a first come, first served basis. Good plan but a lot of people had tickets and I was unhelpfully miles from the bloody station with a car to return (Avis at the station doen’t open until 10am). So here’s what I did:-

Monday pm – took rental car back to LHR, took taxi back to mother’s house $
Tuesday am – 5.15 am taxi from Hampton Court to St Pancras station $$
arrival at station at 6am to find queue out the station and 3 blocks long.
3 hours later I had reached the ticket office- and had been allocated a seat!
2.45 hours later I was on a train!
Change at Gare du Nord towards Charles de Gaul $
Hotel shuttle to nameless awful hotel airport $$
Weds am head to airport – it’s a zoo!

Customs/ security took AGES but I got an upgrade! United presumably pleased to have to arrange one less flight out of London.

The flight was absolutely fine (nice warm nuts) and I eventually got home at close to midnight that night.

What did I do the next day? I got up at 5am and headed off to the airport again of course…

Here’s a vid of the crazy queue at St Pancras:

I’m sorry, it’s been ages. I’ve been wrapped up in all sorts of crazy life stuff and I have totally neglected to update here.
I’ll make a start on the updates but in the meantime, I’ll leave you with a couple of random pictures that amused me.

This is the view from my agency’s office building – I thought it was hilarious. And so New York too:-

It’s strange. Of all the posts I’ve added recently, pretty much the only topic that has really provoked people to comment (offline) is my comment about taxi drivers.  So everyone has been asking “what’s with you and taxi drivers?” or possibly more accurately; “what’s with taxi drivers and you?”.

The truth is, the best cabbies in the world are in London. They really know their stuff, they know the roads, the routes, the hotels. It pretty much spoils you for them the rest of the word over.

In Italy, it was always a case of “OK so I might be foreign but I can still count. Now please give me the rest of my change….” Usually followed by a sheepish look or shoulder shrug from the driver.

In Amsterdam I’ve been driven around for an hour then randomly dropped off at a cab rank when the driver couldn’t find where we were going.

In Egypt I’ve been driven around at night in a taxi with its headlights off – apparently to save electricity. (sadly true)

In China, it’s the fact that they are blatently trying to rip you off. All those stories about it being a longer route on the way back, the heavy traffic means you need to come off the meter or the dodginess when they surrepticiously remove their signs and pop the meter on a higher rate.

But it isn’t just me. Here’s the evidence. When you take a cab back to the hotel in Beijing, the meeters/ greeters/ porters hand you a card like the below. Clearly there’s a problem.

Another highlight of the trip was my whistlestop tour of Beijing by night in a motorcycle sidecar.  I’d been in Beijing for a week – but given my work commitments I hadn’t really seen that much other than a couple of cheeky lunctime excursions to the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. So the sidecar seemed like a good way to pack as much into a couple of hours as possible,

Once in it, it took me a while to get over the distinct feeling that I was in a Wallace and Gromit film (I mean who else has a sidecar – apart from perhaps one of the two fat ladies?) and just about to perform a sheep-based acrobatic display.

Actually it was great fun and we covered a lot of ground. I think the biggest impression this left on me is how much Beijing is changing. Thanks to the Olympics, a great deal is brand new – a really great underground system (with English stop signs – hurrah) and some really amazing architecture. Some well known examples are the Olympic stadium birdsnest and the Opera House Egg – both visually stunning, but there are many other buildings that are really very impressive.

At night the city is stunning –I saw Tiannamen Square, the bright lights of the bars and restaurants along the canal, the streets with thousands of lanterns. My favourite bits were the Hutongs – the mazes of narrow alleys that used to be everywhere in Beijing and are now slowly disappearing. Some were the gentrified Hutongs, with chi-chi restaurants and nice shops, others were more authentic. The bike could easily navigate areas where a car could not – it felt like I was watching a slice of local life – watching the man doing unmentionable things to a chicken carcass in the street, the piles of cabbage stacked everywhere, the street sellers selling everything and anything and the general bustle of people.

Zooming along so close to everything was great, but one of the highlights was actually having a go. It was a bit surreal – riding a bike and sidecar around the middle road of the Forbidden City. It’s a really weird thing to ride as it doesn’t feel like a motorbike at all but certainly an experience I won’t forget in a hurry.

I think the biggest surprise for me was the fact that I really liked the city. Aside from the smog, it’s a vibrant place with charming people. I actually think I could live there.

I’ve been doing some more flying. It’s AMAZING. My favourite bit is the take off – it’s like magic. There you are bowling along the runway, then all of a sudden you are up in the air. Every time it feels like one in the eye for my old nemesis – gravity. The only thing I can compare it to is that wonderful moment when a back and white photograph starts to appear in the developing tray. Love it!

Based on my few hours in tiny aeroplanes, I want to share some surprises.

1) taxiing is all done with the feet. Go left, push left. Not hard in principle but so far I’ve been weaving around the airport like a drunken sailor.

2) it turns out that those dials aren’t for show – there are a LOT of things to look at . There’s a little too much for my tiny mind to take in all at once. I’ve found that I can maintain altitude, maintain speed and maintain bearing but rarely more than two at a time.

3) as a result of 2) flying so far is about the only thing that will shut me up for any length of time.

4) I have absolutely no idea where I am in the air. When I’m instructed to head back to the airport – I have to be told where it is. I’m not sure how pilots learn to recognise airports. I’ve got a way to go here I think.