Here we are at Bonaire’s Flamingo International Airport, awaiting our KLM flight to Amsterdam, and then on to Barcelona.

I’m sure I’ve already lost some of you with the geeky title of this Blog post, but I wanted to let you all know that due to software reasons beyond my control, there is presently no good way to have those of you who get automatic e-mail notifications of new posts here in The Traveling Richters blog to be notified of new posts that I make from my cell phone or e-mail.

I mention this because I sincerely hope to make at least one small post a day during our upcoming trip using my cell phone or e-mail software, and unless you are actively checking the blog web site, you will not see those posts, since you will not be notified by e-mail that they have happened.

Hope that’s clear! We’re almost all packed (the three shorter Richters are all set, but I’ve yet to start due to some work commitments I have finally taken care of just a few minutes ago).

The next post will be on Friday, I think.

I am still trying to get all aspects of the post-by-email to work, so here’s another message delivered that way after I did some tweaking, hopefully enabling e-mail notification of this post.

At right is a photo I took of when Bas and I went on the Journey to Atlantis flume ride at Sea World in San Diego at the beginning of March when the family came out to visit me while I was working on a case.

The main purpose of this post is to see if I can post images in this blog via e-mail using Yahoo! Flickr.

The picture here is from a drive-by photo shoot on my way to Reagan National Airport on Monday, March 31st. The fabled cherry blossoms on the 1000+ cherry trees in and around Washington DC had hit full bloom a few evenings prior, and this was my first chance to see them in person.

The sky is drab, but the blossoms were beautiful. They came in three different shades: white, light pink, and pinky-red (seen here).

We’re now in the final throes of getting ready for the next expedition of The Traveling Richters. We depart Bonaire on Friday, April 18th on a five week journey which will take us to Spain and then Morocco.

We start in Spain in Barcelona for several days (which including meeting up with our friend Martin and his father), then fly to Granada to see the Alhambra. We then rent a car, drive south to the mountains of Andalusia to stay at villas managed by Peter, an old friend from Bonaire. We’ll use his place as a base to visit Gibraltar for a day, and then when we leave, go via Ronda to then spend several days in Sevilla before flying south.

In Morocco we join up with a group as part of a Lindblad Expeditions tour which includes academic lectures on culture, history, and sociology, as well as hands on work with a National Geographic photographer.

After a few days in Marrakech and the Atlas mountains visiting with Berber tribes, we board the National Geographic Endeavour in Safi, visit Kenitra and some historical sites there, and then head up to spend three days learning about Portugal (including the making of port wine) and then visit the largest and most revered cathedral and third most visited Christian pilgrimage site at Santiago de Compostella.

Then, after a couple of days at sea, we will go to Mont St. Michel off the northern coast of France, then Sark in the Channel Islands the next day, before finally arriving in England. After a private tour with the curator of the HMS Victory, we spend three days in London. On the night of May 13th, we take part in a BonaireTalk mini-meet in Surrey - if you’re in the London area that night and want to join us, drop a note on BonaireTalk.

On May 15th, courtesy of the TGV high speed train and the Chunnel, we head to Paris to finish off our trip with non-stop tours of museums, galleries, and restaurants. Our friends Martin and Angela will join us over the weekend we’re there as well.

And, assuming flights all work out, we’ll be back home sometime on May 23rd!

The itinerary, by date, is here.

Okay, so I’ve not been exactly my wordy self on any of my blogs. As usual, life, and more specifically work, got in the way. I spent the last two months in San Diego as a testifying technical expert in a patent trial - my first such trial. Fascinating experience, but not one I expect to repeat anytime soon.

But that’s a different subject. The purpose of this post is to express my pleasant surprise at an e-mail I just received from American Airlines a few minutes ago:

April 8, 2008
Dear Mr. Richter:

We know that you expect on-time departures and arrivals and there is no question that light delays are disruptive and frustrating. We are sorry for the interruption of
your travel plans on March 31.

Although we cannot guarantee our schedules because of the many variables associated with airline operations, we would like to offer a goodwill gesture as an apology and to encourage you to fly with us again. I have added 4,000 miles to your AAdvantage® account. You will shortly see the miles posted to your account at
www.AA.com/AAdvantage.

Please also remember that our first responsibility to you is your safety. We will delay, cancel, reroute, or divert a flight in order to keep this commitment, even if it brings inconvenience. We appreciate your understanding of this promise.

Thank you for traveling on American. We look forward to serving you again soon.

Sincerely,

B. J. Russell
Customer Relations
American Airlines

This was completely unexpected, which is what makes it such a pleasant surprise. Usually one only gets a “reward” of points like this after filing a complaint, but this was a spontaneous offer. It’s unusual in my experience for any travel-related business to be proactive in this way. Kudos American Airlines! Especially as I am only a mere Platinum flyer - I lost my Executive Platinum status because I did not fly enough on American last year.

The back story:

On March 31st, I was attempting to fly home from an overnight in Washington, D.C., to find my flight from DC to Miami an hour late (which was still actually okay, but quite tight). But when I arrived in Miami, I found my connection to San Juan to be an additional two and a half hours late, meaning I would miss my connection to Bonaire (it ultimately turned out the flight was over four hours late, but I had made plans to overnight in Miami and fly to Curacao the next morning). The folks at the American Airlines Admiral’s Club gave me a hotel certificate for the MIA Airport Hotel (the one right at Terminal E) and a couple of negligible food vouchers ($10 for dinner, and $5 for breakfast). Much to my surprise, the hotel was a real pit - closet-like rooms, in serious need of repair, but that wasn’t American’s fault - they were trying to do me a favor and have me stay nearby. I ended up paying for a night at the nearby Sofitel Miami (much nicer but at a price) and getting some work done too as well as a very good night’s rest (something which would not have happened at the MIA Airport Hotel).