Our attempt to book a bed and breakfast
Last weekend, we were looking into booking a hotel in Vermont. Two of our friends get married there over Memorial Day Weekend. We had asked other friends where they were going to stay and they had given us the name of a bed and breakfast place. After looking at several options, we decided to call that bed and breakfast. We have learned that it is often easier to call places directly to book, esp. to ask if they have a crib, etc.
The woman on the phone – Karen (I am not making this up) – seemed nice enough. She asked when we were planning to come and what size of room we needed. When we told her that we were bringing our daughter, her attitude immediately changed:
“How old is your kid?”
“She is one year old.”
“I am all booked out for Memorial Day Weekend.”
Unleashed dogs on playground
There are many playgrounds where we live. The one most appropriate for babies and toddlers is on a public plaza on 34th and 1st. The public plaza has a great amount of chairs, benches and little tables. The playground itself is surrounded by a little fence and there are, at this point, two big signs stating that dogs are forbidden on the playground. As a matter of fact, no dogs are allowed to be unleashed on any playground in the City. Unfortunately, it already isn’t the cleanest playground with some amount of trash being there regularly. Josephine also discovered dog poop on it before.
When we walked there last week, a woman was sitting on the playground while her two dogs were roaming about unleashed. One of them little and fluffy, the other a grown bulldog. I asked her to leave the playground and pointed out the two signs about dogs being forbidden there. She looked at me highly offended and gathered her things – extra slowly, I need to add. She called her dogs and put them on a leash.
I couldn’t refrain from asking her: “Do you know what little kids do with everything they find on the ground? They put it in their mouth.”
While very slowly leaving the playground, she called out to me: “Just get away from me.” – while we were still on the other side of the fence. She then looked a few more times at us as if we were at fault for everything before finally leaving the plaza.
Later on, I talked to a nanny, who arrived shortly after us, about this encounter. She had experienced a very similar thing only a few days prior. From our chat it seemed that we were talking about the same woman and the same two dogs.
On our flight to Myrtle Beach
For our trip to Myrtle Beach last month, we had specifically chosen flights that coincided with Josephine’s nap times.
Unfortunately, our flight on a late Friday morning there was delayed, and Josephine was already overly tired when we boarded. While we were waiting to depart, she cried a bit and wriggled around. The elderly couple in the row right in front of us were still talking on the phone and loudly complaining about the baby behind them. That there flight would be terrible. They went on and on for at least 10 minutes.
Josephine actually fell asleep just when we departed and slept for almost the whole flight, which took about 1.5 hours.
In one word: awful. That would never happen in Italy. You should make the name of the B&B public. I would never book there.