Holy Crap
Posted on May 23, 2005 Posted by John Scalzi 16 Comments
Having just spent an obnoxiously large sum of money today to travel places around this goofy globe, I would now like to say that after this August, I am never again traveling anywhere ever again. All y’all are too damned expensive to visit. Thank God it’s all tax-deductible.
In other news, I am definitely going to be at Interaction in Glasgow this year. They’ve already contacted me about being on programming, so hopefully that will pan out. I’ll be arriving early Thursday, and leaving early Monday, which means I will miss the last day of programming. However, having been to two Worldcons so far, I’ve noted that each of their Mondays have been primarily about people walking around groggily from the night before and squinting when the light hits them. I hope you don’t mind when I say that’s not worth an extra day of being away from my family or spending another 100 pounds on a hotel room. Speaking of which: Stupid weak dollar. Yes, yes. I know. All the rest of world is enjoying seeing us dealing with a crappy exchange rate, just like they have all these years. Well, quiet, you! See if we come running to help you out in the next world war. Yeah, we’ll just sit here on our ADM-enlarged asses, with our weak beer, just laughing and pointing. See if we don’t.
One bright note in this dark festival of profligate spending is that I was able to change my hotel reservation at Interaction to the primary party hotel (The Hilton Glasgow) and away from the previous booking, which was somewhere dank and scary, I’m sure. This will make it marginally easier to get back to my room after a long hard night of geekery (and also, drinking. Well, watching other people drink, anyway).
Mind you, I am excited to be going to the places I’ll be going. I’m just having a sticker shock moment is all. I’ll be better soon.
Should I take this as a sign that those rumors floating around about airfares being on the decline are filthy lies?
Unspeakably filthy. It’s possible fares will go down between now and August, but the travel agents I spoke to didn’t seem particularly convinced. And the price of a the Dayton/Glasgow ticket was up since last I checked about three weeks ago.
The dollar is weak, and the pound is strong… we cry when we look at the exchange rate.
Makes prices in Ohio look better all the time, doesn’t it?
As a veteran of the Aussie dollar collapsing to less than 50 cents US while I was living in NYC and being paid in Aussie dollars–I say shut your whinging gob. No one cares, Scalzi, no one!
Oh yeah, forgot to say: see you there, Scalzi!
Unfortunately, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Hubbert’s peak
When Justine Larbalestier says “no one cares” she meant any one of a multitude of things, none of which are “no one cares” because, I can assure you I care.
I cared quite a bit more last month when I was in Japan. But I still care! I would like to be able to buy a loaf of bread for less than $2 again, thankyou very much!
I’d also like to point out that I’m amazed that “the opposition” here in the U.S.A. isn’t moaning endlessly about the exchange rate. If there’s one thing they could totally pin on Bush, it would be the exchange rate. But, of course, the opposition here in the U.S.A. seems to be staffed primarily by morons.
Scott,
The exchange rate is too far from the average Joe’s daily existance. Most people aren’t traveling to Glasgow or returning from Japan.
The caring starts when the price of gas goes up and the prices at WalMart go up.
And my last post was much kewler before the html tags were stripped from it.
I got my trip to New York in March CHEAP. My flight to Baltimore in July $100 more.
I may drive to Wilmington, NC in October.
I hear Glasgow has a great live music scene. Might be worth checking out while you’re there.
Expensive to visit?! Try living here, Mr. Ohio Housing Prices.
I’m a grad student in Boston, and rent represents nearly half of my post-tax income! Thrilling!!
Oh, and I say thank goodness for AirTran… their $170 ticket from Logan to Dayton Int’l is the only thing that’s gonna let me visit home more than once a year. Here’s to hoping I’m not on the plane whose wings happen to fall off…
Yeah, I understand — we spent almost two grand just on the plane flights, and we still have to shell out for hotels. Eee. Still, since I’m married to the Bodacious Brit, it’s also a visit home so that’s all good.
Tripp says (among other things):
The caring starts when the price of gas goes up and the prices at WalMart go up.
—-
I can’t speak for WalMart, but I’m buying gas for ~$2.50 (OKay, I live in California, so it’s partially my fault) which is a fair sight more than I used to.
And my point about the bread was actually speaking to the local-prices driven up by foreign exchange rates. There’s a healthy (okay, maybe ‘broad’ is a better word?) international market in food, especially the oh-so-transportable grains. The weakening dollar makes buying grain, even from local producers, more expensive, because they could sell it overseas to exchange-rate-enriched buyers, for exchange-rate-inflated amounts of money.
(Not to belabor the point, but just for clarity: exchange-rate-enriched because they other people in question aren’t particularly earning more of their own money, and
exchange-rate-inflated because they could very well be paying the same amount of their own money for the same product, but it hits the American farmer as more money, through the magic of exchange)
Try and make a bit of free time so I can drag you out to a pub or two, y’hear?
NB: If thinking of hiring a car, think again: the price of petrol at the pumps is, when translated into US dollars/US gallons, roughly $7.50-$8.00 per gallon.
The best form of inter-city travel for distances 200 miles is budget airline. (See also: http://www.easyjet.com.)