Telephone company induced culture shock

I had a guy who is living outside his own culture say he never had culture shock. I think he doesn't know the definition and has an ego that makes him think he's better if he doesn't have it. Maybe he is.

Having lived quite a number of years outside the USA, I would say culture shock can sneak up on you from very unexpected directions and maybe doesn't look like you'd think, even after years. After seven years in Spain, I define my culture shock moments by an unexpected and disproportional rage or reaction of some kind. It's not that the provoking event doesn't merit some reaction, it's just that proportionally culture shock jumps you several levels ahead of what it would be in your home culture.

Take Burger King for instance. The new one nearby has -- in English  -- on the seats "Have it your way" and yet a friend of mine who is particular about how she likes her food was told "no se puede." It cannot be. Yes, it's annoying and yes it's absurd but sometimes something simple can blow you out of the water. This same Burger King which has a permanent sign on it's pillar proclaiming "24 horas" told me two weeks ago at 11 am -- 24 hours yes, but not today, only on weekends.

The last two weeks I have been at conferences. The first week was here in Spain and people came from all over Europe. Now, I made the mistake of thinking these people are Europeans so they will not have a strong reaction to Spain.

What I discovered is that I am accustomed to the eccentricities of Spain and I have accepted many of them. I don't always like it but I'm used to it.  Now my northern European colleagues were suddenly asking why things were and I had no answer. I realized eventually that they were uncomfortable with the hotel changing the hours or the exact order of things or the details we had all agreed upon.

Now perhaps I have given up fighting these things since it takes so much energy or perhaps I have just accepted them as inevitable. I realized my colleagues were having a mild discomfort and confusion which is culture shock.

I know my significant other and I have each separately or occasionally together had moments of raging against something simple or terribly complicated, but invariably something we could not control.

Last Monday in fact after conference no. 1 we arrived home to discover our internet and cable tv service had quit.  We reset the system a couple times. Nothing.

In the USA the next step is make a phone call. We put that off until morning because we didn't have the energy. The next morning the automated system couldn't understand my man's Spanish. So I asked the admin assistant at work to call. She perhaps didn't realize I expected her to find the entire answer for me. She got me into a queue for English support and handed the phone back to me.

After being on hold for more than 30 minutes and passed between offices because they had me on hold for the wrong office, I found myself talking to someone in heavily accented English on perhaps the worst speaker phone I have ever heard. It was near impossible to understand anything. I fought thru the preliminaries of my phone number etc. I kept say I can't understand you. This degredated into him shouting at me and hanging up on me. I thought I was suppose to hang up on the cable company - at least I could picture that happening in the USA, but here they hung up on ME in frustration.

My Spanish speaking colleague said I should call and renounce the guy which is the word they use here for filing a complaint. It's a very expressive word that I like a lot and would like to try sometime, but I'd been passed around so much I had no idea who or what department I was talking to.

So I called back and then the automated system hung up on me. Then I called back and they tried to sell me something before they asked me my problem. Then I finally talked to someone in Spanish. I discovered embarrassingly that the payment didn't go thru as my account got too low. Okay, I can fix that. I only needed you to tell me.

I inquired two or three times in case my Spanish isn't working well on how to go about solving this. Do I need a number when I got to the bank and pay it? No. So then I repeat their expectations and what I should do a couple times. 

My man goes to the bank and there proceeds to get yelled at for not having the right information to pay this bill despite my close questioning of the phone company/cable company person.

Something that is simple or perhaps frustrating in the USA, turns into epic proportions in another culture. In the end, we figured out how to pay in another way online and service was restored but not before we'd had a war with our own emotions and the system. Often we just don't fight things because we just don't have the energy for it, but sometimes even in the same day, we have magical moments and love where we're living!

The harsh welcome in Russia

Russia requires a visa for American tourists. In order to get off of the ship in Russia, we had to be associated with a tour company or else apply for our own visa. We did look into the process of getting a visa, but visiting the Russian embassy in Madrid didn't work into our schedule at the time, so we had to find a tour to take.

We were too late to get in the ship tours, so we found another company that had decent reviews and signed up for the two day St. Petersburg comfort tour. Comfort meaning you walked less or something. 

After waiting in line for a while to get off the boat thru security, we joined another line. The passport control in Russia was ungainly and stressful and is often the case we seemed to have chosen a line that it was the person's first day on the job.  Each person had to show a visa or a tour company invitation/guarantee. It became more and more tension filled for us as we realized the meeting time for our tour had come and gone. The information they sent us said that someone would be waiting for us no matter what, but we felt bad.

We finally got thru about a half hour late. We are not habitually late people so we were stressed by this. We came out and similar to an airport lounge there were many people with signs but with the names of tour companies. We scoured the signs. None with our company. Uh. Oh. We asked one of the other guides, "Do you know if anyone from Alla is here?" She looked around and said no she didn't see anyone. We saw buses outside so we went to investigate. No signs so we asked a couple bus drivers if they knew of our company or if it was there. No dice.

We tried to go back inside and check the signs again, but a police officer guarding the door forbade it. He said we needed to wait outside and our tour company would find us. After 10 minutes or so, it was evident that this was futile.

We saw the hop on and hop off buses waiting in the parking lot and we were considering if we should do that. We knew we were supposed to be with the company that showed on the visa, but what do you do when you are abandoned? Stuck in St. Petersburg.

We went around to another entrance back into the port terminal. The policeman at this entrance was distracted by people talking to him so I slipped in. I looked at the area where people were holding signs. Still no one for our company. I gave up and turned toward the shops at the other end hoping I would find an ATM so we could get some money.

As I'm walking, someone on a bench starts yelling at me, "No, no, no." I was startled and I stared. It was a woman sitting on a bench not holding up the sign lying in the seat next to her. She picks it up and it says "Alla Tours." Before words come out of my mouth she starts angrily saying this is unacceptable  over and over again, so I cannot speak. "There is no excuse. No excuse." Being in line for an hour and a half was not good enough for her. Actually she wouldn't listen to me and just kept  yelling about unacceptable and no excuse.  I was stunned because she wasn't even trying to hear me or be polite or anything. We have contracted for a very expensive service and this is our greeting. Yes we are late but we are customers. I know customer service is weak to non-existent in Europe, apparently the same in Russia. Then she said she had to call and stop them from reporting us to the police because they'd sent someone to report us! Yikes. We've been in Russia 30 minutes and already we are getting reported to the police. I'm guessing all the old Soviet ways haven't worn off completely. She got on the phone and stopped someone from reporting us and rudely handed us off to an underling to drive us across town to meet up with the tour.

It got better from there! (more next time on St. Petersburg)

Pros and Cons of Cruising from an indie traveler perspective

I just got back from a Baltic cruise. I don't have much experience with cruising. We are not the people that go a couple times a year. In fact, it's been twice in 25 years. The first time was a family outing and I did not make any decisions about it. I showed up when I was told to and it was Caribbean so quite different than this Baltic one. My impressions from that long ago cruise were few: everyone was seasick as we had bad seas, lots of different food I hadn't had before,  brief visits that were far too short to see an actual location, and expensive.

Normally we do independent travel. Plan our own tickets and hotels and go on our own, sometimes in the car and other times flying and pubic transport. Five years ago for example we the Amalfi coast of Italy. We stayed in four cities and used public transport to change cities every couple days.

This year was a special anniversary, so we wanted to do something out of the norm. We also had an exceedingly hectic six months prior to this opportunity to vacation, and really no time or maybe no energy to plan something. We found a last minute deal on the cruise, had a good tax return this year,  and decided to go for it. We needed to relax.

Pros:
We had free room service available and took advantage of it by having breakfast in our room nearly every morning. It was relaxing and easy. Two mornings we had to be up and moving early we didn't do it and I found the group dining room to be crowded, hard to find a table, and hassle ridden. God bless the wait staff hustling but it was crazy. A much greater selection of food was available in the dining room however, than what was on the menu for room service though.

I also took advantage of room service when we were deciding to eat later by ordering cheese and crackers, or cookies. It was wonderful to eat a light snack and watch the sea go by while sipping a hot tea. It was chilly up there so I enjoyed the tea service a lot. This was one of the more relaxing aspects.

No thinking needed. The agenda is laid out for you on the cruise. What things there are to do at what times and what time you can get off the boat to see the city. This is a season of my life I needed to not have to figure out what was next and this made it more relaxing. Granted I didn't take very much advantage of their offerings and mostly relaxed with my book.

Unpacking once and sleeping the same place. I think that made the trip much more relaxing. I think if you are trying to see a wide scope of places in a short trip cruising is probably much less harried than say a bus trip where you change hotels each night.

We were advised by several experienced cruisers to get a balcony and this turned out to be very good advice. It was really nice to watch the ports come and go or to step out and watch the sun or check the weather. It made our room much more appealing, a good refuge.

If you are a nervous traveler, cruising is a good option. The food is there and you don't have to second guess much of anything. You can even sign up for shore excursions  and be hand carried to see the important sites. It can be a no brainer.

Variety and Service. Our boat seemed full of people from all over the world and in the evenings we chose to randomly eat with different people which was very interesting. We ate with people from Denmark, South Africa, Ireland, England, and even a couple from the USA. A lot of the boat was people from the U.S. actually and because of that or the cruise company policy customer service was more like I am accustomed to in the U.S. and that was pleasant.

Cons:

Feeling herded like cattle. At the first embarkation I noticed it, we were in rows and rows of wrap around lines and lots of people were complaining. I mean we're essentially going to grown up Disneyland, so we should expect lines, right? Getting off the boat for the ports of call was definitely a herd feeling too. If you had an organized tour, you generally had a tight schedule to keep and for some that means fighting the other cattle to get ahead. The cruise people did a good job of efficiently unloading the boat but it was still 2,000 people to move.

We chose open seating for dinner and generally eat later so we never had to wait, but I noticed others waiting on occasion and wondered if you could run into the same crowded sensation with the food too if you weren't careful.

Expensive. All this hand carrying is not cheap. You get good value for your Euro or your Dollar but this was not our best value trip. Other than the buffet style restaurant and one other restaurant on board, the other eating places required a supplement between $10 per person all the way up to $89. We did not eat at the supplement locations and had good food throughout minus some soggy shrimp, but not as exotic as the first cruise I took. Perhaps though I am just a more seasoned traveler now. The food seemed heavy toward the American side but was generally good quality. The only beverages included were coffee, tea, and water. Soda, gourmet coffee, and cocktail drinkers beware. They would offer drinks at times that were like part of the show and after people took them the servers would come around and ask for your room card to charge you.

The excursions were, for me, shockingly expensive. I saw after the fact that you are paying quite a few people to help you handlers and tour guides, not to mention pre-planned private transport to very specific sites and entry tickets. So it has all been done for you - and that doesn't come cheap. We did two excursions and I will blog about those later.

Still under expensive: tips are not included and there are a ton of people waiting on you. They are doing a very good job and deserve to get paid properly and that involves tipping. The cruise company we went with charges you $130 per person for all the tips for everyone. This is after you get on and in addition to your cruise price. So it's all taken care of, but if you've never been before it might hit your budget if you didn't know.

Sales gimmicks. Everywhere you turned on the boat something was being sold or pushed. Paintings. Jewelery, Faberge Eggs, Russian nesting dolls, t-shirts from past and present cruises, photographs, photograph sittings, spa visits, drinks etc. I guess they must make some good money on all the extras or they wouldn't do it, but it felt a little shopping channel to me. Of course, you don't have to participate but it's always there.

We had a good time and for certain kinds of trips I would do a cruise again. The Norwegian fjords for example I think would be good to see from the water or anytime you are trying to get a lot of countries or a big country like China into a 10 day trip, a cruise would be an easier way to do that. You only dip your toe into the culture with say an 8 hour day trip to one city, but it's a nice taste and let's face it not all travelers are cut out for the deep immersion travel so this is a good way to visit on the lighter side with some hand carrying.

Viva la difference!
 

Who said you can tell me what I want?

I was on the search for a new book. I remembered someone had recommended a website for books based on setting and wanted to find it again. I was on a different computer and I couldn't get it to come up.

Then I was on the train coming back from Madrid and in my usual way I'm always jealous of the people commuting who have reading material. I decided to search for my next book on my phone.

I did a search for books by location since I couldn't remember the name of the website and I found this very interesting library mystery list based on locations in the world. (Murder in Far Away Places.) Well, I got interrupted talking on the train, so I didn't finish my perusal of the list.

When I got home on the computer I decided to find that library website and finish looking, but when I did the exact same search, nothing like that came up. In fact the original website I'd seen months ago came up. It definitely is worth a look if you're trying to find a look by location. It has a mystery category but also has books in general by their setting. Books set in

What I find so interesting about this is that on different devices doing the exact same search on Google is resulting in different list. Drastically different. I knew that push marketing and algorithms were at work when I searched, but I always assumed they were somehow pushing the real things I was looking for. After this experience, I have lost faith in Google and push marketing in general. It must be working for them. For me, I know I've seen things that interested me in the side bar push marketing way, but rarely have I bought from there.

When a search has the top color bar of people who have paid to come up first, I avoid those sites unless I'm totally not finding my desires in the list that I assumed were more organic choices below. Now I'm not really sure about any of it.

The same search - a different device - and I couldn't get the same page to come up. Who made you Google or anyone else for that matter the keeper of what I really want or what I'm really looking for? I know in theory they are trying to help me find things faster, but it's disturbing.

Ebook impact on my reading

So in 2011 I took the plunge into ebook land. It was premeditated because I knew I would be moving to a place where English books would be hard to find and expensive. I chose the ipad because it also worked as essentially an extra laptop in the house, and it has some usefulness in my day job as well.

My first book was a free classic. The Mysterious Affair at Styles by one of our grand dames Agatha Christie. Enjoyed it just as much digitally as I've enjoyed her work on paper. I went to see if all of her books were free in ebook form only to get my first lesson in ebook marketing. Make the first one free, hook them, then charge full price.

I was a bit frustrated when I looked for specific books and didn't find them in the Apple Ibookstore. It also was hard to just browse. I think I should try to browse from Itunes and I'd enjoy it more. I was delightted to discover that Nook and Kindle have Apps for the ipad which opened up a whole new world. I now feel like I can visit different bookstores depending on what gift certificates I have or what mood I'm in or where an author makes their work available. I'm not limited.

I tried some different books that I wouldn't have risked money on when I experimented with booklending.com that lends via the Kindle. A little weird to figure out but then the books appeared on my app. I also borrowed a couple I couldn't finish. A rarity for me. I have not tried - yet - the library lending programs yet. I did download Overdrive but my home town library changed systems before I could borrow, so on to yet another app. Library borrowing: a blog for another day.

When I finish reading a book now, I have the internal debate of what's next. Paper or ebook? I don't want to deplete my paper shelves too quickly. I also consider how much am I going on the train or am I going to go to a Spanish tutoring class. If I'm going to class, which means the train and taking notes in class, I'll have my ipad anyway, so it's better not to add a book to the load. I am jealous of others on the train with a Kindle. It's much smaller and can be handled with one hand which I can't manage with my ipad. The weight of the ipad makes me think twice about dragging it with me everywhere. I have to get bigger purses and stronger shoulders if it is going to go automatically with me. The good news is I just downloaded the Kindle app to my phone, so I can read there too without taking the ipad. This makes me a bit more inclined to buy my books on Amazon, but I think I may have a nook app available for te phone too. I need to see if I can see my ibook cloud on my phone (not an iphone, so I doubt it.)In general I think I'm buying more on Amazon.

Something I enjoy in ebooks is that I can tap a word to get a definition instantly without leaving my book. I love this. I always read books and thought I should look that word up (Thanks, Elizabeth George), but then I didn't want to interrupt my reading to go do it. I also like marking great passages or turns of phrase that are good characterization. I don't like to deface paper books, so it's nice to mark things without the sense I'm making a mess in my book. I'm not good with straight lines or tiny printing in the margins, what can I say?

Here's an idea that would never have occurred to me pre-ebook. I might try to find a Spanish book as part of my journey of learning the language. If I can do the word look up thing, like I do in English, it would be a great learning experience. Maybe. Might be too much work in the end and reading is after all my mental release and recreation.

To post a book by Denise

I spent a good deal of the last couple months researching and reading about posting ebooks. I read a lot of pros, cons, and instructions. Some of the instructions were a year or two old on the internet and didn't really serve a purpose anymore. I decided to stick to new ones. I downloaded the Smashwords Style guide which is a long book-like document and read a few bits of it. This is a case where everyone seems to have a different idea and you eventually have to pick one and try it.

Ultimately, someone on a forum was testing a video that they put on youtube of how to format your book. It's only a 5 minute video, so I invested the time. It's from an author CJ Lyons: How to Format your Ebook Video. 

I found the video easy to follow and clear. It was helpful to see what she meant on screen in Word rather than just read it. Normally I'm a read it and do it person because that is often faster for me. I thought it was helpful and a doable process that did not take hours. Of course this is a short story. I'd have to spend more time eliminating some formatting in my novel (coming soon!) but it does not seem out of reach. I have been a graphic designer in a former life so maybe this stuff is easier for me, but personally I'd recommend trying to do it yourself before you hire someone.

Another tip that was very helpful was to have certain things prepared and ready before you go to upload. I got this tip from John Kremer at this helpful blog. ebook-publishing guide
This was the list I found helpful but he's got lots of other information there too and other links.
Book (preferably in.doc format) – See detailed formatting guidelines below.
Cover picture (in JPG format, max 1200 pixels high)
Short book description (400 characters max)
Proper book description (up to about 2,500 characters)
About the Author summary
Book categories (i.e. Young Adult, Fantasy, etc.)
Decision on selling price of book

Barnes and Noble's Pub It gets the prize for the easiest and most pain free upload-my-book (short story) process. Amazon is a close second but slightly more cumbersome at their kdp website that was hard to find.Find it here. Smashwords I almost skipped because they are a much smaller share of the market (Kobo, Sony, Indies) but they do epub for ibook which meant I needed it if I wanted to see my finished story on my ipad, so I got on board. It was the most cumbersome, the most fussy not liking my formatting etc. They do however have a way to do a coupon so you can give away the book.

I did not see immediately any way to have a free book on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It must be there and I will investigate further.

I downloaded my book from Smashwords since the ipad is the only reader I've got. Looks really good -- except for 2 sentences that seem to be in a different font (and they weren't) -- and it appears to be bold face throughout which it also was not. So a little more investigating to be done, but overall a good look I'm pleased with for a start. Waiting on a friend with a Nook and a Kindle to tell me how they look there and then I will take another look at the formatting.

Customer service? I don't think so.

Tonight we drove through near rush hour traffic in a city of 5 million, Madrid. We navigated tricky one way streets, wrong turns, and tiny street signs. We arrived at the Plaza de Something Republica. Parked two floors underground in a garage. We walked two blocks dragging a suitcase to a business address.

About six weeks ago, I dropped off two pieces of equipment at this business to be fixed. The equipment - two different decks for work - is large enough that we need the suitcase to move it back to the car.

The business had moved. In the myriad of emails that flew between my Spanish speaking co-worker and the six or seven phone calls, no one thought to mention that they were moving AWAY! Come on!

Can I just say this is what socialism gets you? Customer service is not important. It isn't important that the clients be able to return to pick up their expensive equipment or that a satisfied customer be able to return and give them future business. I suppose the good news is that the doorman seemed to know where they were at and their phone number is still the same. But WHEN WERE YOU GOING TO LET ME KNOW?

So we get to drive into the city again in the very near future and pick up one piece that is repaired and another that -- oh joy -- will have to be hand carried to the United States. Probably by us. Did I mention that this is someone else's responsibility, but they can't seem to get around to it? Yeah, it's good to be responsible; my fault, I offered to help!