APL is 3; Time to Fly Around the World

When APL was zero years old, flying - one of my favorite activities - turned from fun to the opposite of fun. When APL was 1 year old, flying failed to improve. At 2 years of age, flying became barely tolerable. But it was still constant work. He could not focus on anything for more than 3 minutes. So we had to have a new activity for him every 3 minutes. A 10-hour 2-leg trip to Montreal, for example, would require approximately 200 activities. But diaper changes accounted for probably 14 of those... so really we only needed 186 prepared activities for him.

Three-years-old was the transformation. At 3, APL was able to focus. And he began to LOVE flying. Going to the airport was awesome. And once on the airplane, he would give real-time narratives for the entire plane to enjoy: "Oh! A police car! That plane is taxiing! TRUCK! What that man doing? TRUCK! OH! Look! That is a runway. Remote control tower! A plane is landing! Why there are clouds? OH! LOOK! HELICOPTER!!!" And so on. Much fun.

 And so it occurred to us that a window of opportunity has presented itself. We can now travel with APL. And he doesn't have to be anywhere - such as in school. Of course we had to be somewhere - namely at work. K was particularly enthusiastic about removing that obstacle. And so we discussed this with the powers that be... and... presto... we are traveling.

The first portion of this trip is to Israel. Two cousins will be having their Bat Mitzvahs on Masada. We will be traveling with family gathered here for the rest of December. After that, we will be spending a week in Eilat. And the one and only Tim will be joining us!

In terms of how we are traveling, given that we will soon have no income... Actually, that is not true. My blogs bring in a good $10/mo now. And I think I can get that up to $20 without much effort. But that does leave a deficit - especially if one wishes to travel in biz class minimally.

The travel itself is almost all going to be on points. We traveled to Tel Aviv on points and we expect to do so for South America, Asia, and wherever else we may end up.

Let us discuss points for a moment. A couple of years ago, I bought a lot of points for less than $0.008 per point. Consider that an economy fare from San Diego to Tel Aviv is in the vicinity of $2,000 each (we are traveling over Christmas and New Years after all). Through much effort, I managed to snag biz class seats for all of us for 360,000 points. That works out to under $3,000 for the 3 of us. Yes, biz class for less than 1/2 of what economy would have cost us. How, you may ask, is this possible? Well, I won't pretend it's easy. It takes time and effort. If you are interested, I suggest spending time in the forums at Flyertalk. Or at one of the travel blogs such as The Points Guy.

In terms of where we will be staying, much of that will also be on points. But some will not be. I have been contacting hotels about our travels to see which hotels wish to be part of this blog. After all, when we were in India, we ended up being "incentivized" because of the blog I was writing at the time.

I should point out that using points around Xmas is almost impossible. It took me hours on the phone with the airlines and hours pinpointing award availability. But it was worth it. Traveling in comfort makes all the difference in the world.

Did I mention that we were not all on the same plane? Yes, APL and I flew SAN-YYZ-FRA-TLV and Karin flew SAN-EWR-FRA-TLV. So the first 2 legs were apart. APL came with me, since he and I love flying. He probably would have preferred being with his mama, but mama does not enjoy flying as much (at all?). We ended up meeting in Frankfurt for a 10-hour layover in the Lufthansa Business Lounge. That worked out pretty well, since they had showers, beds, a play area, food, wifi, and lots of Xmas chocolate. I had tried to get Karin onto a JFK-FRA flight in F so that we could try out the coveted First Class Terminal at Frankfurt but that open inventory is apparently hidden from USAir. I spoke to 5 separate agents about that but eventually gave up.

The traveling worked out well. APL loved it. He was especially excited when I turned his Air Canada seat into a bed on the YYZ-FRA leg. He bounced on that bed for at least an hour. And he got to know a few people in our cabin. He has a knack for cruising down the aisle, smiling at everyone, and figuring out who wants to interact with a super-cute 3-year-old. He then knows who his friends are for the trip.

The only snag we encountered was upon arrival in Tel Aviv, at 3:45 AM. We exited the plane and stood at the end of the jet bridge, waiting for our stroller - with 4 other families. We waited and waited. Eventually, all the passengers had left and the crew had left and security had left. It was just us. Someone came by after about 25 minutes and said that the strollers had been sent to baggage claim.

We headed to baggage claim, where our stroller was not. After another 25 mins, we were told that the strollers had been too heavy to load onto the plane in FRA. Complete BS, of course (our stroller weighs a couple of pounds). We then had to spend half an hour trying to get a report filed for our missing stroller. We ended up at our hotel at 6:00 AM. We had assumed that we would go straight to bed, sleep for a few hours, and then explore Tel Aviv.

Apparently, APL had a different plan. His plan was to bounce off the walls for 20 minutes and beg us to go out. Karin went to bed. APL and I went to breakfast.

After breakfast and running around the hotel, APL and I joined Karin for a siesta. That lasted until about noon.

Tel Aviv has been fun so far. Pascale came to visit us from Jerusalem, we walked around the Souk, had some falafel and strawberries, and found a park for APL to enjoy. On day 2, we headed to a coastal park area and played for a couple of hours. Mama and papa jumped rope and APL jumped naked through a fountain.

Cathy, William and Katya arrived later in the day and APL was thrilled to be running around with them.

APL is very excited about day 3 since Mamia and Grandpa are arriving.

Our family tour of Israel begins on Friday.

Until then, I expect we will continue to sleep at odd hours, eat wonderful Israeli food, and explore the local area - somewhat dictated by APL's sleep schedule.