Air Canada 1, Continental 0

I estimate that I have taken about 20 flights in 2007. Given that it is nearly impossible to not check luggage when you fly out of the UK, I know that I am testing the odds. However, even if one out of every 138 bags was lost in the first nine months of this year(!), it is still pretty remarkable that my bag has been lost twice in the last two months.

Continental lost one between LA and London Gatwick (en route to Dubai) in October. I then spent the next four days (of my vacation) repeatedly calling Continental Baggage Services (to no avail). The events which transpired are behind me now (and by that I mean in a carefully worded 3-page complaint letter, which I'm relatively confident will end up in the circular file). On my way home, I was finally reunited with my bag at the Dubai airport (where I all but found it myself in the fly-infested storage room where lost suitcases are taken to die). Highlight: when "Debbie" offered her personal sentiments saying, "If it were me, I would be calling all over to locate my bag."

The second lost bag was on my return to London Heathrow from Thanksgiving in Houston. Somehow Air Canada managed to separate my bag from Eliot's and it got stuck in Toronto. I was told that it would be arriving later that night and it would be delivered to Cardiff the next day (yesterday). Yesterday morning, I received a text saying the bag had been picked up by the baggage courier, and then I received another text in the afternoon saying it would arrive by 3:30pm. And then...it did! Air Canada not only contacted me once, but twice! *They* contacted *me* and *they* delivered!

From here on out (or until Continental offers me a free round trip ticket), Gilb Thoughts endorses Air Canada and shuns Continental.

What *is* the UAE?

It was 2004 and Chrissy and I were newly minted college grads living in our first apartment in San Francisco's Lower Haight. These were the questions on our minds:

• What is the best flavor of Annie's Mac & Cheese?
  
• Why is J.Crew's website so bad?
  
• Is it worth getting a Fast Pass if I walk home from work some days? (A bus ride was only $1.25 then and the passes were $45.)
• Is it possible to subsist on only pretzels, salsa, pita, and hummus? (And the yellow curry from the cheap Thai place?)
• Should your landlord pay for plumbing?
  
• What is the UAE?

Is it a country? A city? A region? Is it like OPEC? Well, come October 2007, not only do we know what the UAE is, but Chrissy is working in Dubai and Eliot and I have already visited.

© ELA Photography

At least we got one question answered.