People always say that if you educate others, then they will be more knowledgeable and open minded. Frankly, I don’t really think this is true if someone already has set pre-conceived notions of something. I’m not really exempt from that either. For example: you’ll never get me to agree with you if you say that abortion should be illegal. I understandwhy people want it to be illegal, but I do not and will never agree no matter what information you share with me. But it bugs me when people have pre-conceived notions of a place they’ve never been to merely based on random news stories they’ve read or anecdotes that friends have shared with them of places they’ve visited.

Tonight, I was telling my friend about my India trip, and she asked me if I felt safe. “Safety,” or the feeling of it as I recently read, is strongly rooted in feelings of race and class if we care to dig uncomfortably into our subconscious. “You always read about how women are constantly getting raped in India,” she said. “It’s so scary.”

I countered her point by asking her if she was aware of how scared many people in other countries feel about the U.S. in terms of how lax we are with guns, with the number of school shootings and shootings in general that happen in this country every single day. “People actually think that if they come here, they may get shot and killed,” I said to her. “It’s so easy to get a gun; anyone can do it. That’s the way it’s covered abroad. But we live here, and we know that’s not the case that we’re all fearing for our lives every single day.” Our mutual friend lived in Asia for years and said she was scared watching the news coverage of all these shootings in the U.S. Her in-laws, who lived in Singapore, said they didn’t feel comfortable with the two of them potentially moving back to the States. Not only that, but there are people who simply do not want to enter the United States while Trump is president because as foreigners, they do not feel welcome. I literally just heard this back and forth conversation between a dad and his son in Canada this past weekend. Tourism has notably declined into the U.S. since Dipshit took office.

“Maybe,” my friend said skeptically. “I’m not sure about that.”

I don’t really know what there is to be skeptical about. If you have perspective and you are aware of what’s going on around you and outside of the city or country or continent where you live, you will know that places like India or the U.S. really are not as “dangerous” as the media make them out to be. A lot of what ends up happening in our lives occur because of our attitudes and pre-judgments before events actually happen. If you complain and say that you will have a terrible time at a party before attending, you’re probably going to have a crappy time. If you keep obsessing over your luggage getting lost on a flight like that insufferable woman from Sunday, I’m pretty sure your luggage will get lost. But if you enter India or the U.S. hoping for an enjoyable time and are optimistic, it’s more likely that you will actually have fun and stop worrying about getting shot in the head or raped in the streets. I told her this. She remained skeptical.

And if you are really unsure or feel unsafe about going to a place… just don’t go. Also, don’t ruin it for other people when they express that they want to go.

After one last day of exploring Vancouver, I reluctantly headed to the airport yesterday late afternoon for my return flight back to New York. After I boarded the plane, which was headed to Phoenix since there’s no direct flights on American between Vancouver and New York, a middle-aged white woman was conspicuously (and audibly) disgruntled that there was no overhead compartment space for her roller bag. She took the liberty to announce quite loudly before she sat down, “Before boarding, the crew had announced that this would be a completely full flight, and people would have had some grace to check their bags, but I guess it goes to show that people lack humility and courtesy for others.” She then took the middle seat next to me in the second row of economy class.

Damnit, she is sitting next to me.

Because of the big fuss she made, the crew was kind enough to take her roller bag and store it in the First Class closet. She really lucked out. 

The woman proceeded to try to make small talk with me when I had my earbuds in. Why is she doing this?She revealed to me (and pretty much everyone on the first half of the plane because of how loud she was) that she had two connecting flights before reaching her destination, the Cayman Islands, where she works in the hospitality industry and has for the last fifteen-plus years. She was scared of having her bag lost because the last time she flew on American, she had her bag misplaced and had to wait two days for it, so there was no way she’d allow them to force check her bag this time. In the end, she got what she wanted by being so obnoxious, but did she really need to share her entire life story so loudly?

We took off. She probably realized at some point that I really did not want to talk to her, so then she turned to the man seated in the window seat of our row and tried to talk to him… after he had his eyes closed and was clearly trying to sleep. She seriously has no common sense. When he made it even more obvious that he absolutely did not want to talk to her and continued closing his eyes, she thencontinued to get the attention of the people in the row in front of uswho had a service dog, and started telling them about her life story, including how much she loves dogs.This woman could not have been more frustrating in her existence.

But this woman really had to epitomize the most annoying specimen on this flight when the flight attendants came around with snacks and drinks, and I asked for a wine and a snack box. Since I have Executive Platinum status on American, if I am seated in economy, I always get these items complimentary because that’s a perk of the status; you wouldn’t know this unless you actually kept track of flight status perks or had this level of status. But the flight attendant who served me tried to make me pay, and I told her that I had “EP” status, so I shouldn’t have to pay. This middle-seat woman decided to interject and said, “Of course you have to pay! Why wouldn’t you have to pay?” I glared at her, shocked that she would say anything in an interaction that had nothing to do with her. Does she even know what “EP” stands for?! The flight attendant ended by admitting she was wrong after some back and forth and said she didn’t check the EP list. She gave me my food and drink and continued serving others.

I later found out that this woman was Canadian and originally from Vancouver. She was in town to visit family. Considering how rude, annoying, and invasive she was, I really had thought she was just another dumb and entitled American flying on AA. She’s tainting the “Canadians are friendly” stereotype for me. I suppose, though, that “obnoxious” and “passive aggressive” as adjectives are not necessarily mutually exclusive from “friendly.”

Two flights this week, one for work and one for pleasure. It always seems to happen that whenever I have a fun trip planned, I also end up having to schedule work trips nearly back to back or within days of each other.

For my friend’s wedding this weekend in Vancouver, and to keep loyal to the Marriott, I am staying at The Douglas Autograph Collection hotel in the Yaletown area of downtown Vancouver. I had an idea of how trendy and posh it was when I made the hotel booking, but I didn’t realize how intense it was until I arrived past midnight. I was so exhausted from the flight that I felt a bit disoriented when I got to the hotel. First, I couldn’t figure out where the actual entrance was (it’s on the 6th floor… above the casinos and the ground level). Then, when I got into the elevator, I felt like I was being pushed into a virtual reality. When you enter the elevator and the doors close, laser lights in shades of jungle green and golden yellow surround you on all sides, so when you look at your reflection in the mirror, it looks as though you are being warped into the future. These lights were so bright for bleary-eyed me, whose internal clock was past 3am by this point.

When I exited the elevator to my room floor, I went all the way to the end of the hallway to the corner suite, where… my suite was actually bigger than our New York apartment. There are multiple couches in both the living room and the bedroom, 1.5 bathrooms, and  views overlooking downtown Vancouver and the stadium right next door to the hotel. Even the shower has floor to ceiling windows.

Yep. It’s official. I never want to leave this place.

Chris is right; I’m so spoiled now by all these amazing hotel experiences. But I will say that each time, I definitely do not take it for granted. Every single time I come to one of these stunning properties, I still count my blessings and realize how grateful and privileged I am to be pampered like this in such beautiful locations in the world.