Seeds of change

It's one week into 2011 and I'm still here in Boston. The original plan was to return to France on Mon Jan 10th, but I decided to prolong my stay for a bit longer to see more of my friends and family! I'm flying American and BA and I just want to say what a pleasure it has been! Actually this is the 3rd time I'm flying them this year (same itinerary from Boston to Geneva) and I love them. See my PROS and CONS list below.

With an extra week, what to do? This Saturday, my awesome sis treated me and my Mom to a facial and massage (2 hours) followed by Oga's Japanese Cuisine in Natick. Then today, shopping with my sister and helping my nephews get ready for bed. I received and gave giant wet kisses from my two awesome nephews.
Tonight, I'm searching for garden centers to buy seeds so I can grow my own Asian vegetables in France. I'm thinking Bok Choy, Napa cabbage, Chinese Broccoli, daikon, Japanese pumpkin (Kobucha), lemongrass (yeah...apparently it's easy to grow), and scallions. Maybe several types of melon (including bitter melon) if I can find the seeds tomorrow in Chinatown.

I'm simultaneously also searching for places to eat this week with friends. It's winter here and a nice bowl of spicy beef noodle soup would be heaven. I MISSSSSSS Wisteria in Cambridge like crazy...what I would give for a bowl of that 5 spicy goodness topped with pickled mustard greens. And before I leave, it would be great if I could eat at Red Bones and hit up the Taiwanese bakery to get their scrumptious honey cake!

More planned for the week. Thinking about the places I have not eaten and the people I still have not seen, I feel like I should have extended for 2 weeks. But alas, I already miss my R and at some point, I must be getting home.

PROS for American Airlines and British Airways

• Customer service (both phone and at the counter) is wonderful. Whenever I call, I get an agent within 2 mins. The last time, they changed my flight easily so I could stay another week in Boston.
• The flight attendants I've encountered are super nice. They've given me extra snacks and drinks. No free alcoholic beverages, but I'm a lightweight, so I don't even bother. A snack/meal and then I pass out for an hour or two. And if I'm lucky, I'll sleep through the entire flight.
• No major delays (less than 1 hour) and when we arrived, it was earlier or on-time.
• Transferring from terminals to make my connections is seamless. I love their terminal buses...clean, no odd smells emanating from the bus or the driver, and on-time, departing every 5 minutes!
• They have not once lost my luggage like United, Swiss Air.
• Layovers are short..like 1.5 hours between landing and my connection flight. But when I do have to wait, see next point.
• Great shops and food options at Terminal 3. I love EAT, this Whole Foods-cafeteria-type place with soup, sandwiches, and noodle soup.

PROS for American Airlines and British Airways

• Why no hot male flight attendants?
• The movies on my last flight sucked but I made friends with "grape" people.
• No personal TV.
• The planes are a little bit older.
• Legroom on my flight from London Heathrow to Boston non-existent because they chose to fly us on a small plane! PRO within a CON: I sat next to great seatmates who shared their 10-lb bag of grapes with me. I'm not kidding you about the grapes. I saw them and mentioned something..and they joked back that sitting in the same row meant I had a responsibility to eat my fair share of them!
• I don't have any status, so no Admirals Club Lounge for me. But I don't mind milling around with the regular people just like me.

Considering my list of CONS...I'm not sure why I like American so much. I guess in general I've had great traveling experiences with them and have been treated with respect, and they've landed with myself and my luggage intact.