 |
| Display in front of DeCicco and Sons in Tarrytown NY |
 |
| Tarrytown lighthouse |
 |
| harbor in Kingston NY |
 |
| Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge |
 |
| Esopus Meadows lighthouse |
 |
| the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) |
 |
| Burrito |
 |
| Manhattan skyline at night |
 |
| Statue of Liberty |
 |
| statue near the Warwick Hotel |
 |
| another statue near the Warwick Hotel |
I normally rent a car via Hertz when I am in New York. For one thing, it's easy to pick up and drop off the rental car at the rental office in North White Plains. The office is located right across the street from the Harlem Line train station. I've been renting a car at this office for many years now, after I decided to stop picking up and dropping off the car at Newark airport. It became too stressful to drive from and to the airport and stressful to find the drop-off location at the airport.
My rental experience this time around was not completely problem-free as you'll soon see. A few days before I was to travel, I was informed in an email to pick up the car at the Westchester County Airport rather than the North White Plains office due to Labor Day (September 7), which meant that the North White Plains office would be closed for the holiday. This was fine except that I had to first take a train to White Plains and then take a cab to the Westchester County airport instead of just getting off a train at North White Plains and walking across the street to the rental office. This was an extra incurred cost of approximately $30. The service agent at the airport was friendly enough. I picked up the car in the parking lot and drove out, only to notice that the gas tank was 3/4 full, not full. I was already on the road by then, so I pulled over and took a photo of the gas tank indicator on the dashboard. I had already paid $67.46 for the Fuel Purchase option. When I returned the car on September 21 and talked to the agent at the North White Plains office about this, she told me to take it up with Billing. She was not very helpful. My definition of good service would have been that she could have deducted the price of ¼ of a tank of gas right then and there. But no.
The rental price for the car for two weeks, booked through Booking.com, was very reasonable. But lo and behold if I didn’t get a bill via an September 25th email for $475.86. This was the charge for using ‘Plate Pass’. This was the email message I received:
Hertz utilizes a service called PlatePass which allows its customers to use cashless lanes or all- electronic tollways without using a personal transponder or paying the toll authority directly. Our records indicate you declined the PlatePass All-Inclusive tolling option at the start of your rental, but during your rental you activated the transponder device affixed to the car windshield and incurred tolls. As a result, you owe the PlatePass All-Inclusive rate as applicable to your rental period. With PlatePass All-Inclusive, you will not be charged tolls and no additional charges will apply if new tolls are received from toll authorities relating to this rental agreement.
As far as I can remember, the Plate Pass was pulled out once during my two-week rental to pay for the toll going over the Tappan Zee Bridge, by a passenger in my car. Do you mean to tell me that I am to pay $475.86 for using the transponder once? Is this company insane? This is highway robbery and I am planning to report Hertz to the Better Business Bureau. Of course I will gladly pay all the tolls incurred during my two-week rental, but I am hoping that Booking.com will take this up with Hertz to get this charge dismissed. This is the craziest and greediest behavior I have ever experienced--pure unadulterated ripoff. The sad thing is that I have been renting via Hertz for many years. This is the first time that I have had problems with them or experienced poor customer service. It’s very unfortunate and does not bode well for future rentals with this company.
My annual trip to New York this year started in Manhattan, where I met Cindy, a college friend, on the first weekend of September (5-6). We stayed at the Warwick Hotel in midtown, one of our favorite hotels in NYC. As luck would have it, the weather cooperated with our plans, which included a jazz cruise on the Hudson River (leaving from Chelsea Piers) and attending the musical Schmigadoon. The jazz cruise was quite enjoyable, and moving--especially when we drove past the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. This at a time in the USA when it doesn't seem that immigrants are particularly welcome anymore. I thought about my paternal grandparents who came from Italy in the early 1900s and who made a life for themselves, first in Brooklyn and then in Tarrytown, New York. They never returned to visit Italy, which must have been quite sad for both of them. Cindy and I also got tickets to see the musical Schmigadoon which spoofs on other musicals like Brigadoon and Oklahoma, but that is also quite touching in its own way. I can recommend both the cruise and the musical.
The following week included visits with my sister Renata and her husband Tim and their new dog--Burrito, as well as visits with good friends Maryann and Gordon from my Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center days, and with Stef, a good friend from childhood. The weekend of September 12-13 was spent with Judy, my good friend from high school, and her two sisters Betty and Joan. We drove up to Hyde Park, NY on Saturday to visit the Culinary Institute of America, where we ate a very good lunch and enjoyed a food tasting event and a tour of the institute. On Sunday, we managed to visit Springwood, Franklin D Roosevelt's summer home on the Hudson River, and Val-Kill, Eleanor Roosevelt's place of business and eventual home located a short distance away from Springwood, across the main road. Both are national historic sites. I've written about FDR's home before in a 2016 post: A New Yorker in Oslo: Making memories--two weeks in the States Visiting Val-Kill 'completed' the story of the Roosevelts for me. FDR and Eleanor were a good political team; their marriage endured a number of infidelities, but they supported and defended each other and had each other's backs. On Monday, the four of us took a 1.5 hour boat trip on the Hudson River that departed from Kingston, NY. We had lovely weather and managed to see the Esopus lighthouse as well as some Gilded Age estates along the Hudson River.
I then visited with Jola, another good friend from my Memorial Sloan-Kettering days, and we spent our time together talking, catching up, eating some good lunches and dinners, driving around Tarrytown, and visiting Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, NY, which I have written about before (A New Yorker in Oslo: Two gardens worth visiting--Untermyer Gardens and the New York Botanical Garden). And then I made my way to Jean's house (I call it my second home), where I always end my NY vacations. Jean and I go way back to high school; we have a lot of shared history and are very close friends. Maria, another close friend from childhood, came down for the four days I was there, and we hung out together, eating, talking up a storm (Jean calls it incessant gabbing), and having fun. We've settled on a visit to St. Augustine in Florida for this coming winter's annual trip. St. Augustine has history, culture, and relaxing beaches. Our trips together have become something to which we really look forward. The major consideration is the weather, so we are keeping our fingers crossed that snow and/or bitter cold won't throw any major wrenches into our plans.
Of course, no trip of mine would be complete without a snafu here or there! This time it was a major circuit break/cut in the cables that control the air traffic control grid for the NYC airports. All flights were cancelled at Newark, La Guardia, JFK, Teterboro, and Philadelphia airports on the afternoon of Monday September 21. My flight back to Oslo on SAS was cancelled, but SAS did manage to rebook me on a later flight (United) to Brussels (they worked quickly and efficiently to rebook me). Their hope was probably that by the time the plane left for Brussels (8:30 pm), that the circuit would have been fixed (it was). But nothing was certain and I booked a hotel room at Newark Airport just in case. A shout out to the Howard Johnson hotel at the airport for kindly refunding my money; they could have been sticklers for the regular routine of not allowing customers to cancel unless it was 24 hours prior to arrival. They made an exception for me and I thank them.
I'm also glad that I arrived and departed New York when I did. This weekend would have been a messy affair to put it mildly--storm, wind, rain, and flooding. A Nor'easter that traveled up the East Coast of the USA, wreaking a bit of havoc and leaving a real mess in its wake. A lot of rain and flooding as far as I can see from the news reports. There would have been no boat trips and very few outdoor activities had I been there this weekend. So the weather gods were with us earlier in September!
Although traveling can be tiring and sometimes unpredictable, I love it. I love the expectation of new adventures as well as the emotional constancy of visiting with close friends and family. I have said it before but I'll say it again--I am forever grateful for the wonderful friends who grace my life. I will continue to travel until I am no longer able to travel. It would have to be poor health only that would stop me from seeing those I love. In my next post, I'll include some photos of the places we visited on this trip.
I remember where I was on 9/11 in 2001. I remember a colleague running into my lab to tell me that there had been an attack on the World Trade Center in NYC. I was beside myself after hearing that news. I was not in the USA at that time, like I was this year. I’m glad I was in NY State this year to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers. This video of the drones recreating the Twin Towers brings me to tears every time I watch it. It is incredibly beautiful and poignant.
https://youtube.com/shorts/2CDs-Vt9wUA?si=2192fUaX83YHpb_r
I have looked further into the Ad orientem issue and understood that it has been quite controversial for quite some time. Apparently the Ad orientem format is traditionally preferred because it forces the congregation to focus on the actual celebration of the mass and not on the priest who is saying the mass. It is supposed to be more reverential. I had never thought about this before and in truth I've never particularly focused on the priest who says mass except when he steps into the pulpit to deliver his sermon.
I'm including some links in this post so that you can read more about it if you are so inclined.
Facing the People, or Facing the Altar? | Catholic Answers Magazine
Ad Orientem – Immaculate Conception Catholic Church
Why is Ad Orientem worship so controversial?
I retain my opinion--that I prefer the Versus Populum format of the liturgy, where the priest faces the congregation while saying mass. I understand that Ad orientem is the historical and long-practiced way of saying mass. It doesn't change my viewpoint.
If we are first going to choose tradition and take up this priestly orientation again in order to promote reverence and avoid distractions, then my suggestion is to go further and ban the use of guitars and all other musical instruments except the use of the organ in church. I would also ban the singing of modern songs/hymns and focus only on the time-honored traditional hymns that we grew up with (and that many people got tired of--not me). I would ban musical groups from performing in church at Easter and Christmastime. I would ban singing altogether with the exception of church choirs that sing only traditional church music. We did not have musical groups performing prior to Vatican II, so they are not necessary to the celebration of mass. Nor did we have liturgical dances on the altar (as was the case at times when I was a teenager). They are distractions. We have one Latin mass (the high mass) each week on Sundays here in Oslo at my church. If we are going backward in time, then all the masses should be celebrated in Latin as that is the language of the early church. Why focus on changing only one aspect of the mass?
It has become quite silly in my opinion to focus on changing only one thing--how the priest faces during the celebration. I have never focused on the priest except when he faces us to give his sermon, which we could also do without since most of the priests simply regurgitate the gospel that can speak for itself for the most part. We can return to my childhood days when my mother would attend weekday masses that were quiet, short, and without sermons, just the celebration of the mass. And while we're at it, remove most statues and the accompanying small chapels that honor the saints. These can also be distractions.
I realize that I sound quite harsh (some of what I write is of course a bit satirical). But if you are going to choose tradition, then go all the way and return the church to pre-Vatican II times. Streamline every aspect of the mass and boil it down to one predictable format. If that's what the Vatican thinks is going to draw in more of the faithful, then let them try. I'm not sure that the lack of attendance at mass has to do with these things. But I don't know. Perhaps there is a backlash against all things modern. For those of you who think that I am planning to leave the church, I am not. But I am voicing my right to have an opinion.
Two of my recent dreams have fascinated me, if only because I have never dreamed like this before. Of course I was interested in their inter...
