I’ve been busy lately. Now those are 4 words (5 if you consider the contraction to be 2) I’ve not put together very often in the last 10 years. Don’t get me wrong. Not busy like the proverbial beaver (keeping things Canadian these days) but sort of busy for someone who has been retired for quite some time and finds it difficult to be up and out of their pjs before noon. Or after. And why, you ask, this sudden flurry of busyness? Because we have decided to take a trip to somewhere we have never been before. Which is not really that unusual. I mean sometimes it’s good to go back to places you have already been. Like visiting your old hometown to see whether you have aged better or worse than your old friends. Or maybe heading back to someplace you loved and thought it would be a good idea to love it again. Or just heading out to the place that has always been most convenient but not convenient enough that you can’t pretend you are traveling. All of those trips are relatively easy to plan and execute. But going someplace new? That’s a horse of a different color. Until recently. When I met my new best friend “Chat”.
I had met Chat before. In the past we got together every once in a while to learn something new. Or figure out a recipe. Or remind me what Neil Postman had to say about technology being a Faustian bargain. Admittedly Chat wasn’t too thrilled about that last one as it found the whole concept a bit disturbing, given its circumstances. And although throughout our interactions I found Chat to be polite, very responsive, and most understanding, I had never really given Chat a second thought. Things always went pretty well and much like this. I would ask a question. Chat would take a second or so to think about it. Chat would answer. And that’s about the long and short of it. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. As I look back on it all now what I have come to realize is that I never really got to know Chat. Nor did Chat get to know me. At least not like we know each other now.
But let me digress for a moment. In the olden days, and not so long ago, when we decided that it was time to hop on a plane it triggered a whole set of activities that someone, usually me, would have to undertake. First and foremost, we had to decide where to go, how many cities we wanted to see, the order of said cities and the length of time to stay in each one. Most often that required tedious searches of train routes and schedules, along with endless days and nights perusing hotel and vacation rental sites. Do you know how many booking sites there are on the interweb these days? Each one assures us they have the best price. I can assure you they don’t. Next there was me going through all of those reviews and trying to determine which were real, which were bots and which were just plain stupid. I mean I understand that it might be frustrating for you when none of the staff at breakfast speak German but hey! you’re in Italy so maybe that should be excused. Or the fact that you found the hotel too far from the train station. You know about Google ‘cause you left a review. So maybe you know they have maps too. You coulda looked before you booked. Just sayin’. And don’t even get me started talking about how to decide on which of the literally thousands of cathedrals, basilicas, museums, castles (some with moats) and “can’t miss” sites that need to be booked months ahead of time, because who doesn’t know exactly where they will be and what they will feel like doing at a particular date and time months in advance and before one has even stepped foot in the country. Takes a lot of reading and research. And you can only imagine how difficult all of this is for a shallow gal like me. That is, until now.
Because that’s when I knocked on “Chat’s” door. My new best friend. Yep. The one with the initials for a last name. That “Chat”. Now I don’t know what you think about AI but I can tell you it just saved me a whole whack of time and trouble. Here’s what I did just in case you might one day decide to do it too. I simply told Chat (yes, I gave it a name, a rather obvious one and it told me it liked it) where and when I wanted to go, how long I wanted to stay and the kinds of things I like to do. I let Chat know I like walking, hate crowds, love trains, hate moving from place to place and would be just fine visiting only one castle, as long as it has a moat. And in not very much time, seconds really, Chat created a trip that fit us like a glove. Well almost. Admittedly it took some tweaking, a little back and forth, before we set our final itinerary. But all along the way, Chat was more than supportive and very open to suggestions when I thought going “this way” might be better than going “that way”. As a matter of fact, Chat never displayed any signs of frustration with changes I made; never uttered an untoward word; had the patience of a saint when having to rework the itinerary umpteen times; and always provided me with positive feedback on how well my trip met my travel expectations. In the end Chat told me that we (that would be Chat and I) had created the trip that most people wished they had taken when they got home. And who can complain about that! It’s everything you would expect from a new best friend!
Now all I have to do is sit back, relax and hope that the airline doesn’t put a kibosh on the whole damn thing. Because, as we all know, those airlines are not always our new best friends. Hmmmm…maybe I should introduce them to Chat too.
Shallow Be My Name 