Beautiful Cádiz

We traveled on Brussels Air from Budapest to Brussels to Seville July 31st. Our three-hour plus waiting in Brussels was smoothed over by access to the Diners Club lounge. We offered Kat guest membership, but she said she would be fine going it alone out with the masses. Guilt did gnaw at me for a short time, but I got over it once I relaxed with a Belgium beer on tap. The flights were uneventful, but the seating was spacious; more so on the first leg than the second, but still comfortable.
 
Once we landed, the bus to the train station was efficient. I think it cost us 4 Euros each. It was super crowded, so we stood the entire ride, missed our stop and found ourselves at the end of the line without realizing it. As it turned out, we were not alone, so there were more than the three of us taking the ride back. The driver just shook his head, but did not require more money.
 
Once at Seville, we had to wait forever for train tickets. There was only one person selling them and the line was extensive. The overhead sign said there was a labor strike going on. We caught the train 3 minutes after getting our tickets; perfect timing. Once in Cádiz, we found our home away from home by walking. It took us about 20 minutes, but we were all too cheap to spring for a taxi. Teresa, our exchange partner had a friend, Esperanza, waiting for us. She had her grown daughter with her to explain everything. They were sweet.
 
Teresa had left me a USB Wi-Fi connection. I could not get the damn thing to work at all. It connected, but would not show the connection window to add the password. We went to the store that Teresa told me about if there were a problem, but Francisco, the person I was to ask for, was not there. The woman I spoke with wanted me to bring the computer in. We were going to do that in the evening, but then I tried using a different USB port and it worked fine. Now, my mouse doesn't work, because it only works in one port. Oh well.

Our first night we went to Quilla restaurant, thanks to Esperanza. We were too late to grocery shop, so this was our splurge. Great food, wonderful views of the ocean. This morning we shopped across the street and cooked breakfast here.

Cádiz is nothing like I expected, not that I did any research ahead of time. I leave that to Ron. What I was expecting was fabulous beaches with clean sand, gloriously blue water, and tons of people having fun, but not much more. Well, let me tell you, it is all that and more. There is SO much more, it is rather shocking. There are four historic walking tours marked on the sidewalk color-coded. Each stop on each tour has a well-illustrated sign in Spanish and English. We have yet to do a full walking tour, because we have been busy exploring on our own. We keep saying we will get to it, but we are really staying busy.

No, we have not been spending hours at the beach, though it is tempting. They are free and glorious, but in reality we only went down from 6 to 8pm one evening; we have yet to return. There is so much to do and see. Due to living in an apartment through our home exchange, we have been shopping and cooking dinner each night. An extensive grocery store across the street makes is ultra-convenient. The food prices are incredibly low. We bought a kilo (2.2 lbs.) of delicious tomatoes for 89 Euro cents.

At lunchtime, we are generally too far from home to run back to fix a meal, so we snack out. Ron and I have kept well below our budget of 100 Euros a day for the two of us for all expenses. The apartment we exchanged with is in a perfect location. The beach is just three blocks in one direction and everything else we could need is only a few blocks or more in the other direction.

My only complaint is there is no Internet access in the apartment. I have yet to see an Internet café in the city. With the USB Internet connector the service is limited and it will only work in one of my two USB ports. With the limitations of Internet, I most likely will not write much while we are away. Ignore the mistakes if any, I will not have time to make corrections or even to blush over them.
 
Love the city!!! We are ready to buy property here. : ) 

Pin It Now!

Cutting the Cord

Hindsight is 20/20. I was contacted by an editor of my former publisher to write current content for their new website. I was charged and over the top over the prospect. I thought after their sale, there would be nothing left but memories and books yellowing with age. Patiently, I waited for the contract.

In the meantime, we had scheduled our trip to Ghent and Brussels. I had mentioned it to my new editor, who in turn asked if I would be willing to do some reviews of Brussels while we were there. She was offering $200 for 15 reviews, mainly of restaurants. Explaining this was basically a long weekend get-away with most of the time in Ghent, I declined. Had I done the math then, I could have saved myself some time, energy and aggravation regarding the Budapest project. There was that niggling voice in the back of my mind whispering “Don’t do it. You will be sorry!” However, ego took over, prompting me to plunge forth.

When the contract arrived, it stipulated 80 reviews with a breakdown of hotels, restaurants, museums, and nightlife. Each category had a specific target, but the contract did say the number was the suggested quantity as long as the total was met. Communications with my editor assured me that the hotels should be middle class as they were avoiding the high end traveler. The pay was to be $1,100.

The contract was signed and submitted. My copy returned in the mail. A couple of weeks later, the editor informed me that it should have been 82 reviews with remuneration of $1,200. Two additional reviews meant nothing, no big deal.

Part of the contract stated I had to prove I had been to all the places reviewed and none of the content could be similar to the writing of the past. The deadline for submission was November 1, 2013 ‘time being of the essence’ according to the contract. Really plugging along all of August and the beginning of September, I wanted to get this off my plate before school started. I also shared with my editor that come December, I would be out the country for 7 weeks.

Early October, I submitted my work. I can honestly say the tone, the style and the writing was identical to what I had submitted to 6 different editors in the past. My current editor sent me an e-mail that crossed with my submission. Her mail stated that I shouldn’t worry about the deadline as they were swamped with submissions, causing them to be behind in editing. This had me wondering about the wording of the contract “time is of the essence…” A couple of weeks later, her next e-mail assured me she looked over the work and it was magnificent.

Right before we left on vacation, another voice was heard from, this time the owner of the site. She was not at all thrilled with my content and wanted higher end hotels. Our e-mail conversations were succinct, but hers were dripping in attitude. She suggested we revisit this when I returned from Central America.

During the time away with an Internet connection slower than a sloth, there was an e-mail from yet another editor. All authors were to upload all their materials into a program called Zoho. We were to look for an invitation. When we returned home, I still had not received the invitation and more than one request was forwarded to the person in charge. Then when I did some checking, the work could not be uploaded to Zoho, but had to be copy and pasted. This would take more than a few hours, time no author was being compensated for beyond the initial work. There was nothing in my original contract about Zoho.

This was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. It was easily recognizable that once the materials were in Zoho, anyone with an 8th grade education could do updates without ever having to pay an author again. Paying for the dining we did at the various restaurants cost us about $400. This would net me $800 for about 60 hours of research spent in museums, touring hotels, and checking out nightlife options. When I added in the writing time, it came to less than $5 an hour. Now they wanted major editing since the voice was not what the new editor envisioned AND I had to copy and paste the work into their program.

It was time to cut the cord. I did. There was a sense of relief in doing so. My time as a travel writer may have come to an end, I don’t know. However, I know that I am not going to be abused.

Pin It Now!