“That’s not possible…..”

Holiday-Makers — a term used in Europe to describe a person on vacation away from home.
And a term dievca heard used to describe the businesses which set up all-inclusive travel for Europeans, sort of like the US travel agents (a dying breed).

When dievca moved to Europe for the 1st time, she had just lived through a Winter from hell. Too much snow. All she wanted to do was go on Vacation in the sun.  In the US, she would have booked a flight by phone and found a hotel, separately. In Europe, she was directed to a package travel “holiday-maker”.

As she walked into the storefront and sat down at the desk, a lovely young lady came up to help her. dievca and the agent determined that an island in Spain would be the destination and started to try to book the trip.  dievca did not understand that the trips were canned and to do something off-schedule was unheard of — she kept getting the response “That’s not possible…”

Don’t tell an American, “That’s not possible….” especially when she hasn’t lived in the country long enough to realize the phrase is a cultural response to opposing the norm.
dievca’s back got up.

An American thinks, “I have a credit card….anything is possible. Get the hell out of my way.”

After about 20 minutes of polite arguing, dievca became bold enough to ask if she could look at the computer. It was a DOS based system and as she put in the dates she wanted (a Tuesday to a Tuesday), she had success.  The girl was amazed, “I’ve never booked a trip to Spain, in the middle of the week.” She knew it was “wrong”, so she didn’t try. Can you see why dievca got irritated?
OK, OK – dievca gets it…the agent was young.

BTW, the trip turned out to be lovely and there was a funny story with the “trip guides” who were befuddled (and a bit rude) when dievca showed up to learn about the amenities offered with the travel package. They thought she was sneaking in on their offerings because she wasn’t European….Lord forbid that an American would purchase a Holiday travel package through a very regional firm. Then they saw her name on the list of customers and were quite embarrassed. Needless, to say dievca rolled her eyes and planned her own activities…

Why is dievca telling you this story? Because she is meeting a friend in Europe to travel to Greece. And as she is trying to buy the cheapest ticket to miss the least amount of work, her friend is using an online holidaymaker and…..you guessed it….you can only get flights for certain days and times.  Of course, the ticket dievca originally bought didn’t match the options available. Thank goodness Expedia allows you to cancel within 24 hours.

dievca thought after 20 years, the Holidaymakers would have learned flexibility.
Guess not.
But, dievca still has that credit card at the ready!  😀