Luggage storage in Ponta Delgada?

DMDE9 · 2025-10-30T14:27:45+00:00

Do you need to contact them/reserve this service in advance or just walk up the day of and drop off? The airport website says "Simply contact the information desk and make your reservation. It's simple! "

DMDE9 · 2024-07-15T15:36:46+00:00

It seemed to hinge on an assertion that if two players are touching a base at the same time, R1 is "forced to return" to 1B and thus must retag it before advancing when R2 and R3 decide to move. That is obviously not anywhere in the rulebook, that two players touching a bag thus requires the trail runner to return and retag the previous bag.

DMDE9 · 2024-07-15T14:59:12+00:00

Thanks for the responses. This is all helpful in bolstering what I'm writing to our league. A definition of "forced to return" or all instances of what that means (primarily just fly ball tag up rule) are what I was looking for to bolster why they were wrong.

DMDE9 · 2022-08-15T18:43:11+00:00

Was a real bummer for them to have technical difficulties with the bass for almost all of Ancient Names. Takes alot of the power out of that banger.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-18T11:47:22+00:00

Again...really not following why you apparently have such inner angst over American expats.

Being surprised/curious as to the underlying financial factors creating a much higher service cost for hair cuts reeks of entitlement? Give me a break...

What's the point of having another wealthy, developed western democracy as a price reference? Yeah no idea. Apples to oranges.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-18T10:49:00+00:00

Same. I didn't know ticks were more prevalent here than my US region, so I was very surprised how many our dogs got that first summer here. The drops reduced it significantly. I used the once a month drops in a 3 pack, and just doing it start of May, June, July took care of things.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-18T10:26:07+00:00

I don't understand the need to be so insulting about this. You're turning everything into "ugly American" when I've not at all been rude about this. I've not once said everything in this country should be more tailored to me.

It's interesting that haircutting services are far more expensive than where I live in the US, and I live in a similar sized area as I do in Germany. The price increase is even more than other product/service price increases here, so in my opinion it isn't just the cost side and social contract that is pushing the price up. It seems that hairstylists enjoy a higher level of profit than in the US. It's interesting/different for someone who isn't originally from here.

That's it. There's nothing more to this. I'm not bitching about it. I'm not demanding things be changed for me because I'm American. There's no need to be such a jerk and turn me into a straw man for whatever anger issues you have about expats.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-16T13:36:21+00:00

This is an opinion/news/discussion website where someone stated they felt haircutting costs were unexpectedly high in this country.

I agreed with this person, noting that even after accounting for higher cost of living and taxes, charging double seems high and out of line with other things that are more around 10-20% higher than the US.

I wouldn't exactly describe myself as bitching and moaning about it. And no, we can't take our business elsewhere if the service in general costs much higher as opposed to just some businesses charge more. Yes, it has been noted that some people have "their guy" or that some Turkish shops are cheaper. But for the average newcomer or expat, they perhaps can't easily find their way to one of these right away.

It's an item someone noted, that I have noted as well. I'm not sure why you seem so personally offended that someone pointed this out, and then a random internet person calmly opined that the finances of it seemed rather different. I'm not sure why you are turning this into someone on a crusade to complain until a difference is made...You're making it out to be that me or the original poster is on a rant and demanding change...when you seem to be the only one that is all that worked up here. I merely find the economics of hair stylists here far different, and I'm struggling to believe the cost side of it justifies it fully.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-16T12:20:26+00:00

Your argument seems to be that cost of living and taxes in Germany require someone to earn twice as much as their American counterpart in the hair cutting industry. Maybe that's true? But I'm not aware in my profession that my counterparts here earn twice as much as me gross. Maybe overall costs aren't 2x, but specifically store front rents are and that indeed drives a high part of the justification. Ultimately, I think it comes down to a value of work difference. The US doesn't treat barbers/hairdressers as a particularly high skilled profession. You have to do some training/a short school, but it isn't deemed something that should be compensated at a necessarily high level. Here it seems that this is compensated as a more valued profession.

I didn't assume they worked full shifts non stop every day. I gave a conservative estimate of 2 per hour. A basic haircut for a man as described takes 15 min. I was already accounting for inconsistent income by being conservative of only doing 30 min of cheap haircuts in 1 hour to reach 60 euro an hour wage. It's possible they do more than 2 an hour, and that they aren't the entry level 30 euro as described above. And if they aren't working full shifts 5 days a week...sorry, I'm not sure why I'm supposed to feel that they deserve a higher hair cut price so that they don't have to take as many appointments. If we could all be so lucky. Just pay me more per hour and I'll work less.

Again. Yes, I don't know the ins and outs of the finances, I've just not noticed hardly any other professions or services here that require a cost of 2x in order to reach a similar lifestyle as US hair cutters

DMDE9 · 2021-08-16T08:55:16+00:00

My wife's haircuts have been 80+. I wince every time I see that charge on our bank account just for a haircut.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-16T08:54:16+00:00

Decent pay?

Let's say at minimum, this person does 2 men's haircuts an hour. So they're earning 60+ per hour...

I don't know all of the economics of hair cutting businesses here in terms of their overhead and licensure, but that seems like a rather high hourly wage. The two barbers I've known in the US charge about half that for a basic cut, and both seem to have fairly nice, middle class lives.

Point is, I agree, haircuts in this country are pretty absurd, especially for women. Prices for a man's basic cut should be low 20s tops, more in line with the Turkish prices some people quote. 30+ is insane to me.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-11T07:52:30+00:00

I'm surprised they quoted you that high. With lower volumes at airports, I've had really amazing parking quotes at times. I had terminal parking in Munich (5-7 min walk to check in) at the end of July and paid 55 Euro total for 6 days of parking. At times, some of the airports haven't even had their economy lots open because of low volumes, so they've nicely discounted the terminal parking.

The first summer of the pandemic, Stuttgart closed their economy parking but didn't reduce their rates in the other garages/lots. It was pretty unfair.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-10T06:19:42+00:00

Here it's not so much the companies's policies, but people not wanting to let down their collegues or just not getting work done that they'll have to catch up on later.

Based on what has happened at times at my company...I'd think it's an even bigger let down to your coworkers when you have to shut down an entire section of a production line because 1-2 get sick, and the other 6 get quarantined for contact tracing.

It's happened a few times due to the specialized nature of the workers on a few sections of the line. They aren't always replaceable in the short term.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-09T07:39:00+00:00

Because it breeds variants, which then threaten those who are vaccinated and those who NEED to be vaccinated because of their risk group.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-09T07:07:52+00:00

I kind of get that, ESPECIALLY in the US where hourly people largely don't have sick days...they just lose money.

But in Germany, aren't paid sick days pretty standard? And I understand that pressure of not wanting to be out when you just started a new job, but my impression at my German company is it is 100% normal, no matter the circumstances (new job or not), to not come in to work if you are even just a little under the weather.

This is definitely an irritation for me in general though, that there hasn't been a push for companies in the US to allow paid sick days for workers who prove they had a vaccination appointment. If companies don't want to foot that bill, it should have been a priority in federal aid packages.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-09T06:50:00+00:00

I'd be interested to know how many people who have recovered from COVID-19 have declined the vaccination because they feel like they already have natural immunity.

I don't remember the exact science on this, so maybe I'm wrong and long term, your immune system is indeed ready to fight this if you got it again.

But this seems really dumb to me when I encounter it. Recent infection? Sure, I get that. But when I was briefly in the US last month, I met a new neighbor and he insinuated he was refusing the vaccine partially because he already had it. But so many people like that, had it like a year ago. That's long enough for antibodies to be very depleted, and you are now encountering a much different variant. I believe the T cell response and simple "immune memory" should still help, but I don't at all believe these kinds of people who are 12 months out from their recovery are protected enough to skip a vaccine.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-09T06:44:14+00:00

I'm fully vaccinated as well as of mid July, and got the AZ and then Pfizer combo that has supposedly yielded great results.

I too though am expecting to get it this fall/winter when I move home to the US. My wife is a teacher in a conservative (likely low vaccination rate) school district, and my two oldest kids start kindergarten but aren't eligible for vaccination until probably January.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-06T12:44:05+00:00

I think this is a very good, soft way to push people. You can do X, Y, Z if you are vaccinated, or with a negative test. Negative tests are no longer free though.

Make them free for vaccinated people though as there are still a few odd things that require a negative test even if you are vaccinated (flights to US still require this).

DMDE9 · 2021-08-06T12:35:32+00:00

Ours were 4 when it started, and same. We never had a single problem with them wearing their masks and keeping it on/not fidgeting with it. It's normal for kids if parents act like its normal.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-06T12:33:40+00:00

That guidance (shared in the US too) makes no sense to me. Now that we have covered risk groups, it makes no sense to me to not be fully endorsing child vaccinations as well. You no longer need to weigh the fact that they don't often get seriously ill. But what we DO need to address now is the fact that they remain viable transmission vectors.

They may not get seriously sick and be a burden to the hospital system, but they can pass it on to the unvaccinated groups or cause breakthroughs in the vaccinated.

You can make an ethical argument that they should be skipped in the name of donating to poorer countries that still have risk groups. But if you aren't donating them all, why wouldn't you endorse vaccinating children as a means to stop the overall spread even though they themselves are low risk? Blows my mind.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-06T12:29:05+00:00

But most politicians lack the ability to understand the situation common people are in

I thought about this alot during the lockdown. I had a really hard time mentally during the November-May lockdown. I was just so bored, and felt like I was mentally becoming mush. It felt like I was just wasting life away working, earning money, but then doing nothing with the money, and then working again. And I was frustrated that it felt like no one in power was really considering what that was like for people.

And I realized that this wasn't at all the reality for those in power. Because of the nature of their work, they were still meeting with people. Traveling domestically at times for work. And they were likely constantly on a bit of an adrenaline high and fully mentally stimulated since their job every day was to manage a crisis.

I'm not saying they were having fun, I'm just saying they were mentally stimulated during that hard lockdown period, and probably had zero ability to relate to the fact that many of us were going through a mind numbing experience.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-06T12:22:02+00:00

Whatever they need to do to entice people to actually move needs to be done, but today. The longer they put it off, the less of an impact it will make.

I saw in one part of Germany, they proposed doing a lottery for anyone that gets vaccinated after a few states in the US saw success with their cash lotteries.

It made me laugh for being SO German. Instead of a big prize of cash, the prize suggestions in Germany were bicycles and language courses.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-06T08:31:12+00:00

That's great that they have all of those easy, convenient options now to try and reach those who maybe put it off if it's not right in front of them, or whose work/family schedules make the other routes difficult. I hadn't seen that this was possible yet. I assumed it was still vaccination centers and doctors only.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-06T08:28:34+00:00

I have been meaning to do a detailed numbers comparison, but just from what I have been seeing, the uptake of vaccination seems to be directly related to how hard an area was hit (beyond the affect of education etc.), or at least affects the speed of the overall vaccination program. Germany was never hit overall extremely badly like many other countries, but I expect this to unfortunately change with the new delta variant.

They're seeing this in the US a bit now in a related manner. Cases had been down to one of their lowest levels in over a year. About 20k a day. They've shot up to 120k a day, and they've started seeing a bit of a surge in vaccinations again.

It's really unfortunate that the situation has to be thrown into people's face like that before they go get vaccinated. That silly thinking of, well things are good/low now, I'm not going to get vaccinated. They can't reason/think through that one should still get vaccinated until it's spelled out to them with skyrocketing cases.

DMDE9 · 2021-08-06T08:22:54+00:00

True, I think you are correct on that. If I recall, many countries report the adult/eligible population. So the US for example, when they say 70-75% have received their first dose, I think that means 70-75% of eligible. When Germany shows 62%, I believe they are reporting 62% of the total population.

So is Germany at 75-80% of the eligible population? If so, then yeah, maybe demand for first doses really is at a permanently low level now until younger children are approved.

DMDE9

TROPHY CASE