Strolling through the Centro Storico in Naples is a trip within itself. I was on the way to the Naples National Archaeological Museum 
but had to stop along the Via San Gregorio Armeno to check out the pedestrian street laden with a combination of kitsch nativity scenes and the real stuff. They’re called presepe which essentially means “a crib.”
This is where every single Neapolitan family comes to at Christmas time. In fact, my Italian friend told me that pretty much everyone in Italy has some kind of glass enclosed nativity scene that has been handed down or is part of the family treasure. These things are wild. Some 
of them have intricate waterfalls and the possibilities to extend across the room like train sets. The price ranges from the basic model for 50 Euros to over 10,000 Euros for elaborate ones. But for Italy, it is not just Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in these scenes, there is a whole hobbit village created around the manger with trees, vegetation, waterfalls, windmills, you 
name it. They can be made of terracotta, wood, and cardboard. Even my communist friends have a presepe! But to note, Jesus is always the last to enter the scene and is only placed in the manger on Christmas Eve.
Some of these nativity scenes are simply breathtaking works of art, and some of them have odd characters like Maradonna, Naples’ most famous soccer player, hanging
out close by. Neapolitans love football more than anything so why shouldn’t they incorporate their most famous (albeit an Argentinian) into their presepe tradition?! Onwards and upwards to the National Archaeological Museum I went.
stroll from the station and around the city for about two hours before heading back to Rome. It was interesting but I really didn’t get a sense of the city. Now we have a client that I know that would like to go to Naples but the rap on the city is that it has a lot of petty crime. So off I went with my man bag in hand for a virgin overnight in Naples.
Here’s the thing about Naples – it’s handy to know your way around, there are lots of hills, it’s a chaotic, and there are lots of different areas with very different characteristics. The first stop was the Palazzo Mannajuolo which holds an incredible staircase; probably the most breathtaking internal staircase in all the world, la scala ellittica. We strolled around the hilly Chiaia and stopped at an old-world candy store in San Ferdinando. We came across a beautiful piazza with the pantheon-like structure of the church of San Ferdinando. The piazza here is open and full of light with Vesuvius in the background. The opera house, Teatro di San Carlo, was showing La Traviata. There is a spectacular galleria, the Galleria Umberto I, close by as well. It houses thousands of panes of glass sitting in a cross formation with a whole series of panels of Jewish stars that form part of the glass decoration. The history of Naples is more or less the entire history of the our ancient civilization. One thing’s for sure, it makes Rome look like a young lad.
railway station in Rome. The traffic setup was crazy. They are renovating the station and there is no great place to drop-off or pick-up passengers. Then suddenly, we walked through the utterly dysfunctional part of the Stazione Termini and were presented with a sign reading “Lavori in Corso”. Essentially meaning “Men at work.”
would be able to sail through the station in a way that seemed entirely impossible now. Of course, I had to peek behind the plastic. Couldn’t resist. But sure enough, the utter stillness of the other side provided every evidence that indeed there were no men at work, nor women, nor 
anybody. Maybe tomorrow or the next day. The station would wait, not just f or me but for my children and my children’s children. Roma, non basta una vita….Rome, a lifetime is not enough.
and watch it slam down on a piece of concrete and nothing would shatter. In fact, when I first went to the Apple Store to invest in one, the guy gave me the sales pitch on the Tech21 and told me it was shatter-proof. So, I took the case, put it on my iPhone, threw it up in the air, and watched his face in horror as the phone landed on the Apple ground. Guess what? He was right.
cannot be ordinary fingers. Or else this person just prefers the “Do Not Disturb” crescent moon symbol. Living dangerously if you ask me when you are at the theater.
silicon began to wear on the corners. What a drag. I have an Apple Store near me and I walked in expecting some kind of interrogation on receipt verification, the usual sales obstruction stuff, etc. But instead, the guy told me to go pick out a new case and we would just do a straight switch. Or if I wanted the money back, he would just transfer it back to my card. The whole transaction time was five minutes. Brilliant service. Hey Tech21, change your design. I will still leave the door open for you. Hey Apple, you’re the best.
museums and grand theaters. I love the neighborhoods that stretch all the way from the Battery to the Bronx and the new Brooklyn, unrecognizable to my wife now who went to Bayridge High School and grew up a stone’s throw from the Verrazano Straights. New York has a busyness to it with its big, broad avenues, and trying to catch the pedestrian lights as you walk so you don’t need to stop and can just zig zag your way from 30th to the park. I love Soho and the Village and always wondered where I would live (probably Soho although the park is stunning). So my question on New York is why is it so ratty in places? London can be patchy and the outskirts of Paris are dreadful, but we are talking downtown New York City. It’s very uneven to me. Fun, but dirty, and even the late-night scene is sketchy.
My favorite restaurant in the city is Esca. I love this place – great seafood, nice wine list, but honestly, it’s stuck in the seediest part of town on 43rd Street and 9th Ave, next to porn shops and dodgy quick bites. It’s weird, New York. The transportation hubs just seem to be seedier than they need to be. Grand Central is a beautiful station but it’s confusing. The shops and kiosks around it are grim. Penn Station is even worse and is surrounded by dodgy hotels. Yet here in the thick of it is Madison Square Garden. Let’s not forget to mention LaGuardia Airport, antiquated and inefficient, with no great transportation link into town. Welcome to New York. 
learning fun and frivolous. She ended up obtaining a following of 350,000 people who wanted to know why Brits drink pimms and take tea at 4:00 pm, why they pronounce fruit as “froot” and not “fru it”, “choobe” and not “toobe”, and “choona” not “toona”. She compiled a list of the 100 must-to words that you need to know in English, she did a Christmas swear words special, and her website launched her into the English language stratosphere.
Finally, we are seeing the government recognizing that consolidation is creating an arrogance in service and in amenities. After deregulation in 1978, industry charges like baggage fees and bumping passengers have been pretty much left to the airlines. And 80% of USA domestic business is now in the frightening hands of four airlines. Power to the few and less power to the consumer.
money where their mouth is. Dragging a guy down the aisle sounds like a bad wedding arrangement. It nearly cost them their business. CEO Munoz stated that he is committed to making things better and now overbooking as a policy is going to be phased out. Southwest, the darling of consumers, actually has the highest overbooking of any airline. They were just smarter and nicer about it.
produce a travel magazine; essentially Airbnb Magazine. The rationale is that nobody knows better where people want to go than Airbnb does. They see it in demand and deals and have it resourced from billions of data points. As such, they can provide stories for people and places that are hot and can write about places that are trending. Savannah, for example, is one of Airbnb’s biggest sourced destinations, Porvoo in Finland is another. Go figure!
Now airports are moving into food and drink technology. Many airports have iPad ordering systems set up around bars and themed food restaurants. The deal is that you sit down, swipe your credit card, choose items from the iPad menu, and then food or drinks come flying out at you from places that you had no idea. Meanwhile, there are bartenders that you cannot order from and wait staff that appear randomly with your food in no apparent order. The basic problem with that system is that it’s not that good. Somebody has to keep coming in to manually assist and more often than not, the timing is all screwed up. Sometimes you get wine when you should’ve received coffee, or pizza when you were looking for dessert. It helps to pass the time and the idea is to simply centralize the operation center, but the problem is that it doesn’t work that well.
travel companion. However, it doesn’t get to go to Italy with me and I hate that. The cab company lobby there is just too powerful. So apart from not being able to see the sights of Ancient Rome and renaissance Florence, Uber does pretty well with me.
possibly canceled, one word of advice, pray to God that you are not stuck at LaGuardia Airport. It sucks. Watching delays unfold and getting bad updates and then inevitable cancellations are frustrating and bring out the worst in all of us. Airline staff is not helpful and nobody has a clue. Usually, they point to a gate complaint line that is a mile long and have you wait there. If you are really lucky, you get a snack voucher. As for a hotel, dream on! 
much better. It’s as if they have no training on what happens when stuff goes wrong. That’s the only time they have to worry and that’s when they can really overperform. We know the airline food is bad, the seats are cramped, and the service in general on the plane is very average, so how about excelling at this? Help passengers who are trying to figure out what to do, concentrate on the pre-
boarding service, calm people, assure people, and take a genuine interest in getting people into a good frame of mind. Maybe they should have yoga attendants at the gates helping passengers breath. It’s a shame. This is an area where you don’t have to do much. Just be service-oriented and kind. Is that too much to ask?
wanted to show me the Cuevas de las Maravillas which is just west of La Romana and is designated a national park. I have been to a few caves in my time. I remember well the caves near Nerja in Spain and the Postos in Slovenia. Limestone plays fantastic tricks with water underground! This was going to be a bit of an adventure.
descent. Inside the cave, there are about 500 paintings and engravings on the walls all made by the Taínos, the ancient inhabitants of the island and in general, most of the Caribbean. There were human faces, animals, and geometric figures. All pretty basic stuff but all incredible given the time period. It is a rare photograph of life just before Columbus arrived. Of course, as is the case 
with all of the native Indians, they got royally (pardon the pun) screwed by either the Catholic monarchy or the diseases that the discoverer’s brought with them. So now we get to walk through their caves. For me it was a fabulous travel moment – alone, no tourists, just the guy who opened the door for us, and the only noise was the dripping of water through the stalactites that are endlessly fascinating and at the same time you wonder if today is the day that they will fall to the ground.