Tag Archives: Traveller

A Morning to Remember in Barcelona

We got into Barcelona on the Friday along with the commuter traffic but it really was a pretty smooth journey in. There is only one thing to look for when you come in from the airport and that is the Sagrada Familia – now in its 134^th year of restoration and due to finish in 2026. On a side note, I have to say, and I am surprised, that they have not put up a Sagrada Familia in Las Vegas. Let’s face it, if they were to do that it would be done in three months!

But seriously I love Barcelona. I think what I love most about it is that there are no real iconic sites. No major distractions to clog up your day. Yes, there is Gaudi, Parc Güell, the Olympic Village, the Frank Gehry fish in Barceloneta, and Las Ramblas, but it is a city that is just so relaxing because you kind of wander through the neighborhoods without the need to see the Eiffel Tower, Roman Forum, St. Peter’s, the Tower of London, etc. I grabbed a couple of hours sleep, took a bike tour of the city which was an absolute joy (Un Cotxe Menys Bicicletes), hung out a little bit at the beach area (the cleanest city beach in Europe), and walked back through the El Born district and Gothic Quarter. In between, I got lunch at the La Boqueria market and had razor clams and more razor clams (navajas). 03

Trains vs. Planes

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A too tight connection at JFK gave me the opportunity to change up my itinerary, grab a cab to Baltimore Grand Central Station, and take the Acela to Penn Station in New York. I have to say, when you have the opportunity to ride on the train, it is just so much more civilized than flying. Frighteningly, there is no security, which means you can arrive only 10 minutes (even less!) before the train pulls in. And the trains are always on time….well nearly!

At Penn Station, I never quite understood how to make the transition out to JFK. I arrived there and sought out some help. Fighting the commuter traffic which was rushing between stations and platforms, I managed to connect to the Long Island Rail Road ($10) which sped me out to Jamaica. At that point, I got off there and took the AirTrain ($5) straight to JFK. I was at the Delta Terminal in no time at all. Penn Station to the Delta Terminal was 40 minutes. No traffic, no hassle, and so I wandered to the Delta Lounge, grabbed a bite, and a beer, and got ready for the nonstop to Barcelona. Loved that day!

While I was getting ready for my flight, I started thinking about the benefits of nonstop flights. I have to confess that a nonstop on an overnight journey is optimal. In other words, if you gave me a chance to fly LA – Rome via London for a chance to get more airline miles on BA, I would say no contest. I will take the nonstop all the way. By the way, when can you ever use those miles anyway? How about practically never unless you don’t work and are totally date flexible. So taking the nonstop to Barcelona from JFK was a solid winner as opposed to connecting over Madrid out of Washington-Dulles.

Delta has improved dramatically over the two years. They are scoring up there with Jet Blue and Alaskan and have left their other erstwhile competitors in the dust. Wake up American!! The business configuration is better than most, the TV and movie selection is pretty good , and the food and service was fine. On an overnight flight, I tend to get the food out of the way before I get on the plane. Once the plane is in the air, I am all about taking some sleeping tablets to grab my five or six hours before we hit the European morning. I must confess to never having breakfast on an airplane. I would rather grab the extra hour and a coffee and croissant when I hit land. Have you ever tasted airline coffee? It is worse than hotel coffee and that is pretty bad!

Irish Bars and American Football

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When you travel anywhere in January, especially in Europe, there is a good chance if you are an American and love American football, there is a major game going on. As it happened, I was in Barcelona when the Patriots were playing Kansas City so of course my first inquiry on my smart phone was to find an Irish bar.

Irish bars are these remarkable institutions found in every city in the world from Shanghai to Istanbul. The Irish understand the needs of the modern sports fanatic. Yes, they sell you Guinness and Harp along with local brews and average food, but the thing they do the best is stay open late so that we can all watch an American football game long after the other bars in the neighborhood have closed. Irish Bars and American Football simply go hand in hand. My favorite bar in Rome is Scholar’s Lounge and it is ironically next to Berlusconi’s house. I guess he doesn’t mind the commotion with all the parties he hosts!

Irish bars are good for soccer in the afternoon, and American football or baseball into the late evening and early morning. Plus they rock. They understand that one television screen is not enough – they have 10, maybe more – and everybody gathers there. I often thing that some people never leave the bars. In Barcelona, I’m not sure when the bar even closed. It’s a late city and the Irish bars can outlast any city ordinance for closing. It must be because my grandmother is Irish that I feel right at home drinking Guinness and watching an American football game in a beautiful city.

What I Like About Paul Smith

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I like shopping and I actually prefer going to shops rather than surfing online.

As I get to travel, I am probably spoiled for choice.

One of my favorite shops is Paul Smith in London. I started going to Paul Smith in the late 1970’s. I loved the shirts and shoes from the very beginning. It was a sort of cool, edgy, and a very “Londony” look. As I was living in the States, it was a way to keep myself in tune with England!

So, all those years ago and still, I go to Paul Smith when I am in London. I love the tiny street in Covent Garden called Floral Street where the store is located. Everyone is helpful, trendy, and more or less my sons age! Actually my son who lives in Washington DC, always asks me to buy him a shirt whenever I am passing through. He even pays me back!

This past Christmas, I bought him a couple of shirts as a gift. However, one of them, as he later discovered, still had the magnet attached and had escaped the alarms in the shop. So the present wasn’t a present but rather a pain! With no Paul Smith shops in DC or Boston, I knew I would be in London soon so I popped in armed with photos of the unusable shirt. I chatted with a nice sales guy who had the deputy manager, Alex Sivyer, come down. He assessed the situation, said, “Here’s what we will do. Buy a shirt today. It’s on us. Bring the other one in whenever and well take the magnet off. 2 for 1!”

And that’s why I shop in Paul Smith. I wish every store could be like that. Great ethos, great people, and everyone obviously likes the guy who owns the place. Hats off to Paul Smith. It’s not just about the clothes. It is about the attitude and the culture towards the customer!

Oyster Card

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Oysters are amazing and I love them.

I even know how to shuck them pretty fast – something that I picked up from a mate of mine that works at Legal Seafood in Boston. When I travel to London, I love the rock oysters. They are not farmed, they are briny, super delicious, and quite deep.

Oysters are most famous in towns like Colchester and Whitstable so it is no surprise given the English obsession with oysters that they chose to name their metro card the “Oyster Card.” Believe me, when you are travelling in London, your life depends upon this card. It is your ticket to ride on the underground and the double decker buses. Think of it like this – London is a huge city with over 8 million people and geographically it covers an area of 1,580 square kilometers. The subway system in England is the oldest one in the world and reaches out way beyond the center of London and into the rural hinterland. Nowadays, every bus accepts the Oyster Card which means that you can jump between the superfast subway network and a super cool Routemaster bus. If the traffic is getting crazy, abandon ship and head down to the subway. If the subway stop is too far or inconvenient, grab one of the many buses that fly by you on the street. The stops are well marked and very civilized. As for getting in from the airport, the subway system delivers you right into the center of town from Heathrow.

With the Oyster Card, the discounted fare will cost less than £6.

Essentially, the city becomes yours!

But here is the deal with the Oyster Card – you must put a deposit down of £5, but when you leave, you return the card and receive that money back. Whatever you have left on your card is shown clearly whenever you put your card down on the yellow entry/exit pad. They are easy to top off using cash or credit. Given the high cost of the subway in London, if you are there for one day I would probably invest £25 in an Oyster Card and use it up the kazoo. It is not cheap but it beats the alternative. Happy travelling!

Raining Cats and Dogs in London: Umbrellas, Then and Now

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London weather is a strange phenomenon.

As blue as the sky is at any moment in time, there always is at least a 50% chance that the weather will turn for the worse. Furthermore, it will almost certainly end up as rain! Then it stops and starts and rains some more.

In England it rains – so much so that English people have a national obsession about the weather. “How’s the weather love? Bit hot today. It hasn’t stopped raining. We will need an arc if it carries on like this.” They even have words for varying degrees of rain. Spitting (yes, spitting!), drizzle and rainy spells (as if it’s some magic trick)! Cloudy with a chance of…some rain. Not rain but some rain!

I was thinking of this the other day while I was walking through Covent Garden and had to stop at the store Muji, a place where I always buy great pens, to grab a reasonably dependable short umbrella. Fact is that you simply cannot be without an umbrella in London. The whole city is geared towards terrible weather (there even are signs inside of the Underground stations telling us to shake our umbrellas Outside of the station in order to avoid slippery surfaces) and in stores people leave their umbrellas at the umbrella parking space by the door. Truthfully, if you are armed with a short umbrella which you can stick in your pocket, you can kind of go anywhere. It is a liberating feeling!

This got me thinking about umbrellas in general.

What is the story with umbrellas? Where did they come from and how did they evolve into what they are today? Funny enough, the basic umbrella was invented around 4,000 years ago and even appears in ancient wall drawings. The umbrella was made with paper and used as a shade from the sun. Hence, the name umbrella which comes from the Latin word umbra meaning shade. Leave it to the Chinese to figure out a way to wax the paper umbrella and lacquer them so that they can be used for both sun and rain. Then we fast forward a few thousand years to the 19^th century when James Smith and Sons Umbrella Shop opened in London in 1830 to serve middle- to upper-class people a parasol for the rain. Working classes used their cloth caps or just got wet! The shop on 53 New Oxford Street is still there selling high end umbrellas to tourists and wealthier clients alike. England even invented a word that is used everywhere today – brolly.

So where was my tiny umbrella from Muji made? Muji is a Japanese store and my pens most certainly are made in Japan – but you guessed it, my umbrella has gone back to its roots and is made in China. This likely is also where every single short version umbrella in any city sold by any number of people comes from. When you dash into a store or buy an umbrella from a guy that just happens to show up because it is raining (and let’s face it, you need it), remember that he is simply following a 4,000 year old custom practiced over the years and built to perfection for an English climate. But if you fancy a high end experience, go to James Smith and treat yourself to the real deal – a brolly for the ages.

London Theatre

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Every time that I go to London, I try to see a play. Last time I was there, I went to The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the indoor Globe theatre. I saw Shakespeare’s Cymbeline . It is still playing actually. At the Wanamaker, there is no electrical lighting inside of the theatre and only candles and candelabras on pulleys. It is classic London Theatere: good old Elizabethan fare served up on bare sets with traditional music in the background. Catch any performance there if you can. It is like no experience I have experienced.

This time, I was invited by a friend of mine, Lee Curran, to go see a play at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square. Lee is the lighting director; a “creative artistic type” that lights up much of London and Stratford with his art. The play was Linda, a play by Penelope Skinner and starring Noma Dumezweni. She plays an award-winning business woman promoting beauty products while facing the hypocrisy of how beauty is marketed to women. This was a play originally starring Kim Cattrall of Sex in the City fame but she pulled out with just a week to go before preview. Noma stepped in out of the blue, out of nowhere really, and pulled off one of the greatest tour de forces in acting. Talk about a crash course in learning lines. She was amazing, as was the play.

For me the real buzz was that I got to sit in the tech box with Lee high above the performance and watch the play through his critical eye. That was a first. It felt a bit like being in the cockpit of an airplane next to the pilot. We saw the next to last performance of the play. I got to meet the star and even got to grab an Indian meal afterwards. A truly perfect night in London.

Holidays in London

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The funny thing about the holidays in the USA is that everything seems to begin around Veteran’s Day. The Christmas music starts to rear its ugly head and while decorations do not go full-in until the week around Thanksgiving, there is that sense of a relentless march towards the big day. It is the holiday season after all– Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas – it just requires a couple of months to sell its various brands. But what it does not need is global warming which seems to have happened while we were all sleeping, driving our diesel and gas cars, ignoring calls for solar and wind power and maxing on our air conditioning use. Now, as I sit in Boston, watching somebody skateboarding by in a t-shirt, I wonder if I will ever see snow again!

On the other hand, London seems to embrace Christmas like no other place. It has the people (lots of them), every street in the center is full-on lit up with beautiful or funky lights, there is the huge Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square, and big bonus, no sun and it gets dark so fabulously early that the entire city is in nighttime glow most of the time. It’s cozy! While there is absolutely no snow ever to be seen and lots of rain, it somehow feels Christmassy. It is probably because London has so many shops and every shop has a Christmas window and everybody walking around London seems to be holding bags that indicate they have been shopping. There are pubs on every other corner jammed with revelers and the occasional jolly drunk and all of the restaurants have Christmas menus in addition to the usual a la carte stuff. This place full-on celebrates!

So grab a Christmas cracker, put your paper crown on, grab a piece of Christmas pudding or mince pie, or even go to Pret-A-Mange (the popular take-out place) for a Christmas lunch sandwich – yes, Christmas lunch complete with stuffing can be contained within two pieces of sliced white bread! While you are at it, grab a bag of Christmas crisps and then take the kids to see Father Christmas and a Pantomime. It’s the most popular entertainment over the holiday period. I grew up on them. Based in history on 17^th century Commedia dell’arte characters, panto means to imitate all in Greek. Everyone has fun, kids laugh, men dress up as woman and woman as men. Shakespearean really! Although it’s mainly for kids, it’s huge! It involves music, topical and saucy jokes, and slapstick comedy and is usually based on a fairy tale or nursery story. Plus everyone gets to go to the theatre!! Good for the soul!

Image Credit: londonconnection.com

Image Credit: VisitLondon.com & Featured Image: LondonTown.com

Vancouver – Hit or Miss?

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Having spent several days on the West Coast – a little Seattle earthiness, a bit of the gorgeous climate of San Diego, and a touch of L.A. – I had this absolute desire to go to Vancouver. I am not really a Canada freak but I do enjoy it. I quite like Montreal partly because you get to try your French skills out. Quebec is old world charm and the restaurants are not bad. Frankly, it’s also not far from Boston. But Vancouver, I had heard, was a fun, vibrant, and cool city with an incredible ski resort not far away, Whistler. So off I went.

Canada has an incredibly efficient entry and exit customs clearance facility. It is orderly, there are people who direct you with a smile, the machines all work and it is relatively quiet and highly civilized. The journey in from the airport is pretty stunning. We could make out beautiful waterfront glass skyscrapers that faced the mountains on the other side of the bay. The mountains were huge and there was snow on the top. It really was a breathtaking setting. We came in through the charming Granville district and then headed through a bunch of boutique shop fronts before getting to our hotel, the Rosewood Georgia. I was liking this place. The Rosewood was right in the center of the city and I have stayed at Rosewood properties before and I like the chain. The hotel was, as is always the case at Rosewood properties, excellent on service and detail and I felt sure that this was going to be a fun few days.

We had planned to do sightseeing the following day, visit the Granville Island famous for the marketplace, take a little ferry ride around, head over to the Vancouver Convention Center, and maybe even try a seaplane ride. So why did I find myself going to a James Bond movie at 7 o’clock the following day? There was something about Vancouver that was not quite making sense. It was a bit dull and there were not that many people around. There was a phenomenal exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery highlighting the Group of Seven and Canadian painters influenced by them. But after that, it got a bit thin out there. We did not go for the seaplane but we did discover a great seafood restaurant called Coast. They had dover sole!

The next day we went to Whistler and it snowed. The drive up was absolutely spectacular but Whistler was one of those fake villages that had been put up a few years ago and it did not look like there was much of a scene beyond the usual blah blah. The snow did look great, although I was not skiing, but it was fun to be in the thick of skier talk in the gondola. So, the scenery is stunning, the snow levels are higher than comparable ski resorts in Colorado but it still was not convincing.

I felt a bit sheepish about it. Everyone had said that this place was beautiful but I seemed to have missed it. Maybe it was the seaplane I should have taken or maybe it was just a weekend when everyone was away. The city had no edge to it. Maybe I will go back and look for it again next time.

Image credits: Vancouver Sun and HelloBC.com

Teachers: Pioneers of Cultural Bridge Building

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Recently at the ACTFL conference in San Diego we listened to Rick Steves talk about the power of travel. It was a compelling conversation that got me thinking a lot about language and the pioneers of cultural bridge building that we call teachers. I am not sure we focus enough on the power of teaching languages in schools, the impact of immersing the student in a culture and giving them a set of tools so that they can communicate in that culture. How encouraging it is to see how students’ lives and career decisions can change as a result of a teachers guidance, enthusiasm, and care.

I remember my French teacher to this day and I wasn’t a great student. He taught me the power to take chances, to take risks in communicating, and he told me never to feel foolish. Mistakes are part of the fun in coming to grips with the language. I have made many mistakes – some funny and some with dire shopping consequences! But it never stopped me from going for it!

We had a reception that evening in San Diego and I said that for me it all started with a verb conjugation. It was sort of like getting your passport. It opened up the world and then I got to connect all of those things that I had memorized (and I had to memorize a lot) into real life situations – being there, practicing, making mistakes, and understanding that it was fun. Here’s the thing, language cannot be taught effectively in a vacuum. Yes you may get a 10/10 on the test, but if you have not experienced the interactions, smelled the scents of a marketplace, taken the risk of talking to a vendor, or asked directions, then what purpose is the language for. In this day and age especially.

So I say, imagine a world where we all get a 10/10 for our Spanish, French, German, and Italian, but we never actually speak to a Spanish, French, German, or Italian person. We had never connected nor ever experienced the culture. It all started and basically ended with a verb. Not good. Travel is essential to connect the dots and connect the culture. Sometimes to go bravely where “no man” has been before a la Captain Kirk. What fun it is to hack at a language, make a complete fool of oneself, and yet somehow, the miracle of miracles, through a combination of sign language and mimicry, we get there. 1/10 on the language test but 10/10 for the connection that you make.

Update on Cuba

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We have a lot of surge in Cuba for business for 2016 and 2017. Everyone got hot on Cuba at the same time. Now, Cuba is turning into a high-demand, little supply destination. Hotel rooms are sold out months in advance. With talk of more restrictions being phased out, the 36% increase in American tourists will grow and grow.

But where to?

Here’s a brief update on Cuba:

Over 2 million people traveled to Cuba in the first part of this year alone. There are about 61,000 hotel rooms in Cuba and many are booked 18 months in advance. Americans still have to travel under a People-to-People status so it is difficult to sneak in and sneak out for a quick weekend in Havana. Bottom line is that tour operators are starting to turn people to other destinations which is a drag but understandable given the lack of infrastructure and available bednights. With places like the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica waiting in the wings, Cuba has better get its act together or there will be plenty of hotel beds and not much demand.

World Travel Market

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Held every year in London’s east metropolis full of new buildings that dot themselves around the river, the World Travel Market is like a huge bazaar, a maze-like walk across the world. I love the fact that you get to start your day in London Town and end your day in the far reaches of Bhutan. In between, you have every single country in the world – even Saudi Arabia that does not want you to come! They are all here.

More than 20,000 people visit the World Travel Market. There are seminars and exhibitions, but for me, the biggest thrill of all is to walk across the world and listen to thousands of languages being spoken from stand to stand. There are roughly 6,500 languages spoken in the world today although 2,000 have less than 1,000 speakers. However, at the World Travel Market everybody seemed well equipped with English. It was absolutely brilliant to walk through Italy, then Greece, to Turkey, and then France, and onto the Arab countries. Entrance into the World Travel Market for trade is free which means that you can travel around the world for nothing. As it turns out, the good old London Underground was on strike and so Emirates airlines was transporting everybody across the eastern London sky in their Emirates cable cars.

Bad News Returning to Israel

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The news was bad. The rains had washed away the border crossing and so there was no way back to Israel at the southern crossing. Instead, we had to drive north to the Allenby Bridge crossing and we had to leave our hotel at 3 am. It was sort of exciting because that particular crossing required a visa from Israel because it originated in the West Bank and there had been some issues at the crossing before.

We stopped along the Dead Sea on the Jordanian side at an awful café where I had a falafel and a coffee and was convinced I would have dysentery within the hour. I laced my coffee with a Pepto-Bismol to ensure I made it. I popped into the bathroom but simply could not stay. It was dreadful and I felt myself longing for the souvenir shops with the toilets the day before. Jordan was no Israel and I realized we had to get to the border crossing. It was our only hope!

We organized a VIP status at the crossing and that expedited most things. Again, it was as if we were in a spy movie – passports were exchanged, we said goodbye to our Jordanian guides, jumped into a neutral vehicle, crossed over, and our Israeli taxi driver was waiting for us. We drove across the King Hussein Bridge and there was a primitive bunch of roadblocks with nails to stop anybody from hurling themselves into Israel. The actual drive across the Jordan River seemed to last forever. We spilled into Jericho and then drove past the settlements, through the West Bank, and into Jerusalem for a late stroll and another plate of hummus.

I was beginning to like hummus with a cappuccino. Am I really saying that? We were back in Israel and the toilets sure looked good to me.

Petra

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It was cloudy when we left Aqaba but all of the forecasts predicted that rain would cease around midday when we were set to arrive in the ancient city of Petra. Situated in the Wadi Musa, Petra was established by the Nabateans around 400 years before Christ. In its heyday, it was home to 30,000 people.

What happened here?

The Romans came and colonized and built their amphitheaters, baths, and shopping colonnades and then the earthquake took care of the rest. It was a well-kept secret for over 1,000 years until a Swiss explorer rode into the city disguised as a holy man. The game was up and it was on the tourist map. But this is no ordinary place. Cut into the sandstone and chiseled into huge blocks of pink and red cliff, this place has everything….except decent places to grab a bite to eat and a cup of tea!

Standing by the main palace entrance, walking into the tombs, or wandering down the narrow, towering vertical walls are some of those extraordinary moments in travel when you pinch yourself. Running through the Siq is one of the great walks of travel. It is a walk of anticipation that was made into a sacred way by the Nabateans who had their eye for a dramatic moment or two clearly.

You don’t know whether to put your camera down or just keep hitting the shutter. Then you spill out onto the masterpiece called the Treasury. It is like a movie set. It is a movie set and the tour has not really begun. We spent the best part of six hours there.

The houses carved into the cliffs go on and on. You can get lost as you wander down that valley. Imagine that this place was practically shut down for 1,500 years? No water (the aqueducts were broken) and no civilization. Just a few Bedouin’s holding one of the great secrets of time. Somehow most of it hung in there. If you have never dreamed of going to Petra, go! We came in on a horse and we left on a camel. Incidentally, it was only an hour ride on the camel but it felt like a month. I had so much more respect for Peter O’Toole than ever before!

Back to Aqaba for an evening dinner and an early departure.