Monday we drove down to Islamorada and, in the evening, went to the Cabana Bar at the Lorelei for Happy Hour. The tables were all occupied at 5:30, so we took seats at the bar, where a tall man in dark glasses and a grey ponytail served us margaritas in plastic cups. The people at the bar, like those at the tables, had a uniform look: cap, T-shirt, shorts, and sandals. Many – especially those whose shirts had long sleeves – looked as if they were quenching their thirsts after a day on the water. A band started up, the singer invoking, in a gruff voice, the names of Jesus and Jimmy Buffett.
We finished our drinks and headed down the road to Morada Bay. Families gathered between the two restaurants, their children running barefoot across the hard sand. Young couples posed for pictures in front of the dropping sun. There was no music, just the sound of children’s voices and the occasional adult, reigning one in. A few rows of chairs faced west so people could sit and enjoy the view. Normally, I gravitate away from tourists to hang with locals, but in Islamorada, the sunset ritual of the visitors was more to my liking. They even applauded as the sun disappeared behind a key.
Yesterday morning I drove to Miami for the Palm Sunday service at Trinity Cathedral. I love Palm Sunday: the beautiful hymns – yesterday we sang not only “All Glory, Laud and Honor” but also “O Sacred Head Sore Wounded” – and of course the palm fronds. As a boy in New Jersey, I found them exotic; now as a Floridian, I cherish them for their mix of the Biblical and the everyday.
Yesterday I watched Rick Steves’ PBS special about Poland. He starts in Krakow and follows the Vistula to Warsaw, Torun, and Gdansk. (A wonderful Rabanesque travel book could be written by someone sailing the length of the Vistula.) Steves covers the basics, most of which were familiar to me, and leaves out two of the things that appeal to me most about Poland: the humor and the folk art, much of which is touched by the humor. But I’m happy that he’s shed some light on what he justifiably calls “perhaps Europe’s most underrated and surprising country.”
Yesterday I drove to Miami Beach to attend the annual cruise conference known as Seatrade. When I was a travel editor, I went every year, because it reminded me of the world’s fairs of my childhood. There were simple booths instead of lavish pavilions, but industry and international culture were represented by people from around the globe, some of them in traditional dress (kimonos and kilts). It was always astonishing to see how much of the world has a connection to cruising.
This was my first visit in many years and, as always, I spent most of my time in the cultural section, roaming among the various countries, islands, cities, and ports – some of which took on more significance this year.
A woman from Greenland, who has been living in the States, said that when she goes jogging she puts a sign on her back that reads “Greenland is not for sale.” It gets, she said, only positive reactions. I asked what percentage of Greenlanders would like to be part of the U.S., and she said maybe five percent, explaining that some propaganda circulated that if that happened everybody would become a millionaire.
I ate lunch – teriyaki chicken, fried rice, egg roll – with a group from Norwegian Cruise Line who spoke Spanish among themselves. They were replaced by a woman who runs a luggage valet service for the Port of New Orleans. She was replaced - I eat very slowly - by a tall, bearded man from Puerto Vallarta who, when I asked him how he found the Spanish spoken in Miami, said that Spanish is not his first language. “Hebrew is,” he said. He was looking at Portugal as a possible place to move to.
In the afternoon, I spoke to a man from Barbados who told me that flying fish have become very expensive on the island. He said that young people seem to prefer soccer to cricket these days, even though there are more wealthy cricketers than soccer players in the Caribbean. He suggested I come visit.
I met a Spanish woman who said that, back home, she didn’t always tell people she worked in tourism. I asked her how she liked Miami.
“It’s dirty,” she said. “And the toilet in my bathroom is broken. It’s a $400 a night hotel."
The services are poor, she said, and the traffic is impossible. In her city in Spain, she can walk everywhere. I told her traffic was a bit better in Fort Lauderdale.
“Seatrade was there a few years ago,” she said. “I asked myself, ‘Where’s the culture?’ I could never live there.”
I told her there’s an art movie house downtown that I can walk to; that every November it hosts a film festival. She looked surprised.
“But what I love about America is the friendliness,” she said. “We don’t have that. One day I want to travel around the U.S.” I told her to visit the South and the Midwest.
I made my way to the Baltics. A man from Riga said he wasn’t worried about Putin because Latvia, unlike Ukraine, has a border with Russia that for long stretches is thickly forested. The Lithuanian woman over at the Klaipeda booth was not so sanguine, while the Poles from Gdansk sat at small tables in private conversation oblivious to, or just not interested in, visitors. Perhaps they sensed that I was going to tell them about my book. Proszę Pana, napisałem książkę o Polsce!
At Cruise Britain I took photos of a cardboard King Charles and then ran into Kieran – a friend from Ireland – and asked if he’d like to pose with the King. He politely declined.
I use social media for posting photos (never selfies) and cartoons (one every other week), links to articles I’ve published and occasional promotions of my book. As my late friend David Beaty used to say, “You have to do your fan dance.”
Yesterday Hania, who is not on social media, suggested I post about her birthday on Facebook. This rare personal post – that ran with a picture I took of Hania last year, petting a French bulldog in Charleston, SC – received a flood of likes and comments, many of them from people who hadn’t liked or commented on any post of mine in years, if ever. I was very touched, as was Hania, though I found myself wondering if the people whose names I rarely see find my creative work eminently unremarkable.