Category: Travel
The Australian travel magazine get lost arrived in the mail yesterday with my article on travel in 70s, those halcyon, pre-Internet days when total separation made total immersion a whole lot easier.
Immediately preceding my piece is one you would never find in an American travel magazine, as it lists the 10 countries with the most beautiful people. The authors write about the men as well as the women, shielding themselves from charges of sexism. Still, judging nations on their citizens' attractiveness is not something an American publication would dare to do.
Lebanon was #10, giving credence to stories my old newspaper's foreign correspondent used to tell me. Japan was #9, an uninspired choice (I would have chosen Korea). They were followed by Ethiopia, Italy, Israel and Colombia (Secret Service men are no dummies). Denmark was #4, which perhaps explains, better than a culture of low expectations, why the Danes are also said to be among the world's happiest people. Argentina was #3, Ukraine #2 (though almost any Slavic country could have taken its place) and Brazil was #1, giving South America three of the top 10 countries for male and female pulchritude. Regarding the latter, I found one glaring omission: India.
I apologize for the absence, but I flew to Branson for a long weekend and a (probably long) story.
Coming back last night, during my layover in Atlanta, I found the Cafe Intermezzo tucked inside Buckhead Books in Concourse B. I took a seat at the end of the bar and read the menu. Then I looked around at my fellow barflies: Except for the one couple, everyone was gazing into a Smartphone, or texting on one, or talking on a cell phone, or tapping at a Notebook. The man sitting next to me had his phone plugged into his ear (the one nearest me). There was no chance of striking up a conversation or even asking how the soup was. I ordered the jambalaya and turned my eyes, in defeat, to the baseball game. It's getting tough out there for travel writers.
Paul Clement was interviewed for Download, the weekly feature in the New York Times' Sunday Review.
Asked what he was reading, the former U.S. solicitor general said "mostly briefs, old Supreme Court cases and the Federalist Papers." He added, however, that "to unwind" he reads novels, humor and travel writing, "like a bunch of Norman Lewis classics."
I'm thrilled at the thought of a Beltway lawyer settling down in the evening with A Dragon Apparent. I'd be even more thrilled if it became a trend and was followed by politicians.
I have rarely traveled in March because it seems silly to go out into the world the month that the world comes to Miami.
Yesterday I attended my 16th Cruise Shipping Miami (formerly Seatrade) in the Miami Beach Convention Center. The State of the Industry Debate is now more of a roundtable, and there are fewer exhibitors than there were in 1996. (Cruising has grown but the economy has worsened.)
But the international feeling is still very strong. I purposely didn't take my bookbag this year - as a defense against unwanted brochures - but I still ended up having my pockets bulged by a little sack of lavender from Provence and a tiny Korean doll in a hanbok.
Japan was back this year, their drummers periodically drowning out meetings in neighboring Spain. In Barbados, women in carnival outfits posed for pictures with Miami Heat dancers. Not to be outdone, middle-aged men in Scotland wore heavy kilts.
Germany and Italy had their usual large domains radiating out from a central bar (beer and coffee). Turkey had a sizable presence, with musicians playing for much of the day. Looking for a table on which to eat my quesadilla, I sat with the same Turkish tour operator - and his daughter - I had lunched with last year. Late in the afternoon, the Turkish booth featured dancers and a buffet - cheese and crackers, olives and zucchini, rice and lamb - along with narrow plastic glasses of raki.
But the most popular happy hour, as always, was over in Holland. I talked to a tall Dutchman (is there any other kind?) who expressed admiration for the Italians. "They have that extremely soft carpet, so as soon as you walk in you have to slow down."
He was less impressed with his hotel. "I changed rooms because my first one faced onto the vent of the neighboring hotel," he said. "I opened the window and it was so noisy. You would never find that in Holland. I think Europeans are more sensitive to noise than Americans are." I warned him about dining out in South Beach.
I grabbed a peanut satay - which went well with my raki - and found the Irish couple I'd met last year in the same exact spot. They had complaints not about the noise but the rudeness. I explained that South Beach is not known for its graciousness and then they told me they were staying downtown.
I gave them a ride back to their hotel. It was the least I could do.
The Australian magazine asked me, as part of my contributor bio, to name someone – living or dead – whom I would like to go on holiday with. I immediately came up with a long list of famously beautiful women, from Cleopatra to Dita Von Teese. But I decided that that would be too blatantly male fantasyish. I then considered my favorite writers. But they could be haughty; what I find appealing in Evelyn Waugh’s novels would probably be less so in the man. And I’d be lost in the shadow of a literary great like Vladimir Nabokov – to such an extent, possibly, that even he wouldn’t notice me. Then I remembered a long-time hero of mine, a man who was charming, cheerful, curious, funny, intelligent, goodhearted and up for anything, i.e., the ideal person to travel with: Steve Allen.
The Miami City Ballet performed at the Broward Center on Friday. There was a moment during the first piece - the world premiere of Viscera - when I pulled back from focusing on the two dancers and took in the entire scene - two graceful figures illuminated on a dark stage - which reminded me of a photo on a page of other photos showcasing the cultural attractions of an aspirational city advertising in a glossy travel magazine.