Travel Blog

Last night I stood on the stage of the Adrienne Arsht Center. (This was my week for standing on stages.) I not only stood on the stage, I ate on the stage, along with hundreds of people in town for the U.S. Travel Association's annual Pow Wow. The stage, here in the opera house, is quite deep and extends out to the left, allowing for the placement last night of two long buffet tables (salads, sausages, chicken, paella, lechon, Jamaican patties), one rectangular bar, and two stages - stages on the stage - where various dancers occasionally performed.

It felt a little odd to eat on the stage of the opera house (but not as odd as it felt to eat in Trinity Cathedral a few blocks away, which I did last year in my pre-blog days). A Japanese woman now living in LA loved the meat patties. The Romanian next to her set atop his a little pool of ranch dressing.

A hip hop group took the main stage and danced with their backs to the seats (since the audience was on stage). They were phenomenal. "I want to quit my job and join a hip hop dance group," the Indian woman next to me said. Actually, there were certain similarities between their moves and those of a Bollywood dance troupe.

Outside, Biscayne Boulevard was blocked to traffic and people sat at tables set up in front of another stage, where more dancers performed. Over in the concert hall, Jose Feliciano sang on a stage free of food, bars or travel people. Though the seats, at least on the lower level, looked filled.

It was an extravagant finale to the four-day meeting, though some pow wow veterans refused to be wowed. This is the thing about seasoned travelers: you put them in a five-star hotel and they complain about the thickness of the towels. Your humble blogger was quite impressed.