We went to the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show on Friday thanks to tickets given to us by a friend. It was only our second time at the show and I was impressed by the set-up – the floating world of walkways and sales offices – as I was by the boats. Around sunset we climbed to the top of a yacht named, appropriately, Hospitality, for a cocktail party. Then, after waiting in a boisterous line of people who had obviously been to their own parties, we boarded a water taxi for the ride to the Riverside Hotel. Passing the waterfront mansions, many of them illuminated, was even more unreal than the boat show had been. (One, viewed from the dock, had looked like a picturesque European village.) It was difficult to believe we were taking a popular, if touristy, means of transportation through an American city; instead it felt like a Disney ride: “It’s a Rich World After All.”
