On the Friday night before the 9/11 anniversary, the streets of Manhattan were already clogged. I waited over half an hour for a bus and then started walking up 57th Street. It was a warm, muggy night, and I was carrying two coats (long story).
Parked by the next bus stop was a pedicab, operated by a young woman of extraordinary beauty. I didn't want to hire her (too expensive) and she didn't circulate where I needed to go anyway. But she provided a lovely distraction as I waited for my bus. In fact, she made me not really want to see a bus.
She was from Turkey, she said, one of my favorite countries, I said. (Honestly.) She had come to New York two years ago. "Two years ago today," she said with a smile.
She was not in a hurry to go anywhere. "I'm tired," she said. I asked how long she'd been operating a pedicab. "This is my first day." She gave me that ravishing smile again. A glaze of perspiration glistened on her face; the street lights shone in her thick black hair.
"And today is my birthday," she said a bit sadly.
After a few minutes she had to move, a bus (not mine) was coming. Gathering all her strength, she pedaled off into the night, the beautiful birthday girl whose fate, I felt quite sure, would soon improve.
I had reservations about my fellow travelers when I first laid eyes on them in the lobby of our Prague hotel, and they were confirmed a few hours later when we sat down for lunch.
Almost as soon as the menus appeared, hands shot up. "I don't eat fish," one young woman announced after reading about the smoked trout salad with caviar. "I don't eat lamb," a middle-aged woman barked on seeing it offered as our main course. Our bemused waitress conferred with our guide, and solutions were found.
The young woman, I learned, didn't like the "texture" of things from the sea. (Her dismissal of the salad had nothing to do with health.) The anti-lamb lady didn't eat "young animals." Though she didn't inquire about the age of the pig she received as a substitute.
I used to be a picky eater, but then I started traveling. It seemed rude to refuse foods I was graciously served, and also wrongheaded: the whole point of travel is to experience the new, even - some might say especially - at the table. I don't like everything I eat abroad, but I usually give it a try.
The waitress returned for our drink orders. The restaurant sat in a vineyard overlooking the city, in a country famous for beer. The two ladies ordered Diet Pepsi.
They served delicious lasagne on the flight from JFK to Heathrow, and then a breakfast sandwich - free-range egg with mayonnaise and bacon - on the two-hour flight from Heathrow to Prague.
So I was looking forward to the flight back until the Czech at the check-in counter told me there were no aisle seats available for the flight to JFK. I can't remember the last time I crossed the Atlantic in a middle seat; I'm not sure I ever have. I asked the Czech to please double check, which he did, only to come up empty.
At Heathrow, on my way to immigration, I passed the British Airways Customer Service Counter. I walked up to a young man sitting behind a computer screen and asked if there was some way I might change to an aisle seat. He checked and told me the flight was full. He even turned his screen around so I could see the depressingly unnumbered seat plan. (Numbers, he said, would indicate a vacant seat.) He got on the phone to a colleague, telling her my request, and seat number, and then told me to ask again when I arrived at the gate.
I arrived at the gate and asked again. The young woman checked her screen and shook her head in a now familiar fashion. I took a seat and reconciled myself to a long night stuck between, I imagined, a sumo wrestler and Andrew Zimmern.
When my section was called I gave my boarding pass to an attendant and asked, in a voice turned hopeless, if there was any chance of getting an aisle seat. He looked at my ticket and then at his screen: "You have an aisle seat," he said, taking my boarding pass and tearing it in half. "It's been changed," he explained, handing me my new pass.
The chicken in leek sauce was delicious.
From yesterday's New York Times Travel section photo feature "Why We Travel." (The photo was of a nighttime park backed by skyscrapers and filled with people holding candles):
"My husband and I are eight months into a three-year trip, and are blogging about our experiences... This photo was taken during the candlelight vigil held in Victoria Park in Hong Kong for victims of the Tiananmen Square protests. Thousands of people crowded the park. It was a moving experience even though we didn't understand anything that the speakers were saying because of the language barrier."
The wedding was held outside, on a point overlooking the ocean. It was probably the most beautiful place in Groton. The bride's brother officiated, taking less than twenty minutes to marry his sister. It was long enough for 7-year-old Olenka, the groom's niece, who at the conclusion of the ceremony shot her fist into the air and shouted: "Now let's eat!"
A buffet was set up on the terrace of an old mansion which is on the National Register of Historic Places. At one point the fathers of the bride and groom made speeches, followed by toasts to the happy couple.
Just before dessert, as if on cue, the fog rolled in, making the ocean disappear and wrapping the wedding party in a soft haze. Most people retreated inside, sitting under high ceilings and in front of sculpted fireplaces. A band played in one room and when the conga line formed I thought of the couple as now officially united.
We were driving through Groton, Connecticut, Hania doing her best Mrs. Benchley impersonation (suggesting I stop and ask for directions), me insisting that my well-honed skills as a travel writer enable me to sniff out downtowns I've never before seen. We drove through a cluster of strip malls, and then followed the road as it got leafier, suggesting a picturesque Main Street at the end. But all we saw was a red brick town hall.
Back among the strip malls, I rolled down the window and inquired as to the whereabouts of downtown. "This is it," the woman in the SUV said. So much for my belief that every New England town has a quaint village green.
We got back on I-95 and drove to Mystic, which we knew was quaint by the line of cars crawling slowly toward the center. We pulled into a seafood stand - we didn't have much time before the wedding - and got a lobster roll and a lobster salad (two of the rare, non-fried items). They were delivered by a beautiful young woman with an old-fashioned look and a Russian accent. The Slavic Julia Roberts.
Finished, we drove into town, turning down a side street of lovely Victorians. Two large yellow labs stretched atop the steps of one like resting lions. We made a right and drove to the Bake Shop, where Hania got out and bought me one of the finest chocolate chip cookies I have ever eaten. Then we headed back to Groton for the wedding.