Yesterday morning I made my annual trip to Seatrade (my excuse for not blogging), heading to 17th Street instead of I-95. (The cruise/shipping conference has moved to Fort Lauderdale now that the Miami Beach Convention Center is under renovation.) Happily, the port authority moved the security checkpoint back in time for the meeting, so now to park conventioners no longer have to show IDs and declare that they are not carrying guns. By the time I arrived, a little after 10, all levels but the top of the garage were filled.
The press room (I was delighted to see that my badge said "press" and not "media") was on the second floor, with large windows overlooking the exhibition floor. The space downstairs was smaller than in Miami Beach, I was told, but it contained the usual motley of ports, countries, shipbuilders, engine makers, parts producers, and other entities that have a connection to cruising. And, of course, people from around the world doing business. This year I joined them, finding the countries mentioned favorably in my new book - Germany, Portugal, Turkey, Sweden - and giving their representatives a postcard of the cover.
Jane said that she tells students, when they're reading a novel in French, to limit the words they look up in the dictionary to five a page. Otherwise, the reading becomes too tedious.
For years I've wanted a tattoo but I still can't decide: Thurber cartoon or Beerbohm caricature?
I guess because I'm now a freelancer, "Downton Abbey" always reminded me of the pleasures of working with a group - in a newsroom or, especially, at a school. At the English Language College in Warsaw we teachers also took our breaks at a long wooden table in a nondescript room before rushing off to serve our grateful students. The range of personalities was worthy of any Masterpiece Theater series, yet we shared not only the same task, but a respect and an affection for each other that were demonstrated on holidays like Christmas. Freelancing gives you freedom, as the name suggests, and independence, but it deprives you of the incomparable feeling of togetherness.
Saturday evening, strolling Lincoln Road after the New World Symphony concert, we came to a man with two young American bulldogs. Hania immediately went up to make their acquaintance.
"You need an adorable dog," I said to Larry. "Then women would come up to you."
"I'd rather have an adorable woman," he said, "and have dogs come up to me."
The postscript to my National Geographic Traveler ordeal is that the story that finally appeared was missing a number of things that were contained in the original story, including the description of my walk through the old Jewish quarter and my mention of the then soon-to-open Jewish museum.
Within days of the issue's appearance, the magazine received three letters from subscribers all complaining that I had written about Warsaw without once mentioning its Jewish past. The editor in the letters department asked me if I had any suggestions on how the magazine should respond.
Yes, I emailed back, I certainly did.
(I'm off on a short fact-finding cruise; will be back here on the 12th.)