Of all the souvenirs I might have brought home with me from my trip to Italy, nothing could possibly top what I snagged in one tiny Calabrian backwater village: My Italian birth certificate.
That’s right: I’m now recognized as an Italian citizen by birth. My birth certificate sits in the municipal office building in Marano Principato, the small hillside town in the state of Cosenza where my great-grandfather was born in 1890. Mine is a little bit different, since it lists my birthplace as “Madison, USA.” Nevertheless, it confirms that I was born an Italian national residing abroad, and is the culmination of several years of diligent work toward this end. I’m officially a dual citizen.
I’ll be writing more about the journey to citizenship, as well as the trip to Italy (and Switzerland!). Hopefully soon since I pretty much took the month of April off. Stay tuned.
1. You gain perspective. Some people say “don’t sweat the small stuff,” but all too often that’s what we do, because that’s what’s in front of us. Excepting more pressing matters such as death, sickness, unemployment, etc., from day to day most of us are dealing with such existential worries as trying to find a better job, paying the bills, looking for a boyfriend or girlfriend, or finding at least one goddamned watchable movie on Netflix streaming. Nothing resets your perspective like getting out of dodge, whether it’s to sit on a beach, watch the waves, and drink a Corona, or to help an impoverished third world village build a hospital. Wherever you go, and whatever you experience, be it awesome natural wonders, ancient relics of civilizations past, brutal reminders of mankind’s cruelty, or just your own decadent indulgence of fun and relaxation, you’re bound to come back a better person with a sharper outlook on life. And you’ll be able to tackle those little problems; like the man said, they don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.
2. You’ll learn to enjoy getting out of your comfort zone. You go to work, you come home. You go to work, you come home. You go to work, you come home. The rest of the time, it’s S.O.S. too, right? You not only need a change of scenery, you need to be shaken out of your stupor and feel alive again. What better way than touching down in a foreign country, not knowing north from south?
The first time I ever left the continent was when I was 24 and flew to Barcelona. I planned very little, figuring if I knew the address of at least one hostel and which bus to take, I could wing it after that. When I disembarked from the Lufthansa plane and got my bag, I looked around the airport wondering, “what the hell am I going to do now?” I was jet lagged, of course, but my mind was alert and ready for the challenges that lay ahead. Since then, every foreign excursion has been like a splash of cold water to the face, from getting lost in Tokyo, to hang gliding over Rio de Janeiro, to losing a wedding ring in the Sahara and recovering it in Marrakech.
There is something invigorating about going somewhere completely different from what you’re used to. Parts of your brain that had been dormant for months suddenly wake up and start functioning again. You’ll come home sharper and ready to take more risks.
3. You’ll have the impetus to learn new languages. This obviously doesn’t apply to every trip you’ll take, but the more you travel abroad, the better you’ll get with foreign languages. You don’t have to master the local tongue, but learning and using a few phrases will open the door to new conversations (and new vocabulary). Which means you’ll be able to throw around a sugoi at your local sushi joint, or a breezy ça va? to your new French buddy.
4. You’ll collect experiences and memories instead of a bunch of random shit that sits around your house until you get rid of it. Yes, travel can be expensive, but is it really any more expensive than what you’re dropping cash on lately? A large HDTV still costs at least around $300, a laptop between $400-$1200, and how many new pairs of shoes do you really need? Certainly we all should have some creature comforts to make our lives more enjoyable when we’re not exploring new frontiers. We don’t, however, need as much of this crap as we think. Many such purchases happen because we enjoy the tiny spike in excitement we get when we bring it home (or receive it from Amazon). That excitement quickly gives way to indifference, until one day, realizing that either we get no use from it or its state of planned obsolescence has been attained, the item in question is unceremoniously unloaded at the nearest Goodwill. Think about how much you’re spending each month on superfluous junk, and then think about putting it toward a trip. That $80 pair of shoes was a delicious night out for dinner and wine in Paris. Your $700 iPad could be a round trip ticket to Ecuador. My $130 Westinghouse TV I bought for the bedroom could have paid for a hotel room in Sicily. (Ah, dammit.) You think your grandkids will listen to your lame attempts to regale them with stories of how you financed a surround sound system from Best Buy at 0% interest? Or are you gonna tell them about how you swam in the Devil’s Pool at Victoria Falls?
5. You’ll be more interesting and attractive to other people. Ever notice that people who’ve been a lot of places have a lot of good stories to tell? It’s a great icebreaker or common denominator between strangers. Travelers also always have at least one other trip in mind (whether or not they actually have it planned or can even afford it at the moment) in addition to the adventures in their rear-view mirror. This gives them the mystique of someone always going places, whether it’s currently true, or not. Your traveling, and more importantly your unbridled interest in others’ travels (plus all the previously mentioned benefits) can help you become that Man or Woman of the World you know you can be. It is up to you to make the next move. Stay thirsty, my friends.
You’re looking at the house my great-grandparents moved into in the early 1920s after they got married. They were immigrants from backwater towns in Calabria, in southern Italy, and they, like a lot of immigrants from their immediate vicinity, moved to the rust belt town of Kenosha, Wisconsin. You’ve probably heard its name but don’t know much about it. Nestled on the Lake Michigan coastline, Kenosha is equidistant from Milwaukee and Chicago. It’s the birthplace of minor celebrities such as actors Al Molinaro, Mark Ruffalo, and Don Ameche, and one major one, Orson Welles. In its day, Kenosha was a typical industrial port, churning out automobiles at Nash Motors, undergarments at Jockey, and brass rods and bars at American Brass, which was where my great-grandfather, Anthony Tenuta, worked. I don’t know exactly when they moved in to this house on 24th Avenue, just a few blocks from Columbus Park, but it was probably around 1921 or 1922 (it was known as Newell Street back then). The house is for sale now, and like Kenosha, it’s seen better days. Remarkably, once it’s sold, it will mark the end of a roughly 90-year period that it was in the Tenuta family.
Some of these photos, like the one below, show the old house (built in 1909) as currently advertised on a variety of real estate websites, looking empty and sad. Peeling paint, leftover furniture, and covered windows give the impression of something in neglect, desperately in need of a new owner.
But for the better part of the 20th century, this two-flat was packed with family, friends, and neighbors. My mother spent the first few years of her childhood here, in fact. Holidays and birthdays were especially festive, but at its peak it was a full and busy house from day to day, overflowing with children, spouses, grandchildren, and cousins, at any given time.
Though it’s empty and drab today, through decades of family history it absorbed – and witnessed – the styles of the times.
As befits a home packed with family like sardines, the nerve center was the kitchen, where my great-grandmother, Teresa, was boss.
Theresa spent all day in that kitchen, rolling dough with a broomstick before cutting it into pasta, and cooking sauce with tomatoes picked from the vegetable garden in the tiny backyard. She worked vigorously making meals well into her 80s.
Consequently, whenever we visited, the kitchen (and dining room) was where I spent most of my day, too, gorging on whatever decadent Mezzogiorno-style dishes were concocted from a relatively simple handful of earthly delights. Pasta, pork, potatoes, pastries, pizza – all might be on the table in one afternoon. My seat belt was always a little looser on the ride back to Madison in my family’s Ford Gran Torino.
That’s how it was for many, many years. I’m fortunate to have caught the tail end of this era; Anthony passed away in 1981 and Teresa in 1993. Both lived into their 90s, and although they lived steady lives and rarely left Kenosha, it strikes me as the height of adventure to have boarded a ship a century ago and left one’s homeland and family behind, never to see either again. I know it was due more to survival than adventure, considering the options in Italy at that time. And although Kenosha was populated by thousands of Italian immigrants, many from the same hillside towns and of similar means, on some level this Midwestern city must have seemed as foreign to Anthony and Teresa Tenuta as Beijing or Tehran would be to me.
Though the house is to be sold, it’s just the end of one era, not the end of the story. For me, the next episode will be in April of this year, when my wife and I travel to Italy. We’re making some of the usual stops: Rome, Venice, Palermo. But we’re also going to visit a couple of Calabrese hillside burgs, Marano Principato and Marano Marchesato; they’re the respective birthplaces of Anthony and Teresa Tenuta. I’m sure they bear little resemblance to the hamlets my great-grandparents left behind in the 1910s, when Italy was still a kingdom, barely 50 years unified, and sharing a border with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. (Europe is in a much better mess today than it was back then, no?) We’ll find out soon how much has changed and how much remains the same. Call it the end of one chapter, and the beginning of another.
There’s no way Jack Torrance would have chased his wife and kid with a hatchet if they’d been caretakers of a hotel in Hawaii instead of Colorado. Winter is a sickening, deathly season, capable of driving anyone mad. Even this New York winter, with temperatures usually in the 40s or 50s, and a dusting or two of snow, got a little soul-crushing by March. Since my birthday occurs at the start of this stupid month, Luciana and I decided a remedy for cabin fever was in order. We needed an indoor pool.
New York City has a lot of terrific luxury hotels, but there’s a surprising dearth of indoor pools among them. Anyway, it’s surprising if that’s what you’re looking for. Most tourists don’t come to the city to swim or sit in a sauna, and it’s got to be expensive to maintain a pool here. If you’ve got the money you can stay at the Mandarin Oriental, but that wasn’t in our budget. Other hotels, like the Crowne Plaza in Times Square, have access to a pool, but it’s part of a local fitness club and you’re sharing it with regular club members. We wanted a relatively affordable, easily accessible, not heavily trafficked indoor pool, preferably in a hotel with good skyline views. We chose the Millennium UN Plaza on East 44th Street.
The Millennium is nice, but it’s one of those luxury hotels that feels stuck in the ’80s. The lobby is black and mirror-y, like a Trump property. The restaurant and bar looked a little like a high-end strip club. The rooms were outdated, but nice, and ours had a dazzling view looking south, with the Chrysler Building and Empire State Building lurking to our west. The staff placed us on the 38th (and top) floor, and for the $185 we paid on Kayak.com we considered it money well spent, if not a terrific bargain, for the standard king.
As for the pool, that alone made it worth it. Situated on the 27th floor with windows facing south and east, it’s a decent sized lap pool with an 8.5 foot deep end. A swim at sunset is especially decadent as the daylight reflects into the pool area off the United Nations’ glass monolith next door. Saunas can be found in the locker rooms, and there is an adjacent exercise facility as well as indoor tennis courts ten floors up.
The hotel is trafficked more by businesspeople and diplomats than by tourists, so you’re not going to find many free amenities. Wi-Fi is extra, and of course you’ll pay for your breakfast – this ain’t the Days Inn. Rooms have large flat panel HD TVs with cable, but here is something I don’t get: How come hotels invest all this money in HD TVs with cable, but when I turn one on, it looks like the same shitty antenna reception I got back in 1982? Only this time it came with an incessant hum. The first (and so far only) hotel I’ve stayed at in recent memory which actually had HD TV on its HD TV was the Hampton Inn in downtown Chicago. Not that we were there to sit around and watch SportsCenter or anything, but at 11 pm when I’m about to fall asleep, I wouldn’t have minded watching SportsCenter.
Overall, I give the Millennium UN Plaza a decent if not outstanding recommendation. It has the indoor pool with a view, which was key. Since it was just a one night stay, we didn’t care if it was centrally located (it’s not), or offered free coffee (it doesn’t). I’d say the only other disappointment is that the pool closes at 7:30 pm on Saturday nights, again because the usual clientele just isn’t the type to stay in and swim. So we got ours in early and headed out for a delicious filet mignon at Ben and Jack’s Steakhouse down the street.
(For a list of New York City hotels with indoor pools, click here.)
I am neither an Apple hater nor an Apple lover. I think the company makes great products, even if they charge too much for them. I appreciate the commitment to innovation Apple consistently demonstrates as it races to stay ahead of the competition. Even though I’ve bought my share of Apple stuff, I’m not under any illusion that Apple is anything more than a for-profit corporation. I don’t think Steve Jobs was the messiah. And yeah, sometimes the white logo, and all the pretense it conveys, makes me want to barf.
One such instance are the glowing, Kryptonian apples currently adorning the East Balcony of the main concourse at Grand Central Terminal in New York. Now, I love Grand Central. Sure, it was built to turn a profit for certain people, too, but it’s a work of art. It’s simply one of the most impressive structures in the city, in both form and function. I consider myself lucky that my first foray into the Big Apple was when I emerged from Grand Central after a train ride from Providence when I was 20. To this day, I never tire of visiting and admiring it.So I understand that Grand Central needs retail to survive, which comes in many forms, from high-end clothing and handbag boutiques to the Two Boots Pizzeria. Considering how many people pass through its corridors it’s no surprise that an Apple Store opened in Grand Central a few weeks ago. It’s not any better or worse than a Michael Jordan Steakhouse, but the antiseptic, bright-white Apple logo, bathing passers-by in a ghastly shade of pale, is difficult to appreciate. Although the store is harmlessly tucked away, you can tell that Apple wanted to stand out in desperate and vulgar fashion. As you can see, two such logos flank the staircases leading to the store, giving the appearance that the East Balcony is now brought to you by Apple. And although they’re not carved into the marble (as it appears from a distance), the initial shock of believing so makes you wonder whether they suggested exactly that before settling on the glass plates.
Perhaps one day soon we’ll look up to Grand Central’s ceiling and see among the constellations logos for Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Foursquare, and (yes) WordPress, reminding us what to do with the photos we snap with our cell phones.
Come to New York City and you’ll see a lot of great artistic achievements: Ancient Egyptian obelisks, neon theater marquees, statues, fountains, and the like. The city is an open-air museum. But it’s also a work of art itself; when viewed from afar, the famous Manhattan skyline is as impressive a masterpiece as any Rembrandt. (And it’s different and new from every angle.) If you ask me, its piece de resistance is the dazzling jazz age skyscraper called the Chrysler Building.
That’s right, the Chrysler Building. Not the Capital One Bank Building or the Geico Building or the Acme Oil & Mortgage Default Swap Building. After 80-plus years, it still carries the same great, classic American moniker, after the company that builds cars in Detroit. This baby is a 1,050-foot steel-and-chrome homage to that other masterpiece, the automobile (and arguably, by extension, to sex itself…but let’s not get Freudian here).The Chrysler Building was completed in 1930, a time when the captains of American industry raced to turn themselves into princes or pharaohs by erecting ever taller towers of commerce and opulence. In this great competition, part civic and part ego, the prime field of play was the island of Manhattan. And there might have been no single victory better than Chrysler.
The Chrysler Building under construction in 1929.
Two former architectural partners, H. Craig Severance and William Van Alen, were in the late ’20s each charged with designing and building what would become competing skyscrapers. Severance’s downtown structure, known as 40 Wall Street, was being built at the same time as Van Alen’s project for Walter P. Chrysler on 42nd and Lexington. With some last minute changes, 40 Wall Street’s height was raised from 840 feet to 927 feet, good enough for tallest in the world in May, 1930.
40 Wall Street was the world's tallest building....for four days.
Just four days after 40 Wall Street’s completion, Van Alen prepared the finishing touches on the Chrysler Building. Imagine Severance’s surprise (and dismay) when Van Alen unveiled his secret weapon: a 125-foot spire that was constructed within Chrysler’s tower and out of the public’s eyesight. Raising the spire from within and topping off the 925-foot building, Chrysler suddenly and triumphantly rose to 1,050 feet, leaving 40 Wall Street (which also still stands today) as more of an historical footnote.
Photographer Margaret Bourke-White setting up shop on an eagle head.
Chrysler would itself be eclipsed in height by the Empire State Building less than one year later. That building has its own special place in the firmament, of course. But for sheer design, you can’t beat Chrysler’s hubcap- and hood ornament-inspired upper body. Eagle heads that simulate radiator caps leer into the distance; they are an art-deco answer to the pensive gargoyle.
The Chrysler Building’s innards are no less impressive. The lobby features a fabulous indoor mural, called “Transport and Human Endeavor,” which is a tribute to the march of American progress during the machine age. (As the Bowery Boys noted on their site, its style somewhat ironically foretells Communist propaganda artwork.) The lobby was at one time used as an auto showroom.
The 66th-68th floors were for a long time home to the Cloud Club, a Tudor-style retreat for millionaires, billionaires, celebrities, and the like. It included dining and kitchen areas, a humidor, a locker room, and a stock-ticker room. The Cloud Club closed in 1979 and is currently leased as a residential space.
But the Chrysler Building isn’t just for plutocrats and playboys. If you want to get some work done on your teeth, there is a dentist’s office located on the 69th floor – higher even than the Cloud Club. The view alone should take your mind off any root canal.
What’s in a name? For an Academy Award-winning movie, a title can conjure up all kinds of travel imagery, be it good, bad, or just weird. Since it’s Oscar week, let’s break down the best travel titles from the all time Best Picture list. With our own categories, of course.
Destinations
2002 – Chicago
1985 – Out of Africa
1962 – Lawrence of Arabia
1961 – West Side Story
1954 – On the Waterfront
1953 – From Here to Eternity
1951 – An American in Paris
1943 – Casablanca
1941 – How Green Was My Valley
1931/1932 – Grand Hotel
1929/1930 – All Quiet on the Western Front
1928/1929 – The Broadway Melody
Getting There – The Journey2006 – The Departed
1989 – Driving Miss Daisy
1981 – Chariots of Fire
1975 – One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
1971 – The French Connection
1957 – The Bridge on the River Kwai
1956 – Around the World in 80 Days
1944 – Going My Way
1939 – Gone with the Wind
1938 – You Can’t Take It with You
1927/1928 – Wings
Romance!2001 – A Beautiful Mind
1999 – American Beauty
1998 – Shakespeare in Love
1990 – Dances with Wolves
1983 – Terms of Endearment
1967 – In the Heat of the Night
1964 – My Fair Lady
1949 – All the Kings Men
1947 – Gentleman’s Agreement
1934 – It Happened One Night
Bad Travel Memories2007 – No Country for Old Men
2005 – Crash
1997 – Titanic
1996 – The English Patient
1992 – Unforgiven
1986 – Platoon
1979 – Kramer vs. Kramer
1973 – The Sting
1945 – The Lost Weekend
1935 – Mutiny on the Bounty
Finally, if travel counts for anything in a film title, then this year’s winner should be Midnight in Paris.
This young train enthusiast would also later prevent a major derailment with his body.
Riding the “Hiawatha” line (great name for a train line, by the way) got me thinking about great train travel songs. There is certainly no shortage of songs about locomotives you can add to your travel playlist, whether the song’s hero is riding overnight, waiting for his girl, slumming it, or driving it while high on cocaine. At the risk of sounding like one of those grown men with a Lionel train set*, here is a sample list of suggested railroad songs for your listening enjoyment.
Aerosmith – Train Kept A Rollin’
Before “Sweet Emotion,” “Love In An Elevator,” “I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing,” and of course well before Steven Tyler’s judgeship on “American Idol,” Aerosmith (circa 1974 here) was simply a young blues and rock band cutting its teeth on the tour circuit, usually opening for bigger bands. (Imagine a time in popular music when a band could release two underwhelming albums, acquire a devoted following through constant touring, and still have the faith of its label before making it big – all without a song featured on an Apple commercial.) “Train Kept A Rollin’” was already a classic blues standard by the time Aerosmith gave it a try; the tune was a hit for Johnny Burnette in the ’50s, the Yardbirds in the ’60s, and a staple of Led Zeppelin shows. However, the Boys from Boston put arguably the best spin on it, with Joe Perry slowing down the locomotive-sounding riffs and Tyler giving the lyrics, already laden with innuendo (“with a heave, and a ho”) an added oomph. It was a style of music that the band would go on to perfect (and would define it).
Arlo Guthrie – City of New Orleans
A lot of people have probably heard the refrain to this song even if they don’t know its name. This folk tune about the Illinois Central Railroad could have been written for (or at least crassly appropriated for) a local morning show, a cereal commercial, or a Ronald Reagan campaign ad, but it was an earnest ditty penned by folk singer and Chicagoan Steve Goodman. His contemporary, Arlo Guthrie, would later make the song a hit, and country stars such as Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and John Denver would also put their particular stamp on it. In an interesting twist, the lyrics start from the rider’s viewpoint, before switching in the refrain to the eponymous train, apparently singing about itself.
Gladys Knight & the Pips – Midnight Train to Georgia
“I’d rather live in his world than live without him in mine,” croons Gladys Knight about the man she loves, who couldn’t cut it in L.A. and is hightailing it back to his home (and girl, we presume) in Georgia. The man she sings about apparently “found out the hard way that dreams don’t always come true.” Ouch. His consolation prize is the steadfast woman waiting for him in the Peach State, shedding crocodile tears for his failed try at the big time but actually just happy he’s coming home.**
Roger Miller – King of the Road
For those of you ready to skip town with nothing but a few precious belongings tied in a kerchief around a broomstick, Roger Miller is here to glamorize the life of the train-hopping hobo. His clothes may be tattered, and he may smoke discarded cigar butts, but the man knows how to work the system. To you he’s a bum, but in that boxcar he’s a king. Here’s a lively television performance from 1965. Check out the audience reaction – you’d think Miller was the fifth Beatle.
The Monkees – Last Train to Clarksville
This is as simple as a train song can get – just get on the damned train, I’ll pick you up at the station, and I can’t hear anything on this phone because everybody’s talking so hurry up. It’s also unfailingly catchy, and an entertaining clip from the band’s TV show, through which the Monkees unwittingly invented music television.
Traveling Wilburys – End of the Line
That’s right, end of the line, folks. This is probably the best song from that late-80s “supergroup.” They’re letting us all know that “everything will work out fine,” and not to worry so much about the (final) destination but to enjoy the ride. In a sad coincidence, band member/legend Roy Orbison died of a heart attack shortly after contributing vocals to this tune. Consequently, the remaining Wilburys (George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne) filmed the video as a tribute to Orbison. (Wilburymania would later storm the nation with “The Wilbury Twist”.)
There are, of course, dozens of famous train songs I’ve omitted, including James Brown’s “Night Train,” Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train,” the Beatles’ “One After 909,” and Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train” (which is more of a NYC subway song that belongs on my NYC playlist). If you have any other suggestions, leave a comment.
*Does anyone remember the NBC Saturday morning live action show, “City Guys“? It was sort of an urban New York version of “Saved By The Bell” from the late ’90s/early ’00s. One of the teenage characters, Lionel, went by the nickname L-Train. Coincidence? Methinks not. Of course, now my blog will come up in Google searches for “City Guys.”
My last Morocco entry was on Kelaa M’Gouna, aka the Rose Valley. After that, Lu and I basically had two more full days in the country. We took a bus through the Atlas Mountains and arrived in Marrakech in the evening, spent the next day there, and went to Casablanca for the night before flying out the next morning. We really crammed a lot into seven days, moving from Casablanca to Fes to the Sahara to Kelaa M’Gouna to Marrakech and back to Casablanca. It was thrilling but exhausting. We also had two connections on our way back, and returned to New York on a weekday, and had to be at work the next day. It probably took us a full week just to recover.
If I had to do it over again, I’d have hired a local guide to drive us around the country. Normally I don’t mind the adventure and discovery that comes with figuring shit out on your own, but in the case of Morocco, and in the case of traveling with my wife, I think a little more insider knowledge and structure would have helped. At our hotel in the Sahara, we met two English ladies who were traveling together but with a guide. They said it was a great way to travel because he’ll stop anywhere and anytime you ask, he knew the good places to shop and often had relationships with various businesses, he could fend off any persistent touts, and he knew and shared details on just about anything – history, culture, nature, etc. – things you might not even think to ask about but were excited to learn. The next time Lu and I visit a non-European country that’s not English/Spanish/Portuguese speaking, i.e. just about anywhere in Asia, the Middle East or Africa, we’re going to hire a guide for at least part of the trip.
Anyway, after relaxing and forgetting our troubles in Kelaa M’Gouna, Luciana and I asked Briham, the manager at Kasbah Itran where we were staying, if he could arrange a bus to Marrakech for us. The bus he arranged was definitely not from one of those French-owned lines – no air conditioning, old seats, funky Moroccan-style curtains, and maybe one other foreigner besides us. We didn’t mind doing as the Romans do, however, and we enjoyed the comparative minor disorder of people sitting in the aisles and shouting at each other in apparent everyday conversation. The real thrill came when the bus wound through the narrow highway that wrapped around the mighty High Atlas Mountains. Anyone who’s ever taken a mountain bus ride knows what I’m talking about; the trip down is especially palm sweat-inducing, especially when traffic has backed up into a kind of impromptu caravan, and the driver is riding the brakes on each turn like John Bonham pounding the bass drum. (Right?) The landscape was absolutely gorgeous, sufficiently so to take one’s mind off the possibility of a landslide death plummet: Red, yellow, and green bedrock, cascading waterfalls, roaming mountain goats, and tiny villages in lush valleys where the townsfolk were out doing laundry in a gentle mountain stream.
The Marrakech Express
At the end of the six hour bus ride, we arrived in Marrakech around 7 pm, and phoned the riad we’d booked the night before. That led to a confusing set of directions to the famous Jemaa el-Fnaa square, just outside Marrakech’s medina. The medina had wider lanes than the one in Fes, but was a hot mess nonetheless; we had to meander through a wedding procession and around a fistfight at one point before turning into a dark alley/tunnel and then down a darker and quieter one before arriving at the doorstep of our riad – which of course was beautiful and relaxing inside. (I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the riad, and I have no receipt or record.)
Our riad was through that door!
The next day we spent chasing my wife’s wedding ring, which consumed a good portion of our time. But we did walk the lanes of the medina, and Jemaa el-Fnaa, which may be crowded and touristy but is wondrously steeped in old world craziness. Snake charmers, juice merchants, dancers, medicine men, and chained Barbary apes all vie for your attention and money as you wander about, stimulated by every color, scent, and sound. My wife held one of the chained monkeys, which promptly began to unzip her backpack and peek inside (well-trained, eh?). Cinematic and historic, Jmaa el-Fnaa square is one of the must-sees of Morocco.
(Sadly on April 28, 2011, a couple of weeks after we were there, a bomb exploded in the square, killing 17 people and injuring 25.)
For a break from the hustle and bustle of the medina and souk area, be sure to check out the Jardin Majorelle, a fantastic botanical garden in the French district. Designed by French artist Jacques Majorelle in the 1920s and 30s, it is one of the most colorful and astounding botanical gardens I have visited. An adjacent cafe features a relaxing atmosphere, delicious food and tea, fragrant orange blossoms, and jets of watery mist to keep everything, plants and people (and the friendly stray cats that roam about) refreshed.
Jardin Majorelle
Luciana and I had an evening train back to Casablanca, so we waited at train station late in the afternoon and even sampled the local McDonald’s. (Change of pace, I guess.) That evening we arrived in Casablanca to spend the night before our morning flight at Hotel Guynemer. My Lonely Planet guide gave Guynemer an “Our Pick” marking, but I can’t believe it was for any reason other than as an historical curiosity. The place wasn’t an out-and-out dump, but it was clearly one of those formerly grand hotels that has been in a slow but marked decline for decades. You know the type: Inside there is an attitude of some kind of luxury and old-world charm, but you get the feeling that the people working there haven’t visited another hotel, or even stepped outside, in years. The room was musty, the bathroom was mildewy, the shower drain backed up, and the bed sucked. To add to the sad display, lights in the hallways and staircases went off automatically after a few minutes, and could only be turned on by pushing the buttons at the end of the hallways (no motion detection). Yet you could barely see the buttons once the lights were off. It was downright dangerous; you could be walking downstairs and suddenly find it nearly pitch black. The location was slightly sketchy and noisy at night. Normally noise doesn’t bother me so much, but together with the other shortcomings of Guynemer, it added up to a rough night’s sleep. As a place to flop for the night it’s okay, but even if I were a budget backpacker I think I’d avoid this place.
In any case we eventually fell asleep and took a cab to the airport the next morning, homeward bound. Our Moroccan odyssey had concluded, and it was definitely a whirlwind. Like I said, next time we’ll hire a guide….and keep our wedding rings on our fingers.
Travel blogs like this one are often filled with suggestions, gentle or not, on how this institution or that business can improve. When a customer knows he has options, he or she does not hesitate to criticize, malign, or complain, especially when he feels he’s been wronged. As it should be.
But what about us, the travelers – the customers? What can we do to be better? Maybe it sounds like a silly question at first blush, but I think it deserves to be asked and answered. Public decorum, especially in the United States, is not what it once was. The freedom to raise hell, and abundance of outlets through which to exercise this freedom, has loosened the bridles on social comportment; the line between customer satisfaction and righteous entitlement has been blurred. On some level, we acknowledge as much; that’s why a man like JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater can become celebrated instead of vilified. Businesses aren’t without blame of course – they’ve played their part. But today let’s focus on how we can improve, in order to make our travel experience better for us and those around us.
Some of these suggestions may seem elementary, but they bear mentioning. You’d be surprised how many people don’t follow these precepts.
1. Educate thyself. Going to Mexico? Learn a few Spanish phrases. Headed to China? Find out what the etiquette is on tipping, or, for that matter, shaking hands. Do the Japanese slurp noodles or bite into them? The first step you can take to becoming a better traveler is to know something about the place you’re going, even if it’s an American-run resort in the Caribbean. Too many travelers expect the world to bend to their customs, and become frustrated and indignant when it doesn’t happen. There’s no shame in not knowing something, and most people will look past your ignorance. But you’ll impress the locals (and probably make more friends) if you study their ways before hand. You don’t need to read an entire travel guide cover to cover. Just brush up.
2. Dress appropriately. This starts at the airport. I don’t care if you have a 24 hour flight from Newark to Singapore; under no circumstances are sweat pants or pajamas appropriate attire for flying. Oh sure, I know it’s a free country and people do this all the time. But you’re not the one who has to look at you. Besides, how can you expect to be treated respectfully if you can’t dress respectfully?
Gone are the days when men wore their best suits on a plane, but you can still dress smartly without sacrificing comfort. I usually wear a button down, a blazer, a nice pair of jeans, and Oxfords or non-athletic-looking sneakers. I might bring a fleece in case the plane is cold. I sleep just fine. Now, I can’t speak for women’s attire, but I’m sure there’s something comparable to what I just described that won’t sacrifice your dignity the way pajama jeans and flip-flops do.
Shorts may be debatable, but I agree with Larry David:
Of course, once at your destination, appropriate attire is relative. Shorts and flip flops work in Costa Rica, while cargo pants are great for the African savannah. Suffice to say don’t dress like an asshole. Example: If you’re visiting Auschwitz, leave the Lebron jersey at the hotel.
3. Keep your carry-on luggage to a minimum. I know that by nickel-and-diming us with checked luggage fees, airlines have foisted onto themselves the opprobrium that is the Fee Wars. Passengers now want to carry on as much freight as possible to save money. On a recent AirTran flight, I saw one gentleman attempt to shove his enormous bag first under the seat in front of him (disturbing that seated passenger’s comfort), then into the overhead compartment. He looked like he was trying to push a fat man through an air duct to save his life. After a dozen or so violent nudges, he finally conceded that he should gate check the damn thing, but this was after wasting other passengers’ time (yet to take their seats and find their own precious luggage space) as well as the flight crew’s.
(In another example of righteousness, a young man shoved his carry-on suitcase into the overhead, right where an older man’s coat had been placed, scrunching it all the way to the back of the compartment. The older man got up and lit into him, rightly so. All the younger guy had to do was ask if he could move the coat first to make room. But with everyone fighting for their little piece of airplane real estate, courtesy often goes out the window.)
Measure your carry-on and don’t overstuff it. If you have any questions, ask an agent at the gate. You can usually have your bag gate-checked for free; is that so bad?
4. Be patient and understanding, even when mistakes are made. Believe me, I’ve violated this one plenty of times. Travel can be stressful enough, but when things don’t go according to plan, someone has to pay, right? A couple of years ago, my wife and I missed a connection in Atlanta due to “air traffic.” We got to the gate just as the door closed, and although we had been assured otherwise, no effort had been made to radio to them of our presence and impending (late) arrival. Told to go to the Delta help desk, I went – about to blow my stack. I tore into the customer service woman asking what Delta was going to do for us, blah, blah, blah. (The got us a hotel in Atlanta for half price.) I took the voucher and sat down at a bar and had a beer.
After calming down a bit, I walked back to the representative, and told her plainly that I was sorry for being so angry, but that I was just upset about missing our overnight flight to Rio. “I’m sure you get a lot of angry customers, and I know you’re just doing your job,” I told her. She accepted the apology and told me she understood my frustration.
I see this all the time, and what’s funny about it is that when it comes to travel, “you made a mistake” quickly turns into “where’s my restitution?” A flight to Chile I was on had to stop in Lima to drop off and pick up passengers; those of us going to Chile were allowed to keep our seats. Two college-aged guys were accidentally woken up and told to exit the plane. When they came back on they were reassigned seats they didn’t like. Supremely offended by having been abruptly awakened only to endure this discourtesy, these slack-jawed yokels (in sweat pants no less) started chewing into the very patient and professional LAN Airlines attendants. Not surprisingly, the next words out of their mouths was, “You can just bump us up to first class to make up for this.”
It wasn’t about being moved from window seats to middle aisle seats anymore; these guys just wanted to know what they could possibly get out of the airline for the injustice they’d suffered. The attendants kept their cool and explained to the men that they would find them two window seats (of course not in first class). The problem was solved, but would it have killed these guys to address the attendants with a little respect and humility? Those of us in the audience of this tempest in a teapot were sufficiently embarrassed by the attitudes of these two jokers, especially after having been treated so well by the flight staff.
The next time you’d like to petition for a redress of grievances, think about the flight attendant, the ticketing agent, or the customer service line representative. They listen to people like you bitch and moan all day. Remember that old idiom, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar? Try a little charm – you’ll get better results and you won’t make such an embarrassing spectacle. You’ll probably feel better, too.
Checked out @lonelyplanet's new Italy guide. Now in color - nice. And they have a new Southern Italy guidebook for the Mezzogiorno! Awesome. 2 months ago
Of all the souvenirs I might have brought home with me from my trip to Italy, nothing could possibly top what I snagged in one tiny Calabrian backwater village: My Italian birth certificate.
