So, as you may or may not have noticed, I’ve hardly touched the blog lately. It isn’t for lack of interest, but I’ve been traveling an insane amount lately. I was in New York for seven days recently and, in the weeks surrounding that, found myself in Louisville, Birmingham, Charlotte and a couple of other places. And, at the moment, I am sitting in a hotel in Helsinki, Finland. The trip was/is to be a day in Venice, four days in Helsinki, three days in Paris then on to Tampa, FL to meet up with my family for spring break.

Well, so far my trip has been interesting. But, then, there’s that ancient Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times", so I suppose interesting isn’t always a good thing. On my flight over I was able to sleep most of the way so that helped me acclimate to the time change. So that was good. When I woke up I felt like someone had beat me with garden hoses and shoveled some dirt into my mouth, but it is a small price to pay to not have to be aware of my knees on either side of my head for the whole 8 hours or so.

So, I was connecting through Paris to Venice and had a one hour five minute connection which is tight anywhere, but is *very* tight at Charles de Gaulle airport. As an aside, I think CDG was designed by retarded monkeys with a slide rules, but I can’t prove it. If you’ve ever had the, um, pleasure of connecting through there you know what I mean. Anyhow, so I was gamely going to try to make my connection which was  insanely optimistic. But, then, I *am* an optimist (mainly because I think optimism is so darn cute) so I hoped for the best. My hope was  that the plane would be a touch early, I would have a seat near the front of it and customs – you have to pass through passport control  between flights, in case I failed to mention it – would not be too backed up. So, I got a seat very near the front of the plane and we were, in fact, a couple of minutes early! I couldn’t believe my luck. It looked like I was actually gonna be able to make this one! Well, it looked like that until the po-po’s stopped the whole group of us in the hallway on the way to customs. They kept us there for half an hour with no explanation (how French of them) before letting us go along with about 5 other plane-loads of people that they’d also held up. It turns out  that some *moron* (probably American) left a bag in the queue area in customs so they cleared the place out and brought in the dogs, et al.  Five minutes earlier and I would have gotten rushed though, now I got to wait with the amorphous masses.

The good news was that they were able to get me on the next flight which was almost three hours later. Unfortunately that was three hours out  of my already way too short jaunt to Venice. But, as they say, don’t look a gift frog in the mouth (that was a mildly pejorative French reference in case it slipped past you). So, off I go to Venice.

Upon arrival in Venice I go to pick up my luggage only to find it conspicuously <em>not</em> going around in circles with the rest of the luggage. So, off I go to lost baggage to burn yet another hour of time I should have been eating pizza and looking like a tourist. They manage to tell me it is in Paris, but that it will be in on a flight tomorrow. Unfortunately the flight it is coming in on is a little over two hours AFTER the flight I am leaving on. After much haggling I convince them just to send my luggage on to Helsinki so we can have our little tearful reunion there. Put a thumb there and we’ll come back to that.

But I should feel pretty good about things cause they gave me this *nifty* toiletries kit with all *kinds* of neat stuff. There is the single  blade razor made out of what feels like recycled milk cartons and a handle that is half normal length. Were they expecting to hand these out to oompah loompahs or something? It is almost a step up from a sharp rock. Almost. Then there is the toothbrush made from a similar material with the same abbreviated handle and toothpaste that tastes like, well, paste. You know, like the paste you used to use in first grade. Oh, and let us not forget the deodorant whose design more resembles that of a ring-pop gone wrong than any traditional deodorant. Then there was the shirt they so thoughtfully include. It is a tee shirt with  the ’sky team’ logo on it. It is uncanny how perceptive they are; they knew I’d want to advertise for them given that I am currently their  biggest fan. Unfortunately, it is an XL and, well, I am a long way past wearing an XL shirt. I am in a 2XLT (and the T – for tall – truly matters) or 3XLT  depending on who makes it. Me, in an XL shirt? Well, to quote Fred of ‘Right Said Fred’ fame, ‘I’m too sexy for my shirt’… Well, it would  look like I think I am anyhow.

Now, in the interest of being fair they *did* tell me I could spend up to 100 Euros on whatever I needed to get by and I could send it in for reimbursement. How generous. 100 Euros. In Venice. I did manage to get one nice pair of socks and only had to add another 8 Euros out of my pocket. OK, seriously, so I didn’t spend any of it for a couple of reasons. Perhaps the biggest is that by the time I got where I could even  try to buy something it was almost dark on a Monday. Most of the clothiers had closed up shop. It is just as well since they wouldn’t have had anything that would fit me anyway.

Anyway, enough about that. So, Venice… you know, there just isn’t anywhere else like it. I finished up with the luggage Nazis and hopped the Vaperetto to Venice. I soaked in the ambiance from the time they shoved off. I got tons of pictures, a few of them even pretty good. The hotel I got (for $84 US a night, thank you very much) absolutely exceeded my expectations. It was worth three times that at least. It was almost adjacent to St Marks Square, with 12 foot ceilings, ceiling height gold draperies and sheers framing the French doors to my balcony that looked onto the most charming little square. Ornate gilt framed mirrors and such galore and an uber-modern bathroom that I would have tried to sneak home with me, but I figured they’d notice it missing and would charge my card. Besides, I had no luggage to hide it in, anyhow. But it was, in a word, magnifico.

I walked my little feet off (OK, so they aren’t little. Whatever) in the time I was there. I dropped my stuff in the room and headed immediately back out to the streets (if you can call them that), camera in hand. I walked from Piazza San Marco (St Marks Square) to the grand canal then up it for a ways and back. Only stopping for the occasional photo op, I trekked something around 5 or 6 miles I would guess, and that doesn’t count the couple of miles I’d already put in through airports and such just getting there. By the time I got back near my hotel it was close to midnight and I was starving, so I set out looking for food – specifically pizza – and boy did I find it.

Let me paint a picture for you. Deep within the labyrinth of alleyways that make up Venice lays a small square. It is nothing like the great squares typified by Piazza San Marco, but a very small, quaint area – which is actually triangular – ringed by a few shops and trattorias. In fact, it may not even qualify as a square; perhaps it is just a wide place where several major alleyways converge. It is late – just shy of midnight – and all but one of the trattorias has closed up shop for the evening. The others with their tables and chairs stacked just inside, and their awnings rolled up. The one that remains open has perhaps 6 or 8 tables in front of it. Each table is adorned with a small candle and there was just enough of a breeze to cause them to gently flicker. The majority of people left on the streets were couples, walking hand in hand, speaking in whispers and oblivious to the world around them while a continuous stream of songs filtered out the open door of the main dining room. All tunes by Frank Sinatra and his contemporaries. All love songs. The music reverberating off the ancient marble and stone of the buildings lining the square, giving it a presence – an ambiance – that enveloped you. It was beyond romantic. It was amazing. It was magical. It was not somewhere to eat alone. And yet, there I was. I can honestly say I don’t ever recall being so lonely, yet so content in the same moment.

After finishing my amazing pizza – down to the last crumb – I walked around for another hour or so just soaking in the city. I love walking the streets of cities when they are asleep. I do it almost everywhere I go. There is something so intimate about it, particularly in a place as cozy as Venice is to begin with. I can’t think of anywhere that matches Venice for that particular experience.

So I returned to my room and I set my alarm for a few hours and trekked back out for sunrise shots. For those not counting, thus starts day three in the same clothes. I caught the socks trying to jimmy the lock on the French doors to make their escape but I stopped them, I think they were in cahoots with the underwear, but I can’t prove it and they both deny it…  =oP

The sunrise shots were a bust since it was grey and cloud, so I didn’t accomplish much, but I did wander around a bit more and pick up souvenirs for the kids and send some postcards back home. Then I came perilously close to missing my flight out which would have been a disaster given that I have to be in our office here in Helsinki first thing tomorrow morning. See, I was given bad information about where to catch the vaperetto back to the airport. By the time I figured it out, I’d missed the one I’d intended to catch and had to wait around more than a half an hour to catch the next one. It, in turn, took about 75 minutes to complete what was supposed to be a 50 minute trip. When I told the gate agent what flight I was checking in for she looked almost panicked. Then security got all anal with my stuff and made me take it apart most thoroughly. And, of course, my gate was almost the furthest one from security.

…all of which brings me to here, my hotel in Helsinki. It is quite nice, but my luggage was not here as promised. I called and it turns out that my luggage finally did get to Venice after all. I hope it enjoys its time there as much as I did. I also hope its stay is as brief as mine was. Meanwhile, I am here left to face day *four* in these clothes, not to mention that they aren’t exactly proper office attire under the best of circumstances. I did manage to get some detergent and the bathroom here has a heated towel rack that I’m hoping will have them dry by morning. Wish me luck.

I’ve posted a few of the photos from Venice here. They are straight out of the camera and haven’t been processed yet so you won’t get the full impact of what I was after. Oh well, better that than nothing, I suppose. I’ll keep you informed as this trip unfolds further…

/g

I just came back from a week in New York City. If you’ve not been there, you really should go. It is a whole other world from anywhere else in the country. I’ve been there so many times over the years that it has lost the newness for me, but it has never stopped fascinating me.

Aside from the sheer scale of the city – all the streets are lined by so many tall buildings that they become urban canyons reminiscent of art class vanishing point perspective drawings – what really gives New York its unique feel is the people. They are widely regarded as rude by people from, well, almost anywhere else. And, while some certainly are rude without a doubt, it really is largely a misconception.

What it really boils down to is this: there are so many people jammed together that it puts you in a defensive posture to begin with but, even assuming it didn’t, it simply isn’t practical to make any real human connection on the streets there. Every day I walked to and from my hotel at 51st and Lexington to where I was working at 39th and Madison. One morning, just for grins, I tried to count the number of people I passed on the way in. I had to give up before the first block. I’d reached 150 by mid-block and I’m reasonably certain I’d missed a few. So, conservatively, I passed 300 people in that one block. My walk was 14 blocks. That means that, in that 10 minute walk, I passed something close to 5,000 people. At that scale, it just isn’t possible to deal with other people as people. They are just moving obstacles in your path.

You see, when you think people are being rude in The City, they generally really aren’t. The can’t be rude to you because they never even saw you. Each of those people on the street are walking in their own world, just weaving through a maze of moving objects on the way to wherever they are headed. If you got the chance to go hang out in the offices where they are headed you’d see that they greet each other as effusively as people anywhere else; they stand around the water cooler and discuss sports and politics and kids much as office workers anywhere else in the country do.

But, the thing is, that practiced detachment in the street is foreign to most outsiders, so they tend to stick out like sore thumbs. And, if you’ve ever lived anywhere that is a tourist destination, you know how much love the locals have for the tourists; less than none. Tourists wander around slowing things down while all you are trying to do is get to work. So, as a public service, I’ve compiled a list of things that, at least in New York City, will make you stand out as an obvious tourist. Carrying a camera makes you look like a tourist anywhere – those aren’t the kinds of things I’m talking about – I’m talking about the things that are at least somewhat unique to New York.

So here they are, in no particular order:

Look up. I know there are lots of really tall buildings and, for most of us at least, it inspires awe, so we walk around looking up at them in amazement. This also tend to cause us to not follow the rapidly shifting foot traffic ahead of us as closely as we should causing us to run into other people. Locals never look up. In fact, they usually have their eyes cast slightly downward to avoid making the next big tourist mistake…

Make eye contact. Natives of the city never, and I mean never, make eye contact on the street with anyone intentionally unless they are trying to pick them up. Making eye contact with someone risks your accidentally realizing they are people. If they do inadvertently make eye contact, they immediately avert their eyes to pretend they were examining a nearby newspaper stand or storefront. If they are unable to find a suitably plausible excuse, one of them must change sides of the street at the next corner. OK, so that is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.

Wait for the walk signal. There is no faster way to mark yourself as a tourist than to stand dutifully on the curb until the little green walk guy lights up. Most locals are off the curb well before it changes and many are across the street by the time it comes on. The real sign for locals is the cross street yellow light. And, If a car is left stuck in the intersection because of it, too bad for them. They shouldn’t have counted on being able to drive on the street.

Fail to aggressively defend your cab. If a local flags down a cab and, when said cab stops, someone else attempts to ’steal’ that cab, the ensuing confrontation is somewhat reminiscent of Roman gladiator games. The participants are but a loin cloth and a knife in their teeth away from a Charlton Heston movie.

Give cabbies addresses and not intersections. The street numbers in the city were devised by sadists. As a result, there is little predictability in where any given address will be. There is actually a system behind it, but it is so convoluted that only a mathematician could keep track of it. So, if you want to fit in, don’t tell them you need to go to “260 Madison Avenue”, instead tell them to take you to “39th and Madison”. Any good directions in The City will include cross streets. If you don’t have that information, the cabbie can pull out “the book” and look it up, but you can often expect to take the scenic – a.k.a. more expensive – route to get there.

Look surprised. If a car parked at the curb suddenly and spontaneously bursts into flames, New Yorkers will not show a hint of surprise. In fact, many of them wouldn’t even look at it; they would only notice it if it were blocking a crosswalk. Trust me when I tell you, the streets there will most certainly have most normal visitors on edge and there is plenty there to find surprising even if you weren’t. Suppress the urge. Tap into your inner Garfield and you’ll blend in just fine.

Walk slowly. Locals all walk at approximately Mach 1.4 except when they get stuck in the knot of foot traffic behind some tourist, who is usually walking slowly, wearing a camera and gawking up at the big buildings while looking surprised. Pay attention and try and keep up. If you positively must gawk, step into one of the many alcoves presented by storefronts or into the void on the leeward side of a paperbox or trashcan at the curb.

Act as though you can see the people around you. This is an acquired skill that you won’t likely master on your first trip. A little method acting can come in handy here, though. Think back to the worst fight you ever had with your spouse/significant other/sibling/etc. and remember the icy silence that followed in its wake. Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about here. You remember; they’d say something and you either not respond or ask some third party in the room “did you hear something?” Yeah, like that. Now, tap into that feeling and pretend everyone you pass is that person. Done right, it should appear that you are walking down the sidewalk occasionally zigging or zagging for no apparent reason, not in response to other actual people there. As an extension this, you should avoid altering your path for others on the sidewalks in any overtly courteous manner.

Speaking to strangers at all. While it may be acceptable to ask the time of a stranger in Atlanta, or to say ‘Excuse Me’ to someone you accidentally bump into on the sidewalk in San Fran, that simply isn’t acceptable behavior in The City. There is a good chance that stranger will be a local and your speaking to them will simply confuse them. Remember that, for them, you aren’t there. They will likely be thinking “did you hear something?”

Paying full price from a street vendor. The City is loaded with street vendors selling anything from scarves , hats and ties, to knockoff Coach bags (which we refer to as “Couch bags”) and the like. Their asking price is always negotiable. Only a sucker – a.k.a. tourist – pays full price. The exception to this rule is for food. Don’t try and haggle over the price of a giant pretzel, cup of coffee, bagle, sausage, etc. You will most certainly stand out as a tourist if you do.

Oh, and as a bonus eleventh thing to do to look like a tourist in The City, I’ll tell you this: Carrying a large bouquet of pink balloons for several miles through the city streets will most certainly mark you as a tourist and may even draw a glance or two from the jaded locals. Don’t ask me how I know this; trust me, it is true.

So, if you find yourself in New York – and in the above examples I specifically mean Manhattan – and you simply must partake in any of the above behaviors, do yourself a favor. Flag down the next cab you can get and tell them to take you to Times Square. There are so many tourists there you will blend in just fine. Better yet, tell him to drop you at 42nd and 8th. It is but a block off of Times Square, and mere steps from John’s Pizzeria, where you can find some of the best thin crust pizzas in a city known for their thin crust pizza. They are cooked in a coal fired oven and are to die for. Oh, and while you are there, remember, it is a pie, not a pizza. Wouldn’t want to look like a tourist, now would you?

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A panorama shot I took off the top of the Rockefeller Center during my recent trip. It is composed of 11 individual shots “stitched” together