That Was Then...

JFK in Berlin
June 26, 1963

A few months before his assassination nearly 62 years ago, American President John F. Kennedy, standing before the Rathaus Schöneberg in West Berlin delivered what many consider his finest speech. In front of a crowd estimated at nearly a half million Berliners, Kennedy shouted out a clarion call of solidarity to the residents of that great city which at the time was an island surrounded by hostile neighbors who built a wall (sound familiar?) completely surrounding it. Here are some excerpts: 

I am proud to visit the Federal Republic (West Germany), with your distinguished Chancellor (Konrad Adenauer) who for so many years has committed Germany to democracy and freedom and progress...

Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was "Civis Romanus sum", (I am a citizen of Rome). Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner!"...

Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect. But we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in -- to prevent them from leaving us...

While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system for all the world to see -- we take no satisfaction in it; for it is, as your Mayor (Willi Brandt) has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together...

Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.

(It would be nearly another three decades before that day finally came.)

All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner." *

Twenty four years later in a much different time, a much different American president gave another speech in Berlin. Perhaps not as eloquent as Kennedy's, but it's message of democracy, freedom, progress and especially solidarity with the people of Germany the rest of Europe, and indeed countries all over the world who would be our ally, rang clear as a bell. 

Standing before the most enduring symbol of Berlin, the centuries-old Brandenburg Gate which at the time stood permanently closed just east of the Berlin Wall, Ronald Reagan delivered perhaps his own greatest speech. In the middle of his remarks, Reagan spoke directly to the leader of the Soviet Union:

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! 

Then came the money quote:

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

But Reagan's speech that day was more than a collection of aphorisms, among other things it was a history lesson. Here are a few tidbits:

In the Reichstag a few moments ago, I saw a display commemorating this 40th anniversary of the Marshall Plan. I was struck by the sign on a burnt-out, gutted structure that was being rebuilt. I understand that Berliners of my own generation can remember seeing signs like it dotted throughout the western sectors of the city. The sign read simply: "The Marshall Plan is helping here to strengthen the free world." A strong, free world in the West, that dream became real. Japan rose from ruin to become an economic giant. Italy, France, Belgium--virtually every nation in Western Europe saw political and economic rebirth; the European Community was founded.

Ronald Reagan in front of the Berlin Wall
and the Brandenburg Gate,
June 12, 1987

The American government and their allies learned their lesson after the Armistice following the First World War, where the victors imposed harsh conditions on the defeated, the results of which planted the seeds of World War II.  Realizing that winning the war against Hitler and totalitarianism was meaningless without winning the peace, the Marshall Plan was an initiative of the United States, to contribute mightily in both treasure and manpower, to the rebuilding of Europe, including its vanquished enemy, Germany. A similar plan was in place doing largely the same for Japan. Consequently:

...in West Germany and here in Berlin, there took place an economic miracle, the Wirtschaftswunder. Adenauer, Erhard, Reuter, and other leaders understood the practical importance of liberty--that just as truth can flourish only when the journalist is given freedom of speech, so prosperity can come about only when the farmer and businessman enjoy economic freedom. The German leaders reduced tariffs, expanded free trade, lowered taxes. From 1950 to 1960 alone, the standard of living in West Germany and Berlin doubled.

As Allied victory over Germany appeared imminent in early 1945, the leaders of the "Big Three" Allied powers, the U.S. (Roosevelt), the United Kingdom (Churchill) and the Soviet Union (Stalin) met in the city of Yalta on the Baltic Sea to outline the post-war map of Europe. That map was formalized after the war during another meeting in the German city of Potsdam with Harry Truman replacing the recently deceased FDR. 

In a nutshell, in exchange for Stalin's agreement to enter the war in the Pacific against Japan after Germany's impending defeat, Roosevelt gave in to Stalin's demands that Eastern and most of Central Europe, be brought under the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union, thereby sealing those nations' fate for nearly one half-century. **

It was also agreed that after Germany's unconditional surrender which would took place on May 8, 1945, the country would be divided in four, with each region occupied and governed by one of the main powers that formed the backbone of the alliance, plus France which would be brought into the mix. The capital city of Berlin was also divided into four zones, American, British, French and Soviet. 

Germany's four zones would be tenuously governed as one body by the Allied Control Council, made up by representatives of each of the four powers. However, trouble was brewing as the socialist Soviets balked at the plans of the other three powers to collaborate economically. In addition, the U.S., the U.K. and France all made known their intention to eventually leave the Council, entrusting governance in the hands of the Germans. For their part, the Russians were especially distrustful of an independent, unified Germany, not unreasonable considering the unspeakable devastation the war brought to the people of the USSR.

Another major sticking point became the divided city of Berlin which was located in the heart of the Russian zone. 

The city's precarious location and situation resulted in one of the first volleys of the Cold War as the Soviet Union, wanting Berlin all to itself, blockaded all land and water routes in and out of the city, literally in an attempt to starve its citizens into submission. That act was answered by the Allied nations who organized the Berlin Air Lift, which provided the city with the essential materials, most importantly food, to keep the city alive. It is said that there were nearly 300,000 of these flights in total over the period of one year, working out to about on plane taking off or landing in Berlin's Tempelhoff , Tegel and Gatow Airports every 30 seconds. 

Seeing its futility in light of the resolve of the West Berliners and the Allies, the Soviets ended their blockade in the spring of 1949. But tensions between East and West only ramped up. While the three Western powers would remain briefly as an occupying force, on May 9th of that year, the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany was announced, with its capital city moved to Bonn. In response, on October 7th of the same year, the German Democratic Republic (DDR in German, popularly known as East Germany) became a reality. Its capital would remain in Berlin.

Despite all that, after the blockade and the airlift, Berlin would remain an open city with unrestricted travel between east and west for a decade. This proved to be a dire problem for East Germany as Berlin became the major conduit for the exodus of nearly 3.5 million East German citizens to the West. To stop the hemorrhage, East Germany built its infamous wall that surrounded with city of West Berlin. Construction of the first phase of the Berlin Wall began on August 12, 1961. It's fall coincided with the collapse of East Germany, on November 9, 1989, a little more than two years after Reagan delivered his speech in Berlin. During the existence of the Wall, at least 140 people, but probably more, lost their lives attempting to cross from East to West. 

The post-war tensions created by the Berlin Blockade, the creation of the two Germanys, and especially the division of Europe between East and West, all the foundations of the long-gone Cold War, have ramifications that are still felt today. 

To bolster the defense of the new western alliance against the increasing likelihood of Soviet aggression, 1949 also saw the signing of the North American Treaty, the defense pact originally signed by ten Western European nations, the United States and Canada. The most significant element of the treaty is Article Five which stipulates that all members of what would become the North American Treaty Organization (NATO), would be obligated to come to the defense of any other member nation, should they be attacked. 

While NATO has participated in numerous operations, mostly acting in support roles in European theaters of conflict, in all its years of existence, Article Five was invoked only once, after the September 11 attacks on the United States. 

Today there are 32 member nations, the last of which to date that have been admitted were Finland and Sweden which became members in 2023 and 2024 respectively, in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, itself not a NATO member. 

Finally, President Reagan in his speech in front of the Berlin Wall in 1987 invoked his predecessor: 

When President Kennedy spoke at the City Hall those 24 years ago, freedom was encircled, Berlin was under siege. And today, despite all the pressures upon this city, Berlin stands secure in its liberty. And freedom itself is transforming the globe.

Always successful or not, always sincere or not, promoting democracy, freedom and progress over the forces of tyranny, slavery and regression has been the stated goal of the Western Alliance which has held strong with the crucial membership of the United States as both its most powerful member and its greatest beneficiary for the eighty years since the end of World War Two.

Until now.

A couple weeks ago the current vice president of the United States addressed a group of representatives of the Western Alliance at their annual security conference in Munich, whose main concern at the moment was how to best support Ukraine in its ongoing war against Russia. He told them essentially the biggest threat to the world was not Russia, it was them. Then he said this:

In the United States, there's a new sheriff in town. 

But that's a story for another day.

*Once again, I have to point out that the phrase "Ich bin ein Berliner", one of JFK's most quotable lines, unequivocally means exactly what Kennedy intended, expressing solidarity not with a pastry, but with the people of Berlin. Looking like a fool, I learned this the hard way after bringing it up with German friends of mine in Frankfurt, one of whom a Berliner very much around at the time Kenndy delivered his speech. They both assured me the suggestion of the phrase being a malapropism was nonsense, mere urban legend, that no German then nor since, ever got a chuckle from the term having a double meaning. 

Here's the deal: "Ich bin Berliner" without the article "ein", which some suggested he should have said, means "I am from Berlin", which Kennedy obviously was not. 

**The United States' use of nuclear weapons on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, made the Russin invasion of Japan a moot point.

Tourist Spots Worth the Effort

If you're a faithful reader of this blog you probably know I'm a sucker for internet lists, you might call it a guilty pleasure of mine. It's always fun to note how a particular list, say someone's opinion of the greatest movies of all time (which I recently covered), compares to a similar list I might come up with. 

This time is wasn't a list that inspired me, I came up with the idea for this one on my own. But I'm not claiming it for myself. Google the theme, and you'll find ten thousand similar lists. 

When it comes to travel, people "in the know", want cool, hip, out of the way destinations, far from the maddening crowd so to speak, places you won't discover from mainstream sources. This makes sense because let's face it, crowds of tourists other than yourself that is, can get annoying. 

On the other hand, popular tourist destinations attract a lot of people usually for a good reason, they're interesting places to visit. Dullsville, USA usually doesn't make a lot of top ten lists of best travel destinations in the world, even though it may have a great hardware store or watering hole.

What inspired this post was a comment from a former colleague who came back for a visit. Her current job is in New Orleans and it so happened that my son was headed there at the same time as her visit. Although I've been to New Orleans and love it, I felt obliged to ask her for some tips that I could send along to him. 

"Well first of all..." she said, "don't go to the French Quarter."  That was expected because the French Quarter of New Orleans is usually the first place people generally think of when they think of the Crescent City. So naturally, it's loaded with tourists, day and night. And when people think of the French Quarter, what then immediately comes to mind is Bourbon Street, named after the French Royal family, not the distilled spirit which may seem more appropriate if you've ever visited that world renowned street. 

But not visit the French Quarter? 

Come on, that's a little like going to New York City and not visiting Times Square, going to L.A. and not visiting Hollywood, or going to London and not visiting Buckingham Palace. Come to think of it, I've been to London twice and still haven't been to Buckingham Palace. But you get the idea. 

It turns out that one of my favorite restaurants in the world, Galatoire's, sits directly on Bourbon Street, and hands down my favorite place in New Orleans is just off it. That place, (read on to find out what it is), exists almost entirely for tourists, yet missing it in my humble opinion, is missing out on not only a big chunk of the heart and soul of the city, but on the heart and soul of the United States. 

I'd like to say that all the entries on my list carry that much weight, but the truth is this list covers everything from the sublime to the ridiculous. What these entries have in common, beyond their attraction to tourists, is that they are unique experiences that well represent the cities in which they are found. And they are all places I dearly love.

I have intentionally not included sites that are destinations in themselves, so you won't for example find the Taj Mahal, or Machu Picchu here. You also won't find them on my list because I have yet to visit them, another requirement. I've also excluded cultural institutions such as museums, because I don't think I need to convince anyone that say, the Louvre (found on several of these lists) is a worthwhile place to visit, that should be self-evident. And while my list is arranged by city, I haven't included cities themselves on the list as some lists do. Why? Because it's my list dammit.

The point of all this is to mention places that bring me joy, either in the sense of being moved, exhilarated, wowed by them, or simply because they put a smile on my face. What's more, your snooty friends who wouldn't set foot anywhere near these places will roll their eyes, basking in self-gratification over their vastly superior hipness when you let them know how much they meant to you.

In other words, it's a win-win, how cool is that?

OK, here's my list in no particular order of touristy places that in my opinion, are well worth the effort, arranged by the cities in which they reside.

NEW YORK CITY- When I wrote about going to New York and not visiting Times Square, it occurred to me that there is more than one reason to visit a place you know will be overrun with tourists. When I spoke above about the feelings the sites on this list evoke for me, I can assure you that almost sixty years ago when as a small child I first visited The Great White Way, it really did evoke those feelings, every single one of them. 

Today, Times Square unfortunately falls short on all of them, which is the reason it's not on my list. Yet I stand by my statement that you have to experience Times Square at least once in your life because it is such an iconic symbol of its city and there is nothing like it, at least outside of Asia. That, I believe puts Times Square in the bucket list category, perhaps a list for another day.

On the other hand, going to the observation deck of the Empire State Building certainly ranks as one of the many New York attractions rating a check on the list of things to do before you kick the proverbial bucket. But it is so much more. First of all, there is no more iconic symbol of New York City than this glorious building.

Although today there are taller buildings in the vicinity, The Empire State continues to dominate the Manhattan skyline, not a small accomplishment.

It was the world's tallest building for forty years, a record held far longer than any building built in at least the last 150 years since the advent of the skyscraper. When the Empire State Building was built, it shattered the previous tallest building record, the Chrysler Building, by 19%. That is obvious from the observation deck of the ESB where the Chrysler Building about a mile away, lovely as it is, looks downright puny by comparison. 

That's also obvious from the observation deck of the GE (Formerly RCA) Building, as seen in this, the opening scene of the 1949 film On the Town. 

My guess is the filmmakers chose to place the sailor-tourists on the top of the RCA Building instead of the Empire State Building in order to highlight the magnificence of the latter, which appears in many of the shots in this clip.

But take your pick, both buildings are equally magnificent and visiting either, (it's probably not necessary to go to the top of both), is well worth fighting the crowds and the over-the-top admission fees. 

My only beef with this scene is that they softened up the lyrics to the song. In the original play, the lyrics (written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green) to the refrain go: " New York New York, a hell of a town."

Which it certainly is. 

If fifty bucks a ticket is a little steep for you, for me no trip to the Big Apple is complete without doing the first thing the three sailors did after disembarking form their ship, enter Manhattan by foot, over the Brooklyn Bridge. In fact, when I took my son to New York a few years ago, I planned, unbeknownst to him, that his first entrance into Manhattan would be the same as the sailors', one of the greatest urban experiences possible with the possible exception of, well you'll just have to read on to find out. 

Just like the best walk anyone can have anywhere in the world, the next few sites won't set you back a penny or a pence, other than airfare, lodging, meals and incidentals:

WASHINGTON DC- Here's another famous film tourist scene from ten years earlier:

Hokey as this might seem to us in our cynical world, if you truly believe in the ideals if not necessarily the actions of this nation, I defy you to roll your eyes when Mr. Smith (played by Jimmy Stewart) walks into the Lincoln Memorial and reads the words inscribed on the wall of Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, observes a young man and his immigrant grandpa reading together the Gettysburg Address, and witnesses an elderly black gentleman who conceivably could have been born into slavery, remove his hat and reverently approach the great Daniel Chester French statue of the 16th president. 

If the parts of the Memorial dedicated to Lincoln aren't enough to move you, on one of the steps leading up to the monument are carved four words: "I have a dream" marking the spot where Martin Luther King delivered one of the most important speeches in American History. For my money, standing over those four words written in stone while looking across the Washington Mall toward the U.S. Capitol, have the power to move me far more than the somewhat bombastic memorial to Dr. King, about a half mile away, which is still worth the visit in my opinion.

But wait there's more. Flanking the Lincoln Memorial to the north and south are the two magnificent war memorials, dedicated to the fallen of the Korean and Vietnam Wars. 

Behind the Lincoln Memorial is Memorial Bridge, crossing the Potomac River into Virginia, connecting the literal and symbolic divide between the North and the South. You can cross the bridge by foot into Arlington, Virginia where you will end up at the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery. There lie the remains of nearly 400,000 American servicemen and women. At the highest point of the cemetery sits the one-time home of General Robert E. Lee, who after deserting his country to join the forces of the Confederacy, had his property confiscated by the Federal government and his land turned into a Union military cemetery just to spite him. Beneath the Lee mansion sits the grave of President John F. Kennedy, and the light from its eternal flame can be seen from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at night. Not far from there sits the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, guarded round-the-clock by members of the U.S. Army.

If there is a more sacred spot in the United States than the Lincoln Memorial and its immediate surroundings, I certainly cannot think of it. 

LONDON-

...when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

Samuel Johnson

No truer words could be written which makes selecting a spot in London for a list like this rather difficult. But never fear, I came up with one and as I'm about to write down what it is, I can hear the collective groan from you, dear readers, followed by the comment, "you couldn't have possibly come up with a bigger cliché could you?" 

Well in a way, clichés are what this post is all about. So here goes:

Big Ben.

For a little clarification, Big Ben refers to the enormous bell that tolls the hours inside the clock tower of Westminster Palace, perhaps the most well-known government building in the world. (Or is it the U.S. Capitol Building? I'm not quite sure). I was prepared to write something about the bell but wouldn't you know it, I already did back in 2010 when I first visited London. Sorry folks, can't come up with anything better than this so you'll have to be satisfied with a rerun:

I was put up in the heart of the city, just off Trafalgar Square. The first thing I did on my own was visit the public square that the author of my guidebook criticized severely for its lack of architectural cohesiveness. Perhaps, but what a collection of treasures, The Church of St. Martin in the Fields (home to its eponymous orchestra), the Admiralty Arch, Nelson's Column, the National Portrait Gallery (who paid for my trip thank you very much), and the indescribable National Gallery. It was from that great museum's porch that I was struck with my first view of the bell tower of Westminster Palace, home of the Houses of Parliament.

Someone told me that in London, it's difficult to get one's bearings as the streets are so narrow and winding. But there it was, the city's most iconic landmark clear as day, big and beautiful, beckoning me, off in the distance, my first assumption to be shattered.

Within a few blocks of the tower, I heard the familiar chime of the three quarter hour, the Westminster Chimes. It was 12:45 and I knew that in 15 minutes I might have my one and only chance to hear Ben himself chiming the hour. One clang would be all that I would take home from that magnificent chunk of metal. The wait certainly was not time wasted. Big Ben has tolled on the hour virtually non-stop for nearly 150 years. It has been heard in person by millions, billions perhaps courtesy of the BBC. All the Queens and Kings of England since Victoria have heard it. It was heard daily by Disraeli, by Lloyd George, and by Churchill. More than likely it was heard by Sir John Herschel and Charles Darwin, by Charles Dickens and Virginia Woolf . It was heard by Charlie Chaplin and the Beatles. During the Blitz of 1940, German bombs landed within feet of it destroying the House of Commons, but were unable to silence it. It rang throughout the war. All the words I read, all the images I ever saw, all the dreams of London I ever had were summed up in that one brief moment. I had finally arrived.

PRAGUE- The epitome of a city that suffers a bit from its sheer beauty, it's almost impossible to hear anyone speaking about visiting the magnificent Czech capital, without hearing complaints that it is overrun with tourists. 

Once again I beat myself to it and wrote about an essential walking tour of Prague that starts at the Medieval entrance to the city, the Powder Tower, takes you through the Old City past the famous Astronomical Clock, in Old Town Square, over the River Vltava across the Charles Bridge, into in my opinion, the most beautiful section of the city, Mala Strana, then ends up at  St. Vitus Cathedral in the heart of Prague Castle. This route is called the Royal Way as it was the official route the Bohemian kings made before their coronation in the Cathedral:

Along the route, one walks through not only a glorious city, but eleven centuries worth of history and architecture. Like Melbourne, Prague's architecture is an unapologetic clash of styles. Certainly, Prague is one of the most enchanting places imaginable with its fairy tale vistas featuring Medieval towers and bridges spanning the Vltava, the river that plays such an important role in Czech culture. Yet its physical beauty barely scratches the surface of the experience. Prague is the perfect walking city, as each few steps lead to a new discovery. You walk not only in the footsteps of kings, but also the likes of Kepler, Mozart, and Kafka. That's not to say its history is set in stone; like any vibrant place, its story is written daily by the people who walk its streets, from saints to sinners, and everyone in between. 

Then lo and behold, I finished up that piece with a fine way to describe the theme of this piece: 

Great cities are about life, past, present and future. Any city that invites people to explore by walking around its streets and alleys, discovering secrets hidden in its underbelly, is a treasure to behold. After all, the art of the city resides not only in its buildings, monuments or civic plans, but in the ways people interact with them. Take people away from the equation, and all that's left is a beautiful architectural rendering, or a dead city.

So, as your typical American visitor might say: "Maybe all them tourists ain't so bad." 

Just a bit of a hint though, perhaps its best to visit Prague during off season or at off hours. Trust me, the tourists will still be there, just not so many of them, especially at the Clock and on the Charles Bridge.

SAN FRANCISCO- If there is an American city that comes close to the beauty of Prague, this is it. But in contrast, San Francisco owes at least as much of its beauty to its natural setting as its built environment. In addition to the glorious Bay and the Pacific Ocean inlet that lent its name to arguably the most beautiful bridge in the world, The Golden Gate, San Francisco has all those crazy hills that make walking around town a good workout for even someone who's in the best of shape. 

And it's those hills that necessitated the invention of what is certainly the city's most iconic feature.

The story, perhaps apocryphal, goes something like this: Andrew Smith Hallidie, an entrepreneur who was involved in the manufacture of wire rope, witnessed a horrific accident involving a horse drawn streetcar trying to make its way up one of those hills. The weather was inclement, and the horses lost their traction on the road causing the whole contraption, horses and all, to slide down the hill, killing all the animals and an untold number of passengers and passersby. Hallidie resolved to alleviate the hazardous situation by creating a mechanical system to safely propel streetcars up and down those treacherous hills, based upon the system of hauling carts up and down mine shafts using you guessed it, wire rope. 

Working with the German born engineer William Epplesheimer and several wise investors including Abner Doubleday, the man erroneously credited with inventing baseball, the fruit of their labor was the Clay Street Hill Railroad, the world's first cable hauled railway, better known as the Cable Car System.

The basic concept is simple enough, propel the streetcars by wire running continuously underneath the streets. But the execution is anything but, especially if you want the cars to be able to start and to stop. Much of the brilliance of Epplesheimer's work involves the grip system operated by the driver who through the grip is able with the help of a lever to grab onto the cable when he wants the car to move, and release it when he needs it to come to a stop. Further complicating matters are when two cable car lines intersect, which necessitates tremendous effort on part of the driver (also known as the Grip) to briefly release grip on the cable, retract the mechanism to avoid it coming into contact with the intersecting cable, allow the momentum of the car to carry it beyond the intersecting cable, then reverse the process after safely clearing the interfering cable, to carry on.  

Then there is the tremendous infrastructure required to run and maintain hundreds of miles of cable under the city's streets. Cable cars are the paradigm of audacious 19th Century industry and technology. For a while, they were incorporated into the transportation systems of several American cities including Chicago. They didn't last long however because of the tremendous effort and expense it took to keep them running. 

Except in San Francisco. 

Today you might still find locals riding the cable cars but the vast majority of passengers are tourists. Consequently, you might find yourself waiting in a queue for an hour or two to hop aboard one of these lovely 19th Century contraptions.

It's worth it. 

Cable cars are a feast for at least four of the five senses:

• While walking on the streets you can feel the vibration of the cable running beneath your feet.
• From blocks away, you can hear each Grip driver's distinctive bell ringing style as they alert pedestrians and motorists of their presence.
• The burning odor of the Douglass Fir brakes (which have to be replaced every three days), is one of the most distinctive and evocative smells of the City by the Bay.
• I don't recommend trying to employ your sense of taste on the Cable Cars, save that for the Chioppino, which was also invented in San Francisco.
• The view from aboard the cable cars can't be beat, especially climbing Nob Hill with San Francisco Bay at your back, while hanging on for dear life, standing on a coveted spot on the outside running board. Frankly, this is one of the greatest urban experiences anyone can have, anywhere, especially at night, which also happens to be the time of day with the fewest tourists.

Another win-win.

PARIS- Speaking of audacious 19th Century technology... Naturally, Gustave Eiffel's Tower is a no-brainer on my list. Need I say more? Here is my ode to Paris from twelve years ago. 

And here is another, this piece was devoted to the second most special of all the places on this list to me, written right after the fire that nearly destroyed it, Notre Dame de Paris.  Given that, appropriately enough, the post begins with a personal account of the most special place on this list to me.

BERLIN - And this is my ode to Berlin. Here's an excerpt:

Cities contain both the best and the worst of humanity, the great cities only more so. This goes all the way back to Babylon, one of the wonders of the ancient world, part of the cradle of civilization, center of art, law and science. But Babylon still has bad connotations to this day implying the degenerate behavior found in big cities.

The great cities of the world all have had their share of decadence, heartbreak and misery.

Of all the cities that I have visited, none has had to overcome more of all three in the course of one human lifetime than Berlin.

My wife and I are currently in the middle of watching the compelling German TV drama series Babylon Berlin. For the record I'd like to point out that the series started production in 2017 while my Berlin post was written in 2009, so my association of Babylon with Berlin in the post, and the movie's, are not related. Just thought you might like to know.

When I visited Berlin in 1994, the Berlin Wall had been down for only a few years, and there was still a stark contrast between what were once West and East Berlin. I'd be very interested to return today and see how the two cities have melded together into one. 

One thing I'm certain that has not changed is you still cannot walk a few blocks in the city and not be reminded in one way or other of World War II and the Holocaust. That is by design, and I give the German people a great deal of credit for honestly confronting their past. We Americans can learn a great deal from that. 

Despite being a great city filled with vibrant culture, a hopping nightlife, a diverse population, and virtually all the things that make a city alive and vital, there still is a cloud of melancholia that hangs over Berlin, which will probably be around for a good long time. 

So after confronting places like the old headquarters of the Gestapo and its accompanying museum aptly called the Topography of Terror, remnants of the Berlin Wall, Hitler's Bunker, the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, the old Reichstag Building whose 1933 torching, set in motion the sweeping suspension of civil liberties in Germany by the Hitler government, and the haunting Jewish Cemetery in Prenzlaurerburg which testified to the time when Berlin was the center of Jewish culture in Germany, what I really needed after a good cry, was a glass of beer.

Which I treated myself to every day I was in Berlin. 

But not just anywhere. 

If you've been watching Babylon Berlin, you may have noticed this recurring logo: 

Ka De We, short for Kaufthaus des Westins, was, and continues to be, one of the grandest department stores in the world, right up there with Harrods in London and Printemps in Paris. 

In addition to constant reminders of the War, practically everywhere you go in Berlin, are photographs on display of prewar Berlin, and what a place it must have been. The producers of Babylon Berlin have done a good job using CG to recreate the look and feel of the city of the twenties, which was bombed to kingdom come during the forties. 

The Berlin of today gives one ample opportunity to put beside the past (without ever forgetting it), and look forward to the future. Yet a part of me still longed to visit the Berlin that existed before the horrors of the Nazis and World War II. Visiting Ka De We in the flesh, which was rebuilt to faithfully resemble its prewar self, fit the bill. 

Shopping there might have been a little beyond my means, even with a per diem at my disposal, but having a beer while sitting in the sixth floor food hall with its splendid view of central Berlin including the Tiergarten, the Winged Victory Monument, the Brandenburg Gate and the city's main drag, Unter den Linden leading into what once was East Berlin, put me into a place where I could briefly forget the horror of what went on right outside that window, not so long ago.

But not completely. In that great German beer hall, I didn't drink just any beer, I drank exclusively Budweiser Budvar and Pilsner Urquell, Czech beers in honor of my father who spent much of the war as a conscripted laborer from Czechoslovakia in Berlin. 

We do our part any way we can.

MEMPHIS-  In terms of American popular music, most roads lead through Memphis. 

Chicago may be known for its Blues scene, but most of the great Chicago Blues men and women came up from the Mississippi Delta through Memphis before moving north. Detroit is justifiably known as a capital of Soul Music, thanks in large part to Barry Gordy and his baby, Motown. But Memphis produced its own version of Soul through the Stax label (and others), less polished, more gritty, more down to earth, more raw and in the end I believe, more influential. My favorite line from the movie The Blues Brothers which despite being set in Chicago, featured mainly artists who were based in Memphis, came out the mouth of Donald "Duck" Dunn, the bassist for Booker T and the MGs who said this: "we had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline." 

Indeed.

Here are just some of the names of the first group of great Memphis blues and soul musicians enshrined in the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2012:

• Bobby Blue Bland
• Booker T. and the MGs
• Al Greene
• Isaac Hayes
• Howlin' Wolf
• W.C. Handy
• B.B. King
• Otis Redding
• The Staple Singers
• Rufus Thomas

And that's just for starters, the Queen of them all, Aretha Franklin was born in Memphis, and recorded her greatest music down the road in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

Then there's that other baby of the blues, rock and roll, which for all intents and purposes was born at Sun Records in Memphis. 

Here's the story as told in Jim Jarmusch's 1988 film Mystery Train:

Then there's Graceland. Now I love Elvis as much as the next guy, but I'd have to put Graceland, home of Elvis Presley and without a doubt the biggest tourist attraction in town, on my bucket list list, having checked it off my own bucket list (before I knew there was such a thing) about 35 years ago. But it's not on this list. Maybe it's just me, but Graceland is just too damned depressing. 

Maybe it's because the lights went out for good on the King in the seventies, the decade marked by the worst taste in design in the entire century. Graceland, preserved as it was the day Elvis died, reflects that. Maybe it's because he died in the bathroom upstairs and on our tour, as I'm sure most others, some smart aleck asked the tour guide if we could see the bathroom. Maybe it's because the tour ended in the garden which contains the graves of Elvis and his parents. Compounding that today is that the new residents of that private cemetery are to be Elvis's daughter Lisa Marie, who recently died at the age of 54, and her son Ben, who took his life at 27.

Graceland isn't the only downer in Memphis. The Lorraine Motel was the site of the assassination of Martin Luther King. Anyone who was alive in 1968 and can remember that horrific event will no doubt feel a jolt coming upon the parking lot and facade of the motel which have been preserved to look as they did in that famous photograph taken on the afternoon of April 4,1968, of Dr. King laying mortally wounded on the balcony of his motel room while Andrew Young, Ralph Abernathy and other associates of Dr. King, point in the direction of where the fatal shot came from. Even the cars parked in the lot are still there. 

The National Civil Rights Museum now occupies the site behind the preserved facade of the motel. It was just about to open when I visited Memphis, so I haven't had the opportunity to visit. A friend confirmed that it was well worth visiting although Dr. King's room, complete with a reproduction of the plate of dinner he never got the chance to eat, was a bit macabre.

Like Berlin, Memphis is a great city with a lot going for it, including a vibrant contemporary music scene. 

Also like Berlin, you may need a little relief, especially after visiting the Civil Rights Museum and/or Graceland. 

Well friends, I have the answer for you, located right in the heart of downtown Memphis.

The Peabody is a classic early 20th Century hotel, built along the lines of the Palmer House in Chicago, and the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. While it lacks the Fairmont's Tonga Room (another spot worthy of this list), in addition to its glorious roof-top sign, the Peabody has a feature I believe is completely its own: 

The Peabody Ducks.

Two times a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, a red carpet is rolled out for four female mallards and one very lucky male duck who are escorted with great fanfare by their Duck Master via elevator to and from their state-of-the-art rooftop penthouse, to hold court in the fountain of the hotel's elaborate lobby.

The ducks have been around since 1930 when the general manager of the hotel who got a little peppered on a hunting trip, decided as a lark that it would be a trip to bring some live decoy ducks to swim in the fountain of his hotel. Thinking the better of it after sleeping off his stupor, the next morning he went downstairs to find that the ducks were a big hit, and a tradition was born.

You can read all about the Peabody Ducks here in a magazine I never miss an issue of, Garden and Gun.

OK I promised you the ridiculous, now here's the sublime:

NEW ORLEANS - A little over a year ago I wrote a piece about American food culture, yes indeed there is such a thing. In the post tasked myself with coming up with what I would consider the quintessential American dish. I didn't even consider the obvious choices, the hamburger or the hot dog, or even that most unique of American meals, Thanksgiving Dinner. 

Instead, I chose Gumbo. Let me explain: 

A microcosm of the United States, but unique in so many ways, New Orleans like most major American cities, is a mix of people from all over the world. Specifically. the Crescent City is a mix of European, African, Latin, Carribean and Indigenous American cultures, with a little Asian thrown in for good measure.

And Gumbo is the dish that represents all the cultures found in Louisiana. As anyone who has made it knows, the heart and soul of Gumbo is the roux, a mixture of flour and fat that originated as its name implies, from France. From there the dish is thickened either with okra, a vegetable first cultivated in Africa, or file (pronounced "FEE lay"), ground sassafrass leaves, introduced by Native Americans. The hot seasoning comes from the settlers from the Spanish Canary Islands, and the andouille sausage from the Cajuns, via the French-speaking part of Canada.

Like Paella, Gumbo originated as a peasant stew, infinitely adaptable to whatever ingredients its maker has lying around the kitchen.

Also like Paella, everyone has his or her own recipe. As such, Gumbo has made its way onto the tables of homes and restaurants of Louisiana from the humblest to the swankiest.

Like America, coming from humble beginnings, Gumbo is infinitely diverse, and like Americans, it can be whatever it wants to be, good, bad, and everything in between.

It's a little easier to come up with the most American of art forms. That would have to be jazz, and as far as jazz music goes, all roads lead to New Orleans. Unlike Memphis, or just about anywhere you have to seek out the music, in New Orleans, music comes out of its pores. You can't help but hear it all over the French Quarter and other popular neighborhoods, either from street musicians or coming out of bars and other tourist venues.

But music is a part of everyday life as well in New Orleans. Of course, you hear it all over the city during the mother of all public festivals, Mardi Gras. I haven't been to Mardi Gras, nor do I intend to go because even I can't deal with THAT many folks all together in one place, at least not since I spent New Years Eve in Times Square. But while much of the city's economy depends on the tourists who show up for the festival, it would be a mistake to assume that Mardi Gras is an event put on for tourists. Rather, Mardi Gras the day, and Carnival which proceeds it, are deeply rooted in the culture of the city and almost every resident of the city takes part in the festival in one way or other. 

However in a city that doesn't need much of an excuse to celebrate, you needn't show up during the period between Epiphany and Fat Tuesday to find a good party. While you're there, you might even be lucky enough to stumble across a Jazz funeral. 

Unfortunately, we didn't get that chance but did manage to take part in the next best thing. It was the day after a wedding we attended and my friend who was the groom's best man, his wife, his parents and my wife at the time were looking for something to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon. He found a notice in the paper for a jazz parade in Algiers, the neighborhood across the Mississippi River from downtown. Those were the days before GPS so all we had to go on was an address and the kindness of strangers offering us directions. We stopped at the first place we could find off the ferry which was a bar. My friend went in and asked around where we could find the parade. The folks turned around, looked at our lily-white faces, just like theirs, and told us in no uncertain terms that we didn't want to go there. They didn't need to say why. But we assured them we did and by the way we were from Chicago and could handle ourselves. So they pointed us in the right direction and sent us on our way.

We brushed aside their trepidation, attributing it to good ol' boy racism, until black people began stopping us in the street asking us if we were lost. Unlike the guys in the bar, and very much unlike experiences I've had at home being in neighborhoods in which I did not feel welcome, to a person everyone who stopped us was very much concerned about our well being. One woman driving her car even turned around and drove to our destination just to see if what we were looking for was legit. She came back and assured us it was. I'm sure she would have driven us there herself had there not been six of us. 

Anyway, when we got to the location, about half an hour after the scheduled start of the parade, there was no indication that anything was about to happen. Assuming we already missed it, we asked someone who didn't know about the event but told us: "Hey this is New Orleans, nothing ever starts on time here. 

When the parade finally began about an hour later, it turned out to be the most wonderful, joyous, life-affirming event I ever attended. It seemed like half of the neighborhood came out of nowhere turning out for the parade which featured two local "crews" with their member musicians, dancers, friends and relatives. As I pointed out in a previous post, "It was the real deal, not the manufactured mayhem of Bourbon Street." Ours were the only white faces to be found, and I think it's safe to say we were probably the only tourists present. No one batted an eye.

As we walked back from the parade, we ran into many of the folks who expressed their concern for us on the way there. One woman was standing in front of her church and when we passed by, after exchanging pleasantries, she invited us in for the service. One of the biggest regrets of my life is that we politely declined. 

But we were exhausted and actually had plans for later that evening, we were headed for Preservation Hall. You may wonder, why go to a venue that caters exclusively to tourists when we had just experienced the real thing? 

The answer is simple, music is music and New Orleans music, wherever or whenever you hear it, is sublime, we just couldn't get enough of it. Like Memphis, I could write a list of all the great musicians that came out of New Orleans but I need only mention one to put the whole thing into perspective: 

Louis Armstrong.

Not every visitor to New Orleans has the gumption to do what we did in seeking out that parade. I can honestly say that if it were not for my friend and his family, my ex-wife and I on our own probably would have heeded the advice of the locals and not continued walking in the direction of an event that at the time, seemed hit or miss at best. 

But in the end, it was the kind of adventure that every seasoned traveler longs for, the off the beaten path encounter that takes effort, perseverance, and a little nerve to pull off, the kind of experience that might impress even the snootiest of your friends.

By contrast, the only perseverance required to attend a performance at Preservation Hall is to be willing to stand in line to get in. And if you're at all claustrophobic, sitting cheek by jowl with a crowd of sweaty tourists in a room that looks like it should have been shut down by the fire marshal years ago, may take a little nerve. 

But let me assure you, the payoff was the same. It's all about the music.

Would I recommend going the extra mile to seek out a "real" New Orleans experience as we did that Sunday afternoon, or take the easy route and head to a venue that everyone in the world knows about?

That's easy, I'd recommend doing both as we did, and then do it again and if possible, again once more. As I write this it just dawned on me, that's what really separates this list from the bucket, been there done that list.

So, there you have it, a dozen or so places in the U.S. and Europe that you will definitely find in your guidebook, and one that you won't, that will hopefully move, thrill, excite and maybe even put a smile on your face, if you're anything like me. That last part is the key because you're probably not like me, and your list of worthwhile places to visit might be completely different from mine, which is exactly as it should be. 

The point is that traveling, one of the great joys of life, is a highly personal thing, and you shouldn't ever feel compelled to visit, and more important, not visit a place in order to impress anyone other than yourself.

With that in mind, happy travels, bon voyage, gute Reise, šťastnou cestu and above all, laissez le bon temps rouler!

When In Rome...

Czech tourists visiting the Roman Forum, May, 2000

On the evening of our first day in Rome almost twenty-two years ago, my wife and I went into a restaurant near the Spanish Steps. We were seated inches away from another American couple, a few decades older than us. Judging from their appearance, they were fairly well off and from their accent, were from Texas. 

I've traveled abroad a bit and from my first trip to a foreign country to this day, I've been very conscious of the image of the stereotypical American tourist and how not to act like one myself.

The couple seated next to us on the other hand, were the personification of "Ugly Americans" abroad: loud, rude, throwing their weight and money around, disrespectful of the local culture, the whole nine yards. 

At the beginning, the waiter was patient with them despite their endless inquiries about the items on the menu. After he brought their food, they immediately began to complain. I don't remember the specifics, only that the wife ordered a meat dish that tasted strange to her, maybe it didn't taste like the food she was used to at the local Italian restaurant back home in Lubbock. Then she did something unheard of in Europe, demanded the waiter bring the food back and exchange it for another dish.  

To be honest, this probably wasn't the best restaurant on the block, let alone in Rome. It catered primarily to tourists and for that reason, I'm sure it wasn't too unusual for the wait staff to hear that demand, especially from Americans. So the waiter obliged her.

Next she ordered the filet of sole. When she tasted dish number two, she summoned the waiter, who by this time was beginning to lose his patience, and told him the fish didn't have any taste. His snippy response was: "it's fresh fish, it's not supposed to have a taste." 

They weren't having any of it so back to the kitchen went the fish. She wasn't much happier with dish number three and after eating only a few bites, the two got up and left, which was as great a relief to us as it was to the bedraggled waiter. 

After they left, I apologized to him for the boorishness of our fellow countrymen. Brushing it off, he said something to the effect of "all in a day's work".

The one comical thing about the experience was the waiter's use of the English language. He spoke perfect English, but as the ordeal with these two went on, his English got worse and worse. By the end of their meal, he said to them: "beh, a... scusa miei signori, ma, I no speaka di good English."

I thought about this when I read an article on the web this morning listing things American tourists do that are confusing, aggravating and downright offensive to the natives. 

Some of the things on the list were not surprising: we tend to expect everyone, no matter the country, to speak English. We are loud, we wear unusual things like sandals with socks (actually more of a German thing I've noticed), and shorts, tee shirts and sneakers in places where they are not appropriate, (guilty as charged). Some other things listed were just plain weird such as the idea that Americans prefer to ride in the back of taxicabs. Now I'm no expert on the subject of taxicabs around the world but I have ridden in taxis in Rome, Athens, Istanbul, Berlin, St. Petersburg and Tokyo, and in none of those places was riding in front with the driver an option.

Going through the list of stupid things Americans do when traveling abroad, I came up with three general categories of offenses that thoughtful American tourists ought to avoid according to the article. Listing the three from the most grievous to the least are:

• Disrespecting the culture of the place.
• Looking like a doofus.
• Looking like an American.
  

I'll begin with the least and work my way up. For starters, I'm American and while I don't agree with everything that goes on in this country, I have no problem being American. Even if I did, there's not much I could do about it anyway, so I'm not going to change my behavior simply because it makes me appear to be what I am. Besides, if I do all the things the article suggests that won't make me appear American such as refraining from the following: 

• wearing sneakers,
• being polite to strangers, or 
• expressing excitement over seeing a building several hundred years old,

I could probably pass for a local in London

 

I might pass for a local in places like London, Berlin or Prague, that is until I opened my mouth and started to speak. 

As for me ever passing as a local in places like Tokyo or Istanbul, dream on.   

On the other hand, I don't want to look like a fool and frankly, some of the things we Americans routinely do seem quite odd to people in the rest of the world. One of them is eating and drinking while walking around. In that respect, there is a good reason to do as the Romans do, as well as the Berliners and practically everybody else in the world does. Most cultures take their eating and drinking seriously and don't believe those activities should be multi-tasked.  

A Chilean among a group of Poles at a papal audience in the Vatican

Another real curiosity is Americans' (from both hemispheres) obsession with their country's flag. Unless you're at an international sporting event or the celebration of a national holiday, it's unusual to see non-Americans displaying their nation's flag, especially as a part of their attire. Americans from the United States anyway, should realize that this appropriation of the image of our flag goes against official flag etiquette. but they go ahead and do it anyway, even in foreign countries, making their doofus rating extremely high.

The article I read, dwells on things I would place in my bottom two categories of "mistakes" Americans make abroad, while mistakes of the first category, disrespecting the culture, the only one that really matters, are glossed over. Most of the actions mentioned in the article, are trivial cultural differences which may provoke humor or curiosity among people who are not from our culture, maybe at times even endearment, but hardly ever annoyance, anger or offense. 

More enlightening than the article were some of the comments that followed, which went like this: "who cares, when I'm a tourist, I'm contributing to the economy of the country which gives me the right to do as I please."

Therein lies much of the problem.

Sure our money helps the economy of the place we're visiting, but we're not exactly part of General Patton's army liberating Europe from the grip of oppression, so we shouldn't act like we are.

Horror stories abound about tourists (not always Americans) behaving atrociously. Many of them revolve around taking selfies with no regard to the place they find themselves. One of the worst stories I read was about a group of Americans posing for selfies inside Auschwitz, while chanting "U.S.A, U.S.A". Another involves tourists of an unknown nationality at a wildlife refuge in Australia, perhaps the one I visited outside of Melbourne, shaking a Eucalyptus tree, forcing a koala to fall out.

 

The best advice I can give anyone traveling to a foreign country is this: you are a guest of that country so act like one. At home you might throw your coat on the floor, walk around in your underwear and pick your teeth at the dinner table, but hopefully you wouldn't do that in someone else's home. These selfie taking, tree shaking morons probably would do those things in somebody else's home, so there is probably nothing that can cure cluelessness of that magnitude short of a permanent travel ban.

As for the rest of us, it may sound a bit corny, but I truly believe that when we travel abroad, we are in a small way, ambassadors for our country. The way we speak, behave, and present ourselves in public is a reflection of not only us as individuals, but of our culture as well. Now it's true that reasonable people understand not to judge an entire nation based on the actions of a small handful of individuals. But stereotypes are powerful mental images, not conceived out of thin air. Human nature being what it is, negative stereotypes can be reinforced by only the slightest provocation.

What's more, when you're a guest at someone's home, the host may have a particular set of customs and rules of behavior that any respectful guest should try to abide by, so long as they know them.

It's the same when visiting a foreign country.

Here are a some of the "house" rules and other tidbits of useful information I gleaned during my travels abroad:

ON ATTIRE...

During our visit to the Vatican, we noticed that women including my wife, were discreetly asked to cover their bare shoulders upon entering St. Peter's Basilica. What about the men you ask? Well we didn't encounter any sans sleeves, but I can tell you that a man clueless enough to walk into the most important building in the Roman Catholic Church wearing a tank top, deserves every bit of public humiliation meted out to him. 

In other words, when it comes to the way we dress in foreign countries, sometimes it comes down to plain common sense, and sometimes not. You wouldn't dress the same attending Carnival in Rio as you would the Hajj in Mecca, would you? But it's not always so cut and dried.

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

 

 

Making it more complicated. whether we like it or not, accepted standards for dress are quite different for the genders in many cultures.

Everyone knows about the restrictive dress codes for women in some conservative Muslim countries that don't exist for men. But in the west, the reverse is true. It's perfectly acceptable for example, for women to go sleeveless just about anywhere except inside some places of worship and other solemn sites. Not so for men usually, outside of the gym or the beach.

Fortunately in the age of the internet, it only takes a few keystrokes to learn what flies where, and what doesn't. And if we miss a certain detail such as the case above, no worries, we will be reminded. 

Incidentally, Istanbul pictured here, is still a city in a secular country, although that may be slowly changing. The traditional clothing seen in the photo was optional when the picture was taken in 1995. Hagia Sophia, one of the great architectural wonders of the world, at the time was a museum, but has recently been converted into a mosque, and head covering and needless to say, modest dress is required for all women visiting the building today. The one thing that dates this photo, is that being a mosque, shoes would now be removed by everyone entering the sanctuary. See below. 

ON LANGUAGE:

The old joke goes like this: 

What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Tri-lingual. What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bi-lingual. And what do you call someone who speaks one language? American.

It doesn't help that English is the most widely spoken language in the world meaning that native speakers of the language can "get by" in most foreign countries by not speaking a word of the local language. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Of course, unless one is linguistically gifted, it's very difficult for a well-traveled person to be conversant in every language of every country visited. 

So how much of the language of a country should one know before traveling there? My own experience is that a little knowledge of a language can be a dangerous thing. Confident with my 500 word German vocabulary, I discovered that when I started up a conversation in German in Berlin, if the person responded in kind, I would become lost, quickly. An even worse feeling, is proudly addressing someone in the local language only to have them automatically respond to you in English. 

Unless you already know the language, my advice in visiting a country whose language is not your own, would be to at least learn essential words and phrases such as "hello' and "goodbye", "excuse me", "please", "thank you", "do you speak (my language)" and the ever popular, "where's the bathroom" before you go, no pun intended. 

Funny story, before my first visit to Russia, as is my custom, I studied the language for a couple months. It turned out the most difficult word for me to pronounce was their word for "hello" which in its native Cyrillic spelling is Здравствуйте. See what I mean? When spelled phonetically in the Latin alphabet, it's not much easier : ZDRAVS-tvuy-tye. But I persisted, and to this day I can still say hello (but little else) in Russian, and sound quite convincing. So when I got there and greeted people with a hearty, Здравствуйте!, I discovered that like here, people either just abbreviated it (zdrastu) or used the much simpler, more informal, Привет (PRI-vet). What gives, I asked my new Russian friends who told me that Здравствуйте was much too cumbersome for Russians as well.

Numbers are helpful to know, especially involving money transactions. And if you're visiting a country whose language has a different (but not all that different) alphabet from ours such as Greek or Cyrillic, learn it; it's not all that difficult, it shouldn't take more than a week or two of casual study. Then at the very least, you'll be able to read street signs. 

And in the internet age, it wouldn't hurt spending a little time with Duolingo or an equivalent, just to get a feel for the language.  

While you won't be able to have a meaningful conversation with such a brief introduction to the language, you'll gain respect from the locals for making the effort, except perhaps in Paris.

ON CULTURAL SENSITIVITY...

I once walked into a bar in the Central Business District of Melbourne that boasted offering a vast array of international beers. Being somewhat knowledgeable on the subject, I wasn't particularly interested in any of the national brews, so I asked for a British Ale, to which the bartender responded: "We're in Australia mate, not England." 

So I asked him what the Aussies drank. He said: "Well we've got a good German Weissbier, a Belgian Trappist Ale, and an American IPA."

Interesting. 

I never made the mistake of bringing up England Down Under again. 

Oh, and while we're on that subject, if you ever find yourself in Prague, don't refer to the Czech Republic as an "Eastern European" country unless you're prepared for a protracted lecture on European geography, history and politics. 

ON DINING... 

Second to language, food is perhaps the most integral part of most cultures. In Japan, the preparation and presentation of food, like so many other things we take for granted here, is raised to the level of high art. We all know of the great culinary traditions of India, China, Mexico and of course France, to name but a small handful. Always keep respect for the local food culture in mind when traveling abroad. 

In my book, the country that dials the cultural significance of its food up to an 11, that is to say, one level higher than all the rest, is Italy. 

Poultry Market in Florence

Even in an informal setting, you'll be set straight in no uncertain terms if you make a faux pas when ordering food in Italy, such as the time I asked a waiter at a glorified fast food joint in Florence for a little Parmigiano Reggiano on my plate of shrimp pasta. 

When in Rome, definitely order the Spaghetti Carbonara, the glorious signature dish of that city, but not Spaghetti Bolognese, especially don't order it in Bologna, nor anywhere else in the country. And never, I mean NEVER, order spaghetti and meatballs in Italy. 

When in Naples, (God willing I'll get there some day), the birthplace of modern pizza, order first and foremost the Pizza Margherita featuring only toppings that represent the tri-color flag of Italy, red tomatoes, white cheese and green basil. Order extra toppings if you must, but don't even think of asking for chicken or heaven forbid, pineapple on a pizza in Italy, unless you want to be thrown into the street and laughed out of the country.

ON SHOES...

I would say one of the biggest cultural differences between Americans and many parts of the world concerns shoes. I'm not talking about sandals with socks or sneakers instead of "proper" leather soled shoes, but something much more serious. I'm talking about wearing outside shoes indoors, especially in someone's home.  

When you travel abroad, especially in eastern Asia, be prepared to take off your shoes inside, as not doing so is considered unsanitary, uncouth and disrespectful in much (but not all) of the world. The American custom of wearing shoes inside one's home by the way, is deeply rooted in our own culture, and is deserving of a post of its own if not an entire thesis.

Here is perhaps the most practical advice of this entire post: in Japan you will be taking off and putting your shoes back on so often that you will want to bring shoes that slip on and off easily, not the tie-up boots that I foolishly chose to wear.

DO UNTO OTHERS...

The best advice of all on how to behave in another country is to simply follow the golden rule: don't do anything over there that would piss you off if someone came to our country and did here. Tourists to the  States who particularly bug me, are the ones who incessantly compare the way we do things in our country to the way things are done in theirs. That is one of the most common criticisms of the Ugly American abroad, yet I've encountered many visitors to this country, Europeans especially, who feel entitled to do exactly that here. 

To those folks I would say this: 

We've heard it all before; we may even agree with you that some things are better in Europe. Trust me, you're not telling us anything we don't already know. So people, please stop it; just take in our culture for the better or worse of it, and relax. I promise to return the favor and not complain how much better things are in the good ol' USA when I am a guest in your country. Be it noted that I'll do my best to convince my fellow countrymen and women to follow suit.

To wit: my message to Americans traveling abroad is as follows, don't be an asshole.

So shall it be written, so shall it be done.

Traveling abroad is one of the great experiences of life. It opens our minds, our hearts and our souls to our fellow human beings. It connects us to other cultures and teaches us among so many other things, that despite all our differences, at the heart of it all, as my father always used to say, "people are people." 

By all means, do a little research before making your journey. In our day, with all the information we have at the tip of our fingers, there is no excuse to arrive at our destination completely unprepared. 

On the other hand, don't go overboard with the planning. I've found that one of the most rewarding parts of travel is encountering the unexpected. Those are the moments that stick in our heads and provide us the most powerful learning experiences. 

Like the time I was detained and nearly arrested in St. Petersburg. 

OK maybe that wasn't the most rewarding experience, but it did teach me a few things. And I certainly haven't forgotten it.

At the risk of invalidating everything I've written above, don't sweat making cultural errors in other countries as the mistakes we make are the keys to learning about a culture, as hopefully my little anecdotes in this post illustrated.

I'm truly wistful, writing this at a time when global travel has been curtailed for two long years and may be in doubt for the foreseeable future. Perhaps the single most powerful moment for me in all my travels was the time I had the great privilege to be able to sit in Red Square in Moscow and take in the vast array of emotions going through my head. Having lived through much of the Cold War, that place represented for half my life, a foreboding, distant, terrifying world in which I could never imagine setting foot. By the time I arrived in 1995, the world had changed, or so I thought. Being there in person, Moscow, despite its idiosyncracies, could not have been more beautiful or exhilarating, very much unlike what I expected. The same goes for the people of that great city. 

Ancient Orthodox cathedral in the shadow of the Soviet Era Rossiya Hotel, Moscow

Flash forward to today and my own city, to a restaurant called Russian Tea Time, steps from where I work. It has been besieged of late by hatred and threats of violence because of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. If that by itself is not outrageous enough, the ultimate irony, or more appropriately, stupidity, is the fact that the restaurant is owned by Ukrainians. 

If only all of humanity could be so fortunate as I was to have had the opportunity to be able to look at the world from the other side of a conflict and realize that the people there, cultural differences aside, are no different than us. 

 

Overrated

Like the proverbial train wreck, yet another internet top ten list has gotten my attention. This one is called "10 Terribly Overrated Travel Destinations (And Where to Travel Instead)" and found on the HuffPost Travel Blog. Top ten lists like this one are meant to provoke and this one is no exception. The thing that surprised me about this list was how spot on some of the observations are:

The writer of the piece, David Ladsel, describes overrated Asheville, NC as a

physically and emotionally fragmented mountain town full of people who seem really annoyed by everything -- including your presence here.

My feelings exactly.

On the overrated state of Colorado he says this:

Denver is a weirdly bland, Midwestern snore, with an air quality problem.

Again I can't argue with him there. My lasting impression of Denver was that people in the Mile High City seem to live for the weekend when they can get the hell out of town and escape to the mountains, which according to Ladsel, aren't all that great either. He says Utah's mountains are better, less kerfuffle. I wouldn't know about that.

Here's what he has to say about Austin:

...a city whose entire purpose for breathing is to not be like everything else around it. When you're trying to set yourself apart from a place as large and as bold as Texas, you have to work really, really hard... Sprawling Austin is one of those unfortunate places that seems really smashing on paper. And then one ruins things by going.

Now I don't know Austin so it wouldn't be fair for me to judge. However a city I imagine would be very much like Austin is another college town which also happens to be a state capital, Madison, Wisconsin. In the numerous trips to our neighboring state to the north, we've often stopped in "Mad City" and for the life of me I can't ever recall not being disappointed there. I can't put my finger on exactly why but the idea of the place is so much better than the experience of it. I recently spoke with a family member who lives there and it was he who said that Madison is the most overrated city in the country. I'm afraid I have to agree with him, since I've never been to Austin, the number one overrated place on David Ledsel's list. He recommends visiting Houston instead of Austin while I would wholeheartedly recommend Milwaukee over Madison.

I've never been to the Caribbean of which he says:

Too many of the islands are depressingly violent, pathetically corrupt and / or hopelessly dysfunctional.

Or Vancouver:

there really isn't much below the surface -- nothing unique anyway.

I may not have been there but did get that impression of the city from the coverage of the Winter Olympics a few years ago.

How about Berlin?

The best reason for Americans to bother with pricey Europe these days is to roll around in the continent's colorful past. Berlin is too modern, too sterile, too expensive and too unsure of itself to merit much of your time or money.

Well that's true up to a point; Berlin is a difficult city, it's especially difficult to love. The city Ladsel recommends to visit instead is Prague, a very easy city to love with its picturesque vistas, serpentine passageways, and charm up the wazoo. Yet lovely as it is, Prague is a bit of a museum piece overrun with tourists, while Berlin is a real live city with a proud and devastating history which it makes no attempt to conceal. Contrary to what Ladsel says, the past is all around you in Berlin, it's just not the picture postcard variety of Prague's. The two cities could not be more different and one is certainly not more worth visiting than the other. Here's my take on Berlin from a few years ago.

Ledsel makes some fairly incomprehensible remarks about San Francisco which to me says that he has some kind of bug up his behind about the City by the Bay. As familiarity breeds contempt, his comments make him seem incapable of judging the place objectively.

Which brings up the best which I saved for last. I'll just let you read the whole entry for yourself on his seventh most overrated travel destination, Chicago:

Spend a little time in the Windy City and you'll come to know a people obsessed with the answer to a question nobody else has ever asked: "Is Chicago a world class city?" As a former local, I can help. The answer is no. Chicago is a handsome, reasonably entertaining provincial capital. This used to be enough for Chicagoans, but then it wasn't, leading to a period of time, beginning around the turn of the new century, during which all manner of foolishness -- from baffling things built by celebrity architects to a slew of obnoxious restaurants -- was unleashed upon the city. Suddenly, everything was pretty much the same, except now it was way more expensive. Yes, the city has some iconic cultural institutions and that beautiful lakefront. But look too far past the glittering Potemkin village at Chicago's center and you'll find yourself near or at the bottom of a sad pile of poor to average.

As a "former local", Lesdal has a take on the city your average tourist would not. Now you might expect that I, a lifelong resident and devoted lover and supporter of this town would be appalled by Ledsel's comments about my home town. On the contrary. I'm not appalled because he is right about many of his observations. We Chicagoans are indeed obsessed with the pointless concept of being a "world class city." World class prices do not a world class city make. No truly world class city needs to declare itself one. Our world class braggadocio and world class inferiority complex may in fact be our biggest flaws, or perhaps our greatest charm, depending on your point of view.

As for the "foolishness" quotient, well since the turn of the last century, my wife and I started having babies so I can't speak for the obnoxious restaurants. However I'd say we don't have nearly as many "baffling things built by celebrity architects" as Lesdal thinks. I for one would take our one truly baffling piece of "starchitecture", Frank Gehry's Millennium Park Bandshell, over Santiago Calatrava's über-baffling Milwaukee Art Museum any day.

David Ladsel's coup de gras comes next:

Instead...Go to Detroit. It's more honest. Also, there's a great art museum, a proper public market, some of the country's best architecture, the music scene is fun, the food scene is better than it has been in ages and the beer is better and much cheaper. Everything's cheaper. Also: Detroiters are friendly -- Chicagoans are just polite. There's a big difference.

Now you gotta admire the chutzpah of a travel writer today recommending his readers go to Detroit instead of Chicago. Frankly, even though it comes at the expense of my own city, I'm thrilled he singled out Motown. Still I'm not convinced; reading that passage makes me think either the author...

• is simply a contrarian looking to evoke an angry response (which he did) or,
• he has an ulterior motive like the Vikings of old who named a fertile island above the Arctic Circle Iceland, while naming a frozen tundra Greenland or,
• he really means it.

I hope the latter is true because the city of Detroit to put it mildly, has seen better days, and could use someone sincerely blowing its horn. Everything he said about the Motor City vis a vis Chicago is true, well, except the part about Detroiters being friendly while Chicagoans are merely polite, I mean come on.

I do however take great exception to his last thought about Chicago where he states that the part of the city outside of downtown is "near or at the bottom of a sad pile of poor to average". Clever and pithy as that sentence reads, it's nothing more than the author spouting off a well worn cliché. It was put forth perhaps most famously by A.J. Liebling in his scathing evaluation of this city written in 1952 called: Chicago: The Second City. In a book comprised of a series of essays from The New Yorker, Liebling called Chicago:

• a theatre backdrop with a city painted on it... 

• a boundless agglutination of streets, dramshops, and low buildings without urban character...

• Radio City ...set down in the middle of a vast Canarsie...

..and a lot of other unflattering things. Liebling, guilty of exhibiting his own brand of New York provincialism, nonetheless was dead on with some of his observations of Chicago in the early fifties, some of which hold true today. As someone who spends 50 percent of his waking life in the glittering part of the city and the other 50 in the sad pile, I consider myself something of an expert on the subject. Not a day goes by when I don't discover something new and exciting, mystifying or terrifying about this city, both parts of it. Beyond the steel, glass and stone towers of Chicago's center you'll find the lifeblood of this city, both the good and the bad. It's all there to discover for anyone willing to take the time. Of course it's just the every day lives of nearly three million souls that go on around that sad pile of poor to average outside of the Potemkin village. How dull and mundane that must be compared to a place where you can hear some fun music and can get a cheap beer.

The wholesale dismissal of the city that lies beyond the sound of the bells of Holy Name Cathedral, or the pell-mell dissing any city for that matter, displays a great deal of journalistic and intellectual sloth, even for someone just writing an internet top ten list. 

And yet, who doesn't enjoy getting one's digs in every once in a while? If you can't take a punch, then stay out of the fight as I always say.

It's the Chicago way.

Occupying Utopia?

Over lunch the other day, a friend and I were discussing the Occupy Movement and its primary concern, the equitable distribution of wealth. I wondered aloud which communities throughout history have successfully spread the wealth around instead of limiting its control to a privileged few. My friend immediately brought up the early Christian community. As a persecuted minority their very survival depended upon the cohesiveness of the group. That cohesiveness in no small part can be attributed to Jesus' words to the rich young man who wanted to know the key to eternal life. He told the man to sell all that he had and give the money to the poor.

Christ's early followers did just that, they pooled their resources, and gladly gave to those who had not, just as Jesus had suggested.

Collective communities have existed throughout history, generally as small groups of people with shared beliefs who by and large separated themselves from the body politic.

In his blog Life's Private Book, the author, David T. describes the most successful collective communities in history, monasteries. His post; The Occupy Movement, Sin and the Monastery, asks the question: "Why do attempts at creating progressive utopias always fail?" His answer is basically that human nature always gets in the way. We simply don't accept the idea that life is not fair. Instead of grasping justice the author suggests monks "embrace injustice", not for others but for themselves:

Rather than fairness, the monastery demands obedience, piety, chastity and humility. The modern world, of course, sees in this nothing but the purest form of oppression. It pursues fairness through the assertion of rights and demands, the louder and more uncompromising the better. The active embrace of meekness and submission can only be understood by it as an invitation to slavery.

Well, for those of us who are not cut out to be monks, this seems like a pretty grim prospect indeed. For hundreds of years, the values of our Western society, with a few exceptions have evolved in the direction of personal freedom and individual rights. We vehemently reject slavery and oppression of any kind. Yet the essential requirement of the collective is that the rights of the community usurp the rights of the individual. Clearly, in order for a collective to work, everyone in the group must be in accordance with the plan and agree to subordinate themselves to the community.

That's difficult enough in a small group. In the case of a typical family, there is at least one parental unit keeping things in line, who is more equal than the rest. In a small group, any member not willing to play by the rules either gets punished, or leaves, willingly or not. The larger the group, the more complicated the egalitarian goal. Extended over an entire nation, a collective society must impose rigid rules, usually handed down from a central (more equal) authority, to insure that everyone stays on track. The most dramatic example was East Germany who was forced to build a fortified wall around Berlin to keep its people from leaving to the West.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 is the indelible symbol of the failure of Communism.

So are the occupiers really seeking to turn our society into a utopian collective? Well the Movement is made up of a diverse lot and I'm sure a small minority sincerely believe in bringing a form of Communism to this country. Much fuss has been made since the movement began a few months ago about the 1 percent of the richest Americans controlling roughly 50 percent of the wealth in this country. But let's face it, how many would really care about that if the economy were robust and everyone was working? I think the 1% vs. 99% argument is merely a rhetorical bullet-point intended to rally people to the cause. Beyond that, there are plenty of meaningful issues that the movement has going for it.

For starters, our current economic situation is largely the result of wildly uncontrolled, unregulated markets. The Libertarian point of view to which I subscribe up to a point, suggests that markets should be self-regulating since their very success depends on control and restraint. Where the argument falls apart is the assumption that the players in the market are driven by long term success rather than mercenary short term greed.

Another issue is the trend in this country toward outrageous compensation for corporate executives combined with little if any accountability for mismanagement or malfeasance.

In government we have the partisan stalemate that has prevented Congress from taking any real steps to get this country moving in a positive direction. Then there is the regrettable Supreme Court decision that removed limits to campaign donations from corporations, citing them as a violation of free speech. From hereon it appears, those with the most money will have the most freedom of speech, at least as far as governmental representation goes.

The issue that we will be hearing about ad nauseum in the months leading up to the presidential election next year, will be taxes. No one likes to pay taxes, that is certain, Yet all of us reap the benefits of government in some way, even those who express disdain for it.. The money to pay for government has to come from somewhere and President Obama wants to raise the tax rate of people who make over one million dollars a year. One could argue that the people in the highest income tax bracket pay an unreasonably large chunk of the money they earn (35 percent) to the government. Well they used to pay a lot more. Couple that with the smorgasbord of tax breaks available to them and the fact that capital gains, which typically represent a significant proportion of income for the wealthy, are taxed at a lower rate than earned income, means that rich folks are often taxed at a lower rate than the middle class. The Republicans in Congress, not surprisingly are against raising the tax rate for the rich. The president would also like to extend the Bush era tax breaks for the middle class. Guess what? The Republicans are against that too.

One has to remember that no fortune, great or small, comes out of thin air, it is society that provides the means by which fortunes are made. Philanthropists believe it is their duty to give back at least part of their treasure to the society that made it all possible. For them, great wealth means great responsibility. Andrew Carnagie stated that a man who dies with his fortune intact, dies disgraced. For the great Chicago philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, it went deeper. Unlike Carnagie, Rosenwald was an active philanthropist for most of his working life, not just during his retirement. For him, giving his wealth back to the community was a moral imperative.

Since the opposition of taxing the rich has been taken on by many groups who claim to espouse Christian values, I think it's perfectly justifiable to bring up morality in the context of public policy. Christian “Fundamentalists" have a penchant for using biblical quotes to support their agenda opposed to big government, taxes, rights for gays and immigrants, universal health care, and the rest of the litany of right wing values.

Yet you seldom hear right wing Christianists quote the pasage I alluded to about selling everything and giving the proceeds to the poor. Nor do you hear what follows in that story found in the Gospel of Matthew. After the rich young man dejectedly leaves, Jesus tells his followers that it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of heaven.

Listening to the Christian Right, you'd think that Jesus was a gun-toting, white bread, all-American capitalist. Now I'm not in any position to tell anyone what they should believe, in my faith I'm taught not to judge others, lest I be judged. But it seems to me that the Christian faith is about community ("For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them"), more than it is about individualism. It was Christ afterall who said:“Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.” To the best of my knowldge he never said: "Show me the money."

Julius Rosenwald who was not a Christian, got it. So does Warren Buffet who is leading the call to raise the taxes on the very rich, himself included.

Higher taxes for the rich certainly won't solve all our economic woes. But I think that a willingness to contribute more to the public pot, along with a spirited movement of new philanthropy from the well off, would go a long way to help bring this country back together and move in the right direction.

Like I said, the Occupy Movement is a diverse group with many different agendas, some of them silly and irrelevant, others with tremendous merit. By and large they see this country, and the world as headed in the wrong direction and they are simply trying to right the ship. In that vein I liken their movement to mariners guided not by GPS, but a rusty old sextant on a cloudy evening. However as the movement grows, more and more people are there grabbing at the ship's tiller, slowly coaxing the old boat on a new course.

You won't see me camped outside the NYSE or the Chicago Board of Trade anytime soon. I'm a little like Groucho Marx who would never join a club who would have someone like me as a member.

But I'll be there on the sidelines cheering them on just the same.