Why Travel

Home Cafe

Some of the best trips, or best bits of trips, come down to discovering a great cafe early on (or whenever it strikes you) and returning there many times over even the few days you are in the destination, city or otherwise. 

There is nothing quite like making yourself an instant regular, as it were.  It gives you a home base, a place to meet one another and the locals, and a lense to experience your experience through.  And a place to miss once you return home, or wherever you are on to next or later.

Our family week in Barcelona was lovely, and we all miss Bar Calders, the little cafe around the corner in an alley that our rental agent suggested to us for our first coffee and lunch when she checked us in.  We returned there, for one drink or snack or another, day after day, first thing in the morning or last thing at night.  We watched the corner of the screen from outside as FC Barcelona played the European Cup and drank free cava poured by the owners when they won.  This is where I first discovered Vichy Catelan, and the perfect way that Barcelona cafes serve iced espresso (a small glass of espresso, and a big glass with giant ice cubs on the side).  Nevermind the cava, the sangria, and the theatrical way they poured a little bottle of tonic water down a straw to make the gin and tonic.

A home away from your home away from home seems even more critical when sharing accomodation with family members.  But it is always a treat, even when traveling alone.

 

Trip Planning: Barcelona with Parents

More and more I tend and prefer to plan less and less, when it comes to travel.  And this is starting from a point where on my first trip outside the English speaking world I photocopied the Budapest and Prague articles from back issues of Time Out London office.  Literally.

I think of it as both fun and funny to show up with barely a guidebook or a single article, tips from a few friends, and hopefully one or more local contacts however vague (a cousin's cousin's study abroad roomate in a 3rd country from 20 years ago is usually good for a cup of tea, a walk, or even a free lunch or getting to sit in a chair on the floor of the parliament).

I like to wander, ask strangers' advice, get tips from the B&B owner or bartender.

Now I have a husband who likes to buy or at least peruse at the bookstore as many guidebooks as he can find, usually from three of our favorite bookstores, one of which is a travel bookstore, and bring them all along.  Plus dictionaries.

My parents rarely travel abraod and since this trip has been in the works and put off for several years, we've had many Christmases to buy each other guidebooks for this one.

And we're just going to Barcelona for a week.

I've never traveled as a grown up with family before.  So what are your tips for planning a grown up family vacation?  How can we make the planning, and the exploring, a bonding experience, rather than a source of potential conflict? And what are your tips for Barcelona or nearby?

Chelsea Hotel

 

"I remember you well from the Chelsea Hotel..." Leonard Cohen

I never thought I would stay at the Chelsea Hotel.  I never really thought I would stay in any hotel in New York, which is fast approaching another place I live, rather than travel to.

But when a friend asked me if I knew a hotel, I knew one.  And it turned out to be surprisingly easy and affordable to stay there.  Not to mention, awesome!  I guess the ghosts liked us.

If I'm going to join the crowd that splits their time between somewhere and New York, I might just need my own place.  At least from time to time.

I never thought I would check into a hotel to have the privacy to just talk, and I never thought that I would have one of the best nights of sleep in years if not ever in a hotel, let alone a run down, famous artist, rock and roll, druggie hotel that’s being sold and recently opened a nightclub.

But, you never do know, do you.

Life just keeps on happening.

I was in the midst of reading Just Kids by Patty Smith, and Leonard Cohen holds the place in my heart among musicians and poets of: worth living for.

And there I was.

I never thought the lobby would be so small.  Or that it would be 7 degrees outside.

We got a large room on the 6^th floor, with two big beds, a bathroom with a tub, and a desk with a mirror over it, and a TV.

It didn’t smell like anything, the room, or the hallways, to my surprise.  The hallways were faintly musty, but the room had very calm air.  It was somehow airy and just the right temperature all the time.  Even though, it had old radiators and I’ve never been in a hotel where the air was quite right.

The staff was friendly and welcoming, even as they tried to keep the club goers from taking over the lobby to warm up on the coldest night of the year.

But the most striking thing about the Chelsea Hotel were the spiral staircases with all the art hung along them.  I took the elevator up, but walked down several times.  And I tried to capture that staircase in the photo.

Favorite Places (Favourite Places?): London

 

London is one of those iconic cities that means so many things to so many different people that it soon means nothing and disappears into a bank of fog, while being whisked away into an underground tunnel, drowned in a sea of gin or bitte.

When it comes to travel and perhaps to cities, London is my first love.  It's the first foreign city I went to, and I went just as soon as I could, on a high school exchange with a town outside London.  Heathrow is the first stamp in my passports, ever.  (What's yours?)

I've had the pleasure of living in London twice now, and visiting many times, and I can't imagine a life without London in it.

One of my favorite places is pictured here, Turbine hall at the Tate Modern.  For a year I walked by it almost every day, stopping in every other week or so.  The Tate Modern in gloriously free (except for special exhibitions).

I have many other favorite places in London.  What are yours, dear bloggers?

If You Are Going

If you are going to San Francisco, remember to wear a flower in your hair...

And you should probably be prepared to move there.  Or at least to go back, many, many times.

In the past few years six friends have moved to San Francisco from Boston alone, and that doesn't include Facebook friends or other friends I haven't seen on any on my past three or more visits (hope you're reading this anyway guys!). And, additional friends have moved there from wherever they were.  And just last week another friend announced a 5 year plan to move out there the minute she got home.  (I'm skeptical of 5 year plans. But still.)

But, with that one little caveat, San Francisco IS a fantastic place to visit, and you will certainly not be the only tourist.  Tourism is huge and very well set up.  Or you can just hang out in a neighborhood or set out to explore lots of them if well-set-up tourism isn't your thing.

And, since it's a giant magnet, you probably know at least one friend or friend-of-a-friend who can loan you their couch, show you around, or meet you for coffee.  Or, if not, don't worry because coffee can be your friend.  Start with Philz, I like the Mission Location.  While you're in the Mission, enjoy a burrito, wherever you walk by, then continue with your coffee pilgrimage at Ritual, and Four Barrel.  You can pick up as many reading materials as you need to accompany your coffee at the used bookstores scattered along the way.  If you are really committed to the coffee pilgrimage, continue to Pirate Cat Radio for their Maple Bacon Latte, which luckily has enough something to it that its like a meal in itself. Or you can ironically eat a vegan treat if you bring more than $4 with you unlike I did.)  Another day, make your way to Blue Bottle, which you can also experience together with an artist-inspired pastry at SF MOMA.  

I could go on for days, or years.  And you will too.   And you probably already have.  So let me know when you are moving to San Francisco, or what coffee or other attraction I shouldn't miss on my next visit.  (Yes I've been to Alcatraz.)

Finding Our Way in Tokyo

People, and most guidebooks, warned that Tokyo is hard to find addresses in, and left it at that.  Luckily, Time Out Tokyo (which I highly recommend) actually went on to explain that there is a system, and how it actually works.  Locations have addresses, even written out in Roman letters and numbers, but they don't look like--or mean like--a New York street address.  First there is a named neighborhood.  This is like a Borough in London, geographically.  I don't know what if any significance it has politically.  But perhaps geographically and culturally more distinct, like a town within the metropolis.  Then there is the Chome, which is like a sub-neighborhood, or a Parish within some Boston neighborhoods.  Then there is a Block Number, I don't know how block numbers are ordered or assigned.  And within the Block there are building numbers, assigned by order of construction (not in a sequence along the street or anything like that). 

So knowing this, here is how you find your way: you take the subway to the stop indicated ahead of time, you head for the correct exit number indicated ahead of time, and before you exit to the street you find a Local Area Map.  You look for the name of the establishment, shrine or museum on there, or failing that the appropriate block number, and then head for that when you get above ground.  Another key piece of information: maps in Japan are oriented the way you are actually physically facing, not to North like in America.  This bit will be hard to adjust back from, because it makes a lot more sense or is more useful.  Once up on the street you keep your eyes peeled for an even more local Area Map, which will be much more detailed, with shapes of building footprints and building numbers.  Find the block and building numbers you are looking for, and remeber nearby ones to use as landmarks.  When given an address or directions in Tokyo, there is also some attention to big cross streets, which is nice because local Area Maps are usually located there.  I have heard that Taxis have trouble finding things, but that makes sense because the system is geered to subway and pedestrians.  I would love to learn when or how this system was developed, but for now I remain in awe.  I have been to other Asian countries and always been told only locals can find things, just ask or take a taxi.  But now I'm curious.

    This is an interesting time to explore, because it looks like soon, or already (as Al Gore said about photovoltaic cells in his new book, "in the next half year"), all of the maps will be electronic, taxis will have guidance systems and the google directions on everyones iphone will work seemlessly.  It is already there on google maps, but looked complicated in the current iteration, and expensive to use on roam.  In Tokyo Hipster places actually give out google coordinates.

    This sort of system falls into the category of "wayfinding" and I have enough Geography geek friends who will probably enjoy it that I'll write about the intersection of wayfinding and technology again soon.

First North End Post, and Calcutta

Warm weather has arrived a little earlier than (at least I had) expected in Boston, so my plans to write about my own neighborhood once tourism season really gets rolling need a jump start as well.  The neighborhood is hopping, even in the middle of the afternoon on week days.

I just went to one of the dwindling number of butcher shops to get sweet and hot Italian sausages for a friends moving away BBQ tomorrow afternoon, and was fortunate to have to wait.  It was a real treat.  I sat in a chair for about 15 minutes and relaxed while 3 white-haired butchers filled all sorts of orders, for trip, kidneys, steaks, and livers from fellow white-haired Italians.  Meanwhile a few latino restaurant workers came in and cut the line to pick up standing restaurant orders.  Some neighbors stopped by just to gossip, in Italian, with the people waiting, and with the butchers.

On my way to the shop, took a little walk, down to North Square, and back along Hanover Street, to enjoy the crowds.  It's still mostly locals at this time of the year, drawn outside by one of the first really nice, warm days of the year.  But it's not quite warm enough for just a T shirt, so one of the shops was doing a brisk business in sweatshirts to the tourists who are here.

Earlier in the day, I went to the post office.  This too is a real pleasure, even though (because) the wait is often long.  Today I didn't have to wait at all, and since no one was around I got to chat longer with the guy behind the counter, who continued to ask me about my trip.  The North End is the kind of neighborhood where the people who work at the post office know what I've been up to, when I've been away for months.  Today we continued where we left off during tax week, and today he asked me if there were really people sleeping on the streets of Calcutta (which he had heard).  I explained that yes there were some, though not as many as I'd expected, and that I found this common in most cities in India.

What struck me about Calcutta, was the amazing state of the old Victorian era government buildings.  Some used, some disused, almost all appear in a state of complete disrepair, with facades all but falling off, but many have plaques on them declaring them protected.  It is illegal to demolish or harm them, but aparently this doesn't apply to simple neglect.  On one level they look beautiful in a way, but at the same time the scene is deeply depressing.  And yes, when you look inside some you can see that they have been taken over by people who are living in them, and integrated into slums.  And others, are still filled with mazes of bureacuracy, in some cases the same departments they were originally built for.

In other ways Calcutta is a modern, bustling city, with a huge middle class, two local chains of high end coffee bars that have expanded Indiawide, international retail chains, and broad streets filled.  The juxtuposition of poverty and wealth is some of the most extreme.

Mumbai

Mumbai was to me, as one of my friends from India suggested, "Like New York so you will like it."  For me, the big, bustling, but relatively westernized city was relaxing.  I ended up stayed at an amazingly cheap hotel, despite budgeting 10 times what I had for the rest of India based on my research, because others weren't available.  And I loved it.  The room I moved to on the 2nd night had a view of the ocean, and I was less than a 5 minute walk to the Taj hotel, where no one minded if I sat in the lobby (as long as I didn't approach the pool, the one area with a big sign declaring it for "residents of the hotel only"), and the Gate of India.

I decided to make an effort to spend all the money I'd saved on hotel costs by enjoying the dining scene in Mumbai, and taking taxis everywhere.  The taxis in Mumbai were great, though relatively expensive, the drivers always used the meters without prompting and generally knew where everything was.

One exception to this was when I decided to go to Swati Snack in Kemp's Corner for a late lunch.  A whole restaurant dedicated to snacks, that is known for having a wait at almost any time of day.  Wow!  I got a taxi as far as the general area but the driver couldn't find the address for me.  So I went into a lamp store.  High end lamps seem to be all the rage, and wives (presumably of bankers or other high earning professionals) seem to have many lamp stores to choose from.  In an amazing lamp store, I asked the proprietor where Swati Snack was and he had vaguely heard of it, but a woman shopping in the store was an enthusiastic expert.  She said yes I was on the right track, and yes it was worth getting another taxi, and waiting in line.  She came out into the street to get me a taxi and give directions to the driver.

At Swati Snack I ate two snacks and drank fresh watermelon juice, and was seated with a Johnson and Johnson executive.  We chatted about food, he asked me about the food I'd eaten around India, and told me about the neighborhood.

Another great establishment in Mumbai is Leopolds, a bar that is famous for travelers going there to meet other random travelers.  Leopolds was also a 5 minute walk from my hotel.  Within 5 minutes of arriving there for the first time, I met two of the most interesting people I've ever met.  The first was a Norwegian woman who had bicycled from Norway to Varanassi, India through Turkey and Afghanistan then spent 4 months in Varanassi relearning Reiki which she used to practice a couple of decades ago.  The second was an English freelance journalist who had spent the past several months trying to get an apartment in Mumbai after staying in hotels there several weeks a year for years.

New Delhi, Take Two

I thought after 7 weeks in India New Delhi might seem totally different the 2nd time around, less overwhelming, more manageable, I though I might even like it. I would see things through eyes that knew what was going on, that could read the street, rather than making false assumptions or simply being bewildered.

This turned out to be partially true. For my return visit, before flying on to Beijing, I stayed only 2 days, booked a boutique hotel half a mile from Connaught Place, and booked a car and driver for the 2nd day to see the remaining sights I still hadn't seen, do a little shopping, and get to the airport at the end of the day to await my 3:15 a.m. flight to Beijing.

My main mission besides catching my flight and seeing if I could like New Delhi, was to stock up on English language books to read in China. India is great on English language books and bookstores, and I had easily been able to stick to my plan of reading books about or by authors from the regions I was in, without carrying many books. I also discovered there are many books published in India (possibly more than the U.S. or U.K.), books were already available in paperback that weren't back home, plus there were lots of Indian authors available, etc. Luckily the Books issue of Time Out Delhi happened to come out while I was in India, so I'd read up on what bookstores to go to.

I had arrived in New Delhi mid afternoon and attempted to take a nap at the hotel, unfortunately it was the one hour that the new giant TV was being installed. So I set off for Connaught Place, walking a few blocks to the Metro and taking it one stop. The Metro in New Delhi is easy to use, and I already knew my way around it. I knew where to buy an electronic token, and then to open my bag and line up in the separate women's line for security screening.

Walking down the street for the couple of blocks to the Metro stop, walking alongside the overhead Metro tracks, the street was as chaotic and crowded as I remembered, and after one block, when I was half way there, dozens of bicycle rickshaws and auto rickshaws were there, and many drivers approached me suggesting a ride to the Metro. I didn't feel like bargaining about the price just to ride one block when I'd rather walk anyway. The air was thick with smog, there were many lanes of traffic and no clear sidewalk.

In Connaught Place I went to the Oxford Bookstore, which was having a huge sale. It was just after 5 p.m. so still daylight but people were streaming out of offices. On my way from the Metro to the store, I met a middle aged woman randomly waiting to cross a street, whose son lives in Boston. We chatted for a while, and she invited me to visit her at work at a bank headquarters on that street the next day. When I mentioned this to a woman at my hotel who used to live in Delhi as an expat and returns every few years to visit, she said, "You met a woman?!" Its true that it was generally hard to meet Indian women in India especially randomly in public. Partly for this reason, I started staying in home stays (more like Bed and Breakfasts) which are usually run by women, it is a great way to meet a woman and her family, and if you're a woman traveling alone, often her neighbors, friends, and business contacts who are women. Despite this I didn't visit my new friend the next morning. I had to continue my book shopping and squeeze in a few sights before leaving India.

The next morning I traveled by car and driver, I went to Khan's market which is famous for its bookstores, and also the hub of expat and upper crust shopping for central Delhi, so I wanted to see this other side of Delhi I'd missed the first time. The traffic barely moved but we got there, and then the driver found a spot in a paid lot on one side of the market and slept in the car while I went off shopping. I went to a few bookstores, finally buying books in the one recomended by Lonely Planet, Full Circle Bookstore, and eating in its Cafe Turtle, paying the same as you would in New York at a similar cafe, for portions half the size, of pasta, and coffee and cake. It was very luxurious. I found a shop that could not only change my watch band, but had the exact same band I had been repairing with duct tape. I found a nice card for a friend's birthday at a stationary store.

And then I had to find my car. It seemed to be a combination of drivers staying with cars and a valet for people who drove themselves, so all the cars had moved around since I left. The attendant asked me about my car number, and I hadn't even though of that. I'd never hired a car with driver before, and was beyond clueless about the parking arrangements. Luckily I spotted the car a few minutes later, paid for the lot, and we were off.

I had a very nice driver, who was an interesting guy, and also knew his way around the city, and knew the bookstores, but I wouldn't want to travel that way on a regular basis. It's not only hard on my budget, but I like being more independent and doing things more on a whim without explaining them at all. However, it was nice to have glass between me and the smog and beggars and magazine sellers, and to easily get to places that weren't close to Metro stops without haggling with an autorickshaw driver over every trip.

In the afternoon, I went to Gandhi Smriti (where Gandhi spent his last weeks and died) which was more moving than I expected and then to Humayun's Tomb just before sunset which was beautiful, and extremely calm. I had an extravagant dinner recomended by my hotel, stopped by the hotel to pick up my backpack, and went straight to the airport at 8:30pm for a 3:15 am flight as recomended by my hotel.

***

If you happen to know my itinerary, you may have noticed that I'm writing about places I went on my trip in loosly referse order. I forgot to mention this in my first post. I'm also planning to cover some themes or tell some stories that aren't place specific. And eventually, I'll write about things other than this trip, including my home neighborhood, probably about the time the tourists descend here full force.

Beijing

I flew all the way to New Delhi via Beijing (in other words the "wrong way" or three quarters of the way around the world) to make a stopover there on the way back and see Beijing before the Olympics finally and completely descended upon it, while it was still in a hopefully, giddy mood.

I made it just in time.

I haven't emailed or written anything about my time in China other than a few postcards about how difficult the hike on the Great Wall was, even though my hostel in Beijing had the best Internet access on the whole trip.  I was only there for one week, and then Tibet managed to erupt in protests between when I bought a huge pile of Olympics souvenirs at the airport and boarded my flight, and when I laned in San Francisco 11 hours later.

In retrospect, with the anniversary of the invasion of Tibet and the Olympics torch relay about the begin, the timing of these protests seems inevitable.  But in the moment everyone, including the international media, seemed to be surprised.

I decided to approach my visit to Beijing as I often aproach a short visit to European city: find an inexpensive place to stay that has a reputation for giving good advice, see the top 5 or so most famous tourist attractions, check out the modern art scene, spend most of my time just wandering around different neighborhoods alone, and try to find at least one acquantence of an acquantence to have coffee with to hear about what its like to live there, either as a local or an expat.  Since Beijing has been staging its "coming out" as a global city for years now, I thought this would be a good way to test it out.  Rather than acknowledging that China is more different, doing a lot of research, trying to learn some of the language, or any of that, I just bought the Top 10 Beijing guidebook and showed up, the way I did in Venice a few years ago.  To my surprise, this worked out really well.

I stayed at a "youth" hostel less than 50 yards from the Forbidden City and a 10 minute walk from Tienanmen Square, because it is the #1 rated youth hostel in Asia on hostelworld.com, mainly for the advice given by the front desk, and the feel of an old-fashioned hutong house.  Even though I stayed in a dorm with 8 beds that was tiny, it was one of the nicest places I've ever stayed. 

Outside of my amazing hostel, what struck me most in Beijing were that everything was under construction to prepare for the Olympics, new malls seemed to be opening every day, and both these malls but also restaurants and the night market closed relatively early in the evening (completely by 10p.m.) I also noticed how many Chinese tourists were out taking pictures of one another in front of the Forbidden City and on Tienanmen Square early in the morning and in the evening.  Sharing a subway stop with Tienanmen Square I also got to see a good bit of interaction between random Chinese people and the police, who totally ignored Western tourists and seemed to pick on locals who might be carrying a backpack or parcel, and stopped them to inspect it, or yelled at them if they sat down on a bit of grass.  People responded in an instant and extremely compliant manner to these police.

When I was alone for a meal, I would go into a hole in the wall tiny restaurant, and point at what someone was eating.  This went over very well, and people tried to talk to me in Mandarin.  Of course, I couldn't understand or reply.  But I found, it is possible to communicate a lot without speaking.  And not understanding the langauge forced me to be very attentive and aware of what everyone around me was doing, in order to know what to do without asking any questions or being told.

I constantly met interesting people at my hostel, and went with them to various attractions, such as the Forbidden City.  The only tour I signed up for was the hiking trip on the Great Wall.  It turned out to be the most difficult hike I've done, not because of the length, but because hike doesn't really describe it.  It was more like 10 kilimoters almost all up and down stairs, all of which are uneven and many totally broken, some to the point of being just like gravel.  The hardest part was, with the amazing views the whole way, it was hard to focus on not falling down.