Tag: travel

The best vacation ever – The Boston Globe

~ Mark

Lots of good ideas here. Positive psychology seems cooler and cooler every day.

How long we take off probably counts for less than we think, and in the aggregate, taking more short trips leaves us happier than taking a few long ones. We’re often happier planning a trip than actually taking it. And interrupting a vacation — far from being a nuisance — can make us enjoy it more. How a trip ends matters more than how it begins, who you’re with matters as much as where you go, and if you want to remember a vacation vividly, do something during it that you’ve never done before. And though it may feel unnecessary, it’s important to force yourself to actually take the time off in the first place — people, it turns out, are as prone to procrastinate when it comes to pleasurable things like vacations as unpleasant ones like paperwork and visits to the dentist.

The best vacation ever – The Boston Globe

Marginal Revolution: Berlin is ugly

~ Mark

I like that it’s ugly, because it keeps the city empty and cheap and it keeps away the non-serious. There are not many (any?) splashy major sights. Even the Wall is mostly gone. The way to see and experience Berlin is to do things. The ugliness selects for people who want to enjoy the city’s musical, theatrical, museum, and literary treasures.

Berlin is evidence that most tourists don’t actually care so much about history, culture, and museums, as it is not for most people a major tourist destination, despite having world-class offerings in each of those areas. Mostly tourists like large, visually spectacular sites, or family activities, combined with the feeling that they are taking in culture or seeing something important.

Marginal Revolution: Berlin is ugly

Notes from Los Angeles

~ Mark ~ 4 Comments

Griffith Observatory
My first-ever trip to L.A. I liked it a lot. I had a feeling I would. I might even like it more than New York, but that’s still to be determined. The weather was perfect. 70° down to 45-50°. Sunny sunny sunny. Great neighborhoods. Some observations not necessarily about Los Angeles:

  • The pleasing effect of variety in terrain is not to be underestimated. One thing I love about Los Angeles, San Francisco, Reykjavik (and to a lesser extent Portland and some spots in Nicaragua) is the quick changes from coast to city to mountain. It’s nice to feel that even if where you are is cool, something very different is nearby.
  • There is a certain joy in seeing stereotypes/archetypes in real life: Homosexual guy walking back from a gym in West Hollywood. Asian tourists with cameras and fanny packs. California girl finishing a coffee on the way to yoga. I think archetype-spotting is a subconscious expectation of travel.
  • I am tired of carrying a camera. I’m getting to the point where a crummy cameraphone snap is near-infinitely superior to toting a separate camera. Speaking of me tending to pack light…
  • If I am going somewhere with multiple others (esp. females, sorry), transitions always take longer than I expect. I tend to be a quick packer and get-ready-er. But for other folks, there is clothing, hair, makeup to deal with; keys, phones, sunglasses and odds and ends to gather. So I twiddle my thumbs and keep the conversation going while the sartorial I’s are dotted and T’s crossed. I wonder how much time, over the course of my life, I will spend waiting for people to get ready, and if there is a better way to use it.

Classic

  • Traffic wasn’t as bad as I expected. I think this is partly because I wasn’t doing a morning or evening commute, and partly because I’m used to trafficky Atlanta. Even so, not that bad.
  • Los Angeles looks bigger on a map than it feels in real life. I get the opposite feeling in Manhattan.
  • The Getty is really great. That said, here’s a tangent: When I’m in a museum, I prefer to stroll on the quicker side. I’ll glance at everything, but usually while in motion. The ones I like, I’ll linger for a few minutes. This is most definitely a museum burnout-avoidance technique, but also simply could be a way to avoid boredom, the pressure to feel edified. Would I enjoy more the ones I tend skip in a different context? Setting up high filters the way I do, what kind of art has an easier time getting through? What do I like more when I’m alert vs. when I’m tired? Hmm.

Scientology compound

Being foreign: The others | The Economist

~ Mark

An American child psychologist, Alison Gopnik, when reaching for an analogy to illuminate the world as experienced by a baby, compared it to Paris as experienced for the first time by an adult American: a pageant of novelty, colour, excitement. Reverse the analogy and you see that living in a foreign country can evoke many of the emotions of childhood: novelty, surprise, anxiety, relief, powerlessness, frustration, irresponsibility. It may be this sense of a return to childhood, consciously or not, that gives the pleasure of foreignness its edge of embarrassment.

(via).
Being foreign: The others | The Economist

~ Mark

Good travel writing contends honestly and openly with presumptions of who is traveling and why… and it does not treat local people as though their lives were just incidental, conveniently or inconveniently producing conditions for others’ escapism.

Travel Writing, Annotated – Sepia Mutiny. (via)

In Nicaragua

~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

View from Iglesia La Merced
I kept a regular journal on this recent vacation, as I did so diligently on previous long hikes and last year’s trip to Iceland. This was a lazier trip than I’d ever done, so I wrote more than ever before. I may have have more to say about travel in general and and some Nicaraguan sites I saw in later posts, but here are some things that struck me…

  • Irish pubs seem to act as a sort of international safehouse for gringos/foreigners in general.
  • A lot of unions give away labeled promotional goods: caps, shirts, etc. One of my taxi drivers was a member of the local taxi union in León. His union gave its members long sleeves, but without the shirt part. The purpose? Well, it’s usually hot, and a/c can be either non-existent or a waste, so you drive with the window open. You put the sleeve on your left arm so you don’t get sunburn when you have it propped on the window. Brilliant.
  • I like how the environment, architecture, and community interrelate. Warm temperature year-round means that many homes feature some sort of open-air courtyard in the middle. And doors and windows often have some sort of iron fencework, so you can open your door for breezes but still keep folks from wandering in. In the afternoons, folks would throw the doors wide and pull out chairs and sit with neighbors. It reminded me of Southern front porch culture. On a similar note, lots of sunlight meant that interior lights were almost never on during the daytime. There was plenty of light coming in through the doors and reflected off tile floors, and you probably want something a bit dimmer after walking in the sun anyway.
  • Food service was slow almost everywhere. I got to be okay with this.
  • I’ve become less interested in trying to take “good” pictures of things. At home I take much more with my crappy cameraphone. A quick snap and move on. Whatever happens to be in the frame, no problem. For most travel landmarks I can usually google a better photo if I really need the aesthetic jolt. For “memories,” I’m better served by taking some time to draw it, or just grabbing what’s there in a snapshot. There’s something to be said for good framing, lighting, and so on, but I think it can over-sanitize the moment in a way that doesn’t really do justice to the experience. Amiright?

And a few other amusing events:

  • One of those quintessential juxtapositions of old and new: a woman who hawks flowers from a basket balanced on her head takes a break to chat on her cellphone. Cliché, yes. But sense of surprise and delight in seeing it probably says something about the assumptions I’d made.
  • Similar juxtaposition seen on a daily basis: carts being pulled by donkeys down 4-lane highways, narrow alleys, and everything in between.
  • Seeing lizards scaling the walls and ceiling of a restaurant. To be expected when you’re seated next to an open courtyard.
  • Over dinner, hearing a Spanish version of Bryan Adams’ “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” playing on the radio, followed by Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind”.
  • And a Nicaraguan cover band tearing it up on a Friday night: Pink Floyd, CCR, The Beatles, etc. One of those moments you’re really glad for mass culture.

Birmingham

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Atlanta ‚Üí Birmingham
Last weekend was a little road trip out to Birmingham. So nice to catch up with a friend that I hadn’t seen for an absurd amount of time, and also make some new ones. I ate at Cantina, where the fishburgers and garlic fries get my hearty recommendation. Also saw Bon Iver (good performance) and Elvis Perkins (really, really good performance) in concert at Workplay. Workplay is a nice open venue that’ll fit a couple hundred comfortably. Wallflowers and concert snobs will enjoy the options: an elevated perimeter of tables that surrounds the main floor and the stage, and then above that there’s an upper deck with more tables and chairs and waiters at your beck and call. Nice. We also stumbled upon the McWane Science Center downtown whilst in search of a bathroom. Looked like there was a “Night at the Imax” sort of event going on for the kids.

Charleston

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Atlanta ‚Üí Charleston
I drove over to Charleston, SC for Memorial Day weekend. It was Spoleto Festival season, I finally got to see the Alvin Ailey Dance Company (after a mad dash from the parking deck to arrive in our seats *just* before it started). My favorite piece was Suite Otis, a tribute to the awesome (Georgia-born!) Otis Redding. Later the same day we stumbled upon Theatre 99, where we saw a good improv show by a group whose name I can’t recall. Moving on to food…

There’s good pizza at Social. But the drink (read: beer) list was uninspired (I’m spoiled by living a few steps away from Brick Store) and I didn’t quite fit with the crowd. Ditto Rooftop Bar at the Vendue Inn, but the views are nice. I did like the vibe and the jukebox at Recovery Room. The people at Joe Pasta were very kind and I also liked Monza.

We went to the renowned Hominy Grill but the Sunday brunch line was absurd so we went across the street to Fuel, which has great plantains and an enormous serving of chicken & waffles. If I’m ever there again, I’d like to check out Pano e Vino.

Out on Folly Beach, I recommend Taco Boy and maybe Lil’ Mama’s if you don’t mind a little waiting.

~ Mark

As a kid, I imagined that going on a trip meant either (a) decamping for two weeks to some sun-drenched “paradise” like Hawaii (I don’t like the sun or anything it nourishes), (b) staring at a series of post card-y landmarks and feigning engagement, © roughing it like some Rick Stevesite through narrow cobblestone streets in a pair of underpants you washed in the sink, desperately dodging swarms of filthy urchins, their dozens of tiny hands grabbing tirelessly for your dorky, inconvenient money belt or (d) a truly unpalatable cocktail of all three. Only relatively recently has it occurred to me that you can do whatever you want with your time abroad, like exploring cities and whatnot.

The War on Mediocrity – Trav’lin man. (via)
~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

Of course you can substitute for the word “travel” any number of things you enjoy:

Last week the question arose as to what we would do differently if we were immortal… I answered that I would travel more.

Later the question was asked, what would you do differently if you found out you had only a short time to live. I answered again that I would travel more. Click, buzz, whirr…does not compute, does not compute… Given that I would travel more if I was to live either less or more the probability that I was at just that level of mortality that I should not be traveling now must be vanishingly small.