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Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

Washington is the northern most of the west coast states and is located directly south of the Canadian boarder. The geographic placement of this state contributes to its diverse environment and is part of the reason it is unique among the other states and is an extremely attractive vacation destination to a vast number of people. One of the interesting aspects of the state is that its eastern and western sides are completely different in both geography and weather patterns. The Cascade Mountains are frequently considered to be the dividing line between these two halves, and each of them attracts tourists for different reasons.

While Seattle is the largest and most famous city in the state, Olympia is the capital and is also located in the Puget Sound region. Meanwhile, some of the state’s more popular getaway destinations are far removed from this major cultural area. In fact, one of the great state attractions, the apple capital of the world, is located just southeast of Seattle and is on the eastern slope of the Cascade Mountains. There are some great hotels and other options for comfortable rooms in the area. This apple capital is officially known as the Washington Apple Country and offers some incredible apple and cider based products.

The Washington Apple Country is located in Cashmere and the Cider Mill has a great gift shop that is irresistible to most guests and includes some of the delicious gift package offerings that are also available by mail. These include some of the chutneys, ciders, jams, candies, sauces and of course fresh fruits that are made there on the premises. In addition, there are ambient candles that are included with many of these packages. Washington is famous for many things and one of them is their delicious apples, which are popular across the country. It only makes sense that other products, most of which are based on this healthy fruit, are equally popular.

Lots of people understand very well that Washington, DC is the center of politics in the United States, being the place where all the decisions get made.  It’s got an enormously vibrant energy to it, with a very lively urban population.  It’s a very diverse place, with many cultures, perspectives, and economic backgrounds, that make it an ongoing conversation that’s always in process.  It’s been that way for quite awhile.  Checking into a DC luxury hotel is just the beginning of the introductions to this rather fabulous place.

It’s a pretty splendid introduction, too.  There are plenty of opportunities to be blown away by conveniences, amenities, and excellent hospitality.  Then it’s time to dig into DC culture.  Learning the history of the place is as fascinating as any place, but it’s rather surprising to some to discover that so many influential people have lived here, or live here now.  The usual suspects, always, are the politicians, but there are a number of artists and actors, including the movie veteran Alan Hale, Sr.

He’s from DC, and his career may have been a second mate, but his legacy is first-rate.  He is the character actor who played alongside Errol Flynn in dozens and dozens of films.  He’s one of the old-school greats, that generation of distinguished gentlemen to make films about swashbuckling heros.  He played alongside Humphrey Bogart, Douglas Fairbanks, Clark Gable, and James Cagney.  He was one of the big players in making the notion of hearty men being naturally brave heros an icon for generations to come.  He died of liver failure before he was 60.   He was also famous for his role as Little John in the Robin Hood films of the 30s.  He is also remembered by later generations as the father of Alan Hale, Jr., who is remembered by many as the captain of the SS Minnow on Gilligan’s Island.

Malta is one of those perfect places where it is possible to find yourself being put back together at the edge of the water.  It is a very small island, about twice the size of Washington, DC, with a local population that speaks Maltese and English, and maintains a very cosmopolitan outlook on things.  Even though it is an island unto itself, there is a long history of cultures coming into contact here, as is pretty typical of islands.  There are confluences from Northern Africa as well as Italy, with traditions that come from old and new Europe as well as the African continent, and as such makes for a wonderful place for anyone with even a passing ethnographic interest.

The stays here are lovely and very stylish.  A luxury hotel in Malta is necessarily designed to speak to the elegance and simplicity of the place.  Guests can expect to be treated to a heady combination of old world tradition along with very recent fashions and styles.  In many ways, it feels like going back in time, and in other ways, it is like walking uneasily into a future where no one seems to know how we got here.  There is a gorgeousness to the place that dominates however, giving the isolation of the island a place all to itself.

Malta is a kind of warm paradise where things that were left in other times seem to resurface.  There are uncanny moments here and there, revealing the island’s magic to those who are willing to sit still for awhile.  The pace is very different here, again, like many islands, but the pace doesn’t ever recede into sleepiness, but rather into contemplation, and a place where vision and dream start to converge.  This is a place where memory speaks from the sea to the rocks, and there is always an urgent cry coming from somewhere nearby.

There is always a great deal of major cultural events and entertainment options to attend and or take part in, in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Actors Theatre of Charlotte is one of the main cultural institutions of the city and provides its audience members with season after season of incredible and relevant stage offerings. In addition to some of the standard favorites from the theatrical canon, the theatre also continually presents some major regional premiers and supports the development of new plays and musicals. This is the case with its current production Black Pearl Sings! as well as an upcoming production of the musical Five Course Love. Many of the luxury Charlotte hotels are located near the theatre and also some great restaurants, which makes accessing great entertainment and fabulous dining relatively easy.

Black Pearl Sings is a dynamic tale of musical talent and personal strength and endurance. It is a rags to riches tale and it is set during the Great Depression. It tells the story of Susannah Mullally who makes a great discovery while working as a folk song preservationist for the Library of Congress. Her discovery is Alberta “Pearl” Johnson who happens to be in a Texas prison. The story unfolds in a dramatic way that causes major life examinations as Johnson makes some difficult decisions. Music is the tool that brings together two strangers and addresses racial divisions and issues of the times. The show is running now and will continue through March 6.

Five Course Love is a new musical written by Gregg Coffin. It is a comedic examination of love and the dating scene and the story takes place in five restaurants and covers five different dates. And while musicals are known for having large casts and lots of characters, this show has an interesting approach to this structure. It does have a large number of characters, fifteen total, there are three actors who play all of these roles. The musical will run from June 16 to July 3 of this year and previews for it will begin on June 11.

Cultural experiments have an endless fascination for me, and I don’t know if it’s appropriate to even talk about.  But I love to see people and ideas mix, and I love to see what comes of the mixing, and I understand this attitude isn’t really offensive to anyone.  However, I also get a very secret but palpable thrill when the mix fails utterly, and the experiment turns out to be a very bad idea.  I almost enjoy coming to Boston and staying at one of these just because there’s always plenty of very bad art that’s being made in the name of cultural understanding.

At the same time, this is exactly why performances by groups like the Idan Raichel Project are so rejuvenating.  This is a particularly raw blend of many influences, and in the hands of inexperienced artists, this is the sort of multiculturalism that can produce horrible results.  This, on the other hand, is absolutely splendid, and is a testament to the ability of all of his collaborators.  The list is very daunting, too, and at last count, he was working with over 80 performers from very diverse backgrounds.  When this comes to Boston in March, it will be a major event.

This is something that the audiences who are easily pleased already will be content to gush over, but it will also give the intelligentsia something to chew on.  Idan Raichel has a focus on Israel, promoting and developing music from this region, but striking influences here also come from Ethiopia and South Africa, along with gypsy and Arabic forms that give this electronic music a complex and powerful texture.  This will be something to tell the kids about, and it’s exciting to me to feel my own cynicism melt away under the influence of this remarkable sound.

The history of the globe is an interesting one. Ancient Greeks had known of the fact that the Earth was round, and had even discovered how to measure the circumference of the earth using angles and mathematics. Around this time they started making spherical objects made to represent what they knew of the Earth. When the Greeks were conquered their knowledge lived on for a while, but was eventually lost. Some parts of the philosophy would be picked back up again by the Muslims. As they read more about what the Greeks thought, they would occasionally try to re-create their science, usually succeeding. One of the things they tried to re-create was the globe and the mathematics determining the size of the Earth.

This recurrence of ideas would not hit Europe for quite a while longer. While reading Greek philosophy, parts about the shape of the Earth were often taken to mean that the Earth was a flat circle, like a map of the world, but not that the Earth was a round, spherical shape. Copernicus fought long and hard to try to convince the Theocracy of the time that his ideas were right, but he never invented an object we would describe as being a globe. It wasn’t until 1492, the same year Columbus set sail that a modern globe was created in western Europe by a man named Martin Behaim who lived in Germany.

When globes became mass marketed it was easiest to glue world maps onto spherical objects and this was generally the way that globes were made. A small disk is glued to the top and bottom to replace the irregularities that form at the poles. At this point in history it became customary to mount the globe at a 23.5 degrees angle so as to better represent the angle of the planet in relation to the sun, and to make it easier to visualize days and seasons.

Sometimes it can be very confusing when travelling across the country. All my days began to run together, trying to figure out what city I’m in, what time zone I’ve crossed into, and what I’ve seen, all runs into one huge day filled with open road and friendly faces.

New Orleans was really cool and I especially loved the diversity, the food and the music. My travel was pretty much uneventful from New Orleans to Houston, where I visited some long time no see friends, Paula and Amber, and we proceeded to have a total blast with them. I’d forgotten just how much they like to party, and I hardly party at all anymore. Nonetheless, I still kept up with them throughout the night by not drinking! Oh my gosh, can those two drink, glad I was driving.

From Houston to San Antonio, where I spent a very restful night at one of San Antonio’s better hotels, which I booked on-line when I was staying in Houston.  San Antonio is where my good friend Skyler lives and her new husband Scott. This was my first time seeing her new baby girl Alice. It was hard picturing her as a mom and I think she’ll be a good mom, because she always took care of us when we needed it. I told her about my Houston experience with Paula and Amber and had a good laugh. She said ever since she got married, she hasn’t had a chance to visit with them. Now, with a newborn, she’ll probably never get to see them in Houston, unless they come to San Antonio to visit her.

Skyler took me to see all the beautiful architecture of downtown, and of course to the Alamo. It was hard to say goodbye to her, gosh knows when I’ll be able to see her again. But, it was time to hit the Texas interstate once again and I got caught in a speed trap! Argh! I’ve heard Texas was famous for those, and I thought I was being pretty good about watching my speed, but don’t you know it, just when my mind lapses on the vastness of what is Texas, I was speeding! Dang!

For those of you driving through Texas, it’s true! There are tons of speed traps, so really, you don’t want to mess with Texas.

I was asked to represent my company’s department at a business convention meeting last month in Philadelphia. I frequently volunteer for these things because it gives me the opportunity to tour the country for free. And it breaks things up at work, although I only go about twice a year I really like the opportunity to get out of town. And yeah, generally I don’t get to do a lot of sight seeing or tourist sort of stuff but when I was sent to Philadelphia I took an extra day because I had never been there before and it wasn’t a standard location for our trips. There are two types of business travel I usually go on and one is our standard monthly meeting and one is a convention/seminar. These later ones are the semi annual meetings that are most exciting because they usually take me somewhere new while the monthly meetings are always in Dallas, Texas.

So, there I was at the nice Philadelphia hotel my company had booked me in and it was my final day in town. All of my work responsibilities were finished and I was free to explore and do whatever I wanted. So, naturally my first stop was to enjoy a real cheese steak sandwich and it turns out they are fabulous. I would return to the city for that reason alone. Unfortunately I passed by a place called Percy Street Barbeque right after I ate my sandwich and the smell alone brought back my appetite. I looked at the menu and decided I had to come back here so I walked around found out that Philadelphia is really a beautiful city.

I found Fairmount Park, by the way Philadelphia is full of beautiful parks and gardens, and explored Shofuso, which is a Japanese house and garden. It was absolutely gorgeous and there was an overwhelming sense of harmony surrounding it that fell on my as I approached. The landscape itself invited a state of both calm and inspiration as the colors and shapes made me feel almost as though I was walking into some sort of mystical paradise. I walked through as much of the city as I could all the while trying to gage my appetite. I wanted to create enough of one to enjoy a full meal but not too much of one from too great a distance, which might make me succumb to the aromas of other places. I guess I timed it just right because that night I had the best barbeque of my life.

I remember one of the greatest summers I ever had. It was the summer of my twenty-second birthday, I was born on July 5, and it was spent in Modesto, California. I will never forget that year or the good times I had with my cousin Steve. It’s been almost ten years since I’ve been there, Steve left town shortly after my visit and I just don’t see that much of my aunt and uncle. However, as I get ready to pull into town for the festival commonly known as Graffiti Nights I can hardly do anything but think back on the glory days of that summer.

I have reservations in one of the Modesto hotels though my aunt and uncle did invite me to stay with them. It’s just that they live right outside of the city and I don’t want to trouble them with my constant motion regarding the festival. This is really an incredible festival from what I hear and I can’t believe I’ve never been here for it before. Next year I think I’ll talk Steve into coming with me. I don’t think he gets home that often and it would be great to spend some time with him here again.

That summer, over twenty five years ago almost didn’t happen. At the end of May of that year Steve called me up out of the blue and asked me to come down for a while. I was already planning on going up to Seattle but my girlfriend called at the last minute and said it wasn’t a good idea. Interestingly, I never really thought much about why that was as I honestly forgot about her once I arrived in Modesto and we never got together again after that. It’s funny that I’m curious about it now after all these years. I wonder what she’s doing these days. Wow! Look at all those cars!

Coming to New York with the expectation that things might get a little weird is still a reasonable thing to do.  For many locals, that’s still the best part about the city, where anything goes, or at least there’s the possibility.  The increasingly high cost of living here has made it more difficult to maintain any kind of alternative lifestyle outside of the norm, but thanks in many respects to the ethos of New York, the norm has been increasingly less homogenous over the years.  There are moments, however, when it feels like walking in a windstorm, and that the edge may have gone dull over the years.

Thankfully, there are signs of life, where interesting and exotic people can go to be beautiful in public.  In Manhattan, the business hotels offer plenty of extremely hospitable accommodations for those looking to entertain a few nights on the town while making some new deals.  One of the events of the season, no doubt, was January’s birthday party for David Bowie at Don Hill’s.  This was the great opportunity to see 70s glam culture return in full force, and to see if the wild side was still walkable, or if you might need to hire a driver.

There were lots of live performances, including an orchestra that played Bowie covers, along with a wide and wild variety of people coming out to show off their glam-rock chops.  From the photos, it looks as though Oh! You Pretty Things was a huge success, or at least, big fun.  Interestingly, the turn out was large, but also overwhelmingly young.  This is a new generation, and some of these kids weren’t even born when he was already an icon on MTV in the 80s.  It’s pretty encouraging news, really, to consider that the new attempts to play with identity and gender are as strong as ever, and the coming years will see what these new visionaries decide to do to intervene in the mainstream.