12.26.07
Posted in Travel at 15:41 by RjZ
We had just gotten back into the car after a brief stop to pray. My American colleague and I were on our way to visit another customer and we’re being driven there by our orthodox Jewish sales representative. Normally, he was more discrete in strictly following his tradition, but there was really no other time and we assured him it was no bother. He stood outside the car for a little while davening and muttering and then returned to the car after a few minutes.
He and I had been enjoying a steady stream of discussion topics. We spoke about the Intifada; we spoke about American foreign aid. Now we were busy comparing and contrasting religious practices thanks to his brief interruption. The third in the car hadn’t contributed very much so far, and suddenly he burst out: “Can’t we talk about something else! Don’t you two know that it’s not polite to talk about religion and politics?!” He was obviously quite exasperated by all this.
The Israeli looked away from the road at both of us to say flatly “This is Israel. What else do we have to talk about?”
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12.21.07
Posted in Travel at 18:04 by RjZ
A friend got me one of those travel maps where you can place pins to mark where you’ve been. Naturally, map in mind, I was pretty excited about my recent business trip to Korea. It was a painfully short excursion but I ought to be able to come up with something to write about. I haven’t had the time to really come up with a good story about the journey, so I’ll just include everything about the travel, journal style, for your enjoyment. Here it is:
home -> airport -> hotel -> office -> hotel -> airport -> power plant -> hotel -> power plant -> hotel -> office -> airport -> home.
There were some meals in there, loads of kimchee, but no place particularly special and I saw essentially nothing. Airports and power plants are not, typically, near anything interesting; these were no exceptions. I’ve never actually traveled somewhere and seen so little.
I put a little pin in my map just the same though. This totally counts.
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10.03.07
Posted in Travel at 17:35 by RjZ
I enjoy both beer and travel very much, so it’s not surprising that I’ve tried to sample beer every where that I’ve visited. Beer is enjoyed nearly everywhere I’ve visited, but rarely in the exact same way. In the U.S., you can tell from the “coldest beer in town” signs at gas stations across the nation that drinkers here like their beer cold. Way too cold, if you ask me; how can I appreciate the hoppy aroma with ice crystals floating in the glass? The United Kingdom is equally famous for their room temperature, really cellar temperature, beer.
Germans take seven minutes to serve the perfect Pils, while Belgians serve every beer in its respective, custom glass. The notoriously cheap Dutch uncharacteristically keep pouring beer until they fill the glass and scraping off the over-flowing foam with a special plastic knife sending it irrevocably delicious beer down the drain!
What got me started on this research of beer serving, toasting and enjoying traditions was my first trip to Prague, Czechoslovakia. It was still Czechoslovakia at the time, by the way. My friend and I were backpacking around Europe like many people do during their college years. We’d joined up with two fellow travelers from France and, after our fill of site seeing, we made our way to a downtown pub where we sat down together with several locals at one of the many community tables and each ordered a beer.
The Czech Republic is where Pils beer was invented. Pils is the light yellow stuff that the rest of the world calls beer even if they only have one kind. While I am not usually a fan of watery yellow beer, there is something unmistakably drinkable, quaff-able beer drinkers say, about Czech Pils. It doesn’t hurt that it was about $0.50 for a half liter either.
The server dropped a coaster for each of us and marked a small stroke on the edge before setting down our delicately foaming beer. It wasn’t long before the beer disappeared from our glasses. As I put down my empty glass, exhaling satisfyingly, the smiling waiter nodded and returned immediately with another glass of beer and another stroke on my coaster.
Now that’s service, isn’t it? The same happened for the rest of our party and we were pretty impressed by how these guys had read our minds. Another glass drained and here comes the waiter with a beer and check mark! The French girls, more used to drinking wine, were a little unsure they still wanted more at this point. My traveling partner was pretty sure he didn’t feel like more, but once that final glass was empty, the waiter promptly came by with yet another.
And another while everyone (well, everyone else, I was having a great time) tried to explain to them that they were done, but he kept trying to explain that we had ordered another beer! How?! We looked around and noticed something interesting, when people were ready to pay, they’d call the waiter over and he’d count up strokes on their coasters. They’d pay, and then finish their last gulp of beer before leaving. That was the secret! We kept finishing our beer and then asking him to come over so we could pay! It turns out that draining your glass is Czech for, “I’ll have another.” How convenient. An enjoyable lesson that made me understand I had more beer research ahead of me. And as soon as I got over the six or so beers I inadvertently ordered, I had plans to get to it!
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06.29.07
Posted in Travel at 11:44 by RjZ
We stepped in the taxi and asked for Cuevas de Luis Candela. The hotel concierge had made the recommendation with confidence that we would be very happy, but the taxi driver smirked and was unimpressed. So we asked him what was wrong with that choice and if he had something better…after all, his guess of what there is in Madrid is bound to be a lot better than ours.
He told us that Cuevas is a place that tourists seem to enjoy but that he’d never been there. ‘How about flamenco?’ he suggested. We made our way to downtown and called along the way to see if we could make reservations at his suggested place. Nope, dinner was booked, although, the flamenco show started at 11 so we could still make that. We called another one and this one had room for us. Plus the show started at the kid friendly hour of 10 pm (which was just fine with us after a long day on the trade show floor.)
We arrived to a small venue, black inside with tables around and a bar. The urban modern furniture and simple decorations and menu we’re classy and hip. Being only 9:30 pm, it was completely empty, but as we sat at our table, we noticed that tables all around were reserved and Spanish guests slowly started filing in. The menu had only the ubiquitous jamón y queso and we added big jarra of sangria to our tab. We were a few glasses into it before the show started.
The performers, two women and one man as dancers, two guitarists and two singers, all casually dressed, made their way to the stage. Each of them was so relaxed and comfortable, as if performing for several of their friends, which they may very well have been doing. But the performances were honest, emotional, and powerful. The singers belted out their moorish influenced chants and mournful melodies and clapped in complex syncopation. The dancers posed and spun and slammed their heels on the stage.
There may have been other tourists in the club, but it certainly didn’t seem that way. One Spanish family had brought their children (the show only started at 10 and ended at about 1 am). Jars (large pitchers) of sangria were drained and filled again at every single table and they may have carved a complete leg of smoked Iberian ham before the night was over. Still, nothing about the evening, not the lights, the acoustics, the costumes, was anything but simple, straight forward, down to earth and…absolutely entertaining.
Perhaps we missed out on traditional costumes or English explanations of the performances and traditions. These performers quite likely aren’t as good as the famous flamenco dancers getting paid much more. Maybe we would have enjoyed being in an authentic Spanish Bodega instead of could-be-anywhere urban club, but if you have a chance to see the flamenco at Las Tablas, Madrid, you’ll be treated to a truly authentic piece of living Spanish culture.
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06.25.07
Posted in Travel at 8:15 by RjZ
I accidently learned a lot of Bayerisch while living in Munich. Bayerish or Bavarian is the local dialect of German and varies all over the large southern German province of which Munich is the capital. Like the Southern dialects in the United States, Bavarian carries with it an occasional connotation that the speaker is more rural than his industrial neighbors to the north and perhaps, a bit maybe, more, um, I mean…less educated.
That’s why colleagues in northern Germany would look at me so puzzled with some of my colloquial word choice. Except I didn’t have any idea that people don’t eat Semmel in Hamburg, they have Brötchen (bread rolls), or that don’t put ein Filzl under their beer, they use a Bierdeckel (coaster) instead. I imagine how comical it must have sounded to them. Here’s this guy, who clearly has an American English accent, but damn if he isn’t sounding a bit like some farmer from Garmisch-Partinkirchen. Think of a German speaking English with a Texas accent overlain on his obviously German speech. Maybe it’s not such a pretty picture.
But I really enjoyed living in Bavaria and eventhough I began to learn ‘real’ German I still prefer to ask for a Filzl from the server if my beer is flowing over. That’s why I was excited when I saw my first real beer felt here in Madrid! The name Filzl, or little felt, comes from bygone times when coasters were actually made of woolen felt to absorb the sloshed beer running down the sides of glasses and on to the bar.
Up until the 19th century most pubs were using felt squares when serving beer, but unfortunately, the thick wool patches, soaked with beer, would make great cultures for bacteria and the felts didn’t last long before they were effecting the delicious beer aroma.
My co-brewer and I have collected thousands of the modern paper beer coasters, and yet never seen a felt one. That’s why I was so excited when Santa Barbara Cervecería in Madrid served their Mahou beer on original style felts! Santa Barbara pubs have been open since 1815 according to the sign and this was a lovely one for sure. The beer was served well too, perfectly tapped beer with a creamy head. Looks pretty good on that old fashion felt, doesn’t it? Mmmmm, beer. I hope they won’t mind that I “borrowed” one for this story. You know they do get old pretty fast anyway, I guess.
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06.14.07
Posted in Travel at 13:49 by RjZ
Wow! A request! Well, since you asked… (check out the comment from TimR)
I always wished I had some secret language to speak so I could talk about people behind their backs or maybe haggle better in a foreign country. Problem is, you just never know if people are in on your secret.
We arrived at the north shore in the early afternoon after a few hour journey by moped across the island of Bali in Indonesia. We were met by touts who pulled along side of our moped and attempted to escort us to their hotel while we were still putting along. Bali is a such a tiny island that riding from Ubud in the interior to the black beaches in the north isn’t all that daunting, but we were still tired from the heat and humidity so we were taking a few moments on our patio and chatting about plans for the next day.
Indonesia was the first trip my long time traveling partner and I had made to a really exotic place. We were living in Germany at the time and had been around Europe quite a bit, but this was the first time we’d been somewhere that might really offer some culture shock. Still a few weeks into it, other than the heat, we were getting the hang of finding nice, inexpensive backpacker places like this one.
There aren’t so many U.S. Americans traveling to Indonesia like we were simply because it’s so much further and more expensive for them than for Europeans. That might explain why our American accents stuck out so much to the two Germans sitting in their patio next to ours and gossiping about us—in
German, of course. I didn’t really hear them much but my partner informed me that they were complaining a bit about how Americans had arrived and the stereotypical ramifications that implies. (loud, inexperienced, demanding, loud…you get the idea.)
That evening we got acquainted with a couple of other hotel guests, two backpackers from Austria. Bargain hotels like this one often offer excellent ways to meet fellow travelers such as delicious community dinners. We sat down around a big round table with fellow guests chatting about what we’ve seen in Indonesia already and offering tips about what else is worth doing. It was all rather pleasant conversation, transpiring in German, since after all, four out of six people were German speakers and it just seemed polite.
That’s when it dawns on one of the German girls. She turned to my partner, very surprised, and asked slowly “Oh, do you speak German?” She was careful to ask in English, in spite of the 15 minutes of conversation preceding this question. My partner answered flatly, barely looking up from her food to eye her new German acquaintance: “All day” she said simply.
The two girls looked at each other, eyes wide, trying to hide their shock that those U.S. Americans (!), might actually be capable of another language. Stereotypes really aren’t such a bad place to start, but if you want to avoid embarrassment, please consider being more discreet about applying them. Or find a rarer language. Perhaps Faroeish–if you can pronounce it.
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06.13.07
Posted in Travel at 17:54 by RjZ
I could see his point. The Jordanian hotel employee is sick of people complaining about how expensive his country is. Many of his guests come here from Egypt, whose economy survives on tourism and where the U.S. dollar, along with European and Japanese currencies, is strong. Young people, traveling for several months at a time are disappointed and shocked when hotels and tourist attractions have the gall to cost just as much in Jordan as they do in their home countries!
“It’s not that bad,” he continued. Food is cheaper and this is a clean, organized country, not Egypt! He was right about that; there was really no reason for us to complain. Dinner was a delicious, homemade, all-you-can-eat affair for all of 3 USD and it was delicious to boot. Even though entrance to the ancient city of Petra weighed in at over $50 for a three day ticket, it really wasn’t unreasonable. Jordan is no back water third world country. He knew just how much things cost in the states (I recall he’d even lived on the east coast briefly) and was insulted that tourists naturally assumed this was some Jordan would be a bargain like its poorer neighbor.
Too bad I only figured out what the flaw with his argument was after returning to my room. None of us really begrudge the Jordanians for having an economy similar to our departure point, it’s just that we might not have flown so far in the first place if we’d have known how expensive things would be when we arrived.
Our new Jordanian friend assumes that travelers from rich countries are, themselves, rich and what the hell are they doing complaining when things aren’t dirt cheap? The reality is that we’ve spent the bulk of our discretionary income just getting to these beautiful destinations and there’s precious little left over for $50 entrance fees and $20 shuttle rides.
I am thrilled to have been able to travel to Jordan. As a start, I’ve wanted to see Petra as soon as I discovered it wasn’t just an Indiana Jones movie set. The friendly, helpful people and beautiful countryside we’re an appreciated bonus. Eventhough it’s unquestionably worth the expense, if it weren’t for the centuries old ruins, the similarity with Utah desert is uncanny and I didn’t necessarily need to travel thousands of miles just to see Utah when I live only a few hundred miles away and I can camp there in the wilderness for free.
The point is, for many travelers, destinations like Egypt and Jordan are only possible because they’re not as expensive as home is. When you’re frequenting a backpacker’s hotel such as the one near Petra, you don’t meet people who are traveling on their trust funds. Most fellow travelers I’ve met have given up jobs or put lives on hold in their passionate attempt to see and understand as much of the world as they can. And they’ve had to manage on a set budget that’s usually less than a few thousand dollars (USD equivalent) for their months to years long, once in a lifetime, journey. Our hotelier can complain all he wishes that we really have no right to expect bargains just because we’re in the middle east, but he should also know that we have beautiful countries at home and the only reason we’ve come so far is to make our fixed vacation incomes stretch.
It’s a big world out there, and some of us want to see as much of it as possible. I don’t see any reason to ashamed of bargain hunting. I guess I’ll be more careful about complaining when I don’t find one.
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05.03.07
Posted in Society, Travel at 20:42 by RjZ
As a growing power on the economic and diplomatic stage, China has certain tools at their disposal. According to the Economist (March 31, special report, p4), nations achieve their goals using some combination of three things: guns, money and ideas. But unless you spend most of your time in neo-conservative circles, you probably don’t hear much about China’s military. The neo-cons aren’t completely crazy; China is building up its military capability, but during my recent visit there, it’s clear that both the government officials and citizens with whom I spoke valued one of their favorite philosophical buzzwords: harmony.
Government officials claimed they must grow while respecting harmony of the people and environment. A Chinese colleague told me that the Chinese wish to live in harmony with their neighbors around the world and military action would surely disturb that balance. Indeed, China has chosen harmony with its neighbors through economic leadership and trade over military coercion. China’s membership in the World Trade Organization has focused on economics rather than the flexing of muscles.
Meanwhile, media reports in the west warn constantly of China’s emerging power and rave about the market opportunity there. Beijing, for example, is a beautiful, mostly clean, modern city. There is so much rapid growth, that everyone who leaves for a couple of weeks, can barely find their address with all the new tall buildings sprung up in the way.
In reality, China today is still a numbers game. True, many are growing rich, but there are many more still supplying the cheap labor that keeps our athletic shoes and Wal*Mart’s inventory so affordable. Marketing to China is like an experiment in long-tail economics, where one can find success even on the fringes of society, so long as their are enough folks around. As their economy grows, more of those providing cheap labor are gaining the economic muscle to actually buy products made in their country. China too, is producing more than cheap toys and knock-offs. Now-a-days, they’re making more complex products like cell phones and computers. So, while cheap labor slowly dwindles and prices steadily rise, so too does competition on the very items that companies like the United States still excel at producing.
Change is frightening and China’s rise must keep the United States and other economies on their toes. So far, China is focusing on money and ideas as opposed to guns, but, after all, China is ruled by people and sometimes people get strange ideas what they can do with their power. Just ask George Bush. Still, fear of change aside, China is returning to what they believe is their rightful place as a world power and with a fifth of the world’s population, why shouldn’t they be a fifth of the world’s economy? The rest of us better get used to it!
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04.16.07
Posted in Travel at 6:18 by RjZ
I’ve almost always taken pictures of things and not people. Things stay put. You might get a better picture if you can wait for the right light or for the distracting tourists to move out of the way, but if you can get yourself to a beautiful or interesting place, it’s not so hard to take a good picture. That’s been a very effective strategy for me and I am pretty happy with quite a few shots. I’ve often said that one of the most important parts of taking a nice photo is simply going to lovely places.
People are much more difficult. They move around. They’re busy doing something else. They might hit you if they don’t want their picture taken. Or worse, they might try to break your camera! Still, as much as I’ve tried to make sure no extraneous people ever made it into my carefully framed shot of the scenery, the few that worm their way into the shots are just the thing that everyone else looks at. The pyramids are a big pile of rocks, but that man riding the camel in front of it? That’s something. Angkor Wat might inspire Hollywood movies, but the beaming face of my traveling partner waving at the camera is what people want to see.
Good photos often tell a story and a pile of rocks just doesn’t capture the imagination as much as another person does. We tend to feel we have more in common with another person than with aincient relics. So, new camera in hand, I thought it was time to start learning street-photography, and India, perhaos surprisingly, may be the perfect place.
Where else in the world are unwilling subjects can become quite agitated as soon as a camera is pointed at them, in India, perfect strangers come forward and demand you take their picture as soon as they spot the big camera hanging from your neck. Better still, for most of us not living among the six million people in Chennai, most everyone I point the camera at is pretty interesting.
Over on my flickr site, then is a short photo-essay of people on the streets working one way or another. Clearly there’s more to taking pictures of people than just pointing and clicking! In nearly all of these shots I asked the person if I could take their picture before doing so and so they frequently have a posed look to them. I actually wanted that…I wanted them to engage the camera and hence you, the viewer. Plus I wanted to get used to getting right in someone’s face for a shot and seeing what happens, but I don’t think being rude is necessary.
For all it’s amazing scenery, India is awash in too much to see and so are many of these shots. It’s hard to eliminate all the background details and focus on the subject. As brave as I was, I wasn’t interested in actually disturbing these people, so all of these shots are as fast as I could make them. The result? While it’s fairly interesting to see some different street activities and it was great fun to take the shots, I’ll have to sort out what it takes to make something more than a snapshot.
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04.15.07
Posted in Society, Travel at 5:41 by RjZ
Most everyone who has flown has been stuck waiting. Waiting in the airport wondering whether their flight will take off on time, or worse, waiting on the plane itself, trapped in a narrow seat wondering whether they’ll be forced to deplane altogether. Just our luck, one politician is ready to step in and protect us. Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) has introduced legislation holding airlines more accountable when passengers are stranded by bad weather.
Recently, Jet Blue trapped people on planes for hours. Passengers were outraged, and felt like prisoners without even access to a toilet. Jet Blue attempted to deflect the bad press that would result by publishing its own “Passenger’s Bill of Rights.” They wanted to assure future passengers that this sort of thing isn’t the way Jet Blue does its business. Good press relations, but angry passengers weren’t satisfied, and obviously, neither was Mr. Thompson.
Airlines are not enthusiastic about canceling flights. A fully booked flight can represent over a half a million dollars in revenue, so if they can leave passengers on a plane and take it off 45 minutes later, that’s quite a bit of cash saved. Mr. Thompson thinks that regulating the way airlines operate their business will help avoid delays due to weather, but it’s the same nanny state attitude that wastes congress’ time over and over again.
The fact is, if you don’t like the regular practice of leaving you stranded on an overbooked airline, then perhaps you should consider another carrier. Southwest, for example, has fantastic statistics on on-time flights and lower cancellations. They do this by booking fewer flights. If, on the other hand, you’d prefer to fly a low-cost carrier like Jet Blue, it’s quite possible that you’ll be delayed. I am glad to have the choice since, after all, I’m not always in a rush. If congress agrees with Mike Thompson, then we’ll have less choice since airlines will be forced to behave the same. Jet Blue doesn’t mind this idea; after all, they could blame their business decisions on the government. Southwest president, Colleen Barret, isn’t as enthusiastic. She believes “if other airlines are leaving passengers on the tarmac for six or eight or 10 hours, it will be good for Southwest’s business.” Thompson would likely say that he’s just demanding that airlines do the right thing, but what he’s really doing is eliminating your rights to choose where to spend your money based on performance. I am not sure how he’s planning on regulating the weather though.
I doubt this will pass the house and certainly not the senate so it’s really a huge waste of time, but it constantly amazes me the kinds of things congress will work on. Funny thing is, the European Union already has such a silly law. Given Europe’s propensity toward controlling every facet it shouldn’t surprise me. By the way, theirs doesn’t work much either!
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