By Larry Nodarse

My first day in China found me doing something that I enjoy doing whenever I visit a foreign country: visiting a supermarket. I normally do this out of curiosity, not necessity. [...]]]> Larry Nodarse of Traveler’s Bookcase recently moved to China to teach English. This blog will update his continuing adventures in the Far East.

By Larry Nodarse

My first day in China found me doing something that I enjoy doing whenever I visit a foreign country: visiting a supermarket. I normally do this out of curiosity, not necessity. When on vacation, I tend to stay in hotel rooms which have no kitchens, so no need to buy groceries. No, I visit foreign supermarkets because I like looking at the products on the shelves, their labels, what the foreign products are. I especially like seeing American products written in foreign languages.

When I speak the language, it’s even more interesting, because I’m able to understand the foreign name of the product and see how they changed it to make sense in the other language. For example, I was just last month in Mexico, and saw that Frosted Flakes there are called “Azucaritos,” which literally means “Sugaries.” (Frosted Flakes can’t be directly translated into Spanish. If so, it would literally mean flakes that are frosted due to being frozen. Frost does not have a sweet connotation is Spanish.)

Yesterday here in Guangzhou China, though, I was shopping out of necessity. I’ve come here to live for a year. I’ll be teaching English, and will be living in an apartment with a kitchen. I need to grocery shop. Until I become proficient in Chinese, I want avoid eating in restaurants.

My experience eating lunch in my first restaurant here shows that when you can’t communicate with the staff or read the menu, you will likely end up ordering something that disgusts you while people seated around you are eating dishes that look mighty appetizing. Fresh from my disatisfying lunch, I headed to the mammoth supermarket which is located right around the corner from my apartment.

I was enchanted by the supermarket. The products were so bright and colorful, the American products packaged in the different sizes, their names written in Chinese characters, denying me the ability to see how the names were translated from the original English.

I went up to the second floor to see if I could buy any pre-cooked, deli-style food. One of the first things that I saw was the seafood section. The seafood was mostly still alive–all sorts of fish swimming in their tanks, ready to be bought and killed. Then I saw something that broke my heart: a tank with live turtles in it.

I have always loved turtles, don’t know why. As a child, I found them so endearing. In fact, when I was 7, I joined the Indian Guides. Our tribe chief told me I could create a Native American name for myself, so I named myself Moon Turtle. When I lived in Manhattan, I used to lay out in Tompkins Square Park. There was a woman who would bring her turtle, I’d watched in crawl around in the grass; I loved it. Most recently, during the BP oil geyser in the Gulf of Mexico, I’d be moved to tears looking at the dead or dying turtles, covered in petroleum. It was heartbreaking.

So yesterday, as I looked at the turtles in their tank, I got really depressed. They were so beautiful, and they swam around their tank with such grace. I couldn’t believe that people could buy those wonderful animals, then take them home and butcher them. I looked at the turtles, knowing their fate. It was awful. I wanted to adopt all of them as pets, to spare their lives. Knowing that was an inpossibilty, I walked away and tried to wipe it out of my mind.

A few aisles over, I saw some cooked, packaged foods. They were wrapped in plastic wrap, and therefore easy to see. I thought I could buy that night’s dinner there, put it in the fridge, and reheat it. I soon found something that looked good. It looked like shredded chicken, with some greens and peanuts, like a sort of Chinese chicken casserole. I looked at the label, but it was written in Chinese characters, so I couldn’t read it. It did look like chicken. I looked at it closely, looking at it from every angle. It looked very much like chicken. I even tried smelling it.

It has to be chicken, I thought. I bought it.

Later that evening, I began to eat it. The first thing I noticed was that it was loaded with bones, and the bones did not look like chicken bones. I had never seen such bones before. Then I noticed that the meat did not taste like chicken, and the more I looked at it, the less it looked like chicken. It tasted different, but it tasted good. I shrugged and ate it all.

No sooner had I finished it than Alex knocked on my door. Alex is Chinese and he works for the language instutute for which I’ll be teaching. He picked me up at the airport, and had been very helpful all day. He set up my laptop with dial-up service. As he was looking at my computer, I went to the trash bin and got out the empty package of the food that I had eaten. I took it over to Alex.
“Alex,” I asked, “Could you please read this label and tell me what it says? I just ate this and have no idea what it was. What does the label say?”

Alex took the label, glanced at it, and said, “It says ‘Turtle.’ ”

By Larry Nodarse

I couldn’t possibly write a word today. I couldn’t possibly.

DAY TWO IN CHINA

Okay, I’m a little better now. I slept for 14 hours last night, and have caught up on [...]]]> Larry Nodarse of Traveler’s Bookcase recently moved to China to teach English. This blog will update his continuing adventures in the Far East.

By Larry Nodarse

I couldn’t possibly write a word today. I couldn’t possibly.

DAY TWO IN CHINA

Okay, I’m a little better now. I slept for 14 hours last night, and have caught up on all the sleep that I’ve missed in the last two weeks. For the past two weeks, I’ve been averaging a total of 5 hours of sleep a night, and yesterday, what with the flight, I was operating on no sleep for over 48 hours. But last night I downed a Xanax that my friend Melissa gave me, drank a Chinese beer, and sank into a slumber that has renewed me. I can now write. And read. And do most bodily functions that require cognitive ability.

Holy shit, I’m in China. CHINA. It’s starting to sink in a bit. It hadn’t been. In the few weeks prior to my abandoning L.A., I couldn’t work up a sense of anticipation about moving to China. All my friends would ask, “Are you excited?” “Are you apprehensive?” “Are you thrilled?” and all I could muster was a “Yeah, I guess. It’s not really sinking in yet. ” I figured maybe it was because I was too focused on all of the things that I had to get done in preparation for the move.

However, even yesterday, as I walked the unbearably steamy hot streets of Guangzhou, it wasn’t sinking in. I’d the see the masses of diminutive Chinese people walking among me on the sidewalk, their heads rarely reaching my shoulders… I’d see them on their bicycles, carrying loads that no American would dare load onto a mere bike… I’d hear them negotiating with street vendors and shouting on their cell phones in a language which I could not yet distinguish as Mandarin or Cantonese… I would dodge flying spit left and right… and still, nothing could shake me out of my daze. I was here, but not here.

In my first days, I’m finding the Chinese (or at least the southerners, I cannot yet speak for those in whole nation) to be a mixed bag. They’re either very gruff and dismissive, or they are absolutely charming– smiling, offering to help with helpless looks on their friendly faces when it becomes clear that we cannot comminicate linguistically.

The gruff ones seem to be those who work as doormen, gatekeepers, security guards, and other such jobs of apathetic, low-level authority. They give off a vibe that says, “Do not come near me. Do not interact with me under any circumstances.” The doorman of my apartment building hasn’t once looked up from his newpaper or smiled at me as I go in and out. And once, I couldn’t figure out how to open the front door, and he grimaced and me, sighed, and opened the door with a gesture of disgust. He was like the fifth such person who gave me what I am now calling “the Guangzhou grimace.”
The charming ones are those who work in air-conditioned establishments. And it makes sense. I cannot describe how outrageously hot and muggy it is here. It is quite literally infernal. Working in the A-C must be a real attitude-booster here. These lucky, air conditioned souls look at me and smile as I walk by. They read my face to see if I might need any assistance.

I walk slowly here, looking at my surroundings, trying to find things without the benefit of being able to read signs, and as I inch past the Chinese around me, the inertia of my movement seems to drag their smiles with me as I walk by. They give off a vibe that shows they are willing, almost longing to engage. The few times that I have engaged them, has caused more of them to gather near, as though they were moths drawn to a lit bulb, as if they’re thinking, Oh look, a tall Westerner, and he’s talking to someone. Let us see what this might be about. Before I know it, I have a small group of smiling, giggling Chinese around me.

Here’s an example, my favorite so far.

Let me preface it by saying that I was really stupid and didn’t buy a Chinese adaptor for American plugs before I left California. On my last day, I had so many things to do, and Buy and Adaptor was one of them. My friend Natalie owns a travel bookshop that sells adaptors for all countries. Must stop by Nat’s, I kept telling myself on Wednesday, Must stop by Nat’s. Before I knew it, my time had run out on the busy day and I thought, Screw it. I’m sure I can find one in China. So yesterday, I was trying to find one in China. Not easy.

I went to Vanguard, a big, Wal-Mart-esque multi-level supermarket/department store. I went up to the electronics floor. There was a small man there. I said, “Ni hao. Ni shuo Ying-yu ma?” He gave me a mortified smile and said, “No speak no English no. Sorry. Sorry. No, no, no.” I then quixotically said, “Xinbanya-yu? Yidali-yu?” (Spanish? Italian?) He gave a shocked smile and laughed. “No, no, no,” he said, with regret. I knew my next word was a stupid one to even ask, but hope is always alive in me: “Fa-yu?” (French?) He looked as if I had just showed him a photo of a naked woman, laughed with embarrassment, and said weakly, “No, no, no….”

I looked at my English-Chinese pocket dictionary for the word “adaptor.” I couldn’t find it. I could only find a translation for the verb “adapt.” I looked in my picture dictionary. There was no picture of an adaptor. WTF?!?

I plunged ahead and spoke to the man in broken Chinese, which consisted on 3 words: Meiguo (America), Zhongguo (China) and bu (not). I grabbed the plug of a laptop computer that was on display. I pointed to the plug and said, “Meiguo.” Then I pointed to myself and said, “Meiguo.” Then I pointed to the laptop, then to its plug, and then to myself, and said, “Meiguo.” The man was looking at me like I was on crack. A couple of salesladies from the camera section started to draw near. So did a woman from the cell phone department. They looked at me with smiley fasination. I smiled at them, nodded, and continued.

I pointed to a plug socket on the wall and said, “Zhongguo.” Then I pointed to the plug, “Meigguo.” Then I put the plug into the socket, but acted as though it weren’t going in because it didn’t fit. I said, “Bu, bu, bu. Meiguo, Zhongwen, bu, bu,” pointing to the wall socket when I’d say, Zhonggu, and pointing to the plug when I’d say, Meigguo. Basically, what I was saying was, “Not, not, not. America, China, not not.” How highly communicative…

I looked around me. A crowd of like 10 sales ladies an d a few shoppershad now gathered around us, all smiling brightly. It reminded me of that scene in The Birds, when Tippi Hedren is sitting by the playground smoking, and then suddenly sees that a huge flock of crows has secretly assembled behind her on the jungle gym. But these birds were friendly. They smiled with interest in the game of charades that I had begun. I looked at their kind faces and said, “Ta-men shuo Ying-yu ma?” (Do any of you speak English?) They all giggled and said, “No, no, no.”

I grabbed the plug again and acted as though it wouldn’t fit in the socket, saying, “Zhongguo, Meigguo, bu. Bu. Bu. Not fit. Fit. Fit? Not fit.” The man looked at me, paused, then took the plug from out of my hands and plugged it effortlessly into the wall socket, and then said something in Chinese that I’m sure was, “Yes it does fit. See? It fits. It fits easily.” He then gave me a smile like he had just solved my problem. The women around us smiled at me and giggled.

I said, “Xiexie,” and walked away.

Thanks for nothing, but thanks anyway, because you’ve all been very kind… ineffectual, but kind.
I HAVE GOT TO LEARN CHINESE. I cannot see myself functioning in this rudimentary way for a whole year. It would drive me crazy.

I’m 41-years-old. It has taken me a long time to visit San Francisco. Well, I’m in San Francisco right now as I type. I’m here for the first time. A nice, 10-day vacation in San Fran.  San Francisco, we finally meet.

It had become a running joke with some of my friends, the fact [...]]]> By Larry Nodarse

I’m 41-years-old. It has taken me a long time to visit San Francisco. Well, I’m in San Francisco right now as I type. I’m here for the first time. A nice, 10-day vacation in San Fran.  San Francisco, we finally meet.

It had become a running joke with some of my friends, the fact that I had not yet been to San Francisco. After all, I am known for being a traveler. I’ve been to 20 foreign countries. True, it’s not 100, but it’s more than the average person has visited. And in these countries, I’ve usually visited multiple cities.

For example, in Holland, I didn’t just go to Amsterdam, as most tourists do. I also went to Rotterdam, Delft, Utrecht, The Hague, Dordrecht, Haarlem, Gouda, Leiden and Kinderdijk. In Spain, I didn’t just go to Madrid and Barcelona. I also went to Segovia, Toledo, Alicante, Malaga, Cordoba, Seville, Granada, Caceres, Zaragoza, Avila, Salamanca, Burgos, Valladolid, Santander, Bilbao, San Sebastian, Girona, Sitges and Montserrat. And don’t even get me started on Italy. In Italy, I even went to Fanna. FANNA. Have you ever heard of Fanna? Well, neither have most Italians– not even those who live in the northeast, where Fanna is secretly located.

Si signori, I had been to Fanna, but not to San Francisco. I had been to Ljubljana, Slovenia, but not to San Francisco. I had been to Bucharest, Romania, but not to San Francisco. I had been to Haifa, Israel, but not to San Francisco. I had been to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay, but not to San Francisco… My friends were really giving me a hard time about this, especially after I had gone four years living in Los Angeles, neglecting to visit San Francisco (in favor of San Diego and Las Vegas).

Last year on vacation, did I go from L.A. to San Francisco? Nope. I did, however, go from L.A. to Morelia, Mexico. And Patzcuaro. And Janitzio. And Tapalpa. Have you heard of those Mexican towns? Probably not. I hadn’t before last year. But I had heard of San Francisco. Everyone has. People travel from all over the world to visit San Fran. Not I. Not until this week. Finally.

San Francisco, we finally meet.

AND YOU ARE KILLING ME.

What was I thinking, waiting until age 41 to see this city, which is basically a concrete-covered roller coaster of merciless, mountainous hills? The sidewalks here aren’t sidewalks. They’re walls. You turn a corner and see a wall. You have to crane your head up to see the top of the sidewalk. You don’t walk the sidewalk. You scale it. They shouldn’t be called sidewalks in this city. They should be called sideclimbs.

Let me explain. I get to know new cities by walking. I’m a major walker. Even if I have taxi fare, when I’m exploring a new city, I walk it. A bus is passing by? So what. I keep walking. It’s the only way to really get to know and feel a city, in my opinion.

So: Visit here at age 41? Why didn’t I visit here at age 21, when my younger bones put a real spring in my step?

Here’s another question: Why am I sitting here writing in my blog, when I am only here for 10 days and should be out seeing the city? Here’s the answer: Because my 41-year-old legs can’t take it. My ankles and knees are kill-ing me. I’m taking a break.

San Francisco has given me a rude awakening: I am aging. This is my first vacation where I can’t walk and walk and walk for hours and hours and hours, then go back to my lodgings, take a shower, change clothes, and experience the nightlife.

Nightlife? That requires more walking up or down hills–prohibitive hills. My body needs to recuperate. I’ll just sit here and type…

My first encounter here with a steep, sidewalked hill was quite deceptive. It was on Christmas Eve, when I arrived in town. I’m staying in Nob Hill, and decided to go to Grace Cathedral for Christmas Eve mass. Wow. What a beautiful cathedral, and what a lovely mass. And it gave me a good intro to walking in this city…

You see, on my way to Grace, I was walking along Pine Street, following the map from my Fodor’s guidebook. I could see that it was a short walk to the cathedral. Just turn on Taylor Street, walk a block, and you’re there. Well, I turned on Taylor Street, and saw an uphill climb so steep, that the sidewalk actually had steps carved into it. As I huffed and puffed my way up the eternal steps, I thought, This isn’t so bad. At least the sidewalk has been turned into steps. Steps are easier to climb. If all the steep sidewalks are like this, it won’t be so bad…

They are not all like that. In fact, that stretch of Taylor Street is the only stepped sidewalk that I’ve seen.

Let me just say, so I don’t sound like a whiner, that this city is really beautiful. The word that keeps coming to my mind is “wow.” That’s because, in these few days that I’ve been here, as I huff and puff my way up a hill, feeling like Shelly Winters in The Poseidon Adventure, I always get a reward once I reach the sidewalk’s summit: The view. And the only word that seems to come out of my mouth when I behold the view is, “Wow.”

Uphill I’ll go… Walk. Up. Hill. Huff. Puff. Sigh. Breathe. Creak. Damn. Climb. Huff. Puff. Ow. Up. Up. Ouch. God. I think I can. I know I can. Pause. Breathe. Sigh. Walk. Up. Hill. Up. Up. Step. Step. Huff. Puff… you’re at the top. Turn the corner, take a look, and….. “WOW!”

The bay! What a beauuuuutiful view.

Does any city on earth have a more beautiful natural setting? Barcelona, Florence, Lisbon and Quebec City, among the cities I’ve seen, are runners up. But really, they don’t hold a candle to the bay of San Francisco, and views of it, and the sea of roofs below, from the city’s hilltop sidewalks. True, I’ve never been to Rio de Janeiro or Vancouver, but I can’t imagine their cityscape blending so seamlessly with the geographical setting as San Francisco’s does.

I guess I should just leave it at that. I’m tired, but I really do need to go out there and see more of this charming city. I should stop writing, gather my strength and tackle more of those hills. They’re a bitch, but it’s because of them that I can turn a corner and say, “Wow!”

All of this beauty comes at a price.

San Francisco, we finally meet… and you are kicking my ass.

Over and out. Out I go…. Huff. Puff. Huff. Puff….

Cuban Independence Day is May 20th. It’s a weird thing to think of, Cuba having an Independence Day, because really, the independent Cuba went from U.S. occupation, to the Magoon governorship, to the Machado dictatorship, to the Batista dictatorship, and finally, to the most durable dictatorship of the 20th century: Castro Bros., Inc.

But [...]]]> By Larry Nodarse

Cuban Independence Day is May 20th. It’s a weird thing to think of, Cuba having an Independence Day, because really, the independent Cuba went from U.S. occupation, to the Magoon governorship, to the Machado dictatorship, to the Batista dictatorship, and finally, to the most durable dictatorship of the 20th century: Castro Bros., Inc.

But I don’t want to write about Cuban politics right now. It seems futile even at the best of times, and I’m not in a good mood today. I’m Cuban. Well, my parents are. But still, I get a jolt in my bloodstream whenever Cuba and politics are brought up. I think it takes at least two generations in the USA to lose that jolt.  I’m not in the mood for that jolt today, so I’ve decided to type here excerpts from one of the entries of the journal that I wrote when I first visited Havana, in May of 1998.

When I made that first trip to Cuba, I was 29. I wrote a journal that consisted of 350 hand-written pages. For the sake of brevity, I’ll only include two of those pages below.

Let me give some background on what I was writing about.

My maternal grandmother’s brother, Nestor, was the family’s historian. Before I left for Cuba, he gave me a list of addresses of houses that the Sabi family had owned (Sabi is my grandmother’s maiden name).

The most important address however, was that of the Sabi bakery. He told me that my great-great grandfather, Salvador Sabi, was born in 1848 in Barcelona, and immigrated to Cuba from Spain as a young man. He opened up a bakery at Calle Brasil 63 in the Old Havana section of the city. It made him a fortune, and he founded other businesses from there. He died a rich man, in Havana, in 1921. His immigrant success was quite evident to me by the huge Sabi houses that I had been looking for and photographing while I was in Havana.

So one day, I set out looking for my great-great grandfather’s bakery. I highly doubted it would still be there, but I went looking for it just in case. This what I wrote in my journal at the end of that day…

Friday, May 15, 1998–

“…I walked until I got to the beginning of Calle Brasil, where it meets the Capitol Building. I remember that Tio Nestor told me that it would be there, and I checked on my address list. Yes, Calle Brasil, where my great-great grandfather started his first business in Cuba, no sooner than he had gotten off the boat from Spain…. I doubted very much when I talked to Nestor that the bakery would still be there, and now, after a few days in crumbling Havana, I doubted that the BUILDING would still be there…

“I walked and walked along Calle Brasil. I could tell that it would be at the very end of the street almost. The address is #63. By the time I reached the 60s, I had arrived at La Plaza Vieja. I suddenly got distracted from finding the address, because I was agape at this massive plaza, in TOTAL RUINS, which is in the process of being rebuilt.

“It must have been such a lovely square when my great-great grandfather had arrived from the old country. It’s weird: today people emigrate TO Spain FROM Cuba. Back then, people came TO Cuba FROM Spain, for a better life. You can still see some faint traces of THAT Cuba on the remaining buildings of La Plaza Vieja, especially this magnificent Art Nouveau hotel, El Hotel Palacio, which is in one of the corners of the square.

“Man, the noise of the sawing and hammering…this is RECONSTRUCTION (as in post-American Civil War reconstruction). It reminds me of the scene in Gone with the Wind, where Scarlett and Mammy are walking through the streets of Atlanta (during reconstruction), Scarlett wearing that green velvet dress made of her mother’s curtains, the ‘portieres’…RECONSTRUCTION… the Havana after Castro will be like the Old South after the Civil War, and you can bet that there will be a lot of carpetbaggers invading Cuba, too.

“It’s funny, because one of my cab drivers called Havana, or what WAS Havana, ‘Lo que el viento se llevo’ ‘–which is the Spanish title for Gone with the Wind. And Cuba itself is the Tara plantation for for most exiles… Scarlett coming back to Tara in the dead of night, dragging that dying horse, and Melanie, the baby, and Prissy with her. It’s dark at night. She peers through the moonlight upon returning… ‘Is it there? Is Tara still standing??’ The full moon comes out from behind the clouds. She sees. ‘It’s still there! The Yankees haven’t burned it down! Tara’s still there! ‘…Oh, it’s still there all right, but it’s in rotten shape.

“Pedro Almodovar says that Scarlett O’Hara is the quintessential Manchega (a woman from the La Mancha region of Spain). But I disagree with him. Scarlett is the quintessential CUBANA. What’s more, she’s the quintessential HABANERA… her spitfire ways of coming out ahead and surviving, regardless of the disasters that are thrown her way.

“Anyhow, the building where #63 used to be has been knocked down, and a new building has been built. The Sabi bakery is definitely out of business.”

And a page later, I wrote:

“…I thought about the telephone conversation with Mom Wednesday night, when she asked me about her lovely childhood house on Calzada 608. I didn’t know how to break it to her, how ugly I thought that block was now, and how the interior of her house has been turned into a showcase for Che Guevara paintings on one side, and a low-budget apartment complex on the other. She had painted for me a very vivid picture of that charming street and house from her girlhood. She couldn’t accept that it could be THAT ugly now. Even with the revolution, how could it disappear, the beauty, so quickly?

“I thought of La Plaza Vieja… I thought of the cab driver’s comment… I thought of what I would tell my mother. ‘I have the answer, Mom. Here it is in plain Spanish: ES LO QUE EL VIENTO SE LLEVO’. It’s gone. All gone. Gone with the wind that swept through Cuba’.

“In Spanish, ‘lo que el viento se llevo’ ‘ does not literally mean ‘gone with the wind’. Rather, it means, ‘what the wind took away’. And that is why, I am sorry to say, that I don’t like Havana. In a strange way, I hate it. Why…?

“Because everything that I would have loved about Havana, is what the wind took away.”

The night before last, I met a guy named Frank. Nice guy. Originally from Fresno CA, he’s been living for a long time here, in Hollywood CA, where he recently bought a condo. Smart guy. Successful. He works “in Finance”, whatever that means.

When Frank found out that I had moved here from New [...]]]> By Larry Nodarse

The night before last, I met a guy named Frank. Nice guy. Originally from Fresno CA, he’s been living for a long time here, in Hollywood CA, where he recently bought a condo. Smart guy. Successful. He works “in Finance”, whatever that means.

When Frank found out that I had moved here from New York City, and that I had lived there for 15 years, he said, “Oh man, I could never live there. I went there and I didn’t like it at all”.

Now, there are many, maaany reasons why a person would not want to live in NYC, all of them perfectly valid, depending on the person’s personality, likes and dislikes…

If you want a front yard and a back yard, NYC is not for you.

If you want a house of any kind, NYC is not for you.

If you like to see the horizon when you walk down the street, NYC is not for you.

If you’re into star-gazing (as in the night sky, not as in celebrities), NYC is not for you.

If you like the sound of crickets at night, NYC is not for you.

If you hate walking and prefer driving, NYC is not for you.

If you don’t like taking public transportation, NYC is not for you.

If the sound of a police siren, firetruck siren, ambulance siren or jackhammer drives you to distraction, NYC is not for you.

If you hate sweltering summers and freezing winters, NYC is not for you.

If you hate being caught in the rain without a functioning umbrella, NYC is not for you.

If you love to be around nature all the time, NYC is not for you.

If you want to keep and ride horses, NYC is not for you.

If you don’t like intense ethnic diversity right up in your face, NYC is not for you.

If you don’t like sharing the sidewalk with people dressed in “bizarre” ways, and acting in “bizarre” ways, NYC is not for you.

If you are not rich, and get claustrophobic living in a tiny apartment, NYC is not for you.

If your nose is intolerant of unpleasant smells, NYC is not for you.

If a mountain of garbage bags on the sidewalk freaks you out, NYC is not for you.

If you find masses of people walking all around you really briskly and with a purpose to be unsettling, NYC is not for you.

If you prefer your friends to invite you to their homes for dinner, instead of always to a restaurant, NYC is not for you.

If you like to hear English spoken in only one particular accent, NYC is not for you.

If you don’t like being told the brutal truth by complete and total strangers, NYC is not for you.

If you don’t like it when total strangers go out of their way to help you when you’re in need, NYC is not for you.

I could go on and on and on. There are so many reasons why certain people would not want to live in NYC.

However, there are so many amazing positives that outweigh the negatives, that those positives make living anywhere else unthinkable for many New Yorkers.

But I digress. Back to Frank.

I asked Frank what he didn’t like about NYC, expecting one of the reasons that I listed above. He didn’t say any of those reasons. He said, “Because the buildings are all old, so they’re ugly. And New York is a boring city. Very boring. I was there for ten days, and after two days, there was nothing left for me to do.”

My jaw dropped and my eyes bulged. “BORING?!?” I exclaimed. “New York City, BORING?!?”

“Yes,” he repeated, “There was nothing left to do after two days.”

My mind was reeling. REELING. Was this guy fucking with me? OK. Deep breath. Let’s start at the beginning, a very good place to start. When you read, you begin with A-B-C…

“Let’s start with your beginning sentence” I said, ” ‘The buildings are all old, so they’re ugly’. You wouldn’t like Rome, then.”

“Why?”

“Because the buildings in Rome are even older than the ones in New York”

“Yeah, but maybe they’re a different KIND of old, and I WOULD like them. All those skyscrapers in New York are just plain old and ugly. But I might like the old buildings in Rome”

OK. He had a point. So what if the guy has lousy taste by my standards? So what if he finds ugly such “old” architectural treasures such as the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, the Flatiron Building, the Woolworth Building, the Paramount Building, the New York Life Insurance Building, Rockefeller Center, Grand Central Station, the Public Library, the Jefferson Market Library… not to mention the bridges… the Brooklyn Bridge, the Queensboro Bridge…. oh, and all those beautiful brownstones in the Village…. CHRIST, THE GUY HAS NO TASTE AT ALL IN ARCHITECTURE.

All right. Cool. OK. To each his own. His tastes differ from mine, and that’s fine.

But New York City, BORING?!?!?

In 1917, Luigi Pirandello wrote a play called, “Cosi e’ (se vi pare)”. The English title is, “Right You Are (If You Think You Are)”, but the better, literal translation is, “It’s like that (if it seems like that to you). I bring this up because, according to Pirandello, many things aren’t absolute. For example, New York is an exciting city because *I* think it’s exciting. But New York is a boring city because *Frank* thinks it’s boring. There are no absolutes here. Boring and Exciting are matters of opinion– they can’t be qualified.

Well, I have to disagree with both Frank and Luigi on this particular subject. It’s an absolute: New York City is NOT boring. It is many things both positive and negative, but boring isn’t one of them.

Are you into Fashion? There’s plenty in NYC, on the runways, on the cutting tables, on the sidewalks and in the shop windows.

Are you into Art? The number of museums and galleries is astronomical.

Are you into Photography? You’re in the right place, to do it or view it.

Are you into Business? Business capitol of the world.

Are you into Interior Design? There are bars, restaurants, shops and lofts galore, many with beautifully designed interiors.

Are you into Dancing? Too many discotheques to count. And if you like to watch it, you’ll have to choose which type… ballet, tango, modern, flamenco, swing, salsa, samba, belly…

Are you into Eating Out? You could eat at a different restaurant every night for 10 years and not eat at the the same restaurant twice.

Are you into Compulsive Sex? Your plate will be full, no matter how unattractive you are (just don’t bank on a beauty).

Are you into Sports? You can play them, you can watch them, or both, if that’s your thing.

Are you into Acting? There are sooo many auditions. Just don’t expect to be cast very often.

Are you into Booze? There’s a bar on virtually every other corner, and if there’s not, there’s a liquor store.

Are you into Cinema? You can watch it being shot on the street, or you can watch it in a theater: blockbusters, art-house, indies, foreign-language, classics, pornos….

Are you into Live Theatre? There’s Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off Broadway, Off-Off-Off Broadway…

Are you into Live Music? Make your choice: Jazz, Punk, Rock, Symphony, Big Band, Bossa Nova, Bhangra, Blues, and so many more, every night of the week.

Are you into Poetry Slams? They’re abundant and they’re free (who would pay?).

Are you into Men? There’s plenty of them, gay, bi and straight.

Are you into Women? There’s plenty of them, gay, bi and straight.

Are you into Religion? There are churches, synagogues, mosques, temples…

Are you into Prostitution? You can be one or rent one, whichever you prefer.

Once again, I could go on and on and on…. I guess NYC can be boring if you are into Mountain Climbing, Deep-Sea Fishing, Desert Exploration, Rain Forest Exploration, Prairie Farming, Yodeling on the Matterhorn, Snorkeling, Safaris and other such things, and ONLY other such things.

I told Frank all these things, and he basically said, “All I know is that I was there, I like city things, and there was nothing to do after a while, and I found it very boring. And there were garbage bags piled up on the sidewalk. That’s ugly.”

“Agreed!!” I said, “I totally understand why you’d think that piles of garbage bags on the sidewalk are ugly. But I’m incapable of understanding how you can find New York to be BORING, with a lack of things to do. I first visited it as a tourist on a week’s vacation, and I couldn’t fit in all the things that I wanted to see in just one week.”

He shrugged lackadaisically and said, “Well, I’m not you”.

How true. Frank’s not me. So why should it matter that he finds New York boring? Why do I spend all this time writing about it? Why did it irk me to such an extent that he could think in that way? I’m glad that not everybody is me (SO glad), but sometimes… I just can’t understand why they are not more like me,

ESPECIALLY WHEN I’M RIGHT.

Cosi e’ (se vi pare).

Right you are (if you think you are).

RIGHT?

I did it. I didn’t really want to, but I did it. I saw the movie Angels and Demons. I was disappointed in the Da Vinci Code, yet I wanted to see Angels and Demons , because I knew that it was filmed on location in Rome. ROME. ROMA.

My adoration for it was [...]]]> By Larry Nodarse

I did it. I didn’t really want to, but I did it. I saw the movie Angels and Demons. I was disappointed in the Da Vinci Code, yet I wanted to see Angels and Demons , because I knew that it was filmed on location in Rome. ROME. ROMA.

My adoration for it was only strengthened by seeing it used as a backdrop for a pretty preposterous thriller. While the movie did keep me on the edge of my seat and never had a dull moment, the story was rather ridiculous. As it progressed, and I saw The Eternal City swirling around behind Tom Hanks, I couldn’t help but marvel at how even the most absurd plotline could not diminish Rome’s warm, elegant, earthy beauty.

In my opinion, Rome is the most beautiful city in the world.

I know, I know, I haven’t been to every city in the world, so it’s silly of me to have such an opinion. But still, I have been to an awful lot of cities that are internationally renowned for their beauty… Venice, Florence, Siena, Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Paris, London, New York, Bruges, Dublin, Boston, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Jerusalem, Havana, Quebec, Morelia, Buenos Aires…

Granted, I haven’t been to Prague or Cape Town or Rio de Janeiro, nor to any city in Asia, but still, I don’t think that if I visited them I would find them more beautiful than Rome.

Rome was the first city in a foreign country that I had ever visited. I was 25-years-old, and I had never been out of the USA. I couldn’t have chosen a better city to get my first taste of the Old World. I had a Roman holiday that lasted two weeks, and I also spent three days in Florence and a day in Pisa, but man, they weren’t Rome…

Rome is, quite simply, an extravaganza. To me, what makes a city beautiful is the natural setting, the architecture, and the street life.

Some cities have a beautiful natural setting, but unremarkable architecture. Others have beautiful architecture, but the natural setting is not at all remarkable.

For example, Seville is a remarkably lovely city architecturally, as is Florence. However, for me, Florence trumps Seville, because Seville is located on a plain, while Florence is nestled in a valley surrounded by high hills, which “ups” its fairy tale quotient. Florence has the gorgeous natural setting that Seville lacks AND the architecture and street life that is equal to Seville’s.

Well Rome, like Florence, has both.

There are the famous seven hills of Rome (a spectacular natural setting), as well as the architectural treasures which overwhelm those of Florence (or Venice or Paris or London).

Rome is not called The Eternal City for nothing. As you walk through the streets, you see Classical buildings of the ancient city, as well as Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque buildings, all seamlessly mixed together. Sometimes you’ll see ancient columns incorporated into a newer building (and in Rome, “newer” is 300-years-old).

What other beautiful Baroque or Renaissance or Medieval city has the ancient forums– a grand, monumental series of ruins from the Republican and Imperial epochs… the ancient triumphal arches… not to mention the Colosseum… the Baths of Caracalla… the ruins of Largo Argentina… the Portico of Octavia… the Temple of Vesta… the Temple of Fortuna Virilis… the Theater of Marcellus… the tomb of Augustus… the Porta Maggiore… the Porta Asinaria… the Pantheon… my God, the Pantheon alone would be the most stunning structure of the majority of the world’s great cities.

Not only is the Pantheon a utter wonder, but it has at its entrance one of the loveliest squares anywhere on earth, Piazza della Rotonda.

What makes a great street life to me is the presence of beautiful town squares, lots of them. Well, the piazze of Rome are the most stunning squares in the world, and it’s mainly due to the spectacular fountains.

The fountains the fountains the fountains….

…so many of them, each an utter work of art, designed by some of the world’s most revered masters, and they’re just THERE, in the piazza, or on a street corner, or at an intersection, out in the open. Any of those fountains in the USA would be in a museum, and if you touched them, the museum alarm would go *beep*beep*beep*.

Not in Rome. In Rome you can stroke the fountain, sit on its edge, take flash pictures of it, toss coins into it… and unlike in museums that close at 6pm, these works of art are available 24 hours a day. You can take a stroll at 3am, as I did, and be the only one in the piazza, just you and the magnificently sculpted fountain, with no museum guard watching your every move.

It seems that every square in Rome has a stunning fountain in it. This is not the case in other cities. The countries that I visited afterwards were England and Ireland, the following year. The year after that, I visited Spain and Portugal, and always, in every city I visited, I kept asking myself, Where are the fountains? Why do hardly any of these squares have fountains? Finally I gave up asking myself this question, when I realized that Rome is unique in this regard.

Beginning with Piazza di Trevi which contains what is perhaps the world’s most famous fountain, the Trevi Fountain, and continuing on to Piazza Navona (my favorite square in the world) with its Four Rivers Fountain, the Neptune Fountain and the Moro fountain, Piazza del Popolo with its fountain ornamented by Egyptian lions, Piazza Mattei with its exquisite turtle fountain, Piazza di Spagna with its half-sunk boat fountain… I could go on and on.

Shall I mention the famous Spanish Steps that lead up the the church of Trinita’ dei Monti? Or how about the monumental steps that lead of the Piazza del Campodoglio, from which you have a panoramic view of the ancient forums below.

There’s the winding Tiber river, which has the Ponte Elio, a 2nd-century bridge lined with priceless statues that lead up the the Castel Sant’Angelo– the mammoth mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian.

Beyond Castel Sant’Angelo is Vatican City, which technically isn’t a part of Rome, but what the hell, it really is…

La Citta’ del Vaticano… the amazing Piazza San Pietro, a.k.a. Saint Peter’s Square, with its twin fountains, its Egyptian obelisk, its ring of colonnades surrounding it, and as its main feature: Saint Peter’s Basilica—the largest church in the world, and the most magnificent.

I can’t express just how far my jaw dropped and how much my eyes widened when I first entered Saint Peter’s and eye-witnessed its grandeur. Words can’t describe it, photos can’t, videos can’t. You must enter and see the gargantuan dimensions for yourself… the soft, warm light, the details of the interior decor and design.

What is truly memorable for me is that I visited Saint Peter’s again, when I was in Rome 5 years later, and my jaw dropped even lower the second time than it did the first; it’s that much of a marvel.

And don’t even get me started on the Vatican Museums. The Sistine Chapel… I just wanted to expel all the other tourists from it so that I could lie down on the floor, and gaze up at the ceiling for hours, studying every detail. And then there are the Raphael rooms… Mmm!

Is this getting boring? Sorry, if you’ve never been to Rome, it probably is, because without photographs, these words can be pretty meaningless.

So I’ll just try to convey something that can be felt without having visited the city. The colors. The colors of Rome are uniformly warm. There really don’t exist cold colors in Rome… no blues, no grays… at least none that I can remember, and if they do exist, they are in such miniscule numbers that they don’t register on the eye.

The whole city has a warm glow of orange, gold, copper, burnt umber, what have you. All the buildings are painted in the orange/tan/copper-hued palate. The colors of Rome are the colors of the sunset.

After I first saw Rome in 1994, I kept telling myself that I had to see Paris before I could definitively say that Rome is the world’s most beautiful city. After all, Paris is Paris.

Well, I finally visited Paris the last week of 1999 and the first week of 2000, and I thought it was an utterly beautiful city. So stately, so sophisticated, so finely ornamented… yet so cold (and I don’t mean the weather). The color that I remember most is gray. Almost all the buildings are gray. It’s a truly beautiful city, but it’s a cold beauty. Place Vendome is utter perfection, but it’s cold. It doesn’t have warmth of Piazza Navona or Piazza della Rontonda or Campo de’ Fiori.

What makes Rome a cut above the rest is (in addition to all the reasons stated above) its calming, soothing warmth. That a person can feel soothed and calm in such a crazy, haphazard city is a testament to what a lot of beauty can do for the soul.

I love to travel. Really. I mean really really really. To me, there is nothing more important. Well, okay, there’s breathing, sleeping, eating and drinking. And sex. But really, besides all those necessary-to-survive things, travel is #1 for me. It’s even more important to me than love. I mean, if I had to [...]]]> By Larry Nodarse

I love to travel. Really. I mean really really really. To me, there is nothing more important. Well, okay, there’s breathing, sleeping, eating and drinking. And sex. But really, besides all those necessary-to-survive things, travel is #1 for me. It’s even more important to me than love. I mean, if I had to choose between settling down for a lifetime of bliss with a soul mate, or being able to travel, I would choose travel. I wouldn’t even have to think twice about it. There is nothing more important to me than seeing as much of this world as I can, before I die. I don’t believe in reincarnation, so this life is the one chance I’ve got.

I’m the kind of person who always counts his blessings. Besides my most important blessing, good health, the other two blessings that I’m constantly thankful for are travel-related.
I feel thankful that I was born in a point in history where traveling around the world has become a possible thing. This didn’t happen until the end of the 19th century, when the great steamers were able to cross the oceans, carrying their passengers in smooth, reliable comfort, and delivering them to other lands. Then, once on land again, the newly-developed railway systems could transport travelers efficaciously across terra firma. If I had been born 200, 400, 800 years ago or more, I would have been lucky to have seen more of the world than what lay 100 miles from my birthplace.
Even today, I am lucky to do that.

The majority of humanity does not have the opportunity to travel internationally. Which brings me to my other blessing: being a citizen of a rich country where one doesn’t need a travel visa to go virtually everywhere.

Thanks to internet social networks, I have forged friendships with people from all over the world. I have friends in Peru, Chile, South Africa, Pakistan, Turkey, Thailand, the list goes on and on. Most of these friends have a desire to see the world, but can’t, because they live in “poor” countries and need visas. They would love to visit me, but can’t get the visa, so they tell me that I will have to go and visit them.

In such countries as theirs, only the rich can travel. None of my friends are poor in those countries. They are educated people, with middle-class jobs, just like me. But because my country is the USA, I, by no means an affluent man, can go virtually wherever I want, whereas they are relegated to neighboring, fellow third-world countries. I find that accident of birth to be very unfair.

In this world, to travel, you must basically be either born in North America, Western Europe or Japan, or if you are from an under-developed nation, you must be born to wealth. Well, I wasn’t born to wealth, but I was born here in the USA, where if I want to travel, I work a little harder, forgo lots of dinners in restaurants, cut back on the shopping, get the time off, reserve a flight, and go. An Algerian guy like me, who has to work and save to travel, can’t do that. Even if visas weren’t an issue, how could his currency hold up against the dollar, the euro, the pound, the yen? A year’s salary in his country would last him maybe two weeks in London.

Yes, I feel very blessed to have been born when and where I was, because ever since I was a child, I have longed to travel.

I grew up in Texas, where the closest state can be very far away. I was raised in the suburbs of Houston. The only place we ever went was to Miami once a year, to visit my maternal grandparents (this allowed me to experience air travel in the 1970s and ’80s, when it was actually a semi-pleasurable and humane experience).

When I was 8, we drove to New Orleans for a family vacation. I was so excited to see another state! Louisiana would be added to Texas and Florida. We drove. And drove. And drove. Texas really is a giant. It took forever to reach the Louisiana border. For-ever.

As long as I live, I’ll never forget the name “Orange, Texas.” It’s the last city before the Louisiana border. I kept asking my mother, “How much longer ’til Louisiana?” and my mother said, “When we get to Orange, then you’ll know that we’re almost in Louisiana.” I’d look out the car window and look for signs that said how many more miles it was to Orange… Orange: 100 miles. Orange: 70 miles. Orange: 30 miles… it was taking forever, and the prospect was killing me. You would have thought we were approaching Tokyo, such was my anticipation. I remember my dad saying, as we passed by one of those signs, “Five more miles to Orange, Larry! Only five miles to Orange!” My heart started beating faster. As we passed through Orange, I was struck by how utterly normal a town it was, but my disappointment didn’t last long, because the next signs were signaling the number of miles to Lake Charles, Louisiana. My excitement grew. A city in another state!
Don’t think that this excitement over something as trite as crossing a state line was due to my only having lived eight years. When I was 20, it was the same deal.

My first two years after high school, I studied at a junior college near my hometown. I would travel with the speech team and compete in college speech tournaments across the state, particularly in the North. We’d stay in motels over the weekend. Sometimes we’d be staying in a dry county, and, after competing in the tournament , we’d have to drive far out of town to buy beer.

I remember how once, we drove north for the longest time, and we started seeing signs that said we were approaching the Oklahoma border. “Oh,” I exclaimed, “lets cross over into Oklahoma!” My friends in the car asked me why I would want to do that. “Because it’s another state! Don’t you guys want to be able to see another state?” I asked. “But it’s Oklahoma,” they said, “we’re not wasting any more gas just so we can cross the border of Oklahoma.”

No offense to Oklahomans, but the true sign of a travel-starved individual is one who thinks of Oklahoma as an exotic destination.

For my third year of college, I wanted a bigger change than Oklahoma or Louisiana could offer, so I transferred to New York University, and had the extreme pleasure of living in Manhattan. How ironic it seemed to me, walking along the Hudson River and seeing another state, New Jersey, right across the water, close enough to swim to.

New York City was a revelation to me. Being surrounded in close proximity by so many people from all around the world, made international travel seem more feasible to me. One of my friends in the NYU dorm was an Italian student from Rome. After graduation, he invited me to visit him there, and stay in his apartment on Piazza San Cosimato, in Trastevere. I took him up on the offer, waited on tables in Rockefeller Center, saved the money, and went.

I won’t go on and on writing about Rome. I’ll save that for another time. But let me just say what a perfect choice the Eternal City was for my first trip to a foreign country. I’m still in awe, 16 years later. In that trip I also visited Florence and Pisa, but it is Rome that impacted me in a way I will never overcome. It made me realize, on my first day, upon my first Vespa ride around the city, that traveling abroad was not so implausible a thing to do (as many Americans must feel , when you think of how few of us have a passport).

After Italy, I went to England and Ireland the following year, followed by Spain and Portugal the year after that, and so on and so forth, to the point where now I have visited over 20 countries and probably over 100 cities; I’ve lost count. All I know is that, upon looking back on my adult life, I see many ways in that my life has been a big disappointment, with major shortcomings on a personal level and on a professional level. I’m not where I want to be in life, but I’m very pleased and even proud of where I’ve been. The traveling that I’ve done is the one aspect of my life that I think I have done right, the one part that I wouldn’t change a bit. My travels have enriched me immeasurably. I’m so grateful, grateful for the blessing of having been able to travel.

And one last thing: can we just change the word, “Travel”? Because traveling in itself sucks! I mean the actual getting to the destination. It is, after all, the bulk of the travel in “Travel.” I’ve grown to dread airports… getting to them, stressing about getting to them early enough, the lines, the security, taking off your shoes…. And now, thanks to the Christmas Day “Fruit of the Boom bomber”, we may have to start wearing our underwear on the outside of our clothes when flying. The leg room seems to diminish on a monthly basis, the food and drink they serve you more Spartan. It just sucks.

We don’t really travel on titanic, trans-Atlantic ocean liners anymore, making a leisurely, stress-free crossing. We fly, and flying with every year becomes more and severe. If we are not flying, we are driving. I don’t like driving any distance longer than a few miles. If we are not flying or driving, we’re on a bus. Unless it’s a luxury bus, the trip is not pleasant. If we are not flying or driving or sitting on a bus, we are sitting on a train. Trains are nice and comfy and fast and efficient in Europe and Asia, but everywhere else, they have a tendency to be, well, maddening. But even when it is a sleek, fast train, you still have handle your luggage, wait in line, catch the train…

I am not whiner. I gladly and thankfully go through the travel so that I can get to the destination. THAT’S the word. Destination. I think “Travel” should be changed to “Destination.” That’s what travel is really all about, isn’t it? The destination.

That’s what I was thinking the last time that I was at The Traveler’s Bookcase.

The Traveler’s Bookcase is my favorite bookshop in L.A., where I currently live. It’s part of an endangered species: the mom ‘n pop bookshop, where the owners are hands-on, and know all their books. That little shop is stuffed with books about travel, but the last time I was there, I thought to myself that the books there really aren’t about travel. They’re about destination. Books on China, Laos, Argentina, Colombia, Mali, Botswana, Estonia, Spain, Russia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, India, Sri Lanka, Australia… these are all destinations.

Who enjoys reading about how to get from the Incheon airport to the center of downtown Seoul? That’s travel. It’s Seoul that I enjoy reading about, its architecture, its arts scene, its restaurants, its nightlife, its customs, not the logistics of traveling there. Logistics of travel? That’s necessary reading. Korean culture? That’s pleasure reading.

The Traveler’s Bookcase should be renamed, “The Destination Bookcase,” but the owners will probably be smart and not take my advice. It’s likely just me who thinks this way. And I do because I’m really not a traveler. I’m a destinationer.