culture – Page 5 – Life In A Word

Minuscule Marvels

For Christmas this year I’m putting a small ornament into my wife’s stocking. It’s a miniature of… well… let’s just leave it at “a miniature” in case she reads this post. But I know she’ll love this ornament and promptly hang it on our tree for the remainder of the season. Why will she love it? Because it’ll spark fond, romantic memories. But she’ll also love this ornament because she can’t help loving something that’s a little, well, little.

One of my bucket list items – still to be fulfilled – is a trip to the south of France for a taste of those wonderful wines created from Burgundy or Bordeaux grapes. Maybe you hope to make the same trip some day so I’ll let you in on a little secret. If your trip only allows a visit to Paris, you can still visit a vineyard… right in the middle of the city. Most people visit the neighborhood of Montmartre to see the Sacre Coeur cathedral but most don’t know about the tiny vineyard just steps away. Clos Montmarte produces wine on a single acre, from 2,000 vines forging a connection to the long-ago rural times of the region. Compare an acre to the wineries in Bordeaux, with vines covering an average of fifty times that much property.

Harvesting the grapes at little Clos Montmartre

Clos Montmarte wines probably aren’t award-winning. Who knows if I’d even care for the taste of their reds or rosés. But does it really matter? I love the thought of a teeny-tiny field of grapes right in the middle of Paris. I love how the grapes are harvested by locals and transported to the cellars of the nearby Town Hall to be pressed and turned into wine. The whole operation is appealing to me because it’s quaint and because it’s small.

This affection for itty-bitty things must hearken back to our childhoods. Who among us didn’t spend countless hours of playtime with (take your pick) little dolls, little cars, little houses, or scaled-down trains? When we played at the beach we built little castles. When we played in creeks we made little boats out of sticks or leaves and watched them flow with the water. Tea parties meant tiny cups and plates on tiny tables.

In today’s world the toys might be different but the attraction to small things remains. It fascinates me to watch my (little) granddaughter choose her favorite toy from among dozens: a set of ten two-inch high Sesame Street characters. She stands them up all over the house. She hides them and then finds them. She always seems to have one or two in her hands. Even though my granddaughter doesn’t speak in complete sentences yet, she probably has complete thoughts as she considers tiny Big Bird. You are a lot smaller than me and that’s why I like you so much.

If you include Japanese toymaker MegaHouse in this year’s Christmas purchases, maybe you’ll go for their world’s smallest operational Rubik’s cube. You can’t get one until next April, but picture this: the minuscule marvel is one 1,000th of the size of the original. Pull out your metric measure to confirm it; a single face of the wee cube measures only 5mm from side to side. Best throw a pair of tweezers into the Christmas stocking along with the cube. There’s no way you’ll be able to rotate the Rubik’s colors with fingers alone.

Would I want the world’s smallest operational Rubik’s cube, you ask? Heck yeah! Consider, the faces of a traditional Rubik’s cube contain a 9×9 grid. Then someone went and created a miniature Rubik’s cube with 2×2 grids. I thought, how very cute. I just had to have one so my original would have a little buddy. My cubes are hanging out together on my home office shelf as we speak. And they’re asking for an even littler buddy for Christmas.

So let’s summarize the pint-sized products we’ve covered today. I already have the ornament for my wife in-hand (soon to be in-stocking). I won’t put a bow on a bottle of Montmartre wine this year because I want the chance to see the tiny Paris winery for myself first. And you probably thought I sprung for one of MegaHouse’s pee-wee Rubik’s cubes (and a pair of tweezers). Sadly, no. I don’t have the $5,300 it costs to buy one (minuscule marvels aren’t cheap!) Thankfully, my wife will be happy with an adorable little ornament for $15 instead.

Some content sourced from the CNN Travel article, “The secret vineyard in the middle of Paris…”, and the CNN Style article, “This is the world’s smallest Rubik’s cube…”

Let Freedom Ring

In an Election Week – especially one as consequential as this year’s – it’s only fitting I can’t seem to focus on blogging. After all, my country and its prospective leaders demand (and deserve) my undivided attention. Any topic I choose to write about here pales in comparison.

So I urge you to do the same. Set aside the blogs you read or write, if only for a little while. Watch tonight’s tallies, accept tomorrow’s outcomes, and pray for peace and continued prosperity. As the patriotic “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” reminds us, we live in a sweet land of liberty.

Let freedom ring.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Flop O’ the Mornin’

Parked prominently within my wife’s impressive collection of teas are colorful boxes of English Breakfast and Irish Breakfast. The first is described as “expertly blended… a smooth classic” (strength: 4 tea leaves) while the second is “brilliantly blended… bold & robust” (3 tea leaves). Maybe those descriptions are right on the money but I’m a coffee drinker so what do I know? What do I know? I know I’d never let English breakfast or Irish breakfast anywhere near my dining table.

Sorry to disappoint but we’re not talking about tea at all today. Instead, we’re talking about the food that goes with the tea. Or rather, the food that should go with the tea. In my world, the sanctity of breakfast is second only to the cornucopia of the Thanksgiving meal. There’s a certain well-defined menu of dishes that screams BREAKFAST!!! and nobody in the Western Hemisphere (or at least, in the New World) would disagree. Even so, I must acknowledge the “illegal aliens”; the dishes that try to crash the morning party when they really belong on the lunch or dinner table. Or in the trash. Or at least on the other side of the Atlantic.

In its various forms, the full English breakfast starts out promising. You’ll find eggs, bacon, and sausage almost without fail; even hash browns on occasion. But the plate shatters after that. You have a tomato, cut in half, fried, and doused with salt and pepper. You have baked beans in tomato sauce (which aren’t even sweet the way Americans think of VanCamp’s or Bush’s). Finally, you have the horror known as black pudding, which can only be described through the hyperlink above instead of the words of this post, for fear I’ll lose my lunch – er, breakfast.

Unlike the teas, the full Irish breakfast is virtually identical to the full English, with the singular exception of white sausage instead of black. Again, the definition will remain behind hyperlinked for the sake of a clean keyboard. I was in Dublin on business years ago and took the “try anything once” approach with white pudding. Bad, bad, very bad decision.

White pudding (not for the faint of stomach)

If I were born in England or Ireland I probably wouldn’t rain on the breakfast parade on the other side of the pond. But here’s the thing: even if you like a savory tomato or “pudding” for breakfast, the entire plate is greasier than the wheel bearings in your car. There’s not even anything to mop up said grease (like the slices of dry toast we Americans prefer). I can’t imagine having much pep in my step after a weighty meal like this.

Denny’s is very helpful to reestablish breakfast order. If you walk into one of their restaurants and order the “Build Your Own Grand Slam”, you can construct your plate from four of the following: Eggs (7 different ways), pancakes (9 different), bacon (2), sausage, potatoes (3), toast (countless), muffin, biscuit, ham slice, or seasonal fruit. With all those combos you could eat breakfast at Denny’s every day of the year and no version would be the same as another. But more to the point, Denny’s offers breakfast items decidedly “All American”. Add in waffles, hot/cold cereal, baked goods, and hash browns, and you’re looking at everything deserving of the list.

American breakfast menus do include a few trendy alternatives these days (even at Denny’s). You can keep it simple with a fruit smoothie, breakfast sandwich, or avocado toast. These all-in-ones strike me more like convenience foods than full breakfasts. Yes, you paint yourself a little healthier just for ordering them. But let’s hang in there a few generations and see if they still show up on breakfast menus. More likely they’ll just be memories the way porridge or salted meats have become breakfast history.

For the record, my wife’s English and Irish tea boxes sit largely untouched, except for the few bags she’s brewed. They’re untouched for good reason. Just the words on the box have me thinking of tomatoes, baked beans, and pudding. Someone bring me a blueberry waffle stat.

Some content sourced from the CNN Travel article, “The Full English: How a greasy feast came to define and divide a nation”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Apple Pie meets Maple Syrup

On a visit to Detroit with my brothers last weekend, I was surprised to discover just how close the city streets are to the edge of the United States. Walk out of Detroit’s downtown Renaissance Center through the south doors (yes, I did just say “south”), cross Atwater Street, and you’ll find yourself standing on the edge of the Detroit River staring at Canada on the other shore. Almost has you thinking in metric, “eh?”

Here’s something I probably learned in middle school and promptly forgot: the border between Canada and the U.S. runs right through the middle of Lake Erie (and the Detroit River). It’s as if Americans and Canucks had a long drawn-out discussion about who deserved the lake more, and then clinked glasses of Budweiser and Molson with, “Okay, you get half and we get half”. The same thing happened with three of the other four Great Lakes (America somehow got all of Lake Michigan) and that’s why – at least in Detroit – Canada lies to the south.

Not that you’d know it’s Canada, mind you. Aside from the giant red and white flag billowing on the far shore, the streets, buildings, cars; everything looks exactly the same as America. You might as well be looking at Saint Paul from Minneapolis. And Windsor (the Canadian town you see) is so close you might as well swim for it. The Detroit River is only a mile wide at this juncture. I kind of wondered what would happen if I did swim for it. Would a flurry of border patrol boats appear out of nowhere to haul me in?

Instead, my brothers and I kept it legal and drove across the Ambassador Bridge (there’s the Detroit-Windsor tunnel if you prefer). It felt a little strange to hand over passports just to go to dinner. And once we sat down at our Windsor table we were greeted with a hearty “Happy Thanksgiving!” Thanksgiving? Had we gone through some sort of time warp? Oh, right – Canada celebrates Thanksgiving in October.

Naturally we asked our server how Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving. She thought about it for a moment and said, in her wonderful Inland North accent, “Oh, y’know, we gather with our families and have the meal.” That’s it? Not even an embarrassingly-large, dozens-of-dishes, eat-’til-you-burst meal? Just food with family? But in fact, Canadian Thanksgiving is pretty much the same as “down south”. Explorers crossed the ocean, landed safely in the New World, established a settlement, held a feast of thanks, blah-blah-blah.

Pumpkins make sense for Canadian Thanksgiving

Despite our server’s succinct description, the Canadian Thanksgiving meal includes most of the dishes we enjoy on this side of the Detroit River (including turkey). Canucks also celebrate with parades, Oktoberfests, and other festivals. There’s even a “Thanksgiving Classic” courtesy of the Canadian Football League. Makes me wonder if the Detroit Lions somehow found a way to play that football game along with every (U.S.) Thanksgiving Day game since 1934.

As we crossed back over the bridge after dinner, two thoughts entered my mind. One, the waterfront houses on the Canadian side of the Detroit River have a view of the United States all day long instead of seeing their own country. That seems a little odd. And two, I wondered whether goods and services in Windsor (or beyond) would be worth leaving the U.S. for, instead of just purchasing the same in Detroit. You’d have to pay the bridge/tunnel toll both ways for a little Canadian Bacon (or backbacon), which might compromise the benefit. You’d most certainly run out of pages for the stamps on your passport.

Earlier I said something about “almost” thinking in metric. No, you really do have to think in metric in Canada. As soon as we crossed over the Detroit River, our car’s GPS changed directions into kilometers (clicks) and meters. Suddenly the next turn was “100 meters” away instead of “300 feet”. Believe me, it’s a little disorienting watching the meters count down (slower) than the feet you expect. After several bottles of wine at dinner (liters?), at least we could still navigate back to the bridge. Otherwise this post might be coming to you from “up north”.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Tricks of the Trader

Our town, like so many others, offers the choice of grocery shopping at a national-brand market or at one with a more local vibe. We spend our dollars at Publix (1,300 stores across eight Southeastern states) but also splurge at The Fresh Market (161 stores) when we’re after something a little more unique. Having said that, our town lacks another popular market and it begs the question: What is the appeal of Trader Joe’s?

This post was originally headed in a different direction. Trader Joe’s made the headlines because of its popular cloth “mini-tote” bags; so popular they were reselling on eBay for $500. That led me to think, America has an obsession with miniatures and let’s make that today’s topic. But no, I can’t get Trader Joe’s itself out of my mind, so let’s walk through their aisles for a few minutes.

The cloth bags are a great place to start. Did you know Trader Joe’s was the first grocer to offer reusable shopping bags, beginning in 1977? The trend didn’t catch on with other stores for another fifteen years. Even better, “TJ’s” encourages use by refunding you $0.05 per bag or entry into a weekly raffle for a $25 gift card.

The above paragraph was brought to you by the food-and-drink enthusiast website Tasting Table. Their 25 Facts About Trader Joe’s… is a convincing sell, maybe getting you to dash over to your nearest TJ’s for a look inside. But a company’s commitment to sustainability isn’t enough to draw me in over and over. There must be something else at play.

Maybe it’s more about TJ’s “revolving door of new products”. They frequently discontinue one product in favor of another, so what you find on the shelves is constantly changing. They limit certain items to seasons (right now you’ll find pumpkin-spice everything). And their product line is impressively diverse for a medium-sized grocery store, which probably attracts more than your run-of-the-mill shopper.

I suppose you could make the same argument for a restaurant. Shaking up the menu is a good idea every now and then (hence “specials”). Leave the core set of entrees alone but occasionally introduce new ones to see if they’ll take. Yet it’s not a perfect analogy for Trader Joe’s. My impression is, nothing on TJ’s shelves is safe for the long haul because all products are under constant scrutiny.

How about “affordable prices”? Here’s where I take my hat off to TJ’s. The advertised price of a given product at Trader Joe’s is the one-and-only price. No discounts, coupons, gift card offers, special promotions, or even online ordering to cloud the cost to the consumer. And since 80% of what TJ’s sells can only be purchased at their stores, price-shopping the competition is a waste of time.

TJ’s probably draws in young families because the shopping experience is fun. The nautical theme is apparent in its decor, as well as on its “crew member” uniforms. A stuffed animal hides somewhere in the store – find it and win a prize. And a bell rings (again, the nautical thing) to alert employees to open new check-out lines or answer customer questions. I like that approach a whole lot more than simply announcing the need over a loudspeaker.

You can try a lot of things at Trader Joe’s (Costco on steroids?), you can call the store ahead of time to reserve popular items, and you can usually get a refund on anything you regret buying (regardless of reason, proof of purchase, or the amount of the product you’ve consumed). What I highlight in italics here is impressive for a grocery store yes, but it still doesn’t make me a return customer.

At the end of the day (or a list of “25 Facts…”) I go to a grocery store because it carries the items I need. To put it another way, I am brand-loyal and fairly routine in what I buy. Perhaps that is the genius of Trader Joe’s. It draws people in again and again because, well, they want to be more creative in the kitchen. Try out new things. Emerge from the doldrums of the same thing on their plates every other week. And who can argue with variety as the spice of life?

Maybe, collectively, 25 facts explain Trader Joe’s success. Or maybe someone from out West will chime in and solve the mystery. After all, California was the birthplace of Trader Joe’s (Pasadena), and the number of stores in the state has ballooned to over 200. There should be plenty of TJ’s experts out there to explain what the fuss – er, repeat business is all about. Then, just then, I might get into my car to drive the hour and change it’ll take me to get to my nearest location.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Hack Attack

Imagine a plain brown box showing up at your front door with no indication of who or where it came from. The box is topped by a small white envelope with a card inside. In elegant script the card reads: Scan the QR code to see who sent you this gift! So you scan it. Congratulations – you’ve just given scammers access to everything on your smartphone.

I wish this story was a work of fiction but some day soon it could be coming to a doorstep near you. The gift box scam worked on my son’s friend and frankly I can’t say that it wouldn’t have worked on me. If someone sent you a gift and they wanted it to be a surprise, would the situation look much different than what I just described? Would you scan the QR code?

I can’t explain how the simple scan of a QR code translates to the hack of a smartphone, but technology far outpaces my understanding of its capabilities these days. My first reaction to this story was to check my phone apps to make sure any “data-sensitive” ones were password-protected. My next reaction was to wonder if I could ever trust a QR code again.

Here’s a second bit on hacking, also passed along by my son. He said scammers now prey on public parking lots. Many of these lots use pay-by-app technology and the app can be downloaded onsite by scanning a QR code. Scammers simply place their own sticker over the one you’re supposed to scan and presto! – you’ve unknowingly given some level of data access to thieves. It reminds me of gas station scams where the pump credit card reader is retrofitted with a device capable of collecting your card’s data.

By comparison email and text scams now seem pedestrian, but boy-howdy they keep trying don’t they? I got one just last week claiming I have a “USPS parcel being cleared, but the parcel is temporarily detained due to an invalid zip code”… and I’m supposed to click on a link so I can correct the zip code. These phishing messages are so common they’ve become easy to spot, whether from the broken English or from the bizarre originating email address. Phishing reminds me of those long-ago Nigerian princes who sought our help in exchange for “large sums of money”.

At least I’m not a head-over-heels fan of Brad Pitt. Last month two women were scammed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by five people in Spain, posing collectively as the actor in an online conversation. The fraudsters were arrested, but you have to wonder about the naivety of people these days. Do you really believe Brad Pitt would contact you to invest in one or two of his projects? More importantly, would you invest this kind of money with anyone without meeting them in person first?

All of this hack-yacking brings to mind the 1970s counterculture bestseller Steal This Book. From the title you’d expect to read about tricks of the hacking trade but it was a different topic entirely. Steal This Book gave step-by-step instructions on how the average American could get free services and products courtesy of the federal government’s welfare programs. The book was intended as a sort of protest against the powers-that-be, written by a well-known activist of the time.

[Side note: Steal This Book also explained how to create (underground) radio broadcasting and printing presses, start (non-violent) demonstrations, and make bombs with household materials. You can still buy the book but I’m guessing the section on bombs has been removed. And don’t ask me how many copies of the book were actually stolen.]

The FBI’s website lists eighteen categories of common frauds and scams. The examples I shared above fall under just one of these categories: “skimming”. Some of the other categories are even more disheartening, like “holiday”, “elder”, or “romance”. Collectively it’s a sad statement about the world we have to deal with. So be skeptical, I tell you. That unexpected gift at your front door is probably not a gift at all. That QR code may create a connection you don’t want. And “Brad Pitt”? He has no interest in doing business with you. He only wants your money.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Dental Essential

When I filled a prescription at my supermarket’s pharmacy recently, the line of customers snaked down an aisle of toiletries. I surfed on my phone for a few minutes as I waited but eventually took note of the products on display around me. To the right, endless shampoos, conditioners, sprays, and other hair care items. To the left, nothing but rows and rows of toothpaste.

If you’re a Millennial or older, I’ll bet you’ve brushed a time or two with Crest or Colgate. Both products have dominated the toothpaste market since their humble beginnings in the 1950s. I was raised on Crest and saw no reason to change brands as a young adult. But these days, like most anything I put into my mouth I’m a little more selective.

The shelves of toothpaste in my supermarket caught my attention for two reasons. First, the options from a single manufacturer these days are daunting. Crest may have only eight product lines (like “Gum Health” or “Kids”) but that translates to a total of fifty-seven unique tubes of paste. Wow. So you’re telling me you’d know which one would be perfect for you?

My second observation: there are surprisingly few players in the game for a product each of us uses at least twice a day. Crest and Colgate dominate the shelf space; I’d put the number at 85%. The other 15% – at least in my supermarket – goes to products from Sensodyne and Arm & Hammer. Sensodyne targets those of you with sensitive teeth. Arm & Hammer promotes, naturally, the perceived benefits of baking soda.

The truth is, there are dozens of toothpastes besides Crest and Colgate. Just think of it like a chessboard: you have the two kings and then you have the rest of the pieces. Those pieces include a few that make me nostalgic. For a short time I had a “brush” with Pepsodent; its unique taste flavored with sassafras. My dentist’s recommendations during my cavity-prone years included Mentadent and Aim (neither of which took hold). And honorable mention goes to Pearl Drops, which I never tried but was the first product to add sex appeal to brushing your teeth.

I don’t know anyone who uses Pepsodent or Pearl Drops anymore, but I also think Crest and Colgate are finally getting serious challengers. Today’s generation (and those behind it) is more enlightened. In fact, my own choice for my toothbrush – Earthpaste – has to be purchased at a specialty store or online.

I’ve talked about Earthpaste before, in Polishing the Pearls. That post was more about the ingredients in toothpaste than the products themselves. But ingredients certainly matter. Crest contains between fifteen and twenty (and some are better left in a science lab). Earthpaste contains just five, including bentonite clay, salt, and essential oils. I have no problem putting any of those in my mouth, including the “dirt” of bentonite clay.

The truth is, if you can stand the bitter taste you can just brush with baking soda. It’s a short list of ingredient that actually benefit your dental hygiene. And for me, the habits I’ve locked in besides brushing far outweigh the importance of which toothpaste I choose. Daily flossing (at night). Oral rinses. Toothpicks for my close-together teeth. Recent trips to the dentist would suggest I’ve got a good regimen going.

As for you Gen X, Y, Z and especially Alpha members, there’s a palpable point to this post. 99% of humans will continue to brush with toothpaste. Crest and Colgate still dominate the market seventy-odd years after their debuts (at least in America). It seems to me there’s room for another low-ingredient high-health product like Earthpaste. I’d fire up that home chemistry lab before someone else beats you to it. There’s potential prodigious profit in the production of paste!

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

It’s (Not) Just a House

Let’s agree to disagree today (one of my favorite catchphrases). You see things one way while I see them another. Perspective, angle, viewpoint – choose your word – we all come to our conclusions on different roads. Which is ironic, because four of us came to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater on the same road three weeks ago.

I blogged about Fallingwater in Perfect Harmony a couple of years ago. The post was meant to be a primer on what makes the house an iconic work of American architecture. At the time I was also building LEGO’s version, which is as close as I thought I’d ever get to the real thing. Today I can say I’ve checked an up close and personal visit off my bucket list.

Fair warning: there’s no convenient route to travel to Fallingwater, which shouldn’t surprise you about a house hidden in the forest. You’ll drive ninety minutes southeast of Pittsburgh on two-lane roads, some in desperate need of repair. And watch carefully for the driveway entry; it kind of pops up out of nowhere.

You won’t get to see Fallingwater without booking a reservation beforehand. Despite my dismay in last week’s post about required reservations in Rome they make a ton of sense with Fallingwater. It’s a small house after all, so it’d be overwhelming if visitors just showed up and walked in. We took the final tour on a Saturday and our guide said 600 others had already been through the house earlier in the day.

Thanks to the resources of the Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy (which is still buying up property around Fallingwater), the experience begins before you ever see the house itself. The driveway wanders past a guard house to a modest parking lot. From there you walk to a beautiful Visitors Center nestled in the trees. A central outdoor seating area is surrounded by a small museum of Wright’s work, a cafe, and a gift shop that offers much more than shirts and postcards. Frankly, the Visitors Center is a nice little work of architecture all by itself.

The walk to the house begins down a kind of woodsy nature trail, so you can see the rocks, trees, and other materials used to construct Fallingwater in their native forms. What impressed me most about the tour is how you never see the house until you’re practically at its front door, making for a dramatic reveal. Your walk descends through the canyon of Bear Run (the river over which Fallingwater is perched) until the house’s signature cantilevered forms emerge from the dense forest.

As I described it in Perfect Harmony, Fallingwater looks like it was “constructed entirely offsite and dropped gently within the forest by pushing aside a few tree branches”. After seeing the house in person, I wouldn’t change a word of that statement. The design is a marvel, not only in how the indoor/outdoor spaces integrate with their natural surroundings, but also in how it was built as if floating over the waterfall below.

Enough with the fawning over Fallingwater, am I right? After the four of us took the tour we had a chance to process what we’d seen, and my wife’s and brother’s reactions were clear: it’s just a house. It’s not even a nice house, with its low ceilings, dark spaces, and anything-but-cozy use of rock, concrete, and glass. Fallingwater is hard to get to, and it’s in the middle of nowhere. And with its hundredth birthday not far off, everything about the house has a decidedly dated feel.

I did my best to explain why I love Fallingwater. My sister-in-law, who appreciates everything about the arts, understood the significance of the house. She “got” what Frank Lloyd Wright was conveying in the design, and allowed the sacrifice of comfortable living for the sake of the indoor-outdoor interplay. She probably took in the house the way she would a painting at the Louvre. My wife and my brother, not so much. For them the ninety minute tour was probably sixty minutes too long.

Fallingwater promotes the thought: “one person’s junk is another’s treasure”. My treasure is architecture (so much so I studied it in college). Yours is probably something entirely different. It fascinates me how my brother spent years and years of research, consulting, and money to restore a 1960s vintage Ferrari in his back garage. To me, cars get you from Point A to Point B; a mere convenience. My brother could spend hours explaining why his Ferrari goes worlds beyond that statement.

Still lingering on my bucket list is a visit to Paris, where among the city’s many wonders stands the Eiffel Tower. I want to see this engineering/architectural masterpiece from far and near, and of course, ascend it’s many levels to fully experience the structure itself. For now however, I’ll have to settle for building LEGO’s version. As with Fallingwater, we can all agree to disagree. The Eiffel is (not) just a tower.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Too Many Roads Lead to Rome

I’ve wanted to take my wife to Italy pretty much since the day we met. After a memorable college year in Rome in the 1980s I knew I’d go back one day, especially since I tossed a few coins into the famous Trevi Fountain before I left. Today however, I sit wondering if I really will set foot in the Eternal City again. Thanks to overwhelming numbers of tourists, Rome might as well put a “sold out” sign on its city gates. Blame it on the Catholics?

2025, less than four months from now, is a Jubilee Year for the Catholic Church. Maybe your idea of a jubilee is a celebration, much like Britain’s in 2022 when they honored Queen Elizabeth’s unprecedented seventy years of service to the Crown. Not so the Catholics. They define a jubilee – every 25 or 50 years – as a “marked opportunity for the remission of sins, debts, and of universal pardon”.

Catholic jubilees traditionally include a pilgrimage to Rome. I’d love to know who runs the calculations (and how) but the forecast for next year in Rome has Catholic pilgrims at around 32 million… in addition to the 50 million tourists who normally pass through. To put that total in perspective, the population of Rome is only 3 million. That’s a whole lot of extra pepperoni on the pizza (or piazza, if you will).

[Side note: 1983, the year I lived in Rome, was an out-of-cycle Catholic jubilee known as the Holy Year of the Redemption. Do I remember millions of Catholics “roaming” through the city streets? I do not. Then again I’m a Methodist, so maybe I have an excuse for missing the obvious…]

You call this a crowd? Just wait ’til 2025.

Thanks to next year’s jubilee, officials are clamping down on a visitor’s ability to see or tour the city’s most famous attractions. The Fontana di Trevi is a good example of how things will change. In the 1980s I could stand in front of the Baroque fountain to my heart’s content. In 2025 I will need a ticket through a reservation system. That ticket gets me entry through one side of the piazza and exit through the other, at a specific time and for a specific (amount of) time. Hired “stewards and hostesses” make sure I don’t linger, and collect a 2-euro fee for the experience.

If I really wanted to be herded like sheep I’d join a flock on the green, green grass of Ireland, instead of paying for the privilege in Rome. And speaking of paying, the Trevi already collects over $1.5M in coins voluntary thrown into its waters (the money then donated to local charities). Add in the new 2-euro fee, and even if just 10% of next year’s visitors make it to the Trevi, Rome will nab an additional $18M. Jubilee indeed.

If I sound jaded about Rome’s forced hand, it’s only because I have the perspective of a time when everything seemed so much easier. In the 1980s I could wander through St. Peter’s Square without photo-bombing dozens of iPhones. I could also wander without encountering a random protest about a religious war or climate change. I still remember plunking down on the cobblestones of that grand piazza to paint a watercolor of the Basilica, and nobody bothered me. I also remember Frisbee with a fellow student in another piazza, while the local Italians watched the spinning disc in wonder. Innocent times indeed.

In 2024, a guided tour of the Vatican (the only way to see it) – including the sublime Sistine Chapel – will set you back $50. A tour of the Colosseum and Roman Forum will cost you twice that much. I’m sure next year’s pilgrims will pay these fees without blinking a sin-forgiven eye. I just can’t get past my free-and-easy days as an architecture student, when each of the city’s wonders was as wide open and come-on-in accessible as you can imagine.

The truth is I’d go back to Rome in a heartbeat, even if I knew untold millions of pilgrims would be standing alongside me. The Eternal City is worth the look even if you never step inside any of its buildings. On the other hand, if I’m patient and wait until 2032, it’ll be the 50th anniversary of my college year. That calls for a jubilee! I’ll be the only pilgrim of course (er, two of us counting my wife) but at least we’ll have no hassles dropping coins into the Trevi.

Some content sourced from the Skift Newsletter article, “Rome Tourism Chief Says There’s ‘Total Chaos’ at Trevi Fountain…”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Following the Leader

Technology birthed the self-guided tour. More and more often, an admission ticket to sights worth seeing grants you a pair of headphones and a wearable device instead of a name-tagged human to show-and-tell you the way. Self-guided touring allows for a more convenient and less distracted experience. But it also removes the storyteller, and that, my friends, makes all the difference between a memorable tour and a forgettable one.

Viking River Cruises, one of which we completed on the Danube River in early June (see Going With the Flow), provide a plethora of tour guide experiences. On any given day of the cruise, you disembark to one or two “land-based” locales, in the (sometimes) capable hands of a personal tour guide. Viking contracts with local agencies to provide these guides for small groups of its travelers. For example, having a Hungarian show you the sights of downtown Budapest is so much more satisfying than hearing someone drone on about it on a headset. Sharing a beer with a German on a tasting tour is almost like being invited into his house.

If I ask you to share one of your own memories involving a tour guide, you’ll probably recall a particularly good one. Maybe you’ll even remember a bad one. Regardless, your stories would support my theory: a top-notch guide can make the what or the where of the tour almost irrelevant. The guide himself or herself can make the difference between a memorable experience and a forgettable one.

Consider, I still remember a tour of a southern plantation with my family from almost fifty years ago. Why? Because the tour guide presented herself in a way that made me think we were being welcomed into her own house. She also had this soft, syrupy unforgettable Southern accent that had me hanging on her every word. Do I remember anything about the plantation? No, but I sure remember the tour guide.

So it was on the Viking cruise. We had good guides and we had outstanding ones. The very best of the dozen or so – ironically – was a young woman working on contract with Viking for the first time, as a stand-in for our scheduled guide in Munich. She was, in every respect, delightful. She started our tour with a greeting and a smile, then a little conversation and questions to break the ice. As she led us from one sight to another, she spoke with an energy and pride in her city that can only be described as vivacious. By the end of the tour, as the saying goes, she had us feeding out of her hand. I was so enthralled I forgot to take a picture of her.

But we also had a lesser guide a few days earlier in Vienna, who I’d describe as a speed-walking encyclopedia. He led us on a many-thousand-steps rush through the sights, filling our heads with facts and figure as he went, in a pretty thick Austrian accent. He never smiled and I don’t think we ever stopped walking. Can’t remember much about that tour (or him for that matter) because it was a rush-rush blurry overload of the senses. I need to go back to Vienna again someday so I can (literally) stop and smell their famous roses.

Courtesy of Viking and those many tours near the Danube, I present to you, therefore, the attributes of the consummate tour guide:

A local, familiar with the city or sight at hand through regular exposure.
A personality; warm, friendly, energetic, and engaging.
An overflowing font of knowledge on his/her subject, able to answer just about any question thrown their way.
A storyteller, able to weave anecdotes at will into the facts and figures to keep it interesting.
In tune with his/her audience, making adjustments to the tour as necessary (ex. “Am I going too fast for you?”)

If you take enough sightseeing tours, you’ll know whether your guide is missing one or more of the above within the first five minutes. You’ll also know whether the next hour or two will fly by or drag on for all eternity. If your guide checks all five boxes, consider yourself lucky. Most of us aren’t cut out for the job (myself included), whether we like to think we are or not. It takes a special set of skills to be the leader everybody wants to follow.