The Voyage of Macgellan

Musing: Crossing The 180-Meridian

During the morning of our second day crossing the Pacific, I had a random thought that we might be approaching the meridian so I went up to the bridge to take a look a the navigation computer. Sure enough, I was there just in time to watch the GPS longitude number reach 179.99 East then tick over to 179.99 West and start working its way down. Strictly speaking, this "crossing the line" simply meant that the longitude numbers for my Google map which had gotten more or less consistently higher would now start getting more or less consistently lower. No big deal. From a sort of metaphysical perspective, though, crossing the 180-meridian felt somewhat more significant.

First of all -- looking back -- I realize that I didn't pay any attention at all to the times I crossed the zero degree meridian. I think that was mostly because it always happened in the ordinary course of daily events and (almost) always on land. Specifically, I crossed the zero-meridian on the overnight train from Cadiz to Barcelona, driving from Toulouse to Bordeaux, driving from Bayeux to Blois, on the train from Paris to London and on the ferry from Newcastle to Amsterdam. Call me crazy, but there's a big difference in my mind between those circumstances and being on a freighter in the middle of the Pacific Ocean crossing the 180-meridian. The vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean is a significant divider of the earth's geography, and it is a significant divider of the world in my brain.

A second aspect of crossing the 180-meridian is that it got me thinking about how far I have traveled in a different way. I've never -- yet -- tried to calculate how many miles I have traveled on The Voyage, mostly because it seems to be an impossible task. Even if I could figure out how to calculate the distance between pins on my Google map, that would only be "as the crow flies" and would not take into account any of the many, many twists and turns, let alone all of the side-trips, etc., for which there are no pins. (Note: For those of you who really know me, yes, I am now thinking about how I might calculate the distance... But I digress!)

One way I have "sort of" tracked how far I have travelled has been by the progress of my passage through time zones. At the moment I am 20 hours ahead of where I started, but although the "time zone thing" has been a constant reminder that I have traveled far from where began in time it has given me little sense of how far I have travelled in space. Upon crossing the 180-meridian I suddenly became aware that I am now more than 300 degrees of longitude from where I started, and that means I am now 85% of the way through my circumnavigation. I can't really explain it, but being "20 hours ahead" doesn't have nearly the significance for me that being "85% of the way" does. Again, you are always welcome to call me crazy.

Perhaps an even more interesting aspect of crossing the 180-meridian, though, is that it coincides with crossing the international date line. Although I have flown across the date line many times in the past, I never really paid much attention to it, mainly -- I think -- because it was always just an extension of the time-zone thing. Sure, you "lose" a day going west, but you "gain" it back when you fly home. No matter how many times you do it, you always wind up back where you started. Your "home" clock and calendar never changed, you just "went away" for a while.

This feels different to me, and in objective reality it is: In this crossing, I will "gain" a day that I never "lost." In fact, by the time I complete The Voyage I will be one full day out of sync with the earth's rotations in my lifetime, and physically one day older than my calendar age. This result has occurred to me from time to time since I first considered The Voyage, as evidenced by this Wikipedia quote I've had in my file for a very long time:

"The first date-line problem occurred in association with Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe. The surviving crew returned to a Spanish stopover sure of the day of the week, as attested by various carefully maintinaed sailing logs. Nevertheless, those on land insisted the day was different. Although now readily understandable, this phenomenon caused great excitement at the time, to the extent that a special delegation was sent to the Pope to explain this oddity to him."

Well, I can tell you there's a big difference between have it explained to you and actually experiencing it.

I happily mused about this during the morning, and at lunch asked the First Officer when we would be putting the calendar back a day. He looked at me like I was an idiot and said in priceless Romanian-English, "We are already on yesterday. You may come back whenever you wish." His point, of course, was that it really doesn't matter what day it is onboard ship because they are pretty much all the same. I figure I might as well keep up to date, so I have decided to make tomorrow today again.

In my entire life, I never thought I would write a sentence ike that last one. Just another mind expanding experience on The Voyage of Macgellan.

Musing: Computer Search

I was awakened this morning in the Port of Auckland by some pretty loud knocking on my cabin door. I rolled out of bed to answer it and was confronted by two very large men in blue uniforms who announced themselves simply as "Customs" then invited themselves into my cabin. As one of them proceeded to look in every drawer, closet and potential hiding space, the other sat down on my couch and opened up my Mac.

I am not the quickest at waking up, but seeing a stranger molest my beloved Mac got me revved up fast. I ignored the guy going through my belongings -- I haven't got anything that's even remotely on any forbidden items list -- but said "What the hell are you doing?" to the guy pawing my Mac. His reply was, "I'm looking for anything that is prohibited by The Act." I didn't -- and still don't -- know what "The Act" is, so I asked "Like what?" but received no reply. In the silence, I figured "The Act" must have something to do with censorship of pornography, illegal copyrighted works, etc. Since I don't have anything of the kind on my Mac, I figured I could either make a stink on principle or just let him do what he wanted. Curious more than anything about what his search would involve, I decided to just let it play out. To get the best possible view of his procedure -- and to make sure he didn't do any damage -- I sat on the couch next to him, folded my arms and just watched.

By the way he got stuck looking at the Finder menus, it was immediately obvious to me that he was unfamiliar with Macs and may never have even seen one before in his life. This impression was confirmed when he asked me, "Where's the Start Menu?" I barely suppressed laughing out loud and replied "What's a Start Menu?" Although I had probably illuminated the divide between the PC and Mac cultures in the most succinct way possible -- and implied that I was not about to help him do his evil deed -- he nevertheless proceeded to ask me, "How do you search for things on this?"

Now, here is where it started getting fun -- at least for me. You will note that he didn't ask me how he could search for things on my Mac -- to which the answer would have been to use the Mac's amazing Spotlight feature -- but instead asked me how I do it. My answer was, in truth, "I don't search. I know where everything is." With a sigh which conveyed his realization that I was neither going to resist his intrusion nor be helpful to him, he double clicked on a few of the folder icons on my desktop and was rewarded with Finder windows containing the folders within folders within folders that is the hallmark of my highly organized and structured file hierarchy. Obviously not finding a folder entitled "double click here to see all my illicit files" -- and probably not wanting to admit he was clueless -- he browsed around for a while then closed the lid.

Although some subsequent Q&A about my itinerary for New Zealand and my travels in general lightened up the "conversation" enough that my encounter with "The Man" from New Zealand Customs ended amicably, we didn't get to a point where I felt comfortable asking the question that was foremost on my mind: "Does searching people's computers actually get you anything? Or is it just an arbitrary and capricious activity enforcing a stupid law promulgated by mindless legislators who don't really have a clue about computers?"

You can probably see why we I didn't think our nascent relationship would support that level of "sharing."

The question still bugs me, though, and it is the point of this Musing: Does searching computers actually accomplish the seizure of prohibited material? I doubt that it does because I suspect that it can't.

Granted, "The Man's" lack of facility with my Mac may have hindered his usual effectiveness, but I really can't image he would be any more successful with a PC. Unless someone has a folder on their desktop entitled "Illicit Media" an in-depth browsing of folders/directories would be necessary. Though I am aware that some people are just stupid, I have to seriously doubt that many people would keep such material "in the clear." Similarly, unless someone uses clearly incriminating filenames, a context search isn't going to yield any results either. So, how likely is it that a superficial browsing is going to accomplish anything? I don't think it can.

The bigger problem, of course, is that such a search completely ignores far more likely "hiding places." For one, how about other user accounts -- or even partitions -- on the same system. I have several user accounts on my Mac that I access for different purposes. The one "The Man" was browsing happened to be my "Macgellan" account which is "all business." Although I don't happen to have anything illicit in my other user accounts either, he was either completely unaware of their existence -- perhaps even unaware that they could even exist -- or he didn't care to check them. His search didn't and couldn't find anything there.

I also have a 120 GB external hard drive that was sitting in the desk drawer which he never saw, accessed or even asked for. I don't presume to really know the mind of a "criminal" but I do know that illicit media requires big files which are frequently stored on big external drives rather than on small laptop drives. I could be wrong, of course, but I would suspect most "bad" stuff is kept on remote media that doesn't get looked at. Superficially browsing a computer can't find anything there either.

I am not going to comment on the legitimacy of a law that prohibits people from having any kind of media and am just going to leave it as an unfortunate fact of life in the modern world. What I am commenting on is the stupidity of invading people's privacy by browsing their computers without any real likelihood of finding any of the material in question. I understand that most lawmakers are clueless about the reality of computers -- and technology in general -- and pass laws that have little practical effect beyond their PR value. I also understand that the guy who browsed my Mac has a pretty easy job which probably pays pretty well and has good benefits, not to mention the possible entertainment value of stumbling upon some amusing files and the certain smug satisfaction of having the power to invade someone's privacy. So, I can see why such laws are passed and why such practices are carried out: It's good for everybody except the people being searched.

For them, it is arbitrary, capricious, invasive, ineffective and just plain wrong. I hope my first encounter with "The Man" in New Zealand is not indicative of what else I will experience here.

Musing: Update re. UK Cameras

You may recall that back in July I posted a Musing entitled "EuroTerror" in which I wrote briefly about the abundance of surveillance cameras in the UK. Well, it seems that not all Brits are taking this enhanced level of "security" in stride. Granted, the cameras involved are those of the "speed" or "traffic" variety, but as Dvorak puts it: "Are we finally seeing a little resistance from the notoriously stoic Brits?" This article in Wired tells the story, and you can see a selection of related photos here. It seems I may have been wrong about the "stiff upper lip" stuff of Britain being "as good a way as any of not letting something you can’t do anything about ruin your daily life." It looks like maybe they can -- and will -- do something about it. Cheers!

Musing: Vienna -- Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Journey

This musing is by Jennifer...

I arrived in Vienna and it was cold and rainy and I realized that besides barely making my plane that morning I had done little in the way of preparation for this trip. I had been so preoccupied with finishing up school, and then making it to the airport in time, that when I showed up in Vienna my first thought was "Oh, I'm here...now what?" With my first voyage in Paris I had a plan -- things to do, places to go, objectives that I acted upon -- so even wandering around the streets of Paris became a little mission of its own. For Vienna I had no plan, I had no list, I had no clear idea of what I wanted to accomplish, what I wanted to "take from" this trip. In short, I arrived in Vienna and felt a little out of my element. Able to function, not that intimidated of getting from place A to place B, but I felt that I lacked direction -- I didn't feel as involved with Vienna as I had been in Paris.

German was harder for me to pick up than French had been, and the dreary weather made wandering about all day unpleasant. I decided that I should figure out what Vienna was "all about," and so I took a look at the mountain of brochures in the hotel and plotted out my next "plan of attack." I compiled a list, not a massive list but a list nonetheless, of museums and sights and foods to explore; I was determined that I would experience the "true" Vienna, so help me. And so that's what I did: I took a tour of Schonbrunn, I tasted Wiener Schnitzel and Sachertorte, I saw Klimt's paintings in museums, I stepped foot in Beethoven's and Mozart's apartments... and it was great, but I found that that's not what traveling is about for me. For the most part, I had the most fun in the "getting there" rather than in the "arriving there." Wiener Schnitzel and Sachertorte... basically country-fried veal and chocolate cake. Even Beethoven's museum turned out to be two rooms of plaques on the walls and a xeroxed copy of the Heiligenstadt Document. But even if the thing itself turned out to be a bust, that didn't demean my experience of being there -- I was looking out the window of Beethoven's apartment, I was looking at his piano. In fact, without traveling out to the boonies of Vienna to get to Heiligenstadt, I would never have figured out the buses, eaten a kabob outside the station, and drank coffee in a retirement center because the museum was closed for lunch. To me, the experience as a whole turned out to be the fun part. It was going to a museum and being more awe-struck by the architecture of the palace than the superb collection of Renaissance paintings, it was wandering through the village square of Bratislava and deciding to get sausages from the stands and then go inside for hot chocolate that turned out to be chocolate soup, it was playing "metro roulette" and getting off at a random station to walk along the Danube even though it was cold and raining, it was meeting my uncle's friend Matt and going to a Turkish restaurant in the district of Vienna he termed "Mesopotamia," it was going to a movie theatre and having a fine dining experience of chips, chocolate, and red wine.

So I began to think that maybe I was going about this whole traveling thing the wrong way. I cannot plan my way into experiencing a city, and brochures are useful only to a point. It doesn't matter that I spent a week in Vienna. It doesn't matter what I did or didn't see, what I did or didn't do, what I did or didn't learn. It matters that I went, figured things out, and had a ball doing it. Traveling, for me, really emphasizes that people are the same anywhere you go. They can speak German and have lived next to a Hapsburg palace for generations, but they still have the same hopes and fears and basic needs, and 9 times out of 10 will give you help if you ask with a smile. I had fun and I saw some really cool stuff and I went a lot of places, but this time I didn't compile a checklist. Or, if I did, I stopped checking things off. I learned to react to the unexpected and be flexible with the day ahead. You want soup and get pot roast instead? No problem. You go out to the soup restaurant and it's closed? Falafel sounds good. It's snowing the day you wanted to go out to Schonbrunn? How about Friday. You make a massage appointment and arrive at some guy's apartment who doesn't speak any English? Well, you get a massage. Turns out that a day drip to Frankfurt means a 13 hour train ride? Well, Bratislava is only an hour away. You can't make this stuff up, it's just what ends up happening and it ended up making my trip so enjoyable. It was great. Unforgettable. Another voyage.

Musing: Passport Stamping

I had some "fun" with the Swedish immigrations man in Nynashamn prior to boarding the PolFerry to Gdansk. Examining my passport, he was unable to find the stamp he normally looks for to determine how long someone has been in his country, namely the "entry into Sweden" stamp that most people get at the airport. He asked me how long I had been in Sweden and how I had gotten there, so I told him I had arrived by train from Norway last week. Unable to find a stamp for Norway, he inquired how long I had been there and how I had gotten there. Again, I explained that I had arrived by train the week before last and -- anticipating his inability to find a stamp for Denmark -- explained that I had arrived in that country by train from Germany a few days earlier without a stamp, and from BeNeLux before that where I had arrived by ferry from the UK. I told him I had a stamp into Amsterdam from a month ago and said with a bit of a laugh, "I had to ask for that one. Otherwise all you'd have is my stamp entering Canaria six months ago!"

He gave me the universal expression of "What the...?" so I gave him a brief synopsis of The Voyage and explained about traveling only on the surface of the earth, etc. After a little further dialogue, he seemed satisfied with my story and I asked him for a stamp to update my passport. He smiled and said, "Oh, don't worry... You're getting a stamp."

Besides the entertainment value of this experience, it got me musing about "Freedom of Movement" in the European Union. As a policy, it allows EU nationals to no longer have to deal with all the different multi-national immigrations issues. They just flash their passports and walk on through. It also means that there are many fewer immigrations officials at border crossing points. I have commented before in the Logbook about how it seems like "once you're in, you're in" and you can go anywhere you want anytime you want to. The advantages to international commerce, culture, etc. are, I think, pretty obvious: Open borders among nations improves the human experience.

In some ways, this less stringent immigration policy is also good for non-Eu nationals. There are fewer stops along your route, fewer places you have to show your passport, less time screwing around with documentation and more time enjoying your travels. For long-term, long-distance travelers like me, however, there is a bit of a downside: Not having proof of your entry/exit dates can be a problem when you are generally allowed only 90 days in EU countries without a visa. If you only have a stamp from six months ago, how do you prove you haven't been in your current country ever since?

So, while I have generally avoided getting unnecessary stamps in my passport -- mostly because it's too "touristy" but also because, after all, there is only so much space even in my "extra page" passport -- I have learned the value of asking for one from time to time.

While I still laugh at the extreme nonsense of having over a dozen stamps within a three week period from Chile and Argentina -- as a result of my going "back-and-forth" so often between those moderately unfriendly neighbors during my time in Fin del Mundo -- I'm not laughing quite so much as I once did about the other extreme of having practically no stamps from my many, many border crossings in the EU. It could have been a problem, and I'm going to be a little more energetic about getting stamped even if it is "touristy."

So, you probably will not be surprised to learn that I now have an entry stamp into Gdansk, Poland -- dated today -- in my well worn an rapidly filling passport. "Touristy" or not, I'm good to go for another 90 days!

Musing: Then And Now

As an appropriate place to close out our exploration of The Battle of the Bulge, Greg and I decided to make a stop at the American Battlefield Cemetery of the Ardennes. Yet another beautiful and emotionally evocative site that is exquisitely maintained by the American Battlefields Commission, the first thing a visitor sees is a large, stunning monument. Upon closer approach, almost 6,000 gleaming white grave markers -- all perfectly aligned -- fill a large field behind it. (Note: There are a few photos in the current -- Sep 2007 -- photo log which barely do justice to the setting.)

While walking around the cemetery, we saw numerous grave markers with American and Belgian flags placed in front of them. Although we speculated about what their significance might be, we were unable to come up with anything definitive. Then, about a hundred Belgians started to arrive at the cemetery and we asked one of them why they were there and what the flags were for. The answer was humbling.

After the war, Belgian families "adopted" individual soldiers and their graves. The flags signify their remembrance of what the American soldiers did for them during the war and honors them for their sacrifice in liberating Belgium and its people. As the man we talked to said, "If it wasn't for the American soldiers, I would be German." As for what they were all doing there, it turns out that we just happened to visit the cemetery on the day when many of the "adoptive" families gather to hold their annual memorial service. Pretty amazing stuff.

Now, I have no direct connection with The Battle of the Bulge that I know of, so my only link with the cemetery and the soldiers buried there is that I am "American." To see the flags and meet the Belgians who were there for the memorial service was a powerful experience. I have to admit that I felt a little bit like I was intruding. It wasn't anything that was said or done on their part, it was simply that these people were having a ceremony for soldiers with whom they have had a direct, personal connection. I was really just a tourist and had only a vague sense of exploring history as my reason for being there.

This got me musing: In my recent visits to Normandy, Flanders and the Ardennes I have experienced unconditional positive regard from complete strangers in foreign lands simply because I am American. In many other places, I have experienced an unconditional disregard from complete strangers in foreign lands simply because I am American. Why is there such a striking difference?

Could it be that the thousands upon thousands of American soldiers who fought, died and were buried there were truly liberators of people who had been invaded and oppressed by an actual evil empire? Could it be that those American soldiers were part of a truly multi-national coalition that fought to save people facing actual weapons rather than possible ones? Could it be that America did not initiate WWII and had no obvious economic or political agenda for it?

Whatever the reasons, I can tell you from direct personal experience that there is a striking difference between America's goodwill in the world between then and now. True, there are still places in the world where people view America -- and Americans -- with positive regard. Sadly, there are many, many other people in the world who have a growing anti-American sentiment.

It's a damn shame, and we are all the worse for it.

Musing: EuroTerror

Some of you -- my “Virtual Voyagers” -- have asked me recently about all the terrorist activity you have been hearing about in the United Kingdom. I thought I would put my thoughts into this Musing and share them with everybody. While most of my comments are based on observations in the UK, they also apply -- to a greater or lesser degree which I will try to describe -- to my recent experience in France .
As an overview, although “terror” is a constant topic in all forms of news media in the UK, it doesn’t seem to be a topic of daily conversation among the population. By and large, people seem to just go about their business, more or less unaffected by the constant implications of “threat.” When the subject does arise, people tend to deflect it with a variety of dismissive statements along the lines of “We live in scary times.”

If pressed on the issue -- which I have done only lightly for purposes of this Musing -- the response is pretty much what the media has promulgated: “The terrorists are not going to undermine our British way of life. We survived [the blitz, the war, etc.] and we’re going to get through this!” This may be the “stiff upper lip” stuff of Britain, but it is as good a way as any of not letting something you can’t do anything about ruin your daily life.

In France, I had less of a sense of terror in the media -- or in popular conversation -- but that may be because they had a bigger story going on (i.e. the national election) and/or because, frankly, I didn’t have a good enough grasp of the language to pick it up. My sense, though, is that the French are not as energized about terror as the Brits... At least not yet.

With that said, there are a few aspects of daily life in Britain that I think are worth pointing out and illustrating:

Surveillance: There are cameras simply everywhere in the UK. All along the highways, on virtually every street and intersection, at bus stops and train stations and in many restaurants, bars, hotels and even stores. Ostensibly used for other purposes such as traffic control, personal safety and theft deterrence, they are nevertheless all linked to central monitoring. This may explain why it is that every time you see a story about terror in the UK on your local media there is a plethora of video footage covering every movement of the suspects. They’ve got video everywhere and the amount of digital media they are amassing -- both useful and superfluous -- must be simply staggering.

Police: Only slightly less ubiquitous than surveillance cameras is the presence of police. Never traveling in numbers fewer than two -- and often in threes or fours -- the police are very visible. They are also very “proactive” and almost always seem to be in the process of questioning someone, checking IDs and/or searching belongings. I would not call the police presence “oppressive” or “alarming”, but I would put it at least in the category of “kinda creepy.” I can’t imagine what this police presence is costing -- or how much “good” it is doing -- but I’m sure it is a staggering amount of money and a huge drain on the public coffers.

Trash: That’s right, trash. This photo was actually taken in France where I was surprised to see such unattractive trash receptacles in -- let’s face it -- the land of style. I asked a “Virtual Voyage” who is -- believe it or not -- an expert in “site furnishings” like trash receptacles, and he informed me that the “plastic bag hanging on a ring” is an effort to keep terrorists from putting bombs in trash bins by making them transparent or, in the worst case, by reducing the amount of potential shrapnel which would be provided by traditional bins. Sadly, this made some sense to me, though I had some doubts about how much the transparency of the bag would prevent someone from putting a bomb in, say, a bag or box with no one the wiser. Obviously, the shrapnel reduction theory is the more applicable. This really hit home with me the other day when I had a cup of coffee in London’s busy Euston Station and -- despite a thorough search of the premises -- could not find a single trash receptacle in which to dispose of my empty cup. The number of trash bins in London’s busy public spaces: Zero, zip, zilch, nada, none. They’re gone. “Bomb in the bin” problem solved! The best you can do is hand your trash to the guy who walks around with a clear plastic bag picking up trash. This situation hasn’t taken hold in outlying or rural areas yet, but the trend is pretty clear.

Which brings me to the point of this Musing: Let’s face it, the UK has had to face and deal with terrorism far longer than the rest of the world, including the US. Well before “9/11”, the Brits were the target of all manner of bombs, etc. Although the means they have developed for dealing with terrorism are not guaranteed to be followed by other countries facing their own increased levels of terrorism, it is a pretty good bet that the UK will continue to be looked to for ideas, ways and means going forward. In the absence of some real “original thinking” on the part of the US, for example, I think Americans can expect to see the ubiquitous deployment of video cameras, a vast increase in the number of police and the disappearance of trash bins in public spaces among other trends. The British “stiff upper lip” may make them comfortable with -- or perhaps just resigned to -- these kinds of intrusions and inconveniences in their lives, but I’d like to think that folks in the US won’t accept them as readily or as well. Then again, because terrorism leverages on fear, mindlessness in response to it is rampant. Based on how mindlessly Americans have “gone along” with “Homeland Security” and all the other costs and intrusions of their government’s “War on Terror” I’m not very hopeful about seeing any “original thinking.” Which is too bad, really, because designing your security system based on the British model would be like designing your cars based on the Jaguar. Even my British friends will agree, it may look good but it’s very expensive, it doesn’t work very well and it certainly isn’t very reliable.

Musing: You Got Franced!

Reflections from The Voyage, written by my niece Jennifer: I arrived in Paris about 10 days ago with the intent to 1) explore 2) observe and 3) recharge, and to a great extent that is exactly what I have done, with a healthy dose of reflection and hanging out with my uncle, who awarded me with the CDOP -- Complete Domination of Paris -- the first of its kind. Although most of the time Paris loved me -- the Metro trains arrived on time, the crosswalks would change, restaurants would materialize -- there were plenty of times when Paris seemed to poo-poo at us. Whenever something didn't make sense, or otherwise messed with our plan, we referred to it as "You Got Franced." I thought I would take this time to recall some instances of my experience of Paris, in no particular order but simply to get a sense of the city I wandered around in for 10 days.

1) Walking around the center of Paris was correctly compared by my uncle to a huge Disneyland. You pay with tokens (the Euro coins) for admission to the attractions (in this case being shuttled around in tour buses from monument to monument) with a camera strapped to your neck. Portions of Paris are definitely for show, to show off their history with palaces, statues, and gold-plated bridges galore. But there's another side of Paris that I experienced: the neighborhoods themselves. I would take a day to just walk through them on foot (when i wasn't out conquering the Metro system), take some wrong turns, wander into some neat looking cobble-stone alleys, walk right past historic landmarks without noticing. Paris for me was the trips to the different gardens, ordering baguette sandwiches from venders, sipping a cup of "cafe au lait" in the street watching the people go past. It was fabulous.

2) Paris follows a 30-minute work week, my uncle and I have concluded. Seriously, we couldn't figure out what they did all day. The streets are chock full of coffee-houses where you sit outside on the street at one of the small circular tables on a wicker chair for hours at a time. You could spend your whole day eating. You have to ask for the check! I would enter one of the multiple gardens and it would be full of people strolling or sitting about. I wondered at first about the presence of multiple benches, until I was awakened from a nap under a tree and asked to move by a policeman; there are designated areas for sitting on the grass apparently. I got Franced! Even my first day arriving at the airport involved me getting Franced -- the Metro system was closed due to a strike. I guess the workers wanted extra time on their coffee break.

3) Don't let the sunny skies fool you, it rains in Paris. I have been caught in countless rainstorms, where I can see sunny skies across the bridge. Take an umbrella with you so you won’t be caught like me crammed under the awning of a bus stop, sharing the space with tourists of about 5 different nationalities. Also, museums are fuller on days when it rains. Everyone wants a shelter from the storm.

4) Parisians love their dogs, but they don't clean up their messes on the sidewalks. You will be at a restaurant and look over your shoulder to see a cute little doggie face peeping out from behind someone's back seated on a chair. They sit on people's laps and drink water poured in a saucer on the table. They're everywhere on the Metro, on leashes or hiding their cute little doggie faces in the lap. Also on the Metro, be prepared to be serenaded by musicians who jump from car to car. I once encountered a violin, accordion, and clarinet. It was awesome.

5) Everything is expensive, and food is especially ridiculous. A drink averages 4 euros (~$5). And as the menus are in French, I had no idea what I was ordering (or eating) half the time. My favorite moment is one night when I ordered fish with lemon butter and my uncle ordered veal picata. The chef came out, and speaking quickly in French made it understood that they were out of my fish, but he would take care of me. Well, he comes back out with a platter of 5 different kinds of fish, but no lemon butter. My uncle ended up being served chicken and mushrooms. Once again, we got Franced.

So that was my experience, more or less. Would I do it again, yes. Would I do it differently, probably not. Did I have a great time, but of course. In the best of all possible ways: I got Franced on The Voyage of Macgellan!

Musing: EgoTourists

My mission on The Voyage is to explore the world, live by my wits and report my findings.  Thus, my focus is outward, toward the world and toward the people and places in it.  Most of the time, I am a solo, independent traveler, immersed in local cultures and exclusively in the company of local people.  Although some of them -- from time to time -- ask me something about myself and/or The Voyage, the focus -- and certainly my focus -- is always on them and their culture.  I am an anonymous traveler who visits for a time then moves on, leaving very little -- if any -- wake in the process.  This affords me access and insights that are of extraordinary value, and it is a vastly rewarding mode of travel.  From time to time I am in the company of other outwardly focused travelers, and this is a similarly rewarding experience.  I benefit from the sharing of thoughtful insights, gain perspective through other eyes and enjoy the companionship of "similarly intended" people. 

Unfortunately, I sometimes cross paths with people who do not have an outward focus.  Rather, they focus almost exclusively on themselves and their experiences.  Worse, they constantly tell everyone else about themselves and their experiences.  Often, it seems their primary interest in being wherever they are is to be able to tell those around them about where else they have been and, one must presume, being able at some future date to tell still others that they have been wherever they are at the moment.  Your role in their self-centered lives is to be an audience to tell about the past and to be part of their material to talk about in the future.  Always, of course, the focus will be on them.  I have come to call these people "EgoTourists."  My problem with these people is not just the annoying, self-centered noise they make.  I am pretty good at tuning that out and/or extricating myself from their presence when they get rolling.  No, my real problem with EgoTourists is that they frequently get in the way of my own mission.  Many times I have been just about to get some local person to open up and talk about himself, his culture, his concerns, etc., only to have some EcoTourist barge in and talk about herself.  My exploration is immediately shut down, my time and resources wasted.  Those of you who know me well can just imagine how well I handle that!  Over the past nine months, I have developed an "early warning" system, designed to identify EgoTourists before they can strike.  The point of this Musing is to "share my findings" with you so that, perhaps, you will be better prepared to deal with EgoTourists in your own travels.  Here, then, are the three primary ways you can identify EgoTourists:

1) "Have you been to...?" -- This is their primary "conversation starter" and your "yes/no" answer is guaranteed to be followed up immediately with, "Well, when we were in..." and then some long story about them and their experience, typically focused on some problem they had with the food, the hotel, the guide or the weather.  It will be all about them and -- if you don't quickly extricate yourself from the "conversation" -- it will be at least as boring as watching their slide show.  Note that they always use the term "we" because it is a certainty that they have never gone anywhere solo, never risked being a lone stranger in a strange land and never had to live by their wits.  Also, pay close attention to the last word they use in the question.  The larger the geographical area, the more of an EgoTourist they are certain to be.  If, for example, they ask "Have you been to South America?" be prepared to hear about their half-day port call in Valparaiso.  Not only will they extrapolate that to an intimate knowledge of Chile, they will further extrapolate it to include an in-depth understanding of South American culture and a recital of how many other continents they have "been to."  When you hear "Have you been to...?" I suggest you run, do not walk, to the nearest exit. 

2) "This is just like..." -- This is their primary way of "making noise" and is most likely to be completed by filling in the blank the same way over and over again.  "This is just like New Zealand."  "This is just like New Zealand."  "This is just like New Zealand."  What they are really saying is "Look at me!  I've been to New Zealand!  Ask me about my trip to New Zealand!"  This will be followed immediately by their making even more noise about some highly convoluted similarity -- one that anyone who has been to the place being compared would have to be on mind-altering drugs to see the correlation -- or by the dreaded "Have you been to New Zealand?"  (See #1 above!)  Once again, this is all about them, feeding their ego about the places they've been and their needing an audience to validate how cool they are.  You will get nothing -- I repeat nothing -- out of their story except, perhaps, the opportunity to exercise your ability to get away from them as fast as possible.

3) "I got this in..." -- Watch out for the person who wears different t-shirts every day from far away places.  Bonus points if the shirts all have the words "World", "Global", "Trek" or "Expedition" somewhere on them.  Similarly, look out for the safari hat with a number of pins or buttons on it.  Bonus points if there are multiple pins from the same places noting different years.  When you see any of these -- and you will when you are in the presence of EgoTourists -- do not, under any circumstances, ask about any of them.  You will be sorry when you hear their self-centered story about not only the piece in question but about each and every piece of accoutrement.  It will be all about them and nothing of value about the place.  A subtle variation of this telltale, by the way, is the "travel vest" -- you know, like the ones you see journalists wearing while on location somewhere.  Even though it just screams "Look at me, I'm an EgoTourist!" you may find yourself almost irresistibly tempted to ask the really dumb question:  "Where did you get your vest?"  What you won't hear is "Oh, Eddie Bauer online."  What you will hear is everyplace the vest has been, what a life saver it has been and how anybody who "really travels" ought to have one.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

Finally, keep in mind that no matter how fully you adopt and practice my EgoTourist early warning system, they'll still sneak up on you from time to time.  Sooner or later, their need to talk about themselves will overwhelm your defenses.  If this happens, do as I do:  Just walk away.  This may strike you as rude, but that's only because you have the capacity to recognize and accommodate other people.  They don't.  Actually, you will be doing them a favor.  You'll be giving them an experience that they can talk about to their next victim.  Think of it as your "good deed" for the day.

Musing: Time Zones

When I first started talking to my “inner circle” about my idea for The Voyage -- hard to believe that was over a year and a half ago! -- one of my closest friends said something very interesting:  “You handle the time zones and deal me in.”  At the time I thought it was just another of his many succinct ways of summing up a very large concept:  “You’ll be the one moving around.  You know where I’ll be.  You do the math on keeping in contact and I’ll be happy to carry on like it isn’t really any different.”  Simple, right?  Well, until recently it has been pretty simple.  For the first six or seven months of The Voyage I mostly moved south, with a little bit of east.  I went from PDT to CDT to EDT to EST to CST to EST to ECT to CLT to PET to CLT to ART.  Now, you may not know what time zones all those letters stand for, but it doesn’t really matter.  They are all within the time zones spanned by the US -- where most of my old friends live -- and it was a pretty simple matter to keep track of things:  “Okay, I’m in Chile which is the same as  Eastern time, so the West Coast is three hours behind.”  Simple.  Plus, staying in relatively the same time zones made it pretty normal to call and talk to people at normal hours.  Generally, I was awake when they were awake. 

As I have rapidly moved east over the past month, the time zone issue has gotten a bit more complicated.  Right now, for example, the East Coast is six hours behind me and the West Coast is nine hours behind, so being awake at the same time is a little less likely.  Also, I have been making a lot of new friends who live all over the world and whose time zones are plus and minus a lot of hours from wherever I may be at any given moment.  This problem really came into focus for me when I saw the clocks pictured above on an internet cafe wall.  There are a number of time zones shown, but there are no labels to say what is where.  Funny!  Ha ha!  But really, try this little quiz:  What time is it in the zones NDT, AYT, GYT, PYT and CLT?  Answer:  They’re all the same time zone with different names.  Not so funny, is it? 

To solve this problem for myself, I’ve done what many people who deal with multiple time zones on a daily basis have done.  I’ve switched to a GMT± standard.  So, if I know that I am currently GMT+2 and I know somebody else is GMT-4 then I know they are six hours behind me.  For me, that is a lot easier than knowing that I am in CEST and they are in CLT.  (In fact, knowing the latter really doesn’t tell me anything I can use unless I have access to a time zone calculator like the “World Clock” link I put on on the left sidebar for your convenience.) 

Look at it this way:  The relevance of time zones has evolved and increased through history.  Before the railroads made it possible for people to travel great distances, time of day was a purely local phenomena.  The time was whatever the local population said it was.  The railroads couldn’t make schedules based on such local variances, so they promulgated the idea of “time zones” and everyone in each zone used the same time.  Even on trains you couldn’t go all that far, so giving the zones names like “Central Standard Time” was fine.  There, “Eastern Standard Time” was an hour ahead of you and “Mountain” and “Pacific” time were an hour or two behind you.  Simple.  Only a very, very few people needed to know more than an hour ahead or behind and they found ways to just deal with it.  With the advent of the airplane, travel distances increased and the time zone issue became somewhat more problematic, but relatively few people made trips across more than a few time zones at a time and they could just change their watches and do the math once to figure out what time it was “back home.” 

I could make pretty much the same case for the telephone, that while people “could” talk across vast zones, few people really did.  The internet -- and to a large degree my beloved Skype and iChat (and others that will remain nameless) -- has made it so that virtually everyone can reach out and touch someone anywhere in the world -- Have I mentioned it’s free! -- and have to deal with time zones accordingly.  It is no wonder that the “early adopters” of  GMT± are “web people” since they are the ones who have to deal with it the most. 

So, what’s my point?  Well, I suggest it is time for you to add one little piece of information to your mental database: Know your GMT± number.  You may not need it everyday right now, but I guarantee you that you will need it and want to know it more and more often in the near future.  When someone from elsewhere in the world asks you what time zone you are in, don’t give them an antiquated, useless name like “Pacific Daylight Time”, tell them “GMT-7”.  Before you know it, they -- and you -- won’t have to look anything up anymore.  We can all just do some simple math in our heads.  For good reason, dealing with time zones in GMT± isn’t just for geeks and early adopters anymore!  It’s not like converting to the metric system or anything, it is just one simple number to learn and remember.  Try it, you’ll like it!