Travel Blog
‘Is a Week Too Long in Venice?’
by Eva Holland | 04.10.08 | 12:33 PM ET
That’s the question posed recently by a Times of London reader, concerned that he may get “bored of the watery Italian city” before the week is up. “Perhaps we got carried away,” he writes, “as it now seems like a very long time.” Times travel expert Richard Green offers a perfectly reasonable answer, suggesting day-trippable destinations in the Veneto, but the response I kept waiting for—“Bored in Venice? Are you serious?”—never came. So here it is.
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Yahoo! BuzzO’Hare Named a Piece of U.S. Infrastructure That Must be Fixed
by Michael Yessis | 04.10.08 | 11:39 AM ET
Photo by Sir Mildred Pierce, via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Popular Mechanics picked Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport as one of the 10 pieces of infrastructure in the United States that needs to be fixed now, citing near misses on runways, an ineffective new radar system and the country’s worst record of on-time departures in the first half of 2007.
American Cancels Another 900 Flights Thursday
by Jim Benning | 04.10.08 | 10:39 AM ET
The airline’s MD-80 inspection saga continues, bringing the total number of flight cancellations since Tuesday to 2,400. According to USA Today, “That means a quarter-million people have been inconvenienced this week.” The airline says Friday could bring more cancellations.
Speaking of Powerful Photos: John Moore’s Pakistan Story
by Jim Benning | 04.09.08 | 3:23 PM ET
Yesterday, I noted the riveting story behind the Pulitzer Prize-winning Burma photo. Today, I was chatting with a photographer who told me that many in the news photo biz expected Getty Image’s John Moore to win the breaking news photography Pulitzer for his shots of the Benazir Bhutto assassination in Pakistan in December.
Stop the Presses: Tunisian-Born Chef Makes Rome’s Best Carbonara
by Joanna Kakissis | 04.09.08 | 1:50 PM ET
Nabil Hadj Hassen, who arrived in Italy at 17 and went on to train with some of the country’s top chefs, won the heart of highly regarded reviewer Gambero Rosso with his dish of pasta, eggs, pecorino cheese and guanciale (cured pig cheek) at the restaurant Antico Forno Roscioli. But The New York Times recently explored how his triumphant carbonara also flagged a question looming over Italy’s revered cuisine: Is the food still Italian if the chef is not?
Bhagavad Gita, Quran Join Gideon Bible on Hotel’s ‘Spiritual Menu’
by Michael Yessis | 04.09.08 | 12:53 PM ET
That’s not all that’s on the spiritual menu at Nashville’s Hotel Preston. It also offers versions of the Bible, the Torah, the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, the Book of Mormon and other spiritual texts in an effort to “make everyone feel at home when they’re away from home,” writes one of the hotel’s bloggers. “Yes, even you Scientologists out there!” I’m writing this post from a Hilton in Los Angeles, and this story is making me feel spiritually underfed.
American Airlines Cancels Hundreds of Flights*
by Jim Benning | 04.09.08 | 9:57 AM ET
If you’re flying American today, check to ensure your flight is still scheduled. The airline canceled nearly 500 flights Tuesday, affecting tens of thousands of travelers, and additional cancellations are expected into Thursday. The reason: inspections of MD-80s to comply with FAA orders. According to The Wall Street Journal, American’s 300 MD-80s “are used primarily on routes out of American’s hubs in Dallas and Chicago.”
* Update, 10:26 a.m. ET: Yikes, the airline has cancelled a whopping 850 flights today. That’s huge.
* Update: 3:20 p.m. ET: Word now is that more than 1,000 American flights have been cancelled today. Que feo.
Related on World Hum:
* FAA Safety Audit Triggers Investigations of Four Airlines
Martin Luther King Jr. and the Shadow of the Lorraine Motel
by Eva Holland | 04.08.08 | 1:09 PM ET
Traveling through the South last month, I seemed to come across Martin Luther King Jr.‘s name almost everywhere I went—from the display at the old Stax Records site explaining the impact of his assassination on the collaboration between white and black soul artists, to the homeless man in Atlanta who advised me that an unspecified “they” would surely kill Barack Obama “just like Dr. King.” The King assassination cast a long shadow, and not just because the 40th anniversary of his death was looming. (It was Friday.)
The Story Behind the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Burma Photo
by Jim Benning | 04.08.08 | 11:35 AM ET
Reuters photographer Adrees Latif won the breaking news photography Pulitzer Prize yesterday for his shot of a Japanese videographer killed during anti-government protests in Burma (Myanmar). Today, Reuters has Latif’s account of the how he got the shot. It’s riveting.
Related on World Hum:
* Busking Story Earns Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing
* Dispatch from Burma: Under the Banyan Tree
Hemingway’s Favorite Venice Bar Offering Discounts to Americans
by Jim Benning | 04.08.08 | 10:40 AM ET
Yes, this is what the weak dollar and subprime loan disaster have come to: discounts at Harry’s Bar. Can you imagine the final line of A Moveable Feast were it written today? “But this is how Venice was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy and many fine American homes were in foreclosure and we were enjoying 20 percent off at Harry’s Bar.”
EU Approves Cell Phone Use on Planes
by Michael Yessis | 04.07.08 | 6:06 PM ET
Nooooooo! I was hoping this day would never come. Alas, I lose. And so does everyone else who’s going to end up “sitting next to a chatterbox at 30,000 feet” en route from London to Rome. The silver lining: The United States will maintain its ban on cell phone use on planes, and has no plans to change its mind.
Busking Story Earns Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing
by Michael Yessis | 04.07.08 | 5:22 PM ET
Congrats to Gene Weingarten, whose story about “internationally acclaimed virtuoso” Joshua Bell busking at the L’Enfant Plaza metro station in Washington D.C. won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing today. I posted about Weingarten’s Washington Post story a while back.
Related on World Hum:
* ‘Once’ and the Art of Busking
Jazz Great Brubeck Honored as Traveling Diplomat
by Julia Ross | 04.07.08 | 3:25 PM ET
Jazz musician Dave Brubeck, best known for his classic “Take Five,” is in Washington, D.C., this week to receive a State Department Benjamin Franklin Award for “civilian service to international cooperation.” It turns out, according to a fascinating Washington Post story, that Brubeck is one of the country’s longest serving public diplomats, a role he first embraced in 1958 on a nine-country musical tour that included Poland, East Germany, Iran and Iraq.
New Addition to the Travel Lexicon: ‘Staycation’
by Jim Benning | 04.07.08 | 2:00 PM ET
Thanks to rising fuel costs and fears about the economy, experts say more Americans these days taking “staycations”—yes, vacations in which they stay home. The Los Angeles Times covers the trend today and uses the term, and although I’ve only begun seeing “staycation” used recently, a Google search turns up references in 2006, and I’m willing to bet the expression dates back earlier than that. It’s yet another groan-inducing travel term. Need some more? How about going glamping, or taking an oblication?
Absolut on How to Lose Customers with Historical Maps
by Jim Benning | 04.07.08 | 12:46 PM ET
What were they thinking? The Absolut vodka company was running ads in Mexico featuring an 1830s map showing the southwestern U.S. as part of Mexico and featuring the line, “In an Absolut World.” It’s part of a campaign depicting “ideal scenarios,” according to the AP. It’s a clever ad, and I’m sure it played well in Mexico. But, shockingly, it came to the attention of some humorless U.S. citizens. Cue the calls for boycotts, the angry letters and Absolut’s apology.
