While we were up North visiting family for Thanksgiving, we took time out to visit La Salette in Attleboro, MA, one night. This was a monastery that, as I was told, gets decked out in Christmas lights every year. It turned out to be a pretty impressive sight. The myriad lights were set up around a small pond and made for some neat photos.

The lights weren’t the only eye-popping thing about La Salette. It also had a huge gift shop, which struck me as kind of strange, especially for a place of worship.

As I maneuvered the car around the hair-raising twists and turns of N.C. 194 between Valle Crucis and Banner Elk on the first afternoon of our North Carolina mountains vacation on Thursday, Courtney joked that I should start getting driving merit badges for successfully completing obstacle courses in England and now the North Carolina highlands. If that were the case, I would’ve added one more merit badge today — driving up Grandfather Mountain in the fog.

Today being the final day of our highland getaway, we packed everything into the car and bid farewell to our lovely vacation stay around mid-morning. After getting coffee, tea, and breakfast at a cute little nearby cafe that we’ve quickly come to adore, we started driving up to the top of Grandfather Mountain around 11 a.m., driving past the thinning traffic for the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games along the way. The entrance fee for the mountain was $15 per person, which struck me as pretty steep (it is just a mountain, after all), although it did come with an audio tour guide CD with a soundtrack straight out of “Back Porch Music.”

The price of admission, as it turned out, was nowhere near as steep as the drive up to the top. After a few expectedly curvy loops around the mountain, the bends in the road started approaching ridiculous levels in steepness and curvature. Every turn was a blind turn, and there were parts that were so steep that my Camry was revving hard just to make it up the hill. We were very glad that we took this car instead of our other one, a subcompact, which would have no doubt struggled on this ascent. Add to it all a thick layer of fog or cloud that enveloped the whole road, reducing visibility to only about 10 feet, and it was one of the more … umm … interesting drives I’ve had.

Nonetheless, we managed to make it up to the top of the mountain, where the fog continued to engulf everything. After we parked, we could only faintly make out the visitors center building on the opposite side of the road. The center contained an elevator that took us three floors up to the top of the mountain, where we crossed the Mile High Swinging Bridge. Even though I had been to Grandfather Mountain before, this was a different bridge than the one I remembered, as it was rebuilt in 1999. The 228-foot suspension bridge, named for the fact that it is actually more than a mile above sea level, spans an 80-foot chasm. On this day, the abyss below was mostly concealed by the heavy fog, yet the fog also added a sense of mystery to the scene and made you feel like you were even higher up since it was as if you were walking amongst the clouds.

After crossing the bridge, we were briefly diverted and entertained by the sight of a tiny, chubby mouse that was scurrying back and forth among the feet of a circle of visitors and trying to find its way back into the shrubbery, which it eventually did. We then pushed on, traversing a stretch of rocks to reach a ledge sitting on top of a cliff. This was, as a sign informed us, as far as we would go. The view from up here was breathtaking, even with the veil of fog limiting our field of vision. After snapping some pictures, we made our way back across the bridge and started back down the mountain, stopping at a couple more lookout points along the way.

We then made an extended stop at the nature museum and animal habitats at about the midway point of the mountain. I don’t remember these being here when I visited as a kid. I really liked the animal habitats, which were basically a mini-zoo with bears, otters, cougars, eagles, and deer, all housed in large, picturesque backdrops. The bears exhibit was especially impressive, as the four bears lounged around in an expansive exhibit set against a breathtaking backdrop of the peaks.

We got to the animal exhibits at the right time, as the staff was just about to give the animals their enrichment activities, which basically meant making them work a little bit for their food. Of course, not all the animals cooperated. One of the cougars watched a bundle of ground turkey wrapped in paper towels drop and roll right into a little crevice in front of him, yet made no attempt to retrieve it, acting as if he didn’t know where it went and eventually just giving up and flopping down next to a tree way off in the distance. The bears, meanwhile, did exactly what the enrichment activity was designed to keep them from doing all day — sitting in front of the exhibit wall and begging for food. Initially, the keeper threw handfuls of food into their little pond, hoping to motivate them to get off their butts and go in the water to get them. However, only one of the bears actually did that, while the others showed no inclination to follow suit. Eventually, the keeper caved in and tossed each of them a few treats while they sat on their behinds and caught the food in their mouths. It must be a good life being a kept bear on the mountain.

Combine a track meet, a state fair, and a music festival, and throw in a dash of Scottish flair, and you have … the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games, where we spent spent day 3 of our North Carolina mountains getaway.

Our day began with a topsy-turvy ride on an old school bus with faded yellow paint. Since the Games were being held on the mountain, there was no public parking at the site and we had to park in nearby Linville and take the shuttle, aka said school bus, to the event along a steep, winding, gravel-covered back road up the mountain. This was definitely the road less traveled, since few in their right minds would want to drive on it in their car, much less a giant bus.

Upon getting off the bus, we made our way through a path lined on both sides by tents and campers until we were greeted with two giant flags — American and Scottish  – at the front entrance to the Games. The event could not have asked for a more picturesque setting, as the mountain and sky provided a beautiful backdrop for the bustling scene in front of us. The event was centered around the track on which most of the competition was taking place. The heavy athletics — such as caber toss and hammer toss — were taking place on the infield, while the track itself was used for running events. Stationed all along the inside of the track were bagpipers and Scottish country dancers who performed virtually nonstop. From the moment we got off the bus, we were enveloped in bagpipe music that never ceased, blaring on until it blended into the tapestry of background sounds.

The spectators were kept behind the fence ringing the track, along which a tent city had formed, with each tent proudly sporting a banner announcing the Scottish clan that particular tent belonged to. Among those not fortunate enough to have a tent, the savvy ones had arrived early with their folding chairs, which now piled a couple rows deep along the fence and occasionally interspersed among spectators who sat on the ground. The metal bleachers in the back were generally full, though there was never really any trouble finding a seat as people came and went throughout.

We walked around a bit when we first arrived, taking in some music at one of several stages set up in the fields away from the track. We also checked out some of the stands behind the spectators, including a stand where you could look up your family clan. However, that tent proved to be a place of reckoning for Courtney, who was always told that one of her grandparents was Scottish but was miffed to find that his family name was missing from the registries at the tent and to be told that “maybe he went to Scotland from England.” We then stopped for a lunch of haggis and chips (the first time I had haggis, which I thought was delicious with all its livery goodness). After that, we found ourselves a spot on one of the bleachers and waited for the action to really pick up.

The competition schedule for the day was jam-packed, but we mainly came to see big guys toss weighty objects around, and we were not disappointed. We had arrived just as the Scottish wrestling competition was taking place. After about an hour of tossing each other around, the wrestlers made way for the heavyweights — big burly guys in kilts who were preparing to hurl hammers, boulders, weights attached to chains, and giant telephone poles.

The big guys started off with the hammer toss, in which they swung a giant sledge hammer 360 degrees above their head several times while spinning and then let fly, at which point the hammer always seemed to have an affinity to seek out the guys marking the spot where it landed, as those guys seemed to be always scrambling away from the hammer while it sailed through the air and then scrambling toward it after it landed.

After the hammer toss, the guys moved on to boulder throw. It was funny to watch the competitors line up in two rows during warmup, face each other, and hurl a big boulder back and forth like baseball players playing catch before games, except of course no one was going to try to catch one of these throws.

The highlight of the day was no doubt the caber toss, which involved guys picking up, running with, and then trying their darndest to not only throw, but also try to make bounce end-to-end a giant lumber pole the length of a telephone pole. Somewhat disappointingly, none of the competitors were able to make the caber go end-to-end, though a couple did come sort of close. Nonetheless, they received enthusiastic cheers from the crowd, which was obviously as jacked up as we were to see big guys toss big objects while wearing kilts.

We awoke on day 2 of our highland vacation in the western North Carolina mountains to find that a local black cat had made itself quite at home on the hood of our car. It was just chillin’ on the car for a whole hour or so while we got ready to go out and explore the area around Linville.

Before the exploring, we stopped at Pappy’s Barbecue and Country Breakfast for brunch. When the food came, I found that I had severely underestimated the size of the item listed as Pappy’s Big Ol’ Breakfast. It was so much food that it came on two full-sized dinner plates: pancakes, bacon, sausage, hash brown, and pretty much anything you might think of with breakfast.

The giant brunch turned out to be a good thing, though, as we got in quite a workout while hiking to our next destination, Linville Falls. There are a couple trails leading to various vantage points around the falls, and we chose the “moderate” route, which, as it turned out, was more than enough exercise for us. The shady, rhododendron-lined trail meandered along the uneven, undulating landscape and took us to several overlooks with spectacular views of the falls and the surrounding mountains. It was a relatively cool and breezy day, though we did work up a sweat when the humidity kicked up with a brief shower midway through the hike. Aside from the beautiful scenery, I also enjoyed the falls because they gave me an opportunity to play around with my camera, slowing the shutter speed way down to get pictures of the blurry water like in so many beautiful water pictures I’ve seen.

After we descended from the last lookout point at the falls, we decided to do some driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Instead of just wandering aimlessly, Courtney picked a destination — Emerald Village, a mining museum and tour located at a tiny community along the parkway called Little Switzerland. The mine, as it turned out, was a pretty podunk attraction. The so-called museum was just a room filled with old mining equipment. Then you go out the backdoor to the mine, which was just a tall, shallow cave bordering a pond and littered with more old mining equipment. Even at just $7 a person, this “tour” felt like a ripoff. When we were driving away, we saw a guy pulling over at the side of the road overlooking the cave and snapping a picture. That’s what we should’ve done instead.

The drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway, though, more than made up for the disappointing mine tour. The sparsely traveled road wound up and down the mountainside, offering up plenty of awespiring views of peak after tree-covered peak, all with vapors wafting upward toward the blue sky. It added up to a very relaxing afternoon drive.

We’re spending a few days near Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina this week. Our main reason for coming here is the Highland Games, but we’re not attending until Saturday, so we’re spending the rest of our time here exploring the area.

After arriving at our lovely vacation rental in Foscoe around mid-afternoon, we backtracked into Boone and spent a couple hours checking out the shops along King Street. Since Boone is home to Appalachian State University, it was no surprise that the area had a very college-town feel. Being amateur potters, we stopped into Doe Ridge Pottery and checked out its studio, where we picked up some tips on painting over glaze with wax and were impressed with the giant glaze buckets that were so big that they needed to be stirred with oars.

After we were done with King Street, we decided to drive to Banner Elk for dinner. That’s when the adventure really started. Our GPS pointed us onto a quiet backroad that went through the beautiful, secluded community of Valle Crucis. This little stretch of rural paradise offered up some wonderful scenery, with vast tracts of pasture and farm land backed by lush green peaks and crisp blue skies dotted with white clouds. The whole scene reminded me of some the views we had when we were driving through England last year.

Then the road really started to remind us of England. Somewhere along the way, the “highway” we were on — N.C. 194 — turned into a bellicosely curvy beast, with ascending hairpin sporting cliffs on one side and big dropoffs on the other. The pleasant sightseeing drive soon devolved into a white-knuckle affair. We had to slow down to well below 30 mph in order to safely maneuver around the bends and twists without clipping rocks, swerving into oncoming traffic, or falling off the mountain. It went on like this for about 40 minutes, and we were very, very glad when the road unwound itself back into a straightaway as it fed into Banner Elk.

Later, after we had returned to our vacation stay (via a much straighter, less hair-raising route), we googled NC 194 and came across this description of the stretch we traveled, which pretty much said it all (check the link for some nice pictures of this part of the road)

NC 194 in its three miles of climb to Matney has more hazards thanPebble Beach . The pavement surface is rutted, patched, negative cambered, and unmarked in many places. The edge of the road has drop-offs, deteriorating asphalt, 18 inch tall posts with connecting chain link fence, asphalt berms, exagerated crown and even some barb wire fencing. There is one double switch-back that is unbelievably tight and steep. Want to see the action here? Rent the Shook Home called Sweet Retreat right in the corner. And you might meet some truck and trailer traffic with just inches to squeak by. NC 194 makes the Dragon look like a safety course.

But that wasn’t our last adventure on the roads. After dinner, we returned to our vacation home and was about to settle in for the night when we realized that we didn’t have any soap. So we drove back out onto N.C. 105 looking for a place to pick up some soap. Alas, there was basically nothing around here except a few restaurants and a bunch of home-remodeling businesses, and everything except the restaurants closed around 6 p.m. (another reminder of our England trip). To add to the fun, the road was almost pitch black since we’re in the middle of nowhere and there were no lights along the road since all the businesses were closed. Even with headlights, I couldn’t see much more than about 20 or 30 feet in front of me. After about 20 minutes, we decided we could do without soap for one night.

To end the post on an upbeat note, I should tell you a little about the place we’re staying in. It’s another one of those independent vacation rental listings on VRBO.com and homeaway.com that we’ve become so fond of discovering on our travels. This place sits near the top of a peak rising up on the side of N.C. 105 in the tiny community of Foscoe. To reach it, you must drive up a narrow, meandering mountain path that rises sharply.

Sporting three bedrooms, the house is kind of big for just the two of us, but it actually was cheaper to rent this big place than most of the other smaller properties we had looked at. The thing I really love about this house are the little touches and accents: coffee tables with slate tile tops, a half log for a fireplace mantle, rafters running across the ceilings, oil-rubbed bronze fixtures throughout the house (it’s amazing how much more attention you pay to the finish of the fixtures when you’re right in the middle of buying a house). It feels very cozy inside, and there is both an outside deck and an enclosed patio on the back of the house, looking out on to a steep hill covered with trees. With the elevation and the lush trees surrounding the house, we feel like we’re far removed from civilization (such as it is in Foscoe) even though we’re basically right off of a major artery in the region.

Of course, we thought those two ads would be a lot better (and perhaps more apt) if you combined them, like so:

As part of trying out the site, I’ve also posted a number of items, all travel posts from this blog. One of the most appealing aspects of Intersect for me is the map interface, which is integrated into Google Maps. In fact, I’ve replaced the standard Google Map on my Travel Logs page that displays places where I’ve been with the Intersect map:

This interface is kind of what I would like to do with Google Maps but am too busy/lazy to, so it’s a nice and easy solution.

A couple of features that I would like to see on Intersect.com:

• Create extensions that would allow people to 1) post to their Intersect accounts from their own blogging platform such as WordPress or Posterous, or 2) post to those platforms from their Intersect accounts. The way I’ve been using Intersect, a post there would not replace a post about a trip on my personal blog, and right now it’s a duplication of effort to have to post here and at Intersect.
• Provide a preview of what the embedded map would look like when I customize the embed code. Right now you kind of have to figure out exactly how much of the big map is displayed in the embedded map by trial-and-error.
• Allow multiple locations for a single post. This would work well for, say, a post about my trip to several different points of attraction within one city. Right now Intersect seems to cover this by drawing a square box over the area covered by the different points, but plotting specific points on the map would be more accurate.

On our recent trip to Washington, D.C., we visited the Newseum, the shrine to all things journalism. Despite having been a journalist, I wasn’t particularly eager to go, in part because I had this idea in my head that it was going to be a shrine to how great the news business used to be, which would just be down right depressing. That, and the fact that $22 a ticket seemed awfully pricey considering many of the best museums in D.C. are free.

With a little prodding from Courtney, though, we decided to go, and it turned out to be a terrific experience that was well worth the price of admission. Even if you don’t care about the subject matter at all, this is one of the better designed museums I’ve seen. The building is beautiful, with a modern, all-glass design. The exhibits are very well done, and you can easily lose yourself in the museum for five or six hours if you take the time to read everything. It was a good thing that the tickets were good for consecutive days, because we hadn’t planned on spending too much time at the Newseum but ended up going back the next day.

Some observations:

• First of all, how the heck does a museum about a profession filled with people making slave wages afford such prime real estate? The Newseum has a nice spot on Pennsylvania Avenue, a great view of the street and Capitol Hill from its terrace, and the honor of being next to the Canadian embassy to bout. There are some posh apartments in the building and a Wolfgang Puck restaurant next door, too.
• The gallery of Pulitzer-winning photos and the stories behind them was stunning and moving. Some of those stories really underline the difficulty and emotional toll of covering the news without becoming a part of it. The picture that stuck with me most was the one of a vulture standing in wait while an emaciated Sudanese toddler stops to rest as she struggles toward a feeding center. It’s a difficult photo to look at, but just as difficult was the accompanying text on how the picture came about, in which the photographer, Kevin Carter, discussed why he didn’t help the child (he said they had been told not to touch the Sudanese children because of risk of disease). That struggle for a balance between covering the story and becoming involved in the story was an undercurrent found in a number of the photos on display, as well as other exhibits, such as one section of the Katrina exhibit about how two journalists decided en route to covering the hurricane damage that if they came across someone in need of help, they would help first and worry about getting the story later.
• One of the exhibits included a video about newsreels, those conveyors of news to the movie-going masses in the early half of the 20th century and the fodder of many a hilarious Mystery Science Theater 3000 segments at the tail end of the 20th century. As I watched the part about how the emergence of television made newsreels obsolete and eventually extinct, I couldn’t help but wonder whether we will be seeing a similar exhibit about the printed newspapers in 10 or 20 years.
• The unintentionally hilarious headlines and corrections built into the restroom walls are great. I found myself going to the restroom even when I didn’t have to, just so I could check those out.
• The museum has a small but apparently growing wing about social media, and I was impressed that there’s already a panel there about the role of social media in the Middle East uprisings. That’s some fast work.
• The exhibit of old newspaper pages is a terrific time sink if you are looking for a way to while away a few hours. Many of those pages reminded me of the “Our Dumb Century” book by The Onion, which, by the way, was on sale at the museum gift shop.
• There are a lot of video exhibits at the Museum, and many are long, perhaps too long ((some are 10-12 minutes). I wonder how many people make it all the way through one of these clips.
• One of the most beautiful exhibits was the Journalist Memorial, a curved glass wall bearing the names of journalists who died in the line of duty.
• A perhaps unintentionally symbolic exhibit: There was a couple displays about the decline of newspaper circulation, and one of them was a survey about whether you read a newspaper in print or online, and you are supposed to answer by depositing a penny into two tubes, one for print and one for online. When we were there, there was only a small handful of pennies at the bottom of each tube. It may not be the intent of the exhibit, but it really did kind of sum up the financial quandary facing journalism, and more specifically newspapers, today.

Pennies in print, and pennies in online. Kinda says it all for newspapers, doesn’t it?

As with most multi-day trips we take, I’ll be writing up a “If You Go” guide from our just-completed trip to Baltimore and Washington, D.C. But for now, a quick review of the five-day visit:

A Few of My Favorite Things

• The animals at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore and the National Zoo in D.C.: If you read our travel posts with any regularity (and my traffic numbers say you don’t), then you know about our affinity for zoos, due in big part to my fondness for the animals as photography subjects. I think the zoo pictures I took on this trip were the best I’ve ever taken at any zoo, thanks in no small part to the tips I picked up at the photography workshop we attended at the North Carolina Zoo last month. We also got some help with the animals, from the adorable baby sifakas to the hungrily munching pandas to the unusually cooperative gibbons. I can’t wait to go through my photos from the trip.
• Krakus Deli: We didn’t know it when we booked our lodging in Baltimore, but the apartment we were staying in was surrounded by a number of Polish establishments, including this little Polish general store a block away. The strong scent of smoked sausages and the sight of said sausages hanging on the wall hooked me the second we walked in. I wish we had more time so I could sample all the different smoked meats on display. The store also sold a wide variety of delicious Polish chocolates.
• The firehouse we stayed at in D.C.: I’ve already raved about this place in an earlier post, but it’s worth repeating: This place rocks! It’s got so much history and character that it just feels … fun to stay there. Sure the floors creak a bit and the shower is a little touchy temperature-wise, but you tend to overlook those little things when you are in a guest room with 18-foot ceilings and can relax in a living room that doubles as an art gallery.
• The crepe stand on 7th Street near Chinatown in D.C.: We stumbled upon this stand while waltzing down 7th Street after dinner and instantly knew we had to try it. The crepes were so good that we made time specifically to go back there for seconds a day later.
• The gallery of Pulitzer-winning photos at the Newseum: The Newseum was kind of a surprisingly good treat for us, and this exhibit was my favorite part of the museum. The photos are quite simply astounding in their power, and the stories behind them quite moving. The most touching one for me was the one of a vulture watching a starving Sudanese girl, taken by Kevin Carter, who committed suicide soon after receiving his Pulitzer Prize for the photo.

Could’ve Done Without

• The Baltimore-Washington Parkway: Our GPS directed us onto this route on our way up to Baltimore from Durham, and boy did we regret it. It took two-plus hours to go 40-some miles, turning what should’ve been a five-and-a-half-hour drive into an eight-hour drive. I’ll never take that road again.
• The chilly and rainy weather in Baltimore: For most of our stay in Baltimore, it was wetter and colder than we had expected from the weather forecasts, and of course we didn’t really pack for 40-degree weather. Fortunately, the sun came out on our final afternoon in Baltimore and followed us to D.C.
• The wait at Eat Bertha’s Mussels: The restaurant was called Eat Bertha’s Mussels, and that’s what we tried to do in Baltimore. With that dinner choice being a relatively last-minute decision, we didn’t have enough time to call ahead for a reservation. BIG MISTAKE! What we were told was going to be a 35-minute wait turned into an hour-plus wait with no end in sight before we gave up and went somewhere else.
• The disappointment of the Edgar Allan Poe house: First, we got there at the wrong time as the house was still an hour away from opening. Second, if the house looked promising, we probably would’ve hung around and waited for it to open, but it didn’t. In fact, as the residence of and a museum about one of America’s greatest writers, it looked pretty podunk from the outside, and it was in a dilapidated neighborhood that looked like a ghetto.
• Not getting to try Ben’s Chili Bowl or exploring Dupont Circle more: We stayed near Dupont Circle in D.C. and were only a few blocks away from Ben’s Chili Bowl, the historic foodies destination. Yet, our plans always seemed to take us away from that area. We had planned to go to Ben’s Chili Bowl on our last day in D.C. but simply ran out of time as we needed to get on the road before evening rush-hour traffic really got bad. Oh well. That just means we now have another reason to go back.

It’s been a long day of walking around Washington, D.C. My feet are tired and Courtney has already passed out, so I’ll keep this short and sweet. We kicked off our only full day in D.C. on this trip with a visit to the Newseum, the tribute to journalism that shows while you may not be able to charge people a single cent for today’s news, you sure can charge them $20 a head for news of yesteryears. The Newseum turned out to be a very well done museum that kind of sucks you in, and I can see how people can easily spend five hours there, as some had said on TripAdviser.com. We didn’t have five hours today, so we only spent a little less than two hours there and plan to go back tomorrow (the tickets are good for back-to-back days).

We left the Newseum early because we wanted to make sure we had enough time to see the main item on our itinerary today — the National Zoo. We’ve been to that zoo before (I personally have been there several times), but when it comes to zoos, we just can’t say no. We spent a good five-and-a-half hours walking around the zoo after lunch, and all the walking we had been doing the past couple days, as well as the suddenly warm weather, started adding up as we had to take frequent breaks from the heat and to rest our feet. It was worth it, though, as we saw some neat animal behaviors that we hadn’t seen before: the giant pandas grazing outside, an elephant playing with a water spout in a pool, and a white gibbon posing for perfect pictures.

After the zoo closed, we hurried off to the International Spy Museum. The only disappointment about this attraction was that we weren’t allowed to take pictures. The plethora of spy-related tools were very interesting, and we loved the cheesy, “Mystery Science Theater 3000″-style shorts from the 40s and 50s that were playing on a loop. We enjoyed the museum so much that we were the last ones out and one of the security guards had to politely usher us out the final set of doors while apologizing for interrupting our exhibit-viewing.

That’s that. My aching feet and drooping eyelids are send me to bed. Enjoy the pictures.

After a cold and wet Friday on which many of our plans did not pan out, today was a welcomed change. We started the day with a nice brunch. We briefly flirted with the idea of trying to get into Blue Moon Cafe again after being rebuffed by an hour-long wait time yesterday, but wisely thought better of it and decided instead to go back to Ze Mean Bean, the Polish restaurant where we dined on our first night in Baltimore. Unlike at Blue Moon Cafe, where we likely would’ve been at the end of a throng of people waiting outside, we were the first ones in Ze Mean Bean, and the brunch was outstanding.

With our bellies full, we packed our bags, got in the car for the first time in two days, and headed off to the Maryland Zoo. The air was still a tad chilly and the sky cloudy and gray, but at least the projected scattered thunderstorms were still holding off when we got to the zoo. This was a relatively small zoo in terms of number of exhibits, but pretty sizable in terms of area covered. After going in, there was a good 10-minute walk along a meandering trail before we started seeing animals.

About midway through our visit, just as we made the turn at the rhino exhibit, the sky opened up and down came rain. Fortunately, the rhino exhibit had a covered pavilion, so we and a number of other visitors sought shelter there for a little bit while watching the rain pelt the rhinos and ostriches. When the rain had died down a bit, we pressed on and saw the leopards and cheetahs, which were definitely two of the highlights of the day.

As the rain started to pick up again, we headed into the chimpanzee and other primates exhibit, which was, thankfully, indoors. This being the Saturday before Easter, all the animals at the zoo were given special treats, and the chimps quickly tore theirs apart when they were released into their exhibit. One chimp horded a banner to itself until another came and tore half of it off and climbed up to a perch with it.

The chimps’ neighbors, however, were the definite stars of the day for us. It was a family of sifakas (a type of lemurs) that included two adults and a ridiculously adorable two-month-old baby named Otto. The baby was clinging to his mother the whole time, but he had become big enough that she could no longer hold him comfortably all the time, so he spent a lot of time climbing all over her back while reaching for nearby branches. One of the zoo staff members told us that this pair of adult sifakas came from the Duke Primate Center and that it’s pretty rare for sifakas to have babies in captivity (she said Otto was one of maybe about 50 born in captivity in the world).

Upon leaving the primate house, we were pleasantly surprised that not only had the rain stopped, but that the sun had also come out and the sky was now a clear blue with white clouds and the temperature was climbing to the point where we had to shed a couple layers of clothing. That change in the weather made for a pleasant rest of the day as we wrapped up our zoo visit with a giraffe feeding where the giraffes snatched our twigs in about two seconds.

Another zoo thus checked off of our “Zoos Visited” list, we left Baltimore around mid-afternoon and headed to Washington, D.C. Fortunately, we didn’t get stuck in traffic like we did on the way to Baltimore, as we hopped off of I-95 and sneaked into D.C. through Silver Spring.

The place where we are staying in D.C. is actually something I’ve been looking forward to as much as any other sights and destinations on this trip. We’re holed up in a historic firehouse near Dupont Circle, and it serves as the home and studio of Craig Kraft, a talented light sculpture artist. The bottom floor is his workshop, while the second floor holds our room, the kitchen, a large guest bathroom for us, and a gigantic art gallery/living room where many of Craig’s pieces are displayed. Being a historic firehouse, the house has many charming vintage touches, like the large communal wash basin in the guest bathroom featuring three faucets or the firemen’s pole that’s still present in the living room. I first stumbled upon this house a couple years ago when I was exploring HomeAway.com, and I remember thinking to myself back then, “I’ve got to stay at this place at some point.” Now that we’re here, I’m happy to report that the house certainly does not disappoint. It’s also conveniently located just a block from a Metro stop, as well as a number of restaurants. It costs a little more than a hotel room, but we’re getting a ton more space. Besides, when’s the last time you stayed somewhere that once served as an important all-black firehouse and doubled as a town hall? Take that, Holiday Inn.

It started with us heading over to Blue Moon Cafe in Fell’s Point around 9:30-ish for breakfast. We had read some good things about this place, and the line out the door confirmed those praises. Unfortunately, that line out the door also proved a bit too long for our taste. The restaurant only has eight tables and the wait was going to be at least an hour. Thus thwarted, we stopped at a local coffeeshop to pick up a couple cups of coffee and a quick bite and headed off to our first destination of the day, the Edgar Allan Poe house and museum.

The Poe house is located near the campus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore (by the way, I hate it when schools refuse to put an “at” before the city in their names). The neighborhood it’s in, however, looked kind of like a ghetto, with rows of dilapidated old houses, most of which had boarded-up windows. It’s a stark contrast from the much newer red brick-and-glass highrises comprising the UMD BioPark just one block away.

The Poe house is rather inconspicuous and kind of just sneaks up on you, sitting as the end unit on one such row of old houses. It wasn’t until we walked up to the Poe house that we saw a sign saying the house doesn’t open until noon, which was still more than an hour away. Considering that there was nothing in the neighborhood to while away an hour, we decided not to wait around for the Poe house to open (we’ve seen our share of old houses anyway, and this one didn’t look particularly impressive from the outside). So we decided to walk back part of the way to Fell’s Point, taking in some of the Baltimore street scene along the way, mostly in the area where the buildings for the UMD school of medicine and health system are located. As we walked, it struck me that 1) how similar all health care-related buildings look, regardless of where they may be, and 2) how much the layout of health care-related buildings reflect the confusing nature of our health-care system — a big, sprawling web of a million different specialties, all scattered about in proximity to each other, making it confusing to get around and find where you’re supposed to go.

By now it was around 11 a.m., and we still had a few hours to kill before our 2:30 p.m. entry time at the National Aquarium (it was 2:30 because by the time we had thought to book tickets online the night before, all the earlier time slots had been sold out). So we hopped on a Charm City Circulator bus back to Fell’s Point and walked over to one of the restaurants we knew we wanted to dine at on this trip — Obrycki’s, whose crabs are a must-do for foodies visiting the city. What lured us there, however, wasn’t the steamed blue crabs, but rather the crab cakes. During a behind-the-scene segment at Obrycki’s on Man vs. Food, they showed the making of the crab cakes, and it was pretty much giant clumps of crab meat held together by little clumps of crab meat. So we ended up trying the crab cakes and the fried soft-shell crabs. We’ll have a more detailed review of the food at Obrycki’s on our food blog after the trip, but for now, it’ll suffice to say that you do get your money’s worth with the crab cakes.

After filling up on crab, we walked back to Fell’s Point to do an impromptu Polish culture immersion tour. For the first part of the tour, we went to Krakus Deli, a Polish smoked meat shop from which the Polish restaurant where we had dinner last night gets its kielbasa. The moment we walked into Krakus Deli, we were hit with the delicious aroma of smoked meat, and we saw links of Polish sausages hanging on the walls and a number of other smoked meats sitting in the glass display case. We ended up getting a pound of kielbasa and a handful of Polish chocolates.

After leaving the sausage shop, we headed over to Polish Treasures, a little shop selling Polish trinkets and gifts. The stuff in the shop ranged from cute to cheesy, and we didn’t end up buying anything. We did, however, get a whiff of some amazingly sweet-smelling Polish doughnuts and came across this little treasure set:

Yes, those are Russian nesting dolls adorned with W, Osama, and the Pope.

After our Polish-themed detour, it was nearing our entry time for the aquarium. We had planned to take a Charm City Circulator bus over there, but the stop where we were planning to catch the bus was nowhere to be found at the intersection where it’s supposed to be located. Undaunted, we hoofed it over to the aquarium in the chilly wind and the increasingly heavy rain.

The aquarium was packed, which was not a surprise considering its popularity and the fact that on this dreary day, it was probably much more appealing than some of the other destinations in Baltimore. Kids were running around everywhere, and there were several rows of people in front of every tank. As far as the aquarium itself goes, I guess it’s because I’ve gotten jaded from having gone to so many aquariums, but this one just didn’t really offer a “Wow!” factor. It wasn’t bad, but at the same time, it didn’t really stand out from any other aquarium we’ve been to. There was a multi-floor shark tank in the center, around which wound staircases and escalators. Then there were the various requisite exhibits: the tropical tank with the Finding Nemo fishes, the rain forest exhibit, the jellyfish tanks, the giant river fishes tank … It wasn’t that this was an uninteresting aquarium, but just that it pretty much resembled any other aquarium we had been to. I don’t think the crowd and the drab, dark, concrete interior helped matters any either.

The rain and chill kept up after we left the aquarium, and by now we were cold and wet, so we decided to go back to our apartment and warm up before dinner. For dinner, we had our hearts set on a place we saw down by the waterfront called Eat Bertha’s Mussels (see, superliminal advertising does work). We got there around 7:30 and were told that it was going to be a 35-minute wait. No problem, we thought, and with the aroma of seafood filling the air, it was too much to resist and we put our names down on the waiting list. An hour later, however, we were still sitting at the bar waiting for a table. When we inquired, we were told that even though there were a couple tables available, the hostess couldn’t seat anyone because the kitchen was seriously backed up on account of a 30-person party upstairs and the dining room being full, so it was going to take a long time to get your food even after you get a table.

At this point, it was close to 9 p.m., and we were starving and cold. So we decided to give up on mussels and went next door to a pizza joint named Brick Oven. Our pizzas were cooked in about 15 minutes, and we happily scarfed down the delicious pies. Hot melted cheese and tangy tomato sauce on a soft, delicious crust never tasted as good as it did on this night.

Today was the first day of our Baltimore-Washington trip. We knew it was going to be mostly spent sitting in the car as we drove up to Baltimore, but the drive turned out to be a good two-plus hours longer than we expected. Google Maps and our GPS both told us it was going to take about five-and-a-half hours to make the drive, so we figured a little over six hours with lunch thrown in. As it turned out, we left the house a little after 9:30 a.m. and did not see the place where we are staying in Baltimore until a little after 6 p.m., making it an eight-and-a-half-hour drive altogether. Ugh!

We actually made good time in the morning and were more than halfway there before stopping for lunch around 12:30. After lunch, however, the trip often slowed to a turtle’s pace as we ran into one interstate parking lot after another, and all without seeing a single accident or construction that might explain the traffic jams. The couple traffic jams we ran into before Washington, D.C., slowed us down enough that by the time we meandered around D.C. in the direction of Baltimore, it was after 3 p.m., and we were already caught in rush-hour traffic on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. A 40-some-mile drive ended up taking about two hours!! I can’t believe some people actually make this drive every day. As I sat at the wheel, it was as if my GPS was playing tricks with my mind. I kept driving and driving, and yet the estimated time to arrival seemingly remained unchanged and the projected arrival time kept nudging forward.

Finally, around 5:30 p.m., we made it into Baltimore and promptly ran into rush-hour traffic around Camden Yards. Another 15 to 20 minutes of stop-and-go driving later, we entered Fell’s Point, the historic neighborhood where we are staying. We found the streetside apartment we had reserved, but then came the problem of finding parking. We drove around the surrounding streets for a good 15-20 minutes before finally finding a place to park in between all the signs that said “Do Not Park”. Fortunately, it was only a five-minute walk from the apartment.

From there on, the remainder of the day drastically improved. The apartment we are staying in is pretty neat, not to mention centrally located. We are smack in the middle of Fell’s Point, near a plethora of restaurants, bars, and shops, and only a few blocks away from the waterfront. The inside of the apartment looks like a renovated historic building, with little traces of age left for accent. After a brief rest, we went out to track down some dinner. Our pre-trip research had found a good number of Polish establishments in this area, and Courtney, possessing some Polish blood, was itching to try a restaurant called Ze Mean Bean, which sounds like a cafe but is actually a cute little Polish bar and restaurant. We sat down to a nice dinner of borscht (a first for both of us), kielbasa, pierogi, and galumpkis. We’ll post a review of the food on our trip on our food blog after we get back.

After dinner, we walked a few blocks down to the Fell’s Point harbor, a neat little area of restaurants, bars, and coffeeshops. We stopped into Pitango Gelato for some sweet dessert, and was knocked out by the black tea gelato. Our bellies now full of Polish food and delicious gelato, we wandered down to the waterfront, where we could see the outlines of a portion of the Baltimore skyline in the darkness across the water, illuminated by little specks of light and the occasional large glowing sign. It was a restful way to wind down a tiring day.

I discovered Plnnr, a new travel site, via Lifehacker last Friday. The site aims to take the hard work out of drawing up an itinerary for your trip. Personally, I’ve actually always found this part of trip planning very enjoyable as it helps me learn more about the place I’m going to and drums up my anticipation for the trip. However, Plnnr also looks like a good place to start your itinerary creation.

Right now, the site only offers itineraries for 18 cities, all in Europe or North America. You start by selecting a city, the date and length of your visit, the general type of activities you prefer (culture, kid-friendly, etc.), the level of intensity for the itinerary, and the level of accommodations you want for your trip. Plnnr then draws up an itinerary by drawing information from a number of Internet sites such as TripAdvisor, Wikipedia, and Frommer’s. You can then tweak the itinerary by telling Plnnr which sights you definitely want to see and which ones you are definitely not interested in. Each time you adjust that setting on an attraction, the itinerary automatically updates to accommodate the change. It also learns the general types of things you do and do not like and uses that to make better suggestions. You can also change each day’s start and end time, as well as how much time you wish to spend at a particular attraction.

To see how well Plnnr works, I set up a test itinerary for a four-day stay in London to see how Plnnr’s suggested itinerary compared to our actual itinerary when we visited London last fall. I designated the attractions we visited on that trip as must-see, and Plnnr did the rest. Here’s what I found:

The Good

• Plnnr seems to be pretty useful in helping you fill in the gaps between attractions that you know you want to see. For instance, the walking time from one stop to the next on our itinerary was generally only about 10 minutes, which meant it showed me plenty of attractions that are near my must-see choices, helping answer the question, “So what else do you want to do on the day that we’re going to see X?”
• The itinerary offers pretty detailed travel directions between attractions.
• The update to an itinerary after you’ve tweaked your attraction preferences takes a very short time.
• Plnnr is working on allowing you to enter your own lodging location, which is very handy for someone like me who prefers vacation rentals listed by individuals over chain hotels.

Needs Improvement

• Obviously, we could use more destinations, which Plnnr’s FAQ says the site is working to add.
• Once the site stats adding more destinations, it should offer itineraries for multi-city trips that help users draw up itineraries for travel days.
• More transportation options: Right now, it’s either walk or take a taxi. I would like to see public transportation factored into the equation as well, especially since they likely would be the easiest way to get around many of the cities currently available on Plnnr.
• A way to add your own custom attractions/locations to visit. I mentioned above that Plnnr is working on allowing people to set their own lodging option. That’s good, but I’d like to see that concept applied to other aspects of the trip as well to give users the flexibility to add stops that may not be the most popular attractions to their itinerary. Also, it would help people create an itinerary that can take into account where they want to dine, which is definitely a key part of the travel experience.
• Improve the time components of the itinerary. The suggested duration of time spent at each attraction and the suggested time of day for your visit seem to be kind of hit or miss. On the good side, the site seemed to be aware that the British Museum really requires at least four hours to do it justice, and every version of the London itinerary included going to Buckingham Palace at 11:10 a.m., just in time for the changing of the guards. On the down side, however, if you got to the changing of the guards at 11:10 a.m., you would not be able to get anywhere near the front of the sea of people that tend to gather for the event. Also, in a test itinerary I set up for Washington, D.C., it suggested spending five hours at the Newseum while only two hours at the National Zoo. I haven’t been to the Newseum, but it’s hard to imagine it would take more time to see than the British Museum. I have been to the National Zoo, and just under two hours seem not quite enough time to really see the whole zoo. When I changed the duration for the zoo to four hours, the itinerary suggested that I visit the zoo from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., even though the zoo closes at 6 p.m.
• Add an “itinerary by budget” feature that takes into account the cost of admission. It would be great if I can tell the site that I don’t want to spend more than, say, $300 on admissions to attractions and then have it figue out an itinerary based on that.
• Develop a mobile-friendly site. I can conceivably see this being a useful tool for people who might want to change their plans on the fly. I tried accessing the site via my iPod Touch, and it didn’t seem to work too well on that.

Right now, it looks like Plnnr is a handy tool to help take care some of the initial work in itinerary planning, with the potential to become a much more powerful and useful tool. You can’t draw up the ideal itinerary with Plnnr alone quite yet, but you can use it to help you get started.

The workshop, run by nature photographers Vinny Colucci and Melissa Southern, took the dozen attendees around the zoo, taking pictures and getting tips from the two pros. The highlight of the day was a becoming-part-of-the-scene tour of the prairie exhibit in the North American section of the zoo. Two zookeepers put us in the back of a big truck and drove us into the prairie exhibit, giving us a chance to get up close and personal with the bison and elks. The elks stayed away at a distance, but the herd of bison came within a few feet of the truck, which they associate with the arrival of food, and one of them came right up to the side of the truck and started sniffing and even munched someone’s shoelaces at one point. When the truck started moving, the whole herd followed with a moderate trot. Being this close to the bison gave us a new perspective on these animals, who pretty much all looked alike and didn’t seem all that interesting from a distance. The weather cooperated as well, with a swath of clouds rolling in just as we were pulling into the exhibit, blocking out the bright sun and giving us a softer light under which to photograph the herd.

After the prairie tour, we also got to go to the back of the grizzly bear exhibit, where we were introduced to the bear that wasn’t on display that day. One of the zookeepers showed us some of the tricks they taught the bear to do as part of the training to help them keep him healthy, such as getting him to keep his mouth open and pressed up against the cage so they can brush his teeth. She said bears are pretty easy to train because they are very food-oriented. We stood a mere couple feet away from the bear (on the other of the fence, of course), and its claws, which were easily at least six inches long, were something to behold.

During the rest of the day, we also got to see a couple of the zoo’s newest arrivals — an albino alligator in the African Pavilion exhibit and the baby chimp named Nori who was born last August. We got about a 60-second glimpse of the adorable baby chimp, who was clinging to her mother as she walked from one end of the exhibit to the other and disappeared over the ridge, not to be seen again for the rest of the afternoon. I think next time we go to the zoo, we’ll have to stake out the chimp exhibit for few hours to get a better look at Nori.

As for the workshop, it was a terrific experience and definitely worth the $50. Aside from getting the chance to go into the prairie exhibit, we also picked up some good tips from Vinny and Melissa, who were very friendly, approachable, and entertaining. It was also funny to have people ask what’s going on and mistake us for a professional wildlife photography crew when they saw a dozen people walk by with a bunch of big lenses and a few tripods in tow.

If you are interested in animal photography, I would definitely recommend the workshop, if you can get in. It is the most popular event that the zoo society puts on, and the workshop we attended was filled up just a few minutes after registration opened. The only reason we got into this session was because it had to be pushed back a week due to weather and some people who were signed up couldn’t make the new date, so we got moved up from the waiting list. Vinny and Melissa told us that they are planning another zoo workshop in October that will take the participants into the African savanna exhibit to get near the rhinos and antelopes. We’ll most likely try to get into that one as well.

Also, here’s a short video of one of the performances:

We’ve been to the aquarium a couple times already, and most of it was pretty much the same. The one new addition since our last visit was the albino alligator. We’ve seen albino gators before at other aquariums, but not this big or this close up. The albino gene is a recessive trait, and a white alligator has little chance of surviving in the wild as it would be easily spotted by predators while young and would make a lousy ambush predator if it actually grew into an adult. The albino gator at the aquarium, as we were told by a volunteer, came from a nest of eggs hatched by a licensed alligator breeder in Mississippi who then gave the albino gators to a gator farm in St. Augustine, Florida.

After whiling away a hour and a half at the aquarium, we headed to the Cameron Art Museum. It was a small museum but a decent place to spend an hour or two. The most interesting exhibit was the Mini Museum, a collection of miniature replicas of famous works of art from museums around the world. The collection is created by Richard McMahan, who has actually never been to any of the museums in which the actual pieces on which his work is based are displayed, and includes replicas of everything from the mummies of the British Museum to Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup cans. Unfortunately, photography is not allowed in the museum, so I don’t have a bazillion pictures of mini masterpieces to share with you. However, check out this neat site about the collection. Aside from the miniature collection, the museum also had an interesting exhibition about the Bread and Puppet Theater.

Warning: This is going to be a bit of a rambling post, as the title indicates.

We flew up North to spend Thanksgiving with my in-laws, and one of the first questions every relative asked upon seeing us was, “So did you have to go through the scans or the pat-down?” The answer was no. We went through the check points in less than 10 minutes on the way up North and on the way back. I’m not sure if Terminal 1 at RDU has a backscatter machine or not (we didn’t see one at the check point), and on the way back, flying out of Providence, I did see one woman getting a pat-down on the other side of the check point. Not sure if it was the enhanced variety.

Personally, neither the scanner nor the pat-down would really bother me. On the privacy-concern front, even if the scanners can and do store the images, and even if those images do get leaked out somehow, the government has (or can get its hands on) far more sensitive and potentially damaging information about me than a blurry, translucent, blue image of me in the buff. If you are going to be irate about anything, be irate about the fact that there might now be an increased chance of us being inadvertently exposed to blurry nude X-rays of fat-ass Americans. And yes, let’s call it for what it is — a nude X-ray image, not pornographic. If you call these images pornographic, you either have a very strange fetish or you are just trying to push people’s emotional buttons. As far as the pat-downs go, I don’t have too big a problem with TSA officials touching my junk with the back of their hands as long as it’s done in a professional manner, just as a doctor might touch my private areas in a professional manner during a medical exam. And I’m sure the TSA schmoes at the airport wake up everyday thinking, “Boy I can’t wait to touch somebody’s junk today.” And if you think there aren’t doctors who trade jokes about their patients, well, then you don’t know enough doctors outside of their office.

As for the safety concerns, I can actually sympathize with some of the complaints on this front, especially from frequent flyers. However, personally, since I only fly a couple times a year, this is much less of an issue for me. The government data says you would have to be scanned 1,000 times a year to approach a dangerous dose, and even David J. Brenner, the “these scanners may not be safe” researcher who has been quoted in seemingly every story on the subject, has said repeatedly that 1) the risk is very small on an individual basis, and 2) even if the radiation dosage is higher than the TSA claims, according the evidence from which such claims arise, that speculated dosage would still be very small. His concerns are about the safety of pilots, airline staff — people who get scanned hundreds of times a year — and frequent flyers, as well as from a population risk standpoint when you multiply the tiny individual risk by billions of people introduced to that risk. I can certainly understand concerns from pilots and flight attendants, which is why I would support different scanning protocols for them. As for myself, however, from the evidence that’s out there right now, the safety of the scanners aren’t that big an issue. Others who travel much more frequently than I do may have a different perspective, and that’s fine. In any case, I would like to see more study and data, if nothing else, just to put the public at ease. In the mean time, if I were asked to go to the backscatter scanners, I won’t object. If I decide at the last second that I don’t want to take the tiny risk of the machines being harmful, I’d be ok with a pat-down.

I’m undecided on the other major criticism of the new scanners and pat-down procedures — that they are ineffective at catching potential terrorists trying to smuggle explosives onto planes. On one hand there’s certainly merit to the criticism, and “security theater” is just too delicious a phrase to not get spread around like the flu. But on the other hand, these are more measures of deterrence, so they may never catch anything but still be effective in taking away some potential ways for smuggling explosives. My mind is not made up on the issue, but I do think the TSA is in an unwinnable situation where if it tightens security measures, people cry bloody murder about encroachment on their rights, and if they relax measures and then something happens, people cry bloody murder about them not doing enough.

The Israel Solution

While we’re on the issue of effectiveness, I’ve seen a lot of mentions of and suggestions for adopting Israel’s approach to airport security. I must admit that I knew nothing about Israeli airport security, so I went looking for information. What I found, quite frankly, left me a bit stunned and disappointed that Americans would suggest adopting such measures when we’re complaining about scanners and pat-downs being too invasive.

Let’s see, what if America set up a defense perimeter where all cars entering the airport are stopped while cameras scan their license plates to match them with a database of suspicious vehicles and rifle-toting guards question the passengers? Why, I’m confident that won’t raise any complaints about treating not only those flying, but also their relatives or friends who are just taking them to the airport, as terrorists. Or better yet, what if America unofficially declared 20 percent of its population, based primarily on their ethnicity or religion, presumed enemies of the state unless they can prove otherwise? And let’s subject these 20 percent to significantly more hassle, suspicion, and embarrassment at the airport, including turning their luggage upside down and giving them real, not virtual, strip searches.

Coincidentally, according to numbers from the U.S. Census, all non-white minorities in the U.S. add up to about 20 percent of the American population.

I’m not passing judgement about Israel and its airport security measures. I have a lot of sympathy for people in that part of the world. Living with the perpetual threat of terrorism, surrounded by neighboring countries that aren’t all too keen on you, and having to deal with rockets being launched into your neighborhood on a regular basis is not exactly an idyllic existence. For all I know, marking one-fifth of the population as guilty until proven innocent may be what is needed to protect lives in Israel. However, just because such extreme measures may be necessary for Israel, it doesn’t mean they are necessary, or even justified, for the United States. The U.S. is not Israel. Canada and Mexico aren’t launching rockets over our borders (yet) on a regular basis. Parts of our territory aren’t in dispute. We haven’t waged a war on our own soil in a century and a half (Pearl Harbor not withstanding), and our civilians aren’t in the line of fire in our wars. Until this is no longer the case, I feel that Israel’s security measures would be a severe overkill in America. It seems to me that those security measures may be deemed necessary in Israel precisely because the terrorists have already won in a sense by making the population so fearful that they would sanction state-sponsored ethnic and religious discrimination as a necessary evil to staying alive.

Our Rights or My Rights?

The renewal of calls for adopting the Israeli approach in America came amid new security protocols that add inconvenience for Americans. This hints to me that one of the main appeals of the Israeli approach for Americans is that it allows most travelers to go through check points with relatively little hassle. The flip side of that, of course, is that it also means a much higher level of hassle, frustration, and humiliation for those who aren’t so lucky to be part of the exempt majority or even those who just have friends who aren’t in that majority. So this is not really an issue of less invasion of privacy, but rather less invasion of privacy for whom.

What it comes down to, perhaps, is the invasion of MY privacy vs. the invasion of OTHERS’ privacy, and it seems some are all too eager to look the other way while others’ rights are being blatantly violated if it means they can walk through the airport relatively trouble-free. That, frankly, is not the kind of America that I, as a naturalized citizen, would be proud to call home, and people who want the Israeli protocols because it would mean less hassle for themselves would not be the type I would want to be associated with when I identify myself as an American. I don’t know if Israel has any charter-type document that expresses the sentiment “All men are created equal,” but I do know that America has one, and it does not come with a footer that says, “* –  except those ethnic and religious groups whose rights you have to trample to protect my rights.” I’ve said this before: I love America’s ideals, but I hate how often its people fall short of those ideals.

No, you can’t argue with the effectiveness of the Israeli solution, but you can definitely take issue with what you would be giving up in order to attain that effectiveness. In this sense, the arguments against scanners and pat-downs are the same as those against the Israeli approach — the benefit is not worth the cost — the only difference is a matter of degrees. Personally, I can live with the scanners and pat-downs but not state-sanctioned, populace-approved ethnic and religious discrimination. In any case, though, if we as a nation decide that scanners and pat-downs are too invasive of our privacy and rights, then it’s illogical for us to move toward an alternative that would be even more invasive for those whom it afflicts, unless, of course, it’s not really our privacy and rights that we’re worried about, but just my privacy and rights. Ask yourself: Am I concerned about the innocent being treated as guilty, or about me being treated as guilty?

Other Random Thoughts on the Subject

• When I was reading up about Israel’s security measures, I couldn’t help but wonder what the public opinion of those measures would be in America if every complaint about an incident in an Israeli airport was relentlessly blogged, aggregated, YouTubed, and retweeted. Consider just a few examples:
  • What it means to go to Ben Gurion airport with an Arab friend
  • Guilty of Flying While Arab
  • Flying while Arab: Airport grilling of Israeli official spurs inquiry
  • Suspected Citizens: Racial Profiling against Arab Passengers by Israeli Airports and Airlines
  • American VIP humiliated at airport
  • 2 siblings humiliated at airport after false drug accusation

• The kind of crap that Arab travelers have to go through in Israel airports make the stuff that Americans have been complaining about the last month or so seem like child’s play. Strip searches, interrogations, and unexplained seizure of property kind of put receiving an enhanced pat-down in context.
• If you object to the new scanners and pat-downs, fine, and as I said above, I can see some reasons for concern. But I really don’t understand National Opt-Out Day. What better way to turn those who are undecided against your cause than to encourage people to clog things up on the busiest travel day of the year? And that’s exactly what you would have been doing, regardless of how noble your intentions were.
• Being confrontational or making things difficult for the TSA staff at the airports is venting your rage at the wrong people. March on the TSA office, write to members of Congress, complain to the policy-makers. Those schmoes at the airport don’t make policy, nor do they have the power to make an exception for you without putting their asses on the line. I made sure to flash them an extra smile and “Thank you” on Thanksgiving. That was the least I could do, considering how much crap they have had to put up with, how many unfair labels they’ve been slapped with based on the actions of a relative few, and the fact that I’ve never been treated with anything except professionalism during my travels.
• If you’re going to argue over the new security protocols, whether for or against, then make an actual argument. Don’t couch it in the guise of press criticism and not offer up why your are for or against the protocols themselves, thus shielding yourself from counterarguments by not giving those who disagree any specifics to disagree with. Weak.
• As part of following the story, I’ve been reading the TSA blog a lot. I like the fact that the blog aggressively tries to bust myths or lies (the “I was handcuffed to a chair” woman, for instance). However, it does tend to remain silent on issues that don’t favor the agency’s stance, which damages the blog’s credibility.
• Reading about the questioning of Arab travelers at Israeli airports reminded me of our experience in September flying out of London Heathrow. The clerk at the immigration check point was very polite while asking some detailed, but not unusual, questions. The one thing that stuck in my mind, though, was when he asked my wife, who is caucasian, and I how we know each other.

“We’re married,” we answered.

“Then how come your last names are different?” he asked.

I explained that I’m Chinese and that in Chinese culture, it’s not customary for women to change their names upon marrying. That satisfied the clerk and he let us through, but I was kind of surprised at even being asked about that. I know we were not in China, but I saw plenty of Asian faces in that airport, so I’m guessing they get more than their fair share of Chinese couples coming through the gates each day. How can something that’s a normal fact of life for more than a quarter of the world’s population be a cause for suspicion? To America’s credit, we’ve never been hassled about that in a U.S. airport.

More Reasons Why I Love Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Watch the season 4 episodes Homefront and Paradise Lost, a two-parter that was made in 1996 but you would swear was based on the events of the past month (Of course, the entire final season of the show, made in 1999, is amazingly prescient when viewed in the context of the decade that followed its airing). Oh if only they would make Trek like this again.

The New York Times had a story last week about the effect that TripAdvisor is having on travelers and proprietors of establishments that are reviewed on the site. The article focuses on the problem that some proprietors have with anonymous negative reviews that may not be true and can be difficult to refute on the site:

… those comments can also cross the line between honest criticism and unsubstantiated, inflammatory claims, with potentially damaging consequences for some hotels.

Although TripAdvisor does allow property owners to post responses to reviews, some hoteliers want the site to monitor comments more actively and take action when managers express concerns, especially when reviews border on libel.

As TripAdvisor’s influences grow, these tensions reveal how the free-for-all of online customer feedback differs from an era of professional reviewers operating under clearer guidelines.

The story cites only one example of such a review, in which a restaurateur is accused of waving a prostitute into his establishment and buying her drinks. The restaurant owner sued TripAdvisor for not investigating or removing the review. The lawsuit was eventually dropped, but the review was also removed.

As someone who loves to travel, I’ve found TripAdvisor to be an invaluable resource in researching accommodations, and its impact on proprietors, especially of smaller establishments that can’t rely on a widely recognized brand to draw patrons, was plainly evident by the fact that on our recent England trip, every B&B had small signs requesting guests to leave a review on TripAdvisor. My take on the NYT story is that it’s approaching this issue from the wrong angle when it paints a picture of “free-for-all” vs. “an era of professional reviewers operating under clearer guidelines.”

The biggest strength of TripAdvisor is the same as that for Amazon.com — the sheer quantity of user reviews. While I do appreciate a well-written, detailed professional review, the fact is professional reviewers can only hit on a limited number of establishments, leaving many many more out in the netherworld. For instance, where am I going to go for a professional review of a hotel in Guangzhou, China? Or a small farm B&B in the Cotswolds? Even when I find it listed in a local tourism brochure, it is usually accompanied by nothing more than a couple sentences, and the source of the information is a bit questionable anyway since a tourism brochure is designed to draw you to a place. Even on other sites that do allow user reviews, the relatively small number of reviews keeps those sites from being as useful because something like hotel accommodations is very dependent on personal taste, and when you only have a handful of reviews, it’s much easier for personal taste to distort the overall picture. When you have dozens or hundreds of reviews, however, patterns start to appear that are more than just “I didn’t like the color of the walls” complaints.

Sure, I’ve come across a number of eyebrow-raising negative reviews on TripAdvisor that might fit the description in the NYT story, but the story’s focus on these negative reviews alone ignores the fact that travelers do not consider them in a vacuum. Instead, like attempts by proprietors to game the system, these are usually just a small part of a much larger collection of reviews for a particular establishment on TripAdvisor, and when I research a place, I don’t just read the first two reviews or just look at the overall rating and stop. I glance through a couple pages of reviews to get a feel for what kind of place this is, and it doesn’t take long to notice patterns, such as the fact that just about every reviewer raved about the breakfast or that many complained about a buggy wifi connection. For example, in the restaurant case cited above, if the restaurant is consistently receiving rave reviews from patrons, one outrageous review such as the prostitute claim will most likely not deter someone from going there. Users are smart enough to throw out the statistical anomalies. The same is true on Amazon.com: If an item has been reviewed by 100 people and has a four-star rating, the occasional one-star, “dead-on-arrival piece of junk” review will have considerably less significance. In contrast, what’s more likely to deter potential patrons is a consistently mediocre rating or a specific complaint being voiced by many reviewers.

There’s another aspect that the NYT story touches on but fails to really address — the fact that proprietors can respond to reviews on the site. To me, this is the most effective tool they have and it can be a powerful one when used correctly. When I was researching accommodations for our recent England trip, I came across a number of B&B listings on TripAdvisor where the proprietors were responding to almost every single review, good or bad. It’s quickly apparent how such interactions can diffuse the impact of a horror-story review. For example, I came across one B&B where a reviewer complained about the proprietor not being in and the room not being available when the guest arrived. The proprietor responded by first apologizing for the mix-up, then explaining in detail how a last-minute family emergency had forced her to go out of town the day before, how she had arranged emergency accommodations for the guest at a comparable B&B nearby, and how she had made unsuccessful attempts to contact the guest and let him know about the situation and also left instructions on the door. While this response alone might not necessarily sway me to believe the proprietor’s side of the story, the rest of the picture — including the numerous positive reviews and the honest, sincere way in which the proprietor responds to all reviews, including negative ones — did  lend her explanation much more credit and I was more inclined to dismiss the horror story as one of those act-of-God situations. Such interaction is especially important for an establishment that does not yet have a ton of user reviews on the site, since every review it does have — and its response to a bad one — counts that much more.

Bottom line: TripAdvisor is intended to be a resource for travelers, not a billboard for establishments, but a smart proprietor would understand that managing his/her establishment’s reputation on this site is now as big a part of building a positive image as making a nifty Web site or providing great customer service, and those who go about doing this the right way — by actively responding to good and bad reviews in an honest tone — can turn a potential minefield into a gold mine of positive PR.

• A personal experience that relates to the issue of how TripAdvisor moderates reviews: I submit reviews on the site for places we’ve stayed at, and they always take a couple days to appear pending moderation. Also, on one instance, I mentioned in my review of a Hong Kong hotel we had stayed at, just as a passing remark, that we learned later from a news story on CNN.com that this place was actually ground zero for the SARS epidemic. The TripAdvisor moderator rejected that review on the basis that it wasn’t something we had personally experienced (even though it was widely reported and there is no refuting it).