My favorite pilot columnist is taking on the U.S. presidential election this week. It’d take a new twist to get me reading any more thoughts about the effects and reverberations either Obama or McCain will have as president. I’m heartily sick of the entire show, and think it should be illegal to let sitting legislators spend 18 months to 2 years running for a different job. We’ve heard about their platform issues ad nauseum, and then ad nauseum again.

However. There are plenty of issues not being talked about, ones that will be crucial to the safety and comfort of Americans’ futures, but also the futures of people traveling through the country by plane. Patrick Smith, that pilot columnist, isn’t holding back on this, his last post before the election. America’s flight infrastructure is in dire need of upgrading. Airline schedules need consolidation and rethinking to get rid of rampant congestion and delays. Smith calls the current U.S. airport security checks a “charade,” but doesn’t see either presidential candidate changing it without serious public outcry. With the advent of the “registered traveler” bypasses, he points out that people can now pay to get around the security rules, rather than hope to see them enforced.

Smith doesn’t see much changing with either Obama or McCain, except negatively. With the weird tendency American citizens have to vote completely counter to their own interests, pilots, Smith says, will likely be voting Republican, which means McCain, which means someone who will work against trade unions and better wages for blue-collar workers — like pilots.

Smith also addresses the peculiar insularity of the American traveler, an insularity that, given the shortsighted worldview, self-interest, and lack of education about the world that most Americans show, I don’t see changing anytime soon, no matter who wins the election. But in less than a week, it’ll all be over, and maybe I’ll feel a little less opinionated about my countrymen. Or at least stop having their worst failings constantly touted on the evening news.

If you’re in search of the Berkeley of Arkansas, with a little Key West and Branson thrown into the mix, look no further than the Ozarks and a little town called Eureka Springs.

It’s the kind of place that organizes bluegrass and blues festivals, gay-friendly “Diversity Weekends” and an annual UFO conference.

The Master Ching Hai Meditation Association Adopt-a-Highway sign is across the road from the popular Road Dawg biker shop; thousands drive past both on their way to attend the Great Passion Play outdoor drama under a 67 foot tall Christ of the Ozarks statue.

The main part of town can get a little too “My Old Mountain Home” cutesy for my taste, but a walk up historic Spring Street reveals beautiful, lovingly-preserved Victorian houses. They have survived numerous threats from fires over the years, and many were torn down during the Depression to use the value of their lumber to pay taxes, so townsfolk are appreciative of the ones that are left.

Throughout the historic loop, quiet little pocket parks surround each of the original 62 springs that brought people here to “take the cure” as early as 1879. Spa visits and water therapy are still quite popular for visitors today; I enjoyed a eucalyptus steam bath (complete with a photo of me in the contraption) at the Palace Hotel and Bath House.

The arts are at home in this mountain village; for example, writers of every genre enjoy retreats at the Writer’s Colony at Dairy Hollow. Cookbook authors spend weeks there testing recipes in the unique culinary suite’s full kitchen. Says Special Projects Consultant Sandy Wright with a laugh, “I’m not proud of this, but I had three pieces of blueberry pie because, well, the author was trying to get the consistency right.”

The nearby Art Colony’s eight studio buildings are arranged so that visitors can wander around and talk to working craftspeople as creations are being made. Naturally, the artisans have plenty of their wares available for sale.

For a different kind of stimulation, there’s always a standing bocce ball challenge on the Colony’s court.

For a good meal, try Local Flavor Café or the Mud Street Café. If you’re not in a hurry, there are fresh “Ark-Mex” vegetarian meals at The Oasis, tucked down a staircase off Spring Street; call (479) 253-0886.

Eureka Springs is located on the old Ozark Trail (now Highway 62) a road trip artery that ran from Niagara Falls, New York to El Paso, Texas. Consequently, many of the motels are Mom-and-Pop tourist court style. Distinctive cottage-style lodging is available at the Rock Cottage Gardens and the Tall Pines Inn.

To the west of town is the Pea Ridge National Military Park, site of one of the largest Civil War battles west of the Mississippi. To the east of town is plenty of outdoor adventure on the Buffalo National River or local arts and culture at the well-regarded Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View.

Pay a visit sometime, for a relaxing mountain vacation.

Las Vegas.
Jewel of the Desert.
You either love it or hate it.
But you will never be bored with it.

Friday 1pm: I planned on arriving in Las Vegas in style and with attitude. Instead, I found myself limping into town, deflated as a flat tyre. Which, four hours earlier, had been the case. Stranded in the dusty ghost town of Chloride, well off the main road, getting to Las Vegas seemed an impossible dream. But luckily, not all the locals were ghosts. Fireman Dale appeared from nowhere, removed the two inch nail, conjured up a can of tyre cement, and reinflated the both the tyre and my dreams of getting to Vegas.

Friday 2.30 pm: The view from my room at the Flamingo Hotel & Casino is picture perfect. I have both the Eiffel Tower and the Bellagio fountains in sight. Every afternoon and evening, the 1,000 feet long fountains burst into a flurry of activity half hourly. Choreographed to songs like ‘Hey Big Spender’ , ‘Con Te Partiro’ and ‘Singing in the Rain’, the show is spectacular. I could order room service, sit by the huge panel window and be entertained. Why even leave the room?

But leave I must. It’s almost 3pm which means feeding time downstairs at the Flamingo Wildlife Habitat. Built where Bugsy Siegel’s private suite once stood, the Wildlife habitat offers 15 acres of waterfalls, fountains, and birds from around the world. The Chilean flamingos are beautiful, but the African penguins steal the show.

Show over, I wander the gardens on the off chance that Bugsy might be around - rumour has it that the ghost of the ‘gangster with movie star looks’ haunts this area of the Flamingo Hotel. But he’s a no show. So I head back inside to the Tropical Breeze café for some old fashioned diner food - grilled cheese sandwich and fries.

Friday 6pm: Feed and watered, I head out of the hotel onto Las Vegas Boulevard (aka The Strip) in search of ‘The Deuce‘. This always crowded double-decker bus is a great way to get downtown to the Fremont Street Experience. Lady Luck is on my side and I grab the last empty seat on the upper deck. Traffic is bumper to bumper. But I’m in no rush. I sit back and enjoy the view.

Crowds are already gathering as we arrive for the nightly Light and Sound show. It starts with sudden darkness and loud music. I hang onto my handbag and look up. The overhead canopy comes alive with neon artwork.

Walking down Fremont Street, I wave to Vegas Vic, the towering neon cowpoke that has greeted visitors to Las Vegas for over half a century. He hasn’t aged a day. You couldn’t say the same about the casinos. Unlike their rich cousins uptown, they show signs of wear and tear. But true gamblers say the machines here are ‘looser’ and you have more chance of winning. Shame I don’t have time to check that out.

Saturday 9am: I put on my walking shoes. There’s shopping to be done. I head to the Grand Canal Shoppes at The Venetian. I want to be serenaded by handsome gondoliers in stripped shirts and ribboned hats while wandering through shops like Ann Taylor, Burberry, and Jimmy Choo. Shops I can’t afford even on sale day.

The prices leave me breathless. But fear not. I spy an oxygen bar in the distance. Aptly named Breathe, it provides pure oxygen hits filtered through scented water. Tempting as it was, I decide instead to grab a chai latte and a muffin from the nearby Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf café. Time to relax and watch the world go by.

Saturday 1pm: Tired of walking, I catch the monorail and somehow end up at the Las Vegas Convention Center surrounded by cowboys of all shapes and sizes. Apparently the National Rodeo Championships are on. I’d love to say that the Marlboro man was there, but alas no. Still, it was fun looking.

Saturday 4pm: Some major music awards are being hosted at MGM Grand this weekend. I find a prime people watching spot at the Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grill on the floor of the casino. By my second glass of Lindauer (yes, they sell New Zealand wine), everyone is famous. Wasn’t that Eminem? Or was it? Maybe I need a coffee.

Saturday 7pm: I trek from continent to continent on my way back to my hotel room. One minute I am in a Morrocan souk (Desert Passage Mall at the Aladdin) and the next strolling through the Rue de las Paix in Paris. Life really is strange in Las Vegas.

Sunday 8am: In great need of fresh air and a reality check, I book a half day tour with Pink Jeep Tours to Red Rock Canyon. Situated only 20 minutes away from Las Vegas Boulevard, the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area is a favourite with hikers, climbers, and cyclists. It’s easy to see why. Nature beats anything man could ever create. Wish I’d packed hiking boots.

Sunday 2pm: It’s time to find the car and drive away. But one more stop before I go. I need to take something truly Las Vegas home with me. The Rainbow Feather Company has just the thing - a feather boa just like the showgirls have.

(notes from my Nov/Dec 2005 Southwest Road Trip)

I must be one of the last book addicts in the world to heap praise on Suite Francaise. Originally published in French, this masterpiece by Irene Nemirovsky is not only an incredible piece of writing, the history of its publication is almost worthy of its own novel.

The manuscript escaped occupied France in a suitcase, rescued by Nemirovsky’s daughters after their parents were taken to Auschwitz, where they died. Thinking the notebooks were simply personal journals, too painful to peruse lightly, the girls left them unread for nearly 60 years. Although Suite Francaise was written in 1941-1942, as Nemirovsky was plastered with a yellow Jewish star and daily feared for her life, its language, characters, and immediacy feel completely modern.

Nemirovsky originally viewed the book as a “suite,” a collection of five novellas that investigated themes of nobility, cowardice, and plain human frailty as the character and resilience of France was tested to its limits during World War II and the occupation of France by the German army. Only two of the novellas were ever finished before she died, both included in Suite Francaise, along with notes from her diary and excerpts of letters from this period of her life.

In the first novella, Storm in June, Nemirovsky views her fellow citizens unflinchingly, exposing their flaws as they protect possessions over people while fleeing Paris; yet in Dolce, which chronicles the effect a battalion of friendly occupying soldiers has on a French village, she exposes her own sympathetic humanity and an understanding that real-life, day-to-day dramas are both complex and very simple. It would have been easy for her to boil down the plot into a basic “the enemy is evil and I must hate him” or “the enemy is simply another human being and I cannot avoid loving him.” Instead, she acknowledges the real situation, that a state of occupation involves a great deal of both emotions on both sides.

Irene Nemirovsky’s tumultuous early life seemed to prepare her to be one of France’s best novelists and war chroniclers. She was born in 1903 to a family of well-off Russian Jews living in St. Petersburg. Her father was a banker, and the whole family was forced to flee the Bolshevik revolution when Irene was about 14 years old. After some time in Finland, the family finally landed in France, where Irene finished school and started writing.

Nemirovsky has been criticized for being a “self-hating Jew” (a term I grow heartily sicker of the more I hear it), and some critics have wondered why she didn’t make the concentration camps of the Second World War a larger theme in Suite Francaise. However, being half Russian-Jewish myself, I sympathize with a writer who chooses to write about any stories that inspire her, rather than focusing on an identity she never chose. I, too, have been questioned by people wondering why my Jewish ancestry isn’t a larger theme in my writing, to which I can only answer, “Neither is my brown hair or inability to digest clams,” or my maternal grandfather’s pure Danish blood, or in fact any other accident of genetics.

What’s more important is that this book is an incredible feat of literature. The language is precise, and the imagery and metaphors works of pure genius. They augment the clear eye with which Nemirovsky viewed the world around her. I couldn’t put it down. It shows a side of war we rarely see, especially in writing about World War II. Every aspect of humanity deserves to be written about — its best, its very worst, and, as in this case, its most quintessentially human.

Want to visit China’s Forbidden City but have neither the time nor the money to get there?

Not to worry.

Thanks to IBM and the Palace Museum in Beijing,  a 3-dimensional Virtual Forbidden City has been created and it’s only a mouse click away.

Three years in the creation, the virtual Forbidden City appears as it was in during the Qing dynasty (1644 to 1912), making this not only virtual travel but also time travel at it’s best. From the minute you enter the gates of the Forbidden City, you are transported into another time and culture.

Real life visitors don’t have it this good.

Traveling the Forbidden City virtually allows you to dress up in a historic costume and become part of the huge imperial entourage. A truly interactive experience, you can practice archery with the help of a courtesan, feed crickets blood-fattened mosquites and then train them as fighters, and watch the Qing dynasty emperor feast at dinner. You can even interact with other virtual visitors.

Well, got to go. I’m late for my dinner with the Emperor. Who knows, I might even see you there…