Turning The Other Cheek

Americans, if they do it, do it once. The Swiss seem to do it thrice. And a couple of days ago I may have accidentally offended a young French girl by only kissing her once on each cheek. But in my mind she's still the bright little eight-year-old I knew, not the fifteen-year-old debutante she's become. So I'm just relieved that when she turned her cheek to me in greeting I did not freeze in surprise with mouth agape.

I was in Geneva this week, and boy did it feel different from my last trip out of Boston. And that wasn't just because of the pressures of following the correct etiquette for social kissing.

You see, a week ago I was in Cincinnati. I spent four nights there and did not sleep well through a single one. I was kept up by the constant stream of police cars racing past my hotel all night with sirens blaring.

In Geneva, on the other hand, even rush hour traffic is barely audible. Perhaps that's because noone is in much of a hurry. Sasha, a Russian colleague who lives there, told me of her horror story when she gave her leather jacket to the cleaners and it took her six months and an argument to get it back. According to a porter in my hotel, a gentleman with an improbable South African accent, such sloth shows the influence of indolent French culture on Geneva. He clearly prefers Zurich where, according to him, the Germanic character of the people makes things run as smoothly as the legendary Swiss clockwork.

But Geneva's leisurely atmosphere suited me just fine on Monday evening. I took a stroll through the old town with a former boss. She pointed out the sights to me as we walked along cobbled streets lined with the red & white flags of the Swiss nation and the red & yellow standards of the Canton of Geneva.

Afterwards we had a dinner that featured three things I rarely get to enjoy in America: portions that are modest enough that you can really enjoy your food; dessert made of fruits; and exquisite after-dinner espresso.

For three days I drank coffee incessantly from very small cups. I snacked on croissants instead of cookies. I lunched on sliced meats, fruits and cheeses. And I wondered if I too should acquire some European flair and start wearing a snappy summer jacket when I go out.

Perhaps I will; but only after I first figure out if the Italians expect to be greeted with three kisses or four.

Travelling Salesman Blues

Flick. CNN. Flick. The Weather Channel. Flick. ESPN. Flick. Flick. Flick.

Thirty years ago Pink Floyd sang "I've got 13 channels of shit on TV to choose from". Times have changed since then. We now have more than 13 channels.

So this is the glamorous world of executive travel. Meetings all day. A couple of polite drinks in the evening. Then everyone goes home and you're the solitary out-of-towner.

It's still light outside and your feet are too itchy for room service. So you walk around the block looking for dinner. An overly bright gyro restaurant serves you just right. Then you decide to check out the famous local ice cream. It's all right, but you wish the taste of strawberries was a bit stronger. And now you can no longer put off going back to your solitary hotel room.

Flick. Cartoon Network. Flick. TNT. Flick. Flick.

It's no use. The television can't take your mind off the fact that you'd really rather be somewhere else. You switch it off and clip your fingernails instead. It's equally entertaining and vastly more productive.

Thank goodness for the coffee machine in your room. You're in the mood for a bitter brew.

This is the glamorous world of executive travel?

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes...

"In the morning I sat in my usual place. I giggled with my friends. We acted silly but we pretended to be very serious. That was funny.

One of the kids was sulking. I don't know why. Maybe he had a booboo. But we paid no attention to him, so he went away.

Then someone started a game. We took turns to say silly things that we did not really mean. It was a noisy game and it made the teacher angry.

So we became very quiet. We had break-time and we ate a snack.

Then we acted silly all over again."




"Your pre-school sounds a lot like my office."

Sybil

San Francisco has multiple personalities. Walking through its streets, you never know exactly what to expect,

There's no question that it is extremely pretty. Up in the hilly residential areas the houses all seem to have elegant bay windows and small, carefully tended front gardens. Strolling past them you never know when, as you turn a corner, you might be greeted by a breathtaking view of the city below and the bay beyond it. And down in the financial district, ultramodern office towers look right at home beside classic edifices that pre-date the Second World War.

It all seems very genteel, until you lower your eyes to ground level and see people begging for money. On a Saturday afternoon in downtown Market Street there was one on every block. Not all of them seemed destitute. There was one lady in particular who seemed rather healthy and cheerful as she sat cross-legged on the sidewalk. A passer-by even felt compelled to check with her that she was in fact begging, and only when she smiled and nodded did he hesitantly drop a few coins in the tin in front of her.

They seem to wear their green credentials with pride in SF, even when it makes them seem daft. At the Ti Couz restaurant, in the Mission area, they proudly inform customers that they will only serve you a glass of water if you specifically ask for it. That's their way of conserving water for drought-prone California.

But the pride that this city is really known for is gay, and it is on vivid display on Castro street. Oddly (or perhaps not) everyone there seems to be male. And unshaven. I don't know why, but designer stubble seems to be a badge of sexual orientation in these parts. The only clean-shaven men seemed to be the ones in martial arts uniforms, standing in a small group on one street corner. I had no idea what they were doing there.

And I did not stop to ask either, because I was eager to make my way to the corner of Haight and Ashbury. That was the epicenter of the hippie movement and psychedelic rock in the late 1960s. Janis Joplin lived there, as did the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. And so did many many more young men and women looking for peace, love and a good smoke. Today the area attracts an odd ensemble of tourists and emos. Sadly there were no throwbacks with tie-dyed shirts and flowers in their hair. I would like to think that the hippies did not grow old (or overdose) and die, that they just got haircuts and shirts with collars. If that's the case then I probably saw many of them sitting outside Starbucks cafes, of which there seems to be one next to every fire hydrant.

At about the time that Haight-Ashbury was experiencing its Summer of Love, a young American was starting work as a reporter for a newspaper in Freeport, Bahamas. He did not know it then, but in a matter of weeks he would cover the election of their first ever Prime Minister, a landmark in the journey of that nation to independence. Today, more than forty years later, that same American drives a taxi in San Francisco.

He drove us from Japantown to our hotel. He talked about Bahaman politics, and about teaching English in the Virgin Islands. As he talked, I looked out of the window and watched the people of San Francisco. They had come out to celebrate the weekend, the Sundance Film Festival, spring.

In a city of multiple personalities, it was the happy, flirtatious San Francisco that I saw. And I was glad that she was the one who had come out to wave at us.

Mo' Mash

There's a special joy that comes when an eagerly anticipated travel experience lives up to expectations. I felt that joy yesterday while driving up and down California 1, the Pacific Coast Highway.

The road hugged the edge of the ocean. Yellow and purple wildflowers lined the route. At one end there was a colony of hundreds of elephant seals lying on the beach. The drive was everything that I had hoped it would be, and a little bit more.

Back in San Jose, in the homes of Silicon Valley's elite, the conversation was less idyllic. I sipped on a friendly local wine and listened to my friends deplore interest rates, income taxes, and the bankruptcy (financial and political) of the government of California. Their voices were lowered out of consideration for the children asleep in a room next door. But their tone was unmistakeably worried at the recession of the American Dream.

Years ago they left small towns in India to spend their adult lives as professional nomads. Then California drew them in with a promise of professional challenge and financial reward. They still hear the promise but are wondering whether it's still trustworthy.

But that worry seems insubstantial today in the blaze of a bright spring afternoon. I'm at a playground, watching the children of the digital diaspora. Sunlight slants off their hair while they run around in circles and shriek in delight.

The fragrance of jasmine rides gently in the breeze, but the kids don't notice that; they're too busy living the childhood dream.

California Mashup

There are three wooden bears outside the front office of the Comfort Inn at Oakhurst. Another, much larger wooden bear stands guard over the parking lot. The basket of flowers in its hand softens its otherwise forbidding appearance. All this ursine pageantry is a salute to Yosemite National Park, an hour's drive away.

Inside the park, the real bears are up and about. Their winter hibernation is over, now that the weather has turned cheerfully hot.

This burst of warm weather has been good to the waterfalls and streams. We stood at the foot of Bridalveil Fall, and turned our faces up to catch the spray generated by water crashing down from a height of six hundred feet. (American) Indian legend says that doing this makes you lucky in marriage. It works.

Yosemite Falls is even bigger than Bridalveil, and far too violent for such gentle folklore. By the time the water hits the rocks at its feet, it has fallen fifteen hundred feet. The force of the spray and the gusting wind threaten to push you over into the rapids below.

But the waters in Yosemite Park are not all sound and fury. We ate lunch by a brisk but quiet snow-fed creek; next to us The Kid amused himself by throwing in pebbles to make splashes.

Back in Oakhurst the Jade Gazebo waits to feed Chinese food to hungry naturalists. There is no actual gazebo here. But the walls are painted a bilious green so the name is at least partly appropriate. I want to believe that the family who run the restaurant are descended from the Chinese labourers who came here to work for logging companies a hundred years ago.

Back then the lumber industry was booming. Today big agri-business has moved on to run orchards and vinyards. And now the manual labourers who work for them come from Mexico. There is a 50-mile stretch of farmland running west of Yosemite. And on the edge of this, in a place called Gilroy, hides the El Siete restaurant. Like Jade Gazebo, this is a family run restaurant in a working class neighbourhood. The food they serve is simple and irresistible. I ate more carne asada than I should have, and far more than I thought I could have.

Then I sat back, looked around, and was delighted by what I saw. Against one wall sat a device with one foot on either side of the Pacific Ocean, one that Chinese and Mexicans would both approve of. It was a karaoke machine with Spanish songs.

Watch Out For That Tin Man

Have you heard the joke about how many morons it takes to change a light bulb? Well, that's old news.

The real question is this: how many adjectives does it take to make a cup of coffee? The answer is 6. Or at least it is if your idea of getting coffee is to go into a Starbucks and ask for a cinnamon soy decaf grande non-fat extra-hot latte. By the time you execute all those instructions, it's not even coffee anymore, it's some kind of ghastly mongrel brew for the lactose intolerant.

At least all those adjectives are functional, even if only in way that is dysfunctional for the coffee aficionado. What really turns me off is when people add redundant verbs thinking that it makes them sound powerful. A few days ago I had to suppress a shudder as a colleague stridently told a room full of managers that "When (blank) does happen, you do have to follow the procedure". I might have gotten up and slapped her if I had not been stupefied by the ugliness of her usage.

I don't understand why some people get the idea that the more words they speak, the more important they become. Don't they get a clue from the glazed expressions of the people they are talking to? Does the movement of their mouth cut off blood circulation to their eyes, so they can no longer see that audience has dropped dead from listening fatigue?

What we need are millions of little robots to go walking around, slapping people who talk too much, and screaming at them to shut the f^7% up!