Spectator Life

Much is said, chiefly by Americans used to Amtrak, about continental Europe’s wonderful train system, though just how wonderful depends on where you want to go. On a recent journey from Southampton, where we had disembarked early morning from the Queen Mary, to The Hague where we missed our evening dinner reservations at the Hotel des Indes, I made certain discoveries. One was that The Hague, seat of the Dutch government, home to the king and queen, venue of the World Court and other august institutions of world government, is now off-line: i.e. it is not on the high-speed rail network that links up London, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. This seems curious and, in a way, charming.

Blazing sunshine. Endless traffic. Horns honking. Wine bars heaving. Trance music blasting. Street hawkers calling. Coastal wind (called the "Cape Doctor" by locals) whistling. Grit in one eye, the other looking over my shoulder. Hair flying in every direction. To explore central Cape Town is to be gut-punched: by an evolving backdrop of sublime nature and the complexity of the human condition. To visit the city’s world-class restaurants, concept stores and co-working sites is to share a street with the sick, hungry and homeless. Look up, and you’re hypnotized by the monolithic mountains beyond; a brief distraction from the painfully obvious disparity. From some angles it feels like the Mother City is being wrapped in a tight hug.

It’s been a nearly seven-hour drive up and down the Atlas Mountains from Marrakech before a roundabout appears at the entrance to Ouarzazate, the Amazigh (Berber) outpost where we might be able to stave off hunger, thirst and fatigue. But first, follow that roundabout — the one featuring a gigantic director’s clipboard. Then turn left and enter the parking lot of the Atlas Studios, known to the outside world as Ouarzawood, the must-see largest studio in the Sahel, just 230 miles from Merzouga: the gateway to the Sahara. Park before a half-dozen faux Egyptian Ka statues — think gigantic copies of King Tut’s tomb — then a gate opens and just beyond lie the sets to a dozen or more popular movies.

Crowds lined up to say au revoir to a Southern California landmark — not Route 66, or the elementary school operating out of the remains of the Ambassador Hotel, where an assassin shot RFK. They were gathering for the month-long funeral of the Disneyland water ride Splash Mountain. Since 1989, visitors have ridden boats up a mountain, past the animatronic Brer Rabbit escaping the briar patch, bumping into Brer Bear and Brer Fox, who kidnap him. As they toss the bunny off a cliff and down a river, the ride’s riverboats fall down the mountain after him. Miraculously, both Brer Rabbit and the log-flume passengers survive. The survival is never explained, but visitors rarely notice because they’re enraptured by the grand finale rendition of “Zip-a-dee-doo-da.

Nestled in the Apennine Mountains due east of Rome is the region of Umbria, a hidden gem at the heart of Italy. It's characterized by lush green countryside, rolling hills carpeted in olive groves and picturesque medieval hilltop towns. The region has the beauty of Tuscany but without the mobs of tourists. Its food is the best Italy has to offer — fresh, traditional, high-quality and spectacularly tasty. The senses, then, are satisfied — but Umbria also harbors a rich religious legacy. Home to some of Catholicism’s most titanic saints — Francis and Clare of Assisi and Benedict of Nursia — and dotted with ancient and medieval churches of great beauty, it's as much a pilgrim’s paradise as it is a tourist’s Italian dream.

“What the f—” “Don’t look directly at it. I’m serious, that thing is cursed.”  My childhood best friend Sofie has just scooped me up from the epicenter of weirdness that is Denver International Airport, one hand on the steering wheel, the other blocking my view of a thirty-five-foot, bright blue fiberglass horse rearing at nothing in particular. I’m sleep-deprived, but I’m not seeing things. “Why are its eyes burning red?” “Not sure. The man who built it died during construction. Blucifer fell on him and severed a main artery.” I’ve no energy left for questions. I’m fresh from nine hours in a tin can sitting next to an effusive new “friend,” insistent on sharing conspiracy theories linked to our destination.

I’d heard that KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa delivers life-changing memories. Roaming Shaka Zulu’s hunting ground. The Big Five. Bushveld soil on your shoes. Falling asleep to the music of the night, curtains open in anticipation of a burning sunrise. I flew there for a thrilling, once-in-a-lifetime safari experience. And I got it. While sitting on the toilet. It’s a unique frustration, hearing the phone ring out, from the bathroom. My first morning at Thanda Safari transports me back to my teenage years in the 2000s; the last time I had a house phone. “I’m coming!” I shout to no one in particular, having quickly dashed to my digs, post-crack of dawn game drive. “Miss Everett! Oh, thank goodness! You ARE there! You must not leave your room!

Arriving to spend a month in Denver, Colorado, decision-paralysis hit me like a ton of bricks. Almost as hard as the altitude. And the jet lag. I’d dreamed of downing tools come the weekend, hopping in the car to explore different ski towns at the tail end of the season. What a life locals have, so close to some of the best skiing in the world. But with thirty-two resorts, how to choose? And more importantly, get there? Local friends quickly schooled me on the (insane) highway traffic to the mountains and reminded me to check for snow storms up top. Denver weather is famously mercurial during the springtime. “What should I pack?” I’d phoned to quiz my host, surrounded by thermal leggings, bikinis, summer dresses and snow boots. “Everything,” came the reply. Right then.

It’s a better thing to travel hopefully than to arrive, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote back in 1881. I find myself inwardly repeating that line almost every time I venture out to a public event. Whether it’s someone’s phone repeatedly inserting the klaxon-like intro to the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” into the hushed denouement of a play, or the musical hooliganism of the idiot who chats his way through Paul McCartney singing “Eleanor Rigby” (it’s the Beatles classic we came to hear, mate, not a monologue about your dog’s bowel issues), it seems that narcissistic self-absorption is the rule on these occasions, and an even tenuous grasp of other people’s existence the exception.

When rulers are thrown out of their countries, they cannot expect all that much. Think of Napoleon, first cooling his heels in Elba, then ending his days in the damp-infested confines of Saint Helena. Which is why the former Edward VIII, later the Duke of Windsor, was comparatively fortunate that the Parisian spot in which he found himself living after his abdication in December 1936 was Le Meurice in Paris: then, as now, a hotel that offers not only glitteringly luxurious accommodation to its well-heeled denizens, but a tangible sense of history — its lavishly appointed suites and restaurants exude an atmosphere that’s simultaneously relaxing and conspiratorial. Turn an unexpected corner, and you half-expect to see the ghost of Wallis Simpson, barking orders at some hapless minion.

“There’s no snow. Nothing.” The week after Christmas, 2023. Eager to ski, I’d phoned an old friend living in a French resort at low altitude. I hoped she’d make me feel better about the headlines splashed across the newsstands. “There’s Snowhere To Ski!” “Europe Ski Resorts Close Due To Lack Of Snow.” “Record Warm Winter In Parts Of Europe Forces Closure Of Ski Slopes.” It was true, she sighed. Birds were chirping as if spring had arrived, heavy rain washing away whatever dusting of the white stuff had settled. “You’re going to have to get high”. An admittedly fairweather skier, I usually take aim at European resorts in March. When I’m lucky enough to go, my trips happen to span International Women’s Day.

When I lived in Idaho, people would ask my mother, “Why did she move to Iowa?” Sometimes they’d break into a frenetic rendition of the B-52’s “Private Idaho” or make a potato joke. Otherwise they didn’t really know what to say about the Gem State. Residents are proud of Idaho’s obscurity. They encourage it. Iterations of “Idaho is hideous, don’t come here” are a common tongue-in-cheek caption added to breathtaking social media photos of majestic mountain landscapes and pristine trout streams.

"San Francisco is the only city I can think of that can survive all the things you people are doing to it and still look beautiful,” said Frank Lloyd Wright. You might say the same thing about Marin, the county you enter upon crossing the Golden Gate Bridge from out of the City of Fog, where my mother moved several years ago to be with my stepdad. Arresting in its natural beauty, gratifying in its varied and delicious cuisine, shocking in its exorbitant property values, Marin ranks in the top ten nationally for median household income. My mother’s town, like many around it, has not a little character. There's the old colonial Spanish influence, evidenced in the mission churches and the names of some of the communities: San Rafael, Corte Madera, San Anselmo, San Geronimo.

From the lilting normcore of Sally Rooney’s Normal People to the frenetic genius of poetic, post-(post?) punk band Fontaines D.C., I’m drawn to talented Irish voices of late. Martin McDonagh’s Oscar-nominated tragicomedy, The Banshees of Inisherin, won three Golden Globes, and my heart, to boot. And quite rightly. It’s news to no one that the Irish have always been exceptional storytellers; some stereotypes stick because they are true. Plenty of the finest words ever written hail from the town of the hurdled ford, Baile Átha Cliath, Dublin. This fact was recognized by UNESCO in 2010, when they named it a City of Literature.

When I arrived in East Palestine, Ohio, on Wednesday, the quaint Main Street was a red, white and blue sea of people waiting in chilly, drizzly weather for Donald Trump to arrive. I met up with Brian and Samantha, who live three miles from the site of the Norfolk Southern train derailment. They were acting as Tulsi Gabbard’s tour guide and graciously invited me to tag along. The East Palestine area is a typical rural community. Villages with little more than a volunteer fire department and a basic convenience-style store are scattered across the countryside. People enjoy their space and peace and quiet, but they’re also close-knit and neighborly.

At around eleven in the morning on February 28, 2001, I was standing in front of a mirror in my home in suburban Seattle, adjusting what remained of my hair prior to driving downtown to meet a friend for lunch, when the ground began to shake beneath my feet. The movement lasted about twenty seconds and wasn’t entirely unpleasant, with just the slightest hint of the old days when I was a devotee of Bacchus. After a bit, I checked that the house was all right, looked in on my infant son peacefully asleep in his crib, said goodbye to my wife, started the car and went on my way into the city. It was bedlam out there.

In 2013, I was studying for a Master’s degree in Beirut when a bomb went off in Baghdad. I remember receiving a message from a friend checking in to see if I was all right — even though I was 500 miles away. It can be hard to convey to people back in the United States that violence in the Middle East is not necessarily a part of everyday life. At times — in Iraq in the years following the US invasion, for example — it is. But such attacks are usually a tragic anomaly. All this stands in stark contrast to news about the earthquakes in southern Turkey and northern Syria, which struck last week and killed at least 36,000 people.

In the run up to the Super Bowl, writers were tripping over themselves trying to capture the essence of the Philadelphia Eagles Fan™. Most of these observations focused on the degenerate behavior of a few diehards after key games, or the nonsensical yet diverse array of superstitious traditions (looking at you, guy who runs into the underground pillars on the Broad Street Line on purpose). Some dug up the old chestnut about Santa Claus getting pelted by snowballs at an Eagles game — ignoring that many of the fans responsible for that misadventure died without ever seeing the Birds win a ring.

I rarely open, let alone read, promotional emails, but one I got last summer about the World Equestrian Center in Ocala, Florida captured my attention. The place was described as a “playground for the 1 percent... where that Ralph Lauren picture-perfect fantasy is within reach — if only for a night.” The message referred to rubbing elbows with the rich and famous and I wondered what on earth they were talking about. After all, the super-rich in Florida mostly congregate further south in Palm Beach and the affluent bits of Miami, right? Ocala is a small city ninety miles northwest of Disney World and it’s long billed itself the horse capital of the world.

I am completely naked, shivering and mildly terrified. The word “vulnerable” goes partway to describing my state as my toes curl over the edge of a slippery jetty, in pitch-darkness. Did I mention that I am completely naked? This is not a fever dream, but a midweek wellness pursuit on the island of Nacka, where Stockholm city and countryside meet. It’s 7 p.m. and the sun is long gone. I inwardly curse a previous incarnation of myself, who booked this intrepid getaway while holed up in my warm apartment. The trip grew from my preoccupation with two Nordic lifestyle concepts currently in vogue: Swedish lagom (loosely translated as “balanced living”) and Danish hygge (retreating somewhere cozy, often with friends).

While most travelers compile bucket lists of dream destinations, some revel in the pursuit of everywhere. Self-styled “extreme travelers” are seduced by hard-to-reach islands like Norway’s Bouvet, South Africa’s Prince Edward Islands and hundreds of other geographic oddities, in the same way children are tantalized by Disney World. In this subculture, visits to forbidden destinations like Guantánamo Bay, the Gaza Strip and India’s Andaman Islands, where the missionary John Allen Chau was murdered by spear-brandishing natives in 2018, confer status. And so do visits to pariah states and conflict zones, at least until Russia invaded Ukraine. The close-knit, extreme-travel community, who you might think would be an anything-goes bunch, is divided over the war.

The next time you arrive at London’s Heathrow Airport, you might be forgiven for wanting a welcome fit for a king. Yet under the now nearly three-month-old reign of King Charles III, there is a persistent rumor that Buckingham Palace, that symbol of the British monarchy since its acquisition by America’s favorite monarch George III in 1763, is going to pass out of private hands and into public ones. There has been talk of its being turned into a giant permanent art gallery and museum, showing off treasures from the Royal Collection Trust. There's even chatter of — and I can hear the gasps from here — its being transformed into a five-star hotel. You, too, can pay an exorbitant amount of money to sleep where kings and queens have trod.

I first visited the Greek monastery of Agios Stefanos on the rocks of Meteora in the early spring of this year, one week after my baptism into the Orthodox Church. Greece was heavy with Great Lent fasts and preparations for Christ’s resurrection — Easter. I had just escaped the clutches of an extremely sweet but annoying young tour guide with whom my very Greek now-father-in-law had set my fiancé and me up for a tour of the ancient churches. I wanted nothing to do with this young man in a tour van who sounded like he was reciting words from a tape recorder. Later I found out he was, and had taught himself English by doing so (which is pretty endearing in hindsight).

Turin at the end of August is pleasingly melancholic. The city has emptied after the feast of Ferragosto on August 15 and won’t fill up again till September. Solid bourgeois streets, with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings now housing banks, are deserted save for the occasional confused tourist. What brings others to Turin in August I cannot say. For me, it was a wedding in Milan at the end of the week and the prospect of a little vacation ahead of it. Turin was a whim. I was meant to meet a college friend in Genoa on Monday, but my Sunday-night redeye from New York was canceled. Saturday was the only option, and so I was left at a loose end. Options abounded: I could stay overnight in Milan and head to Genoa with my friend the next day.