Company Affair

We are resuming, without meaning to, in a state of deep sleep, despite have fought the revolution side by side, we sleep, and this is how we resume.  We are resuming to become the ones who keep resuming, and the repetition becomes the only proof of its necessity.  We can’t look too close at the logic of the rose in vinegar, because it might remind us that we do not have to resume.  In the rock and roll song of the idiots we were singing in our sleep, unencumbered by the force of thought or the ability for distraction, and this is the moment when I want to wake you up, but instead see you next to me, waiting for my eyes to open, because you wanted the same thing long before I did.

I would meet you there, to talk about the importance of roses, and the necessity of your skirts, and the way Sabina once reminded us that we were awake more often than the others.  Malaga was a place to begin, and in the south of Spain, there are always so many things that end.  I would meet you there, to remember how the mad dancers were the only ones who could get away when the tide turned and people began to talk about their own brothers behind their backs.  I would meet you in Malaga to hear Sabina sing about you, even though it would make me jealous all over.

When we were awake, and eating the apple more than two times a week, this was a place where we could get away from the shame of our fathers.  There was one night with a locked car, a broken necklace, and the sounds of your rain on my neck.  Sabina in Malaga might remind me of the things that broke, and teach us how we might begin to put them back together.

With our last morning still to enjoy in New York, we felt like doing something out of the ordinary for us, so we took the subway into Harlem to check out the famous Apollo Music venue. They were still doing a tribute to Michael Jackson. Later we did a bit of shopping to prepare for the weddings we were to attend when we get back to England.
 
It was time to pack up our things and check out of what we think was one of the greatest hotels in NY! We made our way via train to JFK with plenty of time on our hands. We checked in before going onto departures. See, we wanted to finish up our own honeymoon with some Champagne. This struck us as fitting, because we started our trip with a bottle of champagne while we were at Heathrow airport. But, unfortunately, none of the bars at JFK carried any champagne, so we ended up with two Gin and Tonics, and those really hit the spot!
 
On our plane, we hit some pretty bad turbulence and then some pretty interesting in-flight movies, so we didn’t get any sleep. When we arrived to London, it was overcast and dreary, just how we remember it to be. We were a pair of zombies coming out the plane and collected our bags where our folks were happy to greet us. We’ve been away for almost 4 months, so the hugs were long, but not too long because the British Lions returned home the same time we did, emerging the same time as us, so my new father-in-law promptly welcomed the Lions back home as well.
 
It was great to be back home, but as we were pulling away from Heathrow, we just looked at each other wandering if we’ll every see New York again.

Traveling throughout Florida, North or South, from Orlando to the Keys, there are unique sights most tourists may overlook on their way to more traditional fare, such as Disneyworld, Universal Studios, St. Augustine or Miami’s beaches.  For every person who has gone out of the way to see a giant mouse or a mechanical shark, consider these options available throughout the East Coast’s most famous peninsula:

On the North coast of the Gulf, you can see live mermaids at Weeki Wachee Springs.  Watch them swim underwater with other fish.  Another family attraction is Solomon’s Castle.  From a distance, this castle is bright and shining.  Up close, you realize the reason why is that it’s made up of discarded printing plates.  Sculptor Howard Solomon has created this work, among many others.  It’s a quick drive from Orlando, and may take the entire day to really see and appreciate.

Over in Titusville, you’ll find the Kennedy Space Center.  Close to it, you’ll find Cocoa Beach, the same town in which Col. Tony Nelson lived with his genie, from the television series, I Dream of Jeannie.  It’s also the town in which you’ll find the Astronaut Hall of Fame, as well as the American Police Hall of Fame.  In Pensacola, you’ll find the National Museum of Naval Aviation; this is one of the largest air and space museums in the country.  There’s over 140 aircraft, restored, from various service branches.

Among historic attractions, you can find Thomas Edison and Henry Ford’s winter estates.  These are located south of the Gulf Coast in Sanibel, Florida.  At Edison’s estate, you’ll see his chemical laboratory and a botanical garden created pretty much for scientific study; however, the plants today are known mostly for how beautiful they are.

Along the way, in many of these places, you’ll find Florida contains a number of luxury hotels, designed to make your travels easier and offer you a comfortable place to rest in between all the less customary attractions.

The history of history in New York is always extremely interesting, especially if you like to think about how people think.  It’s especially rich for mining the shifting points of view, as well as cultural attitudes, over time.  There are a million places in the city that can keep you entranced for hours, and it’s considered by some to be a particularly intellectual city.  This is where some of the best minds in the world come to visit, and often to live.  It wasn’t very many decades ago when the best minds of the generation, at least in this city, did not give much thought to bones.  In the interest of scientific discovery, bones were relics to examine, and that was all.

One of the more interesting museums in the world, of course, is the Museum of Natural History.  It was always a fantastic weekend to book accommodation in Manhattan, and take my kids over the see the museum.  They loved looking at bones, too, and it’s been interesting to see how their attitudes have changed over time.  There was a time when holding 141 ancestral bones of the Haida was simply a matter of protocol.  It’s what scientists did in the name of researching the human race, and it didn’t matter that there were Haida scholars and activists objecting.

Today, their objections seem much more logical and quite reasonable, and it’s a matter of honoring the spirits of the dead to keep them close to their original home.  This case, in 2002, helped to bring some of the issues of Native rights to light.  This was also the year that my eldest turned 10, right about the time when they start to ask deeper questions.  She began to lose her blanket fascination with bones for their own sake, and started to question the origins. Whose bones are these? she wondered, and, What does the rest of the skeleton look like without this part?  She, too, seemed happy to hear that they would be going home.

Ghostly myths and hauntings attract travelers from miles around in the off-chance that something supernatural might happen; several years ago, I heard a story from a friend living in Austin about one of Texas’ most legendary ghost story, sure to be mentioned on any ghost tour one might take in San Antonio, the story of a train that collided with a school bus in the 1930s or 1940s.  Keeping in mind that no one has ever been able to validate that any such accident ever happened, the story itself was compelling enough to make people travel to a railroad crossing just south of San Antonio.  The legend is told in various ways.  The idea is that the area is haunted by school children who are either trying to prevent a similar accident from happening, or who are angry and want such an accident to happen to others.

My friend, who knew of San Antonio’s reputation of the most haunted city in Texas (perhaps having something to do with The Alamo), decided to check out this legend.  He drove to San Antonio to an intersection of road that’s crossed by railroad tracks, not far from the San Juan Mission.  I’ve heard this story the following two ways: The legend says if you park your car near the tracks (or on the tracks) and set the car in neutral, then the ghost children will push the car onto the tracks (or off the tracks).  In one scenario, the kids are malicious; in the other, helpful.  When you get out of your car and put baby powder on the rear bumper, you’ll see the fingerprints of the children who pushed the vehicle.  My friend found several other people trying out this legend near midnight at the area (apparently, this legend can be a problem for the local authorities).  To his surprise, at least one part of the story is true: If you park your car and place it in neutral, the car will roll forward on a seemingly flat surface.  And when you apply baby powder to the bumper, there may or may not be smudges that look like children’s fingerprints.  Quickly, he discovered the reason:

The area near the railroad tracks is on a slight declination.  Gravity takes over a moment after you’ve set the car into neutral.  The fingerprints are explained by the fact that chrome picks up smudges from a number of different place and go unnoticed — until you put baby powder on them.  Add into the mix that no reports of such an accident seem to have made it to any newspaper and you have the makings of an urban legend, not a haunting.  So, if you ever do hear of this story on your way through Texas, know that you’re much better off checking into a luxury San Antonio hotel and check out the 1716 San Juan Mission instead.

The Miami Science Museum has a diverse assortment of programs and features that are geared toward children and adults alike. Most of these elements are a combination of education and entertainment oriented and are fascinating and fun for everyone. It also features an ongoing selection of exhibits that are sure to captivate the minds and imaginations of children of all ages, and yes that means you too mom and dad. Some of the current exhibits include CSI: Crime Scene Insects, Heart Smart and Charlie and Kiwi’s Evolutionary Adventure. In addition to the exhibits and other museum features, the Planetarium is one of its consistently popular attractions.

The CSI: Crime Scene Insects exhibit offers an extremely interesting insight into the role that various insects play in forensic crime scene analysis. Maggots, flies and beetles can reveal important details and sometimes critical information regarding crime scenes and this fascinating exhibit demonstrates how they can be used to solve specific crimes. Heart Smart is an extremely helpful exhibit that offers tools to help the participant evaluate their own risk factors and offers great examples of heart health care and solutions to life style concerns. Charlie and Kiwi’s Evolutionary Adventure presents a trip back in time and invites participants to examine the evolutionary connection between dinosaurs and birds. There is also a detailed explanation of how evolution works.

The museum’s Planetarium offers state of the art technology and the latest cosmological programs to its audiences. It was first open to the public in November of 1966 and has been thrilling spectators since. It features surround sound audio, lasers and video projection with four story high multi media images. It is unique among planetariums in Southern Florida and offers fabulous laser music based light shows and brings the night sky with all its splendor and mystery indoors for your viewing. Information on the various programs and viewing schedules is frequently available for tourists in the lobbies of certain hotels Miami Florida.

Seattle, I think, is one of the most underrated holiday spots. Maybe because Seattle is out of the way and the sun hardly shines here, but what ever the reason, I found the place to be utterly charming and unexpectedly surprising.

One of the favorite pursuits of many people who visit New York City is to find great food. They will go to great extremes seeking the best pizza, steak, sub or pasta and are thrilled when they can return home to say “the best giro I ever had I ate at a small New York deli on the corner of . . .” you get the idea. Other tourists enjoy trying to find celebrities as they go about their business shopping, dining etc. And then there are those seriously impassioned tourists at some of the hotels New York USA that are there to find the greatest ghostly encounter they are able too. And New York has plenty of them, it is believed by many to be one of the most haunted cities in the nation. And with all of those hotels, many of them landmarks and historical icons, something is certain to go bump in the night somewhere.

New York’s famous Hotel Chelsea is just one of these likely places. This long-standing NY icon has hosted many famous guests including Dylan Thomas, Thomas Wolfe, Eugene O’Neill and even Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols. So, which of these personalities would you guess roams the floors of this establishment? It is reported to be none other than the notorious punk rock singer and bass player Sid Vicious. He is reported to have been seen lingering on and around the hotel’s lift.

One of the most popularly accepted haunted locations in New York is also the city’s oldest house. The residence is located at 175 Jumel Terrace in Washington Heights and is well known as the Morris-Jumel mansion. It was built in 1765 and came into the possession of Eliza and Stephen Jumel in 1810. She began having an affair with the former Vice President Aaron Burr and in 1831 Stephen’s life came to an unfortunate as well as mysterious end by falling on a pitchfork. The details never became clear but Burr and Eliza were married shortly after. Their marriage didn’t last nor did Eliza’s mental stability. Her mind and body sunk into quick deterioration and she became a recluse before her death. Both Eliza and Jumel are believed to haunt the house today and it is included on many haunted ghost tours. One of the most popular stories of ghostly encounters allegedly occurred to young school children when Eliza appeared before them and yelled at them to shut up.

The lunar New Year is celebrated each January, or depending–each February throughout the world.  Whether you find yourself in Honk Kong, Paris, London or Los Angeles, chances are there will be parades of dragons and brightly costumed revelers, and such is the case of course, in New York City.  Through the streets of the city, and through the neighborhood of Chinatown, New York is known worldwide to have one of the most authentic and tradition celebrations of the Chinese New Year in United States.  Many of the 4 star hotels New York offers, will have discounted rooms and offer travel packages to those coming to the city at this time.  The two major events surrounding this holiday in the city, are the Cultural Festival and the Firecracker Ceremony, both of which are free to the public.  One of the many traditions of the Chinese New Year is to set off fireworks.  In the city however, this is not only unsafe, but is also illegal, so the Firecracker Ceremony offers people the experience of the formal lighting of the firecrackers, in a safe environment.

Both the ceremony and the festival are participated and supported by many of the Chinese cultural organizations in the city.  In addition to the lighting of the firecrackers and the launching of the colorful rockets, there are dances scheduled and street musicians and percussionists.  Contests abound in the street vendors stalls, and there are many traditional Chinese works of art to be found as well.  The parade takes place through the streets of the ever fascinating Chinatown, just following the Firecracker Ceremony and beginning at the Sarah D. Roosevelt Park. Though you will be surrounded by crowds, still keep in mind that the temperatures are cold, so dress appropriately, and the most important part, is to have fun.  Take in the colors and vibrant atmosphere of the celebration, and for certain, take lots of photos.  This is a visual treat that you will want to capture and experience for the rest of the year that follows.