Popcorn, Bacon and Shoes

You've just worked a hell day on the road. It's the last day in town with an early wake-up call at the hotel to check-out, cram the luggage in to the trunk and make it to the office at a decent hour for the final round of meetings, seminars and conference calls. The suit isn't as fresh as it was four days ago but it will hold for one more use until you can tame the beast at your favorite cleaners back home. The new Stacy Adams or those high as the moon Louboutins that only needed a little breaking in are taking their good sweet time molding to your feet, especially the one that is a half-size too small and "minor discomfort" has morphed in to out and out pain. They have to serve, however, since they're the only pair you brought with you to save room in the luggage.

Day is done, car is returned, boarding is completed and now, finally, a well deserved chance to - NO, DON'T DO IT - kick your shoes off for a well earned stretch of cramped toes, itchy soles and blistered ankles. In this day and age it is all about you and your individual comfort and convenience and danged if you don't have the right within your space on the plane to get as comfortable as possible. Except the obvious reality is that air of any kind, fresh or foul, does not stay within the confines of Seat 15D. Air moves. And it telegraphs the sounds and smells of everything, from the most savory of cooking smells wafting from kitchens and backyard grills to some of the worst offenders in human society: popcorn in the office or bacon in the morning to a fart in church and bad feet on an airplane.

Airplanes are equipped with extremely powerful air filtration systems for both comfort and good health. There is no rolling down a window for a passing breeze at 550MPH and also no escape from whatever contagions other passengers might be carrying. Stale air in an enclosed environment? Not good. The trouble is, with an air "exchange" often advertised at once every three minutes it simply amplifies the stronger smells wafting through the air on their way from the source to the outflow ducts. That means those bloomin' onions rising from your bunions are blowing right past the noses of everyone within at least a five row zone around you.

On any domestic flight I leave my shoes on no matter if it is the first flight of the day and I'm fresh out of the shower or the last flight of the night and even my shoes are tired of my tootsies. On international flights where I'm going to be on board for the next half of a day the shoes are definitely coming off but I observe a few simple preflight rituals before introducing my Size 14s to the rest of the cabin. The feet are thoroughly washed, dried, then massaged in lotion and cooling powder before a fresh pair of socks finish the ritual. Some airlines still offer cabin socks in all classes which are then worn over my own and, lastly, to guarantee maximum comfort as well as odor prevention, I bring a very thick pair of cotton "cushion" socks to wear on top of the other two. If the airline doesn't offer cabin socks in my cabin then the cushion socks are still worn over the first pair I put on at home.

After eight hours in the air the cabin floor is very hard and often cold, to say nothing of the nitrogen swelling the feet endure at high altitudes. Why add odor to the rest of the discomfort? After being mummified for up to 18 hours of pure flying by the time I get to the house or hotel there is most definitely a sweaty sheen on the piddies when the wrappings finally come off. But the doors are closed, there's no one around but me and after that pre-flight ritual, the bouquet is hardly noticeable.

On top of all that, after nearly 24 hours since I last experienced hot water an extremely welcome hot shower is less than 10 steps away.

Gotta go.

Swimming in Salad Dressing

The Dead Sea is along the road to Jericho in the occupied West Bank of the River Jordan. It is the lowest point on earth below sea level and has one of the highest salt concentrations of any large body of water on the planet. Think of it as a mud puddle left over from the Great Flood of Noah although science will of course say that it's been around a lot longer than that. Biblical, metaphorical or seismological, we didn't care as the plan for the day was to drive our rented car down the hill to the Israel side of the Dead Sea for the sole purpose of swimming in it.

Floating, more like, as the famous salinity has been remarked upon as being the consistency of a good Italian salad dressing and able to keep even the heaviest of men above water with little to no effort at all. It was a relatively quiet period in the everlasting peace process and running count of ceasefires in the region, we were assured by tourist officials, with the one exception of Jericho itself. We and the car were on our own, they said, if we ventured there but otherwise we had free run of the country.

Down the hilly road to the lake we went, following the well marked signs to the nearest beach head from where our hotly anticipated once-in-a-lifetime dip in the dregs would begin. None of us expected the experience to be refreshing along the lines of a Caribbean swim or even a romp in some backyard pool. That wasn't the point. We wanted to float, plain and simple. Oh, and play in the mud, too, famous the world over for its skin revitalizing properties.

It was October, the Sun was up and the temperature on the warm side which helped us strip off in the changing areas in the blink of an eye.
The wife of a friend took a little longer, of course, because her shoulder length blonde hair had to be done up high enough to stay as far above the water line as possible. For the other two guys in the group it was like watching a seagull take to the air as they began an ungainly long-jumper's dash and skip down the runway for the greatest velocity to launch themselves headfirst in to the sea.

It would be untrue to say that the lightest one of the two of them bounced off the surface of the water but it was close. The larger one did manage to submerge completely but his head was up before his feet went under; skipping one big long-legged rock came to mind at the sound of the "sploosh" he made going in. No matter. They both "Ahhhh'd" themselves contentedly on to their backs, folded their arms over their chests and pointed their feet skyward, mugging for the camera likes kings of the world.

After the mud fight that ensued it was back in the car towards our hotel in Jerusalem following a quick side trip to the Cave of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was a hole in a hill. I bought a couple of bars of Mud Soap for souvenirs and we made it back to town in time for dinner at a Russian restaurant.

Our skin was back to normal - dry and peeling - in two days.

Gotta go.

Shower the People

"What's a Navy shower?" My Dad was in the Army and I had never heard of such a thing. My buddy Rhys, his father and I were sitting around the dinner table and talking about travel experiences from around the world when the Mr. Navy veteran mentioned that he was "trained" on Navy showers and still takes them today.

"Oh, no....I couldn't do that," says I, spoiled American landlubber that I am. Turn the water off while sudsing? "I need the shower to keep the room warm so I don't get cold" I whined. Besides, given my upbringing in military housing, often with only one full bath for a family of five, I'd learned to take showers in less than 10 minutes' time, a habit I maintain to this day.

"Were ya in there long enough for the water to find ya?" my mother often asked?

Who really thinks of the shower experience as a major memory of any particular journey? I've come across some pretty interesting facilities in the many different hotel rooms and homes I've stayed in around the planet and over the years. I've shared a bath in Australia and London, usually at a hostel, bed & breakfast and the dormitory of Connaught Hall, University of London.

The most beautiful, if slightly disconcerting shower of my life was in Tahiti where the shower was outside but surrounded by a wall at the back of my "half-beach" (half on the sand, half over the water) cabana at the Moorea Pearl Resort. One small, flourescent looking lizard looked up at me from a safe distance, head all off to one side and wondering what the hell I was doing mixing soap with his perfectly good drinking water.

A friend's efficiency in the 8th arrondissement of Paris featured a shower stall off to the side of his one room apartment - the toilet was a shared affair out on the landing of his floor. This shower was about six inches of raised concrete in a square maybe three feet across with a shower head and completely exposed on all sides save for the ring above the head that held the curtain. One false step and the entire room could be sprayed. I wasn't then and am not today a small or medium sized man. Thinner then, maybe, but still a healthy 6'4" and on the good-shape side of 200 lbs.

The trickiest thing about most showers in Europe, though, are the hand held shower heads quite popular on that side of the Atlantic. They can rotate in their pincer-like holding units and slide up and down the stalk to adjust to the height of the user which can be a good thing but actually holding one while trying to wash and rinse? What's the purpose of holding the thing to begin with?

Then I discovered that some other showers didn't have a shower curtain at all, as in the home of a French friend of mine who lived north of Paris. This one was really frying my brain as it was only a large, claw-footed tub and the hand held shower thingy. I'm half-sitting, half-crouching in this tub and holding the shower head trying my best not to shoot water to the far wall of the bathroom and failing miserably in the process.

In a Munich hotel the very deep tub had only a clear, hinged glass "partial" that only extended half-way down the length of this porcelain bunker of a bathtub. Water again goes flying out the back while I'm spinning in circles, forlornly trying to keep myself soaked and the room dry.

The ultimate experience was once again in Paris at budget hotel where the shower was the entire bathroom, with the shower spigot positioned on the wall above the sink and the drain in the center of the floor between the toilet and the vanity. Yup, hand held shower thingy. And me lowering the lid on the toilet so water wouldn't spray on to the seat and people thinking that I couldn't aim.

If I hold on to the thing then I can't effectively scrub. If I turn it upside down bidet-style then water shoots up my nose and my, well...that's another story altogether. If it's only meant to be held while rinsing then why can't it just stay in the pincer-bracket like any normal American shower? And if it never leaves the bracket then why make it hand-held and detachable at all?

I don't get it, but I gotta use it. I'm heading back to Europe next year!

Gotta go!

Tourist! Overseas Aromas

The door swooshes open. Everyone to this point has minded their own business. They start to glance up from the universal posture of gazing down at their shoes or pretending to check their watches. Silently, swiftly and with deadly precision, the attack leaves no one unscathed. The clawing for air, the choking gargles, the eyes flaming red from the undeterred onslaught of....perfume.

Who hasn't been in that elevator? In this second installment on ways tourists stand out the concern here is how locals can smell a tourist long before the unsuspecting holidaymaker hoves in to view. And just as predators can see, hear and smell unsuspecting prey that strays too close so, too, can the shopkeepers smell unaware tourists and their money the world over.

Hygiene is always a good thing but all those layers of soap, shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, mouth rinse, body powder, lotion, cologne and Desenex just SHOUT uber-groomed American tourist! And that's before donning a wardrobe reeking of Mountain Spring Tide, Lavender Clorox bleach, April Fresh Downy and Vanilla and Jasmine Snuggles dryer sheets! But I digress.

In plain English the French may have created the modern industry but few cultures spend as much money on toiletries as we proud Americans. Fewer still manage to wear all of them at the same time all day long like we do. In trying not to offend our own senses we fail to realize that everyone around us is breaking out in hives from the clouds of Shower to Shower and the rose and sandalwood vapors rising in waves from our very pores.

Less is more people: It’s ok, ladies, to put your “casual” face on but make it “Day With the Kids” and not “Night at the Opera.” A little lipstick, soften the eyes, even the skin a tad and head for the door. Dragon lashes and cheekbones are always after dark anyway so hold off on the mascara running in to the foundation thing until after sundown.

Guys, a good long shower, 2-3 swipes of deodorant and go. If you’re taking longer than she is to gel-mousse your hair then it’s not a vacation anymore but a job interview. Remember the days when a wet comb did the trick? It still works!

I had to learn a while back that there is no real purpose in wearing cologne during a day of touring. Part of the full experience of a musty museum or cluttered cathedral is the smell of the building itself, right? Excessive colognes and perfumes not only repel most locals and damage artwork but attract bugs to say nothing of the vultures lurking in the gift shop doorway. Leave the spray bottles for after a second long, hot shower right before a well deserved night on the town or a quiet, evening swaddled in terrycloth and slippers.

Wanna blend in? Start with the basics and ix-nay on the White Diamonds until sundown.
Wanna find the tourist? Follow your nose, it always knows.

Gotta go!

"Outhouse" courtesy of Flickr.