A New York Spring   Since I returned to New York from Florida in April, nothing has gone out until this week on the website. This in no way means inactivity. It seems I have no free time, and love every minute of it. Much involved activity connected with Eden Bay in the Dominican Republic, but a great deal was more trip planning. I’ve spent some excellent time fleshing out and nailing down a planned trip to the South Pacific and New Zealand for next February. I’ve always said half the fun is in the planning; maybe it’s even more than half. The planning work is so marvelously intensive that actually doing the trip seems like an afterthought. I jokingly said recently that I act as a private travel agency for very demanding clients, but the only client I have—or want—is myself. Beverly and I always planned out trips; we used to collect all sorts of brochures and schedules. That seems so primitive now, with such easy computer access to all that information, and a great deal more. To keep score: this year, trip one was Louisiana in February, trip two is Southern Africa & Switzerland/QM2 late June to early August, trip three is Northwestern United States & Hawaii (which will complete the US “quadrant” series). Then, for my first trip of 2009, since I had scheduled a previously announced trip on the Queen Victoria (NY-Panama-LA) for January, it was convenient to add on the South Pacific (Samoa, Fiji, Tahiti) and New Zealand at that point. But I’ll explain more about how that came about at the time. Bottom line: I have three extensive, fully planned and booked trips on my plate as we speak.

BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN It’s mostly, but not all, slaving away at my demilune desk overlooking the Hudson and the Statue. I do get out, and have been enjoying New York in the Spring. For the third year in a row now, I’ve gone, by subway, to see the cherry blossoms at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. This year I was careful to avoid the weekend of the Cherry Blossom Festival, the crowds that go with it, and the tents with food and music that actually block out the view of the trees. One can check the BBG website as the time gets close, where there’s a stylized map of all the scores of cherry trees, and they keep updating the symbols for the trees showing which are in pre-bloom, full bloom, and post-bloom. It makes it easy to go just at the right time. Near the cherry trees I love to go through the lilac garden, with bushes varying shades of white, purple, and, well, lilac.

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is adjacent to several other impressive locations of note. Although you will find the following point in no book, let me disabuse the worthy reader of the parallel of this area to Paris. Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza with its arch is the focus of many streets, similar to Paris’s Place de l’Étoile/Place Charles de Gaulle with its Arc de Triomphe. (Also note the similar name of the street leading west out of the Étoile, Avenue de la Grande Armée.) Leading east out of the Étoile is l’Avenue des Champs Élysées, and leading east out of Grand Army Plaza is Brooklyn’s own Eastern Parkway. Lining up on the south side of the Plaza and the beginning of Eastern Parkway are Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Public Library (to this day, independent of the New York Public Library), the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and the Brooklyn Museum.

In 1866, Olmstead and Vaux, who had designed Central Park, then designed Prospect park, continued with the design of the six-lane boulevard that is Eastern Parkway to have several median park areas and two side service roads, and construction went on through the 1870’s. It was the world’s first “parkway”, a word that they coined specifically for Eastern Parkway, which was intended to draw the country into the city. It was in 1910 that the Brooklyn Botanic Garden appeared on the western end of Eastern Parkway, and it was in 1939 that I appeared in a (no longer existing) hospital on the eastern end of Eastern Parkway. In 1945 so did my twin sisters.

A further digression: A moraine is a pile of earth and boulders left by an advancing or retreating glacier. A terminal moraine marks the southernmost reach of a glacier. The last ice advance started in Canada about 85,000 years ago, reached Connecticut, just north of Long Island, about 26,000 years ago and Long Island about 21,000 years ago, at which point it began to wane about 20,000 years ago. This waning took place as the rate of melting became greater than the southerly push of ice. There is a terminal moraine that runs east-west the length of Long Island to indicate this southernmost reach of the glacier. This moraine has defined the entire region. It was high enough to act as a dam to trap meltwater from the receding glacier, and as the glacier receded to the north, what is now referred to as Lake Connecticut was formed between what is now Connecticut and Long Island. Over time, with rising and falling sea levels combining with the rising of the land after no longer being compressed by the glacier, Lake Connecticut emptied into the Atlantic through its eastern end, but eventually refilled with seawater. The former Lake Connecticut is now Long Island Sound, and that terminal moraine is the reason for the existence of both Long Island sound and the fact that Long Island, including Queens and Brooklyn, is indeed an island and no longer the extension of Connecticut that it once was. Put another way, if it hadn’t been for the changes caused by the glacier and its moraine, Long Island’s south shore and all its beaches, including Coney Island, Rockaway, Jones Beach, Fire Island, and the Hamptons, would instead be the south shore of Connecticut and New England. [The reader may wish to consider the glacial events just described along with the Cataclysmic Inundation Trilogy (2005/14), especially comparing the historic Lake Connecticut (now Long Island Sound) with historic Lake Iroquois (now the much smaller Lake Ontario) and the influence of Lake Iroquois’s disappearance on the formation of Niagara Falls; also with the filling of the Mediterranean Basin by the Atlantic Ocean through the former waterfalls at the Straits of Gibraltar.]

Now, back to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. That terminal moraine is still very evident. I grew up in Brooklyn neighborhoods just east of the eastern end of Eastern Parkway, and these neighborhoods lay at the foot of Highland Park. The steep slope of this park from its bottom to top levels is one easy way to see the moraine. Now, let’s move west to Eastern Parkway itself. Olmstead and Vaux ran the Parkway along the top of the moraine (the couple of bends in the Parkway illustrate how it was being kept along the ridge), so that land slopes to the south, indicating that the layout and location of the Parkway is clever landscape planning. Finally, this explains that, when one enters the Botanic Garden from the Parkway, after a short grassy area, one comes to the cliff edge, with marvelous views, the equivalent of several stories high, over the lilac garden, rose garden, and Cherry Tree Esplanade. Arriving at this view from the top of the moraine of the cherry trees in full bloom is a wonderful introduction to the Garden’s landscaping.

Not too far north of Grand Army Plaza is Brooklyn Technical High School, where I had my fiftieth reunion last year. This year, only two of us from the January section of the Class of 1957 went to the homecoming at Tech, but it was fun to talk with (and be impressed by) the kids who were giving demonstrations. Kevin, the third of us who showed interest in getting together again, couldn’t make it because of his wife’s illness. Afterwards, Don and I did our private 51st Reunion by stopping for cocktails, then strolling along on our way back to the subway in sight of the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) a couple of blocks away, which reminded me that Beverly and I went to BAM only once, but it was spectacular. We had gotten notice that nothing less than the Comédie Française was performing at BAM (in French, with audience headsets for translations). They put on Feydeau’s hilarious 1907 farce Une puce à l’oreille/A Flea in Her Ear, and I remember it fondly still. I mention all this to continue to point out that the ex-City of Brooklyn, which lost some of its allure when it became a mere borough of rival New York, was, and remains, a class act on its own.

SAINT PAUL’S CHAPEL But I also spent a bit of time wandering Manhattan (to this day, over a century after consolidation, still called “New York”, or even simply “The City”, especially by locals; old habits die slowly, if at all). Within a 10-15 minutes’ walk from my location on the Hudson is the core of Old New York. For the first time in some years, when over on Lower Broadway I went into Trinity Church as it famously looks down the length of Wall Street, and also went through again its churchyard, which includes the tombs of Alexander Hamilton and Robert Fulton. However, the current building is the third on the site, the first having succumbed to fire, and the second to structural deficiencies, so the building is not the oldest church. While doing errands another day I stopped in for the first time in quite a while at Saint Paul’s Chapel a bit further up on Broadway, and opposite City Hall Park. It’s not officially a church, but technically merely a chapel of Trinity Church, but it still has its original building of 1766, making it not only the oldest prerevolutionary church, but also the oldest public building in continuous use in New York. The 1776 fire that took Trinity Church didn’t make it this far up Broadway “into the country”. Both churches are on the west side of Broadway. Trinity actually faces Broadway, looking across down Wall Street, and has its churchyard in a U shape around it. Most people entering Saint Paul’s don’t seem to realize that it’s “backwards”. It was built with its back to Broadway and its front facing its churchyard running down the slope. Saint Paul’s was built oriented to the Hudson view that it had at the time, but which is now blocked. Therefore, when entering, you find yourself at the altar end. The enclosed Governor’s Pew of the first Governor of the State of New York, George Clinton, is on one side, under the New York State seal, and the enclosed Presidential Pew of George Washington is on the other, under the Presidential seal. Washington came to Saint Paul’s the day he was sworn in as President, 30 April 1789, down on Wall Street. He also was a regular during the two years New York was the capital of the US.

Saint Paul’s has now become the famous survivor of Nine Eleven. The buildings came down in 2001 right across from the far end of its churchyard. For a long while the chapel was closed and the metal fence around it was used for memorials. Now Saint Paul’s is open again, and includes a selection of memorials inside. Most visible, hanging from an overhead railing is a large homemade sign proclaiming Oklahoma solidarity with New York. There is a column exhibiting a selection of arm patches from fire companies around the world that were sent in. I particularly noticed one from Bloomington, Minnesota, where Beverly is from, and numerous ones from small towns in Germany labeled “Freiwillige Feuerwehr”, or Volunteer Firefighters. Another entire column showed nothing but colorful Japanese paper streamers. On closer inspection, each one was a delicate collection of intricate origami folds. Stepping out the back (front) door to the churchyard, the first memorial is a memorial bell from the City of London, cast in the famous Whitechapel Bell Foundry, which is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest manufacturing company in Britain, dating from 1670. Whitechapel also cast the original Liberty Bell (1752) and Big Ben (1852) the bell after which the London clock tower is named.

After Nine Eleven, Saint Paul’s was used for eight or nine months by volunteers tending the needs of firefighters, police, and construction workers from across the street. Volunteers included massage therapists, chiropractors and podiatrists. I found it particularly interesting that podiatrists had chosen as a work area nothing less than the historic George Washington pew. Every bit of space had to be utilized of course, and the reasoning the podiatrists used to choose this particular spot was as an hommage to Washington’s soldiers at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-1778, some of whom had been bootless in the cold.

CHELSEA PIERS I have once or twice mentioned the Chelsea Piers in Manhattan. I’ve now been there and would like to discuss them. The entire lower half of Manhattan, from Midtown on the Hudson side and the Lower East Side on the East River side, plus most of the west shore of Brooklyn used to bristle with piers, one after the other. This was a reflection of New York harbor being one of the major harbors of the world. The men who worked “along the shore” were known as longshoremen. Marlon Brando’s 1954 performance in “On the Waterfront” documents this now vanished New York lifestyle. What caused the huge change was containerization. Goods now arrive in huge containers, and the entire industry has now moved to New Jersey on the west side of the harbor to places like Port Elizabeth and Port Newark. To my knowledge, the only location receiving freight today in New York is a small facility just north of the Brooklyn Passenger Terminal, whose owner just won a lawsuit preventing the City from closing him down to build a park. The multiple passenger ship facilities along the Hudson also disappeared, to be consolidated in what was called the Passenger Ship Terminal in the Fifties in Midtown. But what goes around comes around. After passenger ships were considered dinosaurs for period of time, they’re now back in force, to the point where the facility in the Fifties had to be renamed the Manhattan Cruise Terminal, and now Cunard has moved to the other facility, the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal (2006/2 “Red Hook”). And get this—now, Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises have moved to a third facility, across the river in New Jersey. Since it’s near the Statue of Liberty, they call it the Cape Liberty Cruise Port, in Bayonne. Talk about a revival of passenger ship travel!

Most of the rotting piers have been removed, and parklands with walkways and bikeways are replacing them. But some remain. On Manhattan’s East River side, South Street Seaport maintains several of the old piers for its historic ships, but Pier 17 is now a shopping and fast-food mall. Here on the Hudson side, old historic Pier A is located between historic Battery Park and the planned community of Battery Park City where I live. Pier A (1886), which had been a Victorian wonder that had greeted distinguished guests such as Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh, is now landmarked and is finally (and very slowly) being remodeled as the new departure point for the boats to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, which will leave from there instead of leaving from along the seawall in the Park. Battery Park City itself is a landfill extension of Manhattan (a further extension of ones from previous centuries). Much of the landfill was obtained from the construction of the World Trade Center. BPC includes the World Financial Center opposite the World Trade Center site across West Street (on the inland side), and Stuyvesant High School, along with a large number of condominium and some rental buildings. Given its location, the river views are superb. I recently waved from my tiny balconette to a Circle Line ship out in the Hudson with my sister Pat on it, as she accompanied a school class on an outing. BPC runs along West Street (whose name had made more sense along this stretch before the extension) for over a mile, or just under two kilometers. Beyond that, West Street still borders the Hudson. But given that length, the fact that BPC extends out from West Street only about 2-3 short blocks begins to tell the whole story. BPC replaced the piers that had been here. Piers are built along a shoreline starting at what’s called the bulkhead line, the furthest extension of dry land, out into the river to what is aptly called the pierhead line. The Esplanade below my windows is at what had been the pierhead line, showing that BPC simply was built where the piers were. I have an older map from a few decades ago showing the piers. BPC replaced, roughly, piers 1 (next up from Pier A) to 23. Many were railroad company piers. Stuyvesant, at the north end of BPC, replaced piers 20-23 of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. The Belgian Line had used pier 15, and the Venezuelan Line piers 10-11. Here at the southern end of BPC, I now am amused to find that the first three piers beyond Pier 1 were numbered 2, 3, and 7, and all belonged to the United Fruit Company. From the map as I eyeball it, it seems that The Regatta, where I live, is approximately located at what was the end of United Fruit’s pier 7. Is anyone up for a Chiquita banana?

[Note: United Fruit owning the piers where my building now stands would have been probably through the first half of the 20C, once the docks became so freight oriented after nearby residential neighborhoods declined. Go back earlier into the 19C when the streets inland from West Street were still heavily residential and you’ll understand my comment in the seventh paragraph of 2006/11, where I said that passenger boats left from this area, and that my building would have been roughly where the piers for the Fall River Line to Boston would have docked their ships, as well as boats to Philadelphia and up the Hudson. I’ll mention that there’s a two-block Albany Street coming down from a bit inland to West Street, and when BPC was built, an additional two-block extension of Albany Street crossed over into BPC, and crosses my South End Avenue just two blocks to the north. The original two blocks got the name because at their end was the pier for the ships upriver to Albany. It makes one wonder how close the two-block extension of Albany Street in BPC itself actually replaces the very pier in question. I don’t know, but I find it fun to speculate.]

Further uptown along the shore is the neighborhood of Chelsea. From about 18th to 22nd Streets, piers 59 to 62 remain. My map shows they all had belonged at one time to the United States Line, where the SS United States would have berthed. Today they are the home of the so-called Chelsea Piers, which is billed as a Sports & Entertainment Complex. Do understand that the piers are actually buildings over water, and on several levels of the Chelsea Piers there are sports facilities, including onsite (on-pier?) parking and television studios. I believe that indoor scenes for the several Law & Order series, whose outdoor scenes are famously filmed on the streets of Manhattan, are filmed at Chelsea Piers.

Now to the point (finally). I said last December that every year, the New York City Chapter of the Middlebury College Alumni Association has to find bigger and bigger venues for its holiday party, since the group keeps on growing. Someone joked that maybe Shea Stadium would be next. Well, the group needed to have a special meeting for President Ron Liebowitz to present to alumni the College’s new fund-raising plan, the Middlebury Initiative, so this time, it chose the Chelsea Piers. Actually, I was told, there were present at this reception only about half the people who were at the holiday party last year, but it was nevertheless an exciting event, and at an exciting venue. It took place in a ballroom and auditorium at the pierhead end of Pier 60 of the Chelsea Piers complex. I simply took the No 1 train on the subway from my Rector Street station up to 18th Street, then walked over to the river. The complex is vast, with activity everywhere. After walking through a parking area out to the end of Pier 60, one finds a reception and event area, similar to what a lush hotel would offer. Alumni are treated well at such receptions. There was an open bar, and tables of hot appetizers. I met and chatted with several people, one of whom thought I, because of my Middlebury doctorate, would be interested in meeting Daniel Breen, the Director of Graduate Giving. The title sounds more mercenary than it should; I perceive Dan more as an arranger of alumni affairs, given that most Summer Language School alumni do work for an MA or more, setting us apart from the “undergraduate” alumni. Dan hinted that there could possibly be a reunion in Mainz next summer to celebrate Fifty Years of Middlebury’s program at the Universität Mainz. I never realized that when Beverly and I (and Rita) lived in Mainz in 1961-1962 the Middlebury program there was still so new. We’ll see how that goes. But it does seem nowadays that everywhere I go, something or other I’ve been associated with is celebrating fifty years.

There was a short film before President Liebowitz’s talk in the auditorium, followed by Q&A. I rose to inquire about the Doctor of Modern Language program, since relatively few graduate students go on to complete it. It apparently continues to function quietly in the background. After the program I figured we were done for the evening, but on coming out again, I was surprised to see that an extensive buffet dinner was being served. Middlebury treats you well. It was also pleasant to step outside of the far end of the ballroom to a deck on the river. It was fun to answer, when someone asked where I lived, to say “just down the river”, with the same view. I now know that, if all the piers were still there, I could have said “from here at Pier 60 down to Pier 7”.

There was a pleasant closing touch. Halfway down the corridor leaving the ballroom area, a server presented a tray of small, warm chocolate chip cookies. Then, just as you finished your cookie by the end of the corridor, another server at the door offered you a second one, ending a pleasant Middlebury evening at the Chelsea Piers.

CAROLINE’S I like stand-up comedy. I won’t list all the great standups we all know from the past, but I will mention the contemporary ones I’ve seen live at comedy clubs. In Tampa at Side Splitters Comedy Club on Dale Mabry, a few years ago Beverly and I went to see Lewis Black, one of the best, now so frequently seen on the Comedy Channel. Then we went twice to the Westbeth Artists Community here in Greenwich Village, once to see Margaret Cho, and once for Bruce Villanch. Then, at the reception at Chelsea Piers, something curious happened. I got into a discussion with a woman who had been an undergraduate student at Middlebury in the Fifties, and who was now in show business, as a stand-up comic. She invited me to see her, and would be appearing, with others, at Caroline’s, the pre-eminent comedy venue on Broadway and 50th. I had always wanted to experience Caroline’s, and here I would know someone in the show. Being on a Monday night, the performance I’d see would have a series of 7-8 newcomers, along with the occasional comic with more experience. It turns out Caroline’s is on the basement level. When I mentioned my reservation at the podium in the bar area, she said the cover charge would be reduced by 2/3 to only $5, since I knew one of the performers. In the club itself, there was a large table area near the stage for groups, and between that and the mezzanine behind me was an entire row for single customers. I ended up chatting with people on both sides, and both, as it turned out, knew someone in the show. There was a two-drink minimum, and snacks or dinner if one wanted. The show had varying degrees of performance, yet was a lot of fun. It was interesting to watch people trying to do their best in a difficult sort of profession, where trying to please people while trying to amuse them with one’s presentation can be difficult. I’m no comedian or professional performer, but standing (never sitting!) in front of a classroom for 28 years, I know what it is to try to entertain a crowd while trying to simultaneously present what you’re trying to get across. In the classroom, as on the stage, everyone has highs and lows. I can still remember some classes where I had great success and we all had the greatest fun throughout the entire year, and there were also those that ended up being duds, with no chemistry between anyone, where the whole year long even I was looking at the clock hoping it would soon be over. It’s got to be similar with these performers—sometimes the very same performer will finish in a euphoria of wild applause, or sometimes—depending on “the crowd” as well as their own abilities—the performance will be a dud. But that’s how life works, right?

ZIPCAR To paraphrase the film “Sleepless in Seattle”, I am now “Carless in Manhattan”. In the mid-Nineties, Beverly and I had decided we no longer needed our own car, given all our travels. However, as her health continued to decline, even in New York we had to give up subways and buses and get a car. Garage space in Manhattan rents monthly for just under the Gross National Product of Iceland, but even after Beverly was gone and I eagerly went back to subways and buses, I kept what turned out to be my final car, a 2001 white Lexus with a glorious sunroof, garaged to visit family and friends in the suburbs. But then a month or so ago, notice came out of an increase in the monthly garage rate, which was just the final straw. Driving the Lexus just twice a month or so does not warrant such rates. So off I went to a car buying service in Queens and sold it, coming home by subway. The savings in garage fees and insurance is phenomenal, and I’ve been told that my personal liability insurance will cover car rentals.

That would have been the end of that, since I can reach family in the suburbs quite easily by railroad. Also, when in need, there’s both a Hertz and Avis a few minutes’ walk from me. But by pure coincidence, just after I decided to sell the car anyway, I saw two different references in the New York Times to Zipcar. I looked into it online, and immediately signed up to become a Zipster.

Zipcar (Zipcar.com) is not a car rental company. It’s a self-service, car-sharing service, with a modest annual membership fee, for which you are sent a Zipcard. It has no locations of its own, and no staff to deal with. What it does is rent about a half-dozen spaces each in many parking garages or parking lots around town. There are two within a five minutes’ walk from me. When you need a car (planning helps, since weekends are busy), you go online to their website, see what cars are at each site, and just click to make a reservation. On arrival at the garage, you go to the Zipcar area and hold your Zipcard over the card reader inside the windshield, which unlocks the doors and fuel line. Once inside, there’s a discretely stowed key. It’s all self-service, including picking up one’s junk when finished, and reporting any problems online. You only have to talk to the regular valet at the garage (not a Zipcar employee) if some other car needs moving.

In this time of high gas prices, gas is included in the rate! As a courtesy to the next driver, when the tank is at ¼ you’re asked to fill the tank. There’s a special fuel card in the glove compartment, and you just punch in the appropriate code at the gas pump, and Zipcar pays. Insurance is also included. There’s also an EZ-Pass in each car so you can zip right through toll plazas. However, you do pay for the tolls (with the EZ-Pass discount), the amount being automatically billed to your credit card along with each rental charge. No bills are sent, but your account is readable on the website. It couldn’t work more easily.

Zipcar, I learn, has now been around for about a decade. They’re in London, plus a number of major US cities, plus Canada. However, in some places they’re limited to a university area, where they are particularly popular. For instance, the only locations in the Twin Cities are at the University of Minnesota. You can rent by the hour, but if you need a car for several hours, as I do when visiting family, after 6-7 hours you fall into the day rate instead, so I rent mine up until the late evening, since it doesn’t cost any extra and I’m not under pressure to get the car back. The cars being available 24/7 in public garages are the big advantages over car rentals, even though a full daily Zipcar rental costs more. Hertz and Avis close at 9PM after which you have to hustle to find parking overnight. I don’t need that hassle, having rented only twice in the six weeks since I joined.

I’ll need a day rental in San Francisco the end of October so I don’t have to worry about parking overnight downtown, and I’ve already booked a Zipcar online.

SCREEN NAMES I just bought a new Dell laptop that I’ll be taking to Africa with me on its first trip. I like it a lot and have put the Google Desktop on it, and have transferred all my data. While I was doing that, I decided to leave AOL after eleven years and move my mail to Gmail, at which point I’d like to discuss to topic of screen names.

It seems that some people choose their own names as screen names, perhaps in the format john.doe or jdoe. Others try to describe themselves instead. Although my sense of formality would suggest to me the former route, I find the flexibility of self-expression wins the case for me.

As an example, I’ll use my family. My mother expresses her Russian heritage by including “czarina” in her screen name. My sister Chris indicates her profession as a crossword-puzzle editor by including “puzzle”, and my sister Pat shows her interest in family by including the initials of her five granddaughters in order of age, as “krdln”, as part of hers. I prefer to stick to this tradition.

When I got my first e-mail address in 1997, I wanted to cover both Beverly and me by the term Language Buffs, but at that time, AOL limited screen names to ten letters (changed shortly afterwards), so off came the S plural and off came the GE to leave the truncated “languabuff”, not overly attractive. Perhaps I should have cut it down further to “langbuff” or even “langbuffs”, but that didn’t happen. At a later time, I even registered the name Eurolanguist with AOL, but never used it.

When I started the website, in the spirit of “Language Specialist by Vocation, Traveler by Avocation”, I felt it was necessary to include travel into the mix, and came up with the unique word Travelanguist. Beyond that, I used on the website (but nowhere else) the e-mail address Travelanguist@Travelanguist.com.

Finally, with my move to Gmail, I wanted a new screen name. After some rumination, I came up with Lingotraveler, which, in the upcoming revamping of the website after I get back from Africa, will also become the address on the website. I carefully planned that name, and was a bit cautious about using “lingo”, since its such an informal word. To reassure myself, I checked the dictionary. It says lingo means “language or speech…”—so far so good—“…especially if strange or foreign”. Well, that hit the nail on the head. It seems that so much of the language I discuss is foreign, and many points made are about “strange” qualities in language. So Travelanguist is the word that will remain for the name of the website, and Lingotraveler as the new screen name.

BROADWAY Finally, two shows. By May I felt I had to tear myself away and go see something. My first choice was the spectacular revival of South Pacific (1949), but it was sold out until after my return from Africa—with one exception. Online I found a single seat for the Tuesday before the Tony awards in June, and booked that. But I wanted to see something still in May, so I got a ticket for Boeing Boeing (1962). I apparently chose well, given the recognition of both by the Tonys.

Boeing-Boeing is a classic French farce (see the Feydeau reference above in BAM) about a man who juggles relationships with three flight attendants at his apartment in Paris. As befits any farce, there’s are some half-dozen doors all around the action through which people just avoid meeting each other. None other than Christine Baranski plays the French maid, in a French accent and wearing a black Prince Valiant wig. The man has a visit by an old friend, played by Mark Rylance. I was amazed when I researched this play that it is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most-performed French play of any kind in the world. As I say, seeing this show on a whim was apparently a good choice, as it won the Tony for the Best Revival of a Play, and Mark Rylance, in his unassuming, quiet portrayal of the friend, won a Tony for Best Actor in a Play.

The irony was amazing to me that this spring, as I was planning my first ever trip to the South Pacific, what should open on Broadway but nothing other than Roger & Hammerstein’s “South Pacific”, the first revival that the heirs have permitted since the original in 1949. It is based on two stories from James Michener’s “Tales of the South Pacific” (1946), possibly the only Michener I haven’t read yet, but will before going there. The Michener book won the Pulitzer Price for Fiction in 1948, and the Rogers and Hammerstein musical won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1950. What a pedigree.

My feeling is that the two works together brought an international recognition to the islands of the South Pacific that hadn’t existed before. There are claims locally as to which island was the inspiration for Bali Ha’i, and who was the inspiration for the wheeler-dealer Bloody Mary (I know who allegedly was, and I’m staying at her hotel in Samoa).

In the original musical, Mary Martin was notably Nellie Forbush and Ezio Pinza was Émile de Becque. In the 1958 film version, filmed on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, it was Mitzi Gaynor and Rossano Brazzi.

The revival of South Pacific was presented at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center, with the huge cast that is called for. Kelli O’Hara played Nellie and the Brazilian actor Paolo Szot sang Émile quite remarkably. “Some Enchanted Evening”, is only one of many songs from the show that have become classics.

A comment on the theater and orchestra. The Beaumont had a combination of a standard, minimalist proscenium, but with a huge thrust stage going way out into the audience. The orchestra was located under this tongue of a thrust stage, audible and visible from around the sides and front. I find it noteworthy that Richard Rogers’ music was presented in the 30-player orchestration created for the original production. Scores and orchestral parts were restored using existing material. Nowadays, given production expenses, it is rare that such a large orchestra is used. So, a little clever staging was in order.

During the overture, after a few bars of music, the entire thrust stage pulled slowly back, perhaps ¾ of the way back into the proscenium area, and all thirty musicians, in tuxedos and gowns, were revealed. This happened again during the entr’acte before the second act, and at the end during the finale. It was spectacular to see the stage move and to hear the full effect of the “uncovered” orchestra.

I said I chose well with the two shows I saw. South Pacific got the this year’s Tony for Best Revival of a Musical. Paolo Szot got the Tony for Best Actor in a Musical—and really deserved it. The show also got Best Director, in fact, a spectacular seven Tonys in all, so that the New York Times the next day declared it the most successful show of the night. Needless to say, I will keep this experience in mind next February in the South Pacific.

Wariness   I fly tomorrow to Africa, and several people have asked me in recent months and weeks if I’m excited about it. I have to tell them I’m more wary than excited. This is too exotic an experience for my taste. I’m glad I’m doing it, but I’ll also be glad when it’s over. If my opinions adjust on arrival, I will state so. Let me outline the trip, then state my reasons for wariness.

I fly to Johannesburg, but go right to Pretoria. I’ll take the fabled Blue Train to Cape Town, where I’ve arranged for a pre-tour of several days to the region. Cape Town is something I’m excited about. I then take the Rovos Rail trip from Cape Town to Dar es Salaam, after which I’ve signed up for a safari in Tanzania.

I had wanted to go back to New York on the Queen Mary 2 (sixth trip), and saw it will leave from Hamburg at a time I liked, but that left a week and a half after Dar es Salaam, so I’m going back to Switzerland for the first time in quite a while. I’m glad of that. Not only do I want to see Switzerland again, but I’m sure I’ll need a dose of normalcy after the exotica of the Africa trip.

If you want reasons for wariness, let’s start with inoculations. I listed a while ago all the immunizations I’ve now gotten, and the need to take malaria pills two days before, and seven days after, being in a potentially infected area. I took the first malaria pill today, and it feels odd, since, as I look out onto the Hudson, it doesn’t seem malaria-prone. I also consider how strange it will feel taking the final malaria pills for the first seven days in Switzerland. The juxtaposition of malaria pills and the Swiss Alps seems paradoxical.

I’ve read the warnings about the crime rate, and I’m wary about that while on my own, more in Pretoria than in Cape Town.

And then the animals. Both in South Africa and Tanzania, I’m supposed to be involved in game drives. This apparently means going out at 5:30 before breakfast (and again in the evening) when animals are foraging. I don’t relish a couple of hours on bumpy dirt roads, especially in an open car with the driver holding a shotgun. Frankly, the further away the lions might be, the better. If I want a closer view, I have a choice of the Bronx, Central Park, or Prospect Park zoos.

I contrast this with Antarctica, where we also got up at the crack of dawn, but walked among the animals, close enough to pet the king penguins on the head (if it were allowed), just like a child. The big male elephant seals looked menacing just a short distance away, but were more likely sleeping than not. Also menacing were the sharp-toothed fur seals, but the naturalists kept them on the side with long sticks. I wasn’t concerned in Antarctica, and enjoyed it, but I remain wary about Africa. Hopefully, I’ll still enjoy that, too.

And then there’s Robert Mugabe. As the election turmoil continues in Zimbabwe (former Southern Rhodesia) he seems loonier than ever. We’ve been told that there’s been an alteration to the train route, and we’ll go do a different game park on the way to Victoria Falls (which lies between Zimbabwe and Zambia), via Botswana. The reason is “track work in Zimbabwe”. That may be true, but I strongly suspect it’s really in order to spend as little time as possible in Zimbabwe, entering the country instead much closer to the area of the falls.

I’m looking forward to the trip, but with due wariness. I’m also hoping that things will be much more positive than I’m foreseeing, but, if so, you’ll find that out as it happens.

Airline Ranking   I’ve expressed my views on air travel. The advantage is speed, but in far too many cases, it’s just transportation and not travel, not sea travel, not rail travel, not the travel driving on the Overseas Highway. But still, there are airlines, and there are airlines. I was happy to come across a website some time ago that ranks airlines (also airports): Airline Ranking

The rankings are one (low) to five (high) stars, on a bell curve. As you know, that means that three-star is not only the average, but by definition will be large, two and four, less so, one and five least so. Here’s what I find.

THREE-STAR It is disappointing to find so many well-known airlines as three-star, in other words, OK, but just average. You’ll find many familiar European names there, and unfortunately, almost all the US airlines. Read ‘em and weep. Can’t there be just a bit of quality, a bit of class?

TWO-STAR & ONE-STAR Take a look here, going from worse down to worst. If it comes to any of these clunkers, you’d better stay home. The rankings are adjusted periodically, and at least there’s only one one-star airline listed at the moment.

The value of this website lies in the four- and five-star rankings. You may be surprised, but, while five is interesting, four is more useful. Let me explain.

FIVE-STAR This is the crème de la crème, the top-shelf airlines. There used to be five airlines listed here, and now there’s an interesting sixth one added. I want to list them all, in homage, first those earlier five: Asiana Airlines is based in Seoul; Cathay Pacific Airways is based in Hong Kong; Malaysia Airlines; Qatar Airways; and the reigning queen, Singapore Airlines. Do you notice a trend?

It seems that once, the best always came out of Europe or the US: think of the French Line, Cunard, and others. Cars came from Europe or the US, as did electronic equipment. So much has now moved to Asia, which is sure to be the center of the 21C, and now all the best airlines are Asian as well.

And it gets better. That newer five-star listing is Kingfisher Airlines. I’d never heard of it before, so I looked it up. It’s out of India, but we now expect all five-star airlines to be Asian. It has an unusual name, but since a Kingfisher is a bird, it’s appropriate for an airline. But then I read further. When I go to an Indian restaurant, I enjoy a nice glass of Indian beer, and Kingfisher Beer is one of the best. As it turns out, the Kingfisher Brewery started an airline, and it shot right up to five stars!!

To be a bit more accurate, United Breweries Group, which owns Kingfisher beer, is the one that started Kingfisher Airlines, but beyond that technicality, to me this is a brewery running an airline. It just started in 2005, and flies at present only domestically in India, but is now planning international routes. But I will say it again, why are most US airlines in the average group, three stars, when an Asian brewery can start up a five-star airline?

It may now be obvious that, if you’re going to Asia, you’ll want to look into the five-star airlines, but they do little good for most other destinations. That’s why I say that the five-star listing is an interesting curiosity, but we have to be satisfied with the four-stars in most cases. But that’s still not bad.

FOUR-STAR There is hope here. I recognize three US airlines in this category, Frontier, JetBlue, Midwest. Other familiar names (that are non-Asian, because the Asians do well in this group, too) are Air France, Austrian, British, Lufthansa, Qantas, plus four more I’ll mention below.

It has always been our philosophy that, if possible, you travel with a company from your destination. We sailed on the French Line to France, and last summer I flew TAP Air Portugal (just three-star) to Lisbon.

For the South Pacific trip next January-February, I’ve booked Air New Zealand from Los Angeles via Samoa and Fiji to New Zealand, and Air Tahiti Nui (I’ll explain the word “nui” at the time) from New Zealand via Tahiti to Los Angeles. Now I chose these, since they had the best connections, but I’m pleased to say that both these airlines turn out to be four-star. This is reassuring, given the long distances involved.

Finally, on tomorrow’s trip, since I’m coming back by ship, I needed to book only two air connections. I fly from New York (with a stop in Dakar, Senegal) to Johannesburg on South African Airways, and later from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (with a stop in Nairobi, Kenya) to Zurich on Swiss International, the successor to the now defunct Swissair. In each case I chose the airline because it was the airline of my destination, but looking up the rankings, I’m pleased to say both are four-star, again especially good, given the long distances involved.