continued from ... Midnight Train Amsterdam

The blood drained from my face instantly, as I stared at the words. TICKET HOLDERS ONLY. Ouch, this will be interesting. “Ehm, maybe the office is open?” Matt suggested.

Let me tell you about Sundays in Europe. There are two scenarios, one practically everything is closed and two if there is anything open it would probably just be open from 11AM to 3PM. Ok, maybe I am exaggerating a little, but this was my experience in Switzerland. Fortunately we happened upon the second scenario but unfortunately the train was due in thirty minutes and the offices would be closed for another four hours or so. There really was only one option left.

My first stint at being a stow away was every bit as exciting as I thought it would be. Sans the hangover it would’ve been even more fantastic. I hid under a complementary blanket provided by the train service at the foot of my fellow travelers. Sandwiched in between their two backpacks I slept soundly from Germany to Holland. Once we reached Amsterdam’s main station I gladly stretched out like an overeager yoga student on the busy platform.

The weather was absolutely miserable that day, it was dark and the cold raindrops sobered us from our hazy arrival almost instantly. Shelter was the number one objective and given my previous history with hostels in Amsterdam (which involved being robbed amongst other things) I was reluctant to relive my experience. Fortunately for me neither were my companions. We decided on a hotel with two beds and a cot for $30 each, it was right across the Grasshopper café.

Marc had never been to a café before, a Dutch café that is, it was almost instantly decided then that we make our way over to the green glowing building. Needless to say the remainder of the evening was hazy at best but ended on a sobering note. I was enjoying what must have been one of the best mugs of hot chocolate I have ever had when right before me I watched an American tourist’s head meet his table with a resounding thud. His girlfriend, sitting right across from him begins to panic. I watch the entire scene unfold before me in what seemed to be a dramatic reenactment of a drug overdose that you are made to watch in high school with the hopes that it would scare you from attempting to imbibe illegal substances.

She starts to scream ‘Help, help, someone call an ambulance please hurry!’ One of the employees, a big man from the UK calmly walks over, tries to tell her to calm down but at the same time her boyfriend’s body begins to convulse, and it looked as if he were having an epileptic attack. The big British man, probably from a small town right across the channel and works in Amsterdam during the weekdays, looks to the bar tender and signals her over. She makes her way from the bar to the scene with the purest nonchalance, a look of unamused recognition crosses her face as she lay eyes on the convulsing body and steadily makes her way back to the bar to retrieve something.

At this point the convulsing man’s girlfriend is three profane words away from hysteria. You could tell that she was absolutely in shock at the calm way the employees of the Grasshopper were handling the situation. I, personally, was impressed at how they were behaving and could only wish that the flight crew on my flight to Manila a few years ago had acted in the same manner when one of the engines had unexpectedly shut down and the plane seemed to go into a thirty second free fall.

The waitress returned to the scene momentarily with a glass of clear fluid greeted with the utmost gratitude ‘Water? He doesn’t need [insert profanity here] water!! He needs an ambulance!’ The waitress said something, reassuring words I believe, I really couldn’t tell above the increasing volume of the American accent. Fed up the waitress throws her hands up and walks away replaced by the large British man who takes a hold of the convulsing American’s head into the crook of his arm and pours the clear fluid into the tourist’s mouth.

Short of an orchestra and opera voices, the scene before me was a masterpiece. In the foreground the American opens his eyes, looks up at his British knight and smiles, the Brit returns the gesture while in the background the hysteric girlfriend continues on and on. Warm sugar water makes everything better.

I shift my eyes over to my companions’ and Matt looks at me in absolute shock as if to say ‘What the hell have you gotten us into?’ and Marc turns to me, his very first experience in a café, eyes watering and in the sincerest and most innocent voice asks me.

‘Is that going to happen to me mate?’

We all made it out of Amsterdam in one piece, the Kiwi’s were off to San Sebastian and I was headed back to Zürich. After the experience at the café we went to a bar, played some pool, checked out the sites and did our best to immerse ourselves in the culture. I didn’t have the opportunity to run into the two Kiwis again but I am sure that whenever they think of Amsterdam they’ll think of the Grasshopper and all the fun we had getting there.

The train ride back to Zürich was a breeze, I even met two Italian travelers, they insisted 'Come to Barcelona!'

Borrowed from the NY Times Travel Section, Why We Travel slideshow:

The supreme moments of travel are born of beauty and strangeness in equal parts: the first panders to the senses, the second to the mind; and it is the rarity of this coincidence which makes the rarity of these moments. Such a moment was mine as I walked up the side of the River Moskva late in the afternoon of my second day in Russia. The Red Capital in winter is a silent place. Like black ghouls on the soundless snow, the Muscovites went their way, hatted in fur, lamb, leather, and velvet, each with a great collar turned up against the wind that sweeps down the river from the east. ... This, at last, was Red Russia; this horde of sable ghosts, the Bolshevists, the cynosure of an agitated world. It was more than Russia, it was the capital of the Union, the very pulse of proletarian dictatorship, the mission-house of Dialectical Materialism. I looked across the river. Before me stood the inmost sanctuary of all: the Kremlin.” Robert Byron, from “First Russia, Then Tibet” (1933)"

How do you feel about Byron's description of travel? Does this quote capture what travel means to you?



Can't wait to hear your responses!
Tara

While focusing on tourism, its impact on the environment and the challenges of balancing out new adventures and sustainability, I found myself completely blindsided by a totally different kind of tourism; celebrity tourism.

According to the New York City Rich and Famous Tours website:

“Rich & Famous Tours of New York is a genuine “insider’s tour” through the most exciting celebrity-filled neighborhoods in the world’s most exciting city. Fun for the entire family!”

It certainly is genuine, but just imagine yourself hunting down celebrities like a hunter chasing gazelle on the African plains. The difference being what is being sold in this case is not an experience, it is the excitement of the likely hood that you would see a celebrity by scoping out their homes.

Normally I would not take the time to look twice at covering a story revolving around a celebrity tour operator but this time I could not resist. The reason why is because of Rich and Famous tours, which caught my eye because of the speed at which it capitalized on recent death of Heath Ledger.

Today, New York City Rich and Famous Tours announced that they have added Heath Ledger’s loft on Broome St., or according to their press release ‘location of death,’ to their schedule. Just to provide added value they make sure to drop by Campbell Funeral Home where other celebrities, along with Ledger, were prepared for burial. Just imagine the look on your kids face when he says “Oh boy, an old cast iron building where someone died and a funeral home where they put them in a casket?!? Daddy, you’re the best!”

The concept is not new, touring by celebrity homes has been around for a while but it seems like the level of intensity to stay ahead of the game has risen significantly. This leads me to question the level of demand. Is there really a demand to see a recently deceased celebrity’s home? I would not have thought of walking by Heath Ledger’s ‘location of death’ had someone not offered to do so in the first place. Likewise I would not have thought of checking out a funeral home where celebrities were “prepped.”

The idea of providing more for your customer is fantastic but when it comes down to it, how much closer does a tour operator have to get? Eventually, are people going to pay top dollar for a professional celebrity tracker?

Just imagine following a guide who has a team of paparazzi-like trackers through the thick brush in St. Tropez, or perhaps the jungle that is New York or the hills of Beverly to come eye to eye with a celebrity. Your guide picks up a discarded Smart Water bottle, smells it, inspects it, “This way” he says. He leads you to a Starbucks next to a Cartier boutique, he tells you to “Stay low, and be quiet.” You hide behind a skim soy, 2-pump chai latte and a newspaper which you are holding upside down. He tells you to peak out the corner of the newspaper and sure enough there it is, a celebrity. Oh the excitement! Oh the rush!

Hornblower Cruises & Events takes a step towards preserving their greatest asset, their environment, by becoming the first commercial business operating in the Port of San Diego to use bio-diesel fuel. The decision to switch to environmentally friendly fuels is in thanks to a combined effort on behalf of Hornblower, New Leaf Biofuels and General Petroleum.

According to Hornblower’s Director of Marine Services in San Diego, Charles Assimakopoulos, “Hornblower has a strong commitment to keeping our oceans clean. Converting to bio-diesel is an important step in our continuing effort to reduce our carbon footprint and educate our guests on what we are doing, and what they can do in their own lives.” According to Hornblower’s Director of Marine Services in San Diego, Charles Assimakopoulos.

In January 2001, all vessels in the Port of San Diego were required to use Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel fuel in order to improve emissions standards. Hornblower has taken the initiative to take the standard to a higher level in hopes to reduce their impact on the San Diego Bay and to encourage other businesses to do the same.

In the wake of the MS Explorer tragedy, Hornblower’s move to go ‘greener’ is a manifestation of the intellectual changes that have been occurring in the travel industry for some time now. Preservation of the most important driver of profitability in the travel industry, the environment, is slowly becoming a standard practice industry wide, not just standard industry talk.