Occupy Wall Street, based in New York City, is something everyone, or most everyone, knows about at this point. The movement, circled around protests that exclaim against, among other things, corporate greed, has become contagious. It has spread to cities across the world–at my last check, over 1,000 cities. The Occupy movement is a worldwide movement, and for that, it has nearly become an attraction. In fact, I have heard many people talking about going down to or driving past Occupy Austin just to see it. Not to be a part of it, but to see it, like a landmark, like a tourist attraction. And c’est la vie, I have no comments on that. But the Occupy Lego land installation present at the famous home-base for the movement, Occupy Wall Street, that I have a comment on: It’s meta enough to be hilarious. And hilarious enough to be a little attraction itself, within what has become a large attraction. Has anyone seen this? You can check out some more photos of the display here.
Maroon 5 brings Texas sized cruise ship to town
Performing live to a standing-room only crowd, GRAMMY award-winning band Maroon 5 rocked the Port of Galveston over the weekend with 3,690 passenger Carnival Magic as a backdrop. It was a fitting welcome at the ship’s new year-round homeport that cast a spotlight on just how big cruise travel is in Texas.
“We’ve played every kind of venue imaginable across the world, but we’ve never helped to launch a new cruise ship,” said Adam Levine, Maroon 5 front-man and coach on the hit NBC series “The Voice. “We’re excited to work with Carnival and to be part of the Carnival Magic celebration for fans in Texas.”
Plenty of fans turned out at the dock-side event with Carnival Magic parked directly behind the stage. An estimated 5,000 fans, some of which won highly sought-after tickets in a Facebook contest, rocked to the 11-song, hour-long performance.
Wondering how the arrival of a cruise ship translates to bringing a hot, popular band with over 15 million albums sold to town?
Carnival expects to carry more than 450,000 guests annually and have a positive impact on the Texas economy. In 2010, the cruise industry added $1.1 billion in direct spending, generated 16,457 jobs and $828 million in income for Texas workers according to a report from the Cruise Lines International Association.
That was before Carnival Magic joined Carnival Triumph for year-round sailings from Galveston, making Carnival the largest cruise operator in Texas. The new deployment means a 24% increase in capacity for Carnival alone which should translate into even more income and jobs.
It’s big business and not limited to Carnival Cruise lines. Royal Caribbean brought Mariner of the Seas into town without much fanfare a day earlier, also adding to the port’s capacity. Next year, Carnival sister-line Princess Cruises returns to Galveston with one of their newest ships and Disney Cruise Line comes to town.
Reason enough to bring in Maroon 5? You bet. They’d bring in Elvis if they could.
Photo: Carnival Cruise Lines
Knocked up abroad: international travel with a baby
This is the third in Knocked Up Abroad‘s guide to traveling with a baby. Before you go, see tips on planning travel and flying with a baby.
So you’ve decided to travel abroad with your new family addition, well done! You’ve chosen the best baby-friendly destination, packed light, and even survived the long flight. Now that you’re on the ground, possibly recovering from jet lag and hopefully learning new foreign phrases for “what a cute baby!,” how can you ensure you and your baby have a fun and relaxing vacation? After five countries in under four months (several of them without other adults), I can say it mostly comes down to attitude and planning. Here are my tips for international travel with a baby:
-Don’t expect the world to cater to you. The most important thing to bring on a trip with a baby is the right attitude. If you travel expecting every restaurant to have a baby-changing table in the bathroom (which they probably won’t, especially in Europe) or that public transportation should be stroller-accessible, you can be sorely disappointed. Keep your expectations low and get creative. I’ve changed my baby on many toilet seat lids, on top of and even in sinks (stuff your diaper bag in to make a flat base), and occasionally in her stroller. Allow yourself to be surprised by people, too. In New York, I was prepared to carry my stroller up and down stairs at some subway stops by myself, yet I was helped by strangers every time. A restaurant owner in Italy set up a makeshift table on top of their deep freezer when she saw me struggling to change the baby on a sink top. Look at inconveniences as part of the adventure rather than a sign you should have stayed home.-Plan your logistics carefully, and then let the rest of your plans go. As noted previously, it pays to do your research before departing. Each day of your trip, plan out where you want to go, how to get there, and what you might need but realize that you might not do any of it. In Malta, there was a wine festival in the next town with cheap tastings and free food, but a cranky baby meant we stayed within walking distance of our apartment (good thing too, or we could have missed a great parade). In Slovenia, we had to make a detour back to our hotel after a diaper incident meant I had to strip my baby down to just her winter coat and diaper. Babies can be unpredictable, so you may need stop at a cafe to feed a baby, take an extra walk around the block before bed to soothe crying, or go back to your room early when the weather turns bad. While combination transit or tourist passes might be a good value, they won’t be if your baby won’t go in a museum without screaming or prefers an open-air stroll to a bus ride.
-Find favorite rest stops. When you need to take a time out from exploring to feed or change your baby, there can be some comfortable places to stop that exist in nearly every destination. Museums and large hotels tend to have nice bathrooms, sometimes with changing facilities. Large baby stores may have a private nursing room or a place to change the baby, plus plenty of gear and gadgets if you need them. Pharmacists generally speak English and carry nearly all of the necessities. At night, however, you may have to be creative again. I tend to visit the same cafes in Istanbul again and again not just for the food but for the bathrooms, the waiters who rush to coddle and play with the baby, and comfy seating while I feed her.
-Breast is best when traveling. While it’s a personal choice how you feed your baby, if you can and want to breastfeed, there is evidence both anecdotal and scientific to support that breastfeeding is preferred while traveling. According to the CDC, it provides needed immunities, nutrition, and hydration for the baby. Even if the mother gets traveler diarrhea, breastfeeding can help to protect from contaminants and rehydrate the baby. It’s also convenient: perfectly packaged, the right temperature, and nothing goes to waste! Nursing mothers may still want to carry a manual pump and store a spare bottle or two. So far, I’ve found every country to be friendly to breastfeeding mothers, though I carry and use a scarf for modesty and spit-up. La Leche League has resources in many countries if you need help, check their map for local groups.
-Document your baby’s trip. It goes without saying that you’ll take plenty of photos and perhaps journal, blog, or tweet your trip, but it helps to document the more mundane activities too. When my baby was born, I got a set of cute notebooks to help me keep track of her feeding and sleeping schedule and diaper changes. I maintained it faithfully only for the first month or two, but now try to revive the records when I travel. Especially if you’re dealing with a big time change, it can help you to figure out how the baby is adjusting by keeping track of how often they eat and how long they sleep at a stretch. It’s also useful when deciding how many diapers to buy so you don’t get caught short or hauling around a mega pack. In the event that your baby gets sick (fingers crossed that they don’t!) during or after your trip, you can tell the doctor if anything is out of the ordinary and help pinpoint causes. You don’t need a fancy notebook either, you can jot down notes on the back of a museum ticket or restaurant receipt while you’re making a pit stop.
-Pack “in between” clothes. If your baby has clothes that he is about to grow out of, bring them along on your travels. If they have only one or two more wears left in them, you won’t mind if they get left behind in a hotel room, will have less to launder or carry, and you’ll probably take many photos of your baby so you can remember a favorite outfit before it gets too small. Keep a spare in your diaper or day bag in case of a changing emergency.
-Know your conversions. Do you know your baby’s weight in kilograms? Does 39 degrees sound hot or cold to you? If you’re American, you probably suffer from the disadvantage of not knowing the metric system used by the rest of the world. You’ll need to know measurements when buying diapers as size numbers might change between countries. My baby was born weighing 3.4 kilos (about 7.5 pounds) and wears a size 2 Pampers in every European country, but wore a size 1 in the same brand of American diapers. In case of a fever while traveling, you should know what temperatures require a visit to a local doctor or just a dose of Children’s Tylenol (which is called Calpol in many other countries, by the way). This info is all online, of course, but it can’t hurt to jot it down in your wallet just in case.
-Carry lots of bags. One of the more useful items to pack and/or collect on your trip is bags disposable, resealable, and reuseable. Bottles can be kept clean and stained clothing can be kept separate from the rest of your stuff in a Ziploc bag (bring a stash from home, they are harder to find in some countries). Supermarket store plastic bags are useful for laundry and diapers until you can deal with them properly. You’ll be going to the store more than usual for baby supplies, and many countries don’t supply bags for free, so bring your own reuseable tote for groceries, carrying gear from your luggage on an outing, or bringing souvenirs home. Bags are useful even without a baby but can also make a huge difference if you have a wet baby miles from your hotel.
What are your secret weapons for traveling with a baby? Leave us your success stories (and mistakes) in the comments.
Fun Fun Fun Fest 2011: recap
Fun Fun Fun Fest 2011 was dreamy. And I mean that. As one of Austin’s prized and annual music festivals, FFF has a lot riding on it. If I were to personify the festival, I might even find myself conjecturing about whether or not FFF feels like she’s living in the shadows of SXSW and ACL. And if she could talk, she might say ‘yes’, but after this year’s FFF, I reckon that ‘yes’ would be followed with quite a few reasons why she likes it that way. And so do I.
Which way do I like it? I like it, it being music festivals at large, precisely the way FFF 2011 happened. It happened like this.
%Gallery-139353%After having crowded Austin‘s downtown but Highway 35-hugging Waterloo Park since the festival’s inception, FFF needed a new home for 2011. I don’t know what sort of politics went on behind the scenes at the FFF headquarters. I don’t know if decision-making people at the FFF Town Hall meetings were enraged or not when Auditorium Shores was picked as the 2011 location spot. But I do know that it worked. It worked well.
As I walked over the pedestrian bridge at South 1st toward the festival’s entrance on the first night of FFF, I stopped mid-bridge and took in the sunset over the water for what felt like the first time since I’ve been spending my time in Austin. The colors, creamy and soft pastel as they nearly always tend to be, spilled over the horizon at the sun’s setting and bled into the white-blue sky like ink dropped in water. The gnats were hoovering over the water and in my face; their silhouettes darted in and out of my periphery as I stared at the calm waters of Lady Bird Lake beneath the perfect sky. And just to my left, there was the festival. All set up and fully in gear, its lights and white tent domes created a carnival-like cityscape at the place where the lapping water meets the packed Texan soil, Auditorium Shores.
Compared to Austin City Limits, FFF’s stature was much more approachable and intimate. Compared to SXSW, FFF’s personality was much less belligerent. And maybe it just means I’m getting old, but approachable, intimate, and less belligerent really works for me now and I think it really worked well for FFF 2011.
Entering FFF was easy–the lines that usually precede a good music festival weren’t there. Then again, we entered in the evening of the first day. The dust kicked up from Auditorium Shores, which is normally a waterfront dog-friendly park in Austin, let loose a haze all over the dimming festival. Festival-goers wore bandanas and other sorts of scarves over their noses and mouths; it was like a music festival shot on a wild west movie set. This may sound like a bad thing, and it certainly wasn’t a good thing, but the dust matched with the scarf-wearing presented a sort of mystique for the festival this year.
Relaxed and spacious, FFF’s crowd still warmly and eagerly embraced the main acts of the festival–Slayer, Public Enemy, Lykke Li, Passion Pit, and others. Public Enemy got into character before their set started and decided to sound check all the way through Four Tet’s set (it was kind of obnoxious). Lykke Li performed a stunning set, completely with billowing smoke, swaying black fabrics, and sporadic percussion, thanks to her affinity for carrying drumsticks in her hands while on stage, ready at any moment to pound away on the nearest drum.
I suspect Austin’s Fun Fun Fun Festival succeeded in teaching many Austinites and travelers alike that a music festival needn’t be overpopulated or over-hyped in order to be worth the ticket price, time, and energy to attend. In fact, I’d say, this one was better for the lack of those two things.
Is BKG the most charming airport ever?
Hectic. Annoying. Uncomfortable. These are just a few words that normally come to mind when talking about airports. An airport can be scenic (like Wyoming’s Jackson Hole) or design saavy (like Amsterdam’s Schiphol), but rarely do you ever land at an airport and immediately want to take pictures, let alone leave the place feeling charmed by it.
But that’s what’s different about the Branson Airport in Branson, Missouri. It’s unlike any airport I’ve ever been in. In most airports, travelers sit for hours in intolerably cramped chairs staring at computer screens or carpet stains. In Branson, there are plenty of picnic tables and oversized, comfy chairs to sit in and more country kitsch to look at than there are hours in the day. The entire place is outfitted like an Ozark outpost, which includes plenty of wood paneling, pine trees, rustic signs and exposed beams.Adding to the airport’s appeal it its simplicity. Don’t expect miles upon miles of corridors in this place, which is comparable in size to a Target shopping center. From the luggage conveyors to the car rental stand, every detail is reminiscent of a log cabin. Instead of a Hudson News, Bass Pro Shops operates a “General Store.” Replacing the usual McDonalds is a Famous Dave’s made to look like an old mill–complete with a water wheel on the side with koi swimming below. There’s even a one-seater airplane suspended overhead. Does is get more charming than that?
Maybe it’s simply good old Midwest hospitality, but one really feels welcome here. Would you believe that an airport exists where the personnel actually takes the time to wave goodbye to each and every aircraft that departs? It happens in Branson. Even the customer service representatives and TSA agents were friendly. So friendly, in fact, that I didn’t even bat an eye when an TSA agent spotted a horseshoe-shaped door knocker I had purchased as a souvenir (please don’t ask, it’s just what you do in Branson–particularly if you can’t find a suitable pair of cowboy boots to take home) and made a joke asking if I was “the one with the knockers.” I swear, if I was in the hellhole known as JFK I would have nearly slapped him and then marched over and filed a complaint in two seconds flat. But in Branson, I actually kind of giggled a little bit.
As it stands, Branson Airport is the only privately owned, privately operated commercial service airport in the United States. And believe me, the private investors who developed the place knew what they were doing. Instead of treating the airport like some sort of glorified bus station, they turned it into point of entry that offers an exciting first glimpse of a place. The Branson Airport is about more than taking off and landing–it’s a place where even the people stopping over for connecting flights leave curious about what’s out there in the Ozarks.