Photo Of The Day: Umbrella In Paris

Paris is a visually arresting city no matter where you look, whether it’s the city’s ornate architecture, fashionable residents or jaw-dropping art museums. Take this photo by Flickr user Cosmic Smudge, who captured this intriguing Paris scene after a rainstorm, as evidence. I love the mysterious umbrella holder, whose face remains unseen, complemented by splashes of bright red and flashes of gold from the buildings behind.

Taken any great travel photos of your own in Paris? Why not add them to our Gadling group on Flickr? We might just pick one of yours as our Photo of the Day.

[Photo Credit: Flickr user Cosmic Smudge]

How To Stay With Strangers Around The World For Free

It’s no secret I’m a fan of couchsurfing. Finding hosts online to put you up in their living rooms sounds sketchy, but I’ve never had a real negative experience. The value isn’t just in a free place to crash. The biggest plus is meeting incredible people, real people who can show you a side of their city that you normally wouldn’t see as a tourist.

For me, that meant everything from a house party in Paris to sipping beers in Munich while discussing German historical consciousness. Oh, yeah. And staying for free.

Here’s how to crash with strangers around the world, without landing yourself in a shady situation du jour:

Be Discerning
When I was traveling alone in Europe in my early 20s, I set specific guidelines: I limited my search to women in their 20s and 30s with good English and favorable reviews from former guests. Luckily, I was traveling in populated areas with lots of options for hosts, and I used that to my advantage. You can actually filter your results by certain criteria like language skills, something I thought was important as someone traveling alone, so there were no misunderstandings.

Have A Backup Plan
You never want to be beholden. If you get a bad vibe, be prepared to leave. The best bet is a list of hostels or hotels in the area. It’s great to save on accommodations, but if you feel weird about a certain place, suck it up and pay. The closest I got to a bad situation was when I showed up at a host’s house and she told me I could stay in her roommate’s room, and use her roommate’s laptop. I gladly obliged … until her roommate came home and they started a screaming match. I was prepared to up and leave. Luckily, the roommate said it wasn’t my fault and I slept in the living room. Needless to say, I cut my tenure short by leaving first thing in the morning.Come Armed
When you show up to your host’s place, always come with a gift. It can be small, but you’re not paying, so be courteous. In my experience, the best gifts are less about money value and more about history or a back-story. Generally, as I backpacked from place to place, I brought my new host something from the place I was leaving. I brought a decorative plate from Madrid for my first host in Paris. She had never been to Spain and told me it was like a small piece of the travels themselves.

Follow Their Lead
Some hosts would rather act like your personal hotel: “Stay with me for a night, but I don’t have a lot of time, so leave with me in the morning when I go to work and be home by X time.” Others really want to bond and hang out. As a couchsurfer, it’s on you to figure out what your host is expecting, and to be adaptable. Hosts occasionally gave me keys, but not usually. That often means coming and going on their schedules. There were times my host and I would cook dinner together, share a bottle of wine – I spent a whole day walking around with one host, who took me to the hippodrome, the park and a museum. Others just don’t have the time.

Tell Tales
Everywhere I stayed, I asked my hosts why they chose to let people stay with them for nothing in return. I got a smattering of answers, but for the most part they fell into two camps: for some, they wanted to pay the kindness forward either because they had stayed with hosts in different countries, themselves, or because they’d like to in the future. For others, the only price they asked was for me to tell them stories of my experiences. My first Parisian host was also my best; she hosted couchsurfers all the time and wanted to embark on solo travel of her own someday, but had never worked up the courage. In the meantime, she traveled vicariously through us.

We stayed in touch, and less than a year after I stayed with her, she proudly told me that she had finally gone traveling, inspired by the incredible stories she heard from her guests.

[Image credit: Flickr user Wonderlane]

Member Of Secret Disneyland Club Tells All


A member of Disneyland’s most exclusive club has been opening up to inquiring minds on Reddit, a social news website. The anonymous user has been defending the club’s $35,000 per year price tag, and also dished about dining with celebrities like Jack Nicholson and Tom Hanks.

The user introduced himself by saying he has been member of Club 33, a secret feature of Disneyland located in the heart of the New Orleans Square, for more than 10 years – and that the membership has been with his family for more than 30 years. The private club was opened in the 1960s, and the waiting list for membership is rumored to be 14 years.

Describing the scene, the member noted that celebrities can often be spotted at the club. “I’ve spoken to Jack Nicholson and Tom Hanks one on one while in the club,” he noted, adding that he tends to try and give celebrities their space.

He said a membership covers up to four family members. Besides access to the club, benefits include valet parking on a private lot, automatic upgrades at Disney properties, reserved seating at shows, a private car on the Disneyland Railroad, behind the scenes tours, immediate fast passes, invitations to special events and the ability to make reservations for friends and family members.

A former Disney Imagineer who was unable to access Club 33 asked if there were any of Walt Disney’s trademark gags inside. The member explained that there is an animatronic vulture in the Trophy Room, one of two dining rooms inside the club. He also noted Disney put an elevator that comes up from an underground garage so VIPs could be ushered in and out of New Orleans Square quickly and easily.

According to Wikipedia, the elevator is an exact replica of one Disney saw during a vacation in Paris. The owner of the original refused to sell, so Disney sent a team of engineers to the Parisian hotel to take measurements and a sample of the original finish for an exact replica.

Most of the people leaving comments on Reddit questioned whether or not the membership to the club was worth it. The member seemed undecided on the matter, pointing out that he mainly keeps his membership because it is a family tradition.

“While I make good money, I consciously pay the dues each year from some inheritance that was left to me by my parents,” he said. He also explained that dinner at the club comes at a cost of around $150 (without alcohol), and he only took advantage of his membership four times last year.

“If you’re a big Disney fan and want to enjoy 33 once, the price is worth the experience and memory,” he said, but he also pointed out that the best experiences he’s had because of the membership took place outside of the club.

The member also explained that Disneyland as a whole seems a little less magical than it was in years past.

“The attention to detail is fading quickly in the park,” he wrote, adding that maintenance and repair is also slipping. “[Twenty] years ago, something would be repaired the next day if the part was handy. Now things go for weeks before [they’re] replaced. If you ever meet an original Disney employee, ask them how often they saw a light bulb out.”

The member also offered a surprising tool for those looking to get into Club 33: Craigslist.

“Some members, especially the corporate ones, have been known to charge a hefty price tag to take guests,” he explained. “Alternatively, if you know any executives in the big well known brands in the [United States], ask them. Fewer and fewer corporate accounts are joining, but I’d have to assume it’s still the majority of the reservations.”

[Photo Credit: Creative Commons]

Cockpit Chronicles: Getting More Out Of Layovers

For some, life couldn’t be any more perfect than if they were paid to travel. I’ve run across three airline crew members who have discovered ways to keep their jobs fresh and exciting by embracing what is for them the biggest benefit that comes with working for an airline: travel.

You hear about the turbulence in the airline industry nearly every week – layoffs, pay cuts, pensions lost and airlines shutting down. The echo chamber at work is enough to drive an airline employee crazy after hearing how these events are affecting everyone. But a few pilots and flight attendants I’ve worked with have come to the conclusion that they’re unable to change the situation materially, and so they may as well find a way to enjoy the job.

2 STEWS

I like to think I’m an adventurous traveler, although my definition of adventurous is to try to avoid eating at the same place in a given city more than once. I rarely succeed, but it’s a goal at least.

Years ago, a flight attendant asked me for advice about purchasing a digital SLR camera. She started a blog called 2 Stews that revolved around eating and writing about various restaurants in Europe and recreating some of the amazing dishes. I was surprised when she heeded my advice not to skimp on the camera and began to take some eye-popping pictures of the food and sights she came across.Today, she looks forward to trips, planning them well in advance to secure reservations for herself and some of her fellow crew members. For her, the job no longer revolves around the work she does going back and forth across the Atlantic, it’s more about the next topic or theme she plans for her blog. I’m similarly motivated when I come across a subject I want to talk about in “Cockpit Chronicles,” which lately hasn’t been often enough.

Here, Diane catches us up on her schedule, which ends in Rome, so naturally she shares the recipe for a dish she had previously there that had an unusual mix of ingredients:

Lately I feel like the Johnny Cash song, I’ve Been Everywhere. In the past few weeks I’ve been to Dallas, Rome, Budapest, Boston, New York, Minneapolis, Boise, Idaho and back again. I’m off to Rome today. I’m not complaining, mind you, but my affairs aren’t in order. The weeds are growing, the dust is collecting and my computer time has been zero. If only I had an iPad for my journeys….plus a few days off! Oh yeah, don’t forget a house cleaner on that list of wants.

I settled yesterday for an easy and tasty pasta dish to keep me going. I have been wanting to make the Pater Nostri pasta I bought in Rome using a recipe that was inspired by a dish I had at Trattoria Moderne last month. It had Italian sausage, pear and radicchio. The flavors rounded out each other with a little sweet from the pear, some savory sausage, salty cheese and a slightly bitter taste from the radicchio. The essences of life.

Diane has collected so much about Paris that she’s started a blog featuring that work called Merci Paris.

RUDY’S RIO

Aspiring to learn everything there was to know about his favorite city, Rudy has ventured nearly everywhere in Rio de Janeiro and logged enough helpful tips that he’s become the go-to guy for other pilots and flight attendants interested in Rio. He put together a guide that he shares in paper form with crew members, which caused me to try things I never would have otherwise – such as a frango from a farmers market, for example.
I committed the Portuguese word for chicken to my short-term memory and marched down to the weekly market near our hotel and ordered a frango with some sort of sugar cane drink.

I’m convinced that Rudy may know more about the city than some of the locals. I thought I knew Paris well, but I couldn’t write anything for the City of Light that would approach what he’s done for Rio. In order to get around a little easier, Rudy has a bike in Rio and is planning on picking up another one so he can bring someone else from the crew along with him on his adventures.

On the day he leaves Rio, Rudy will routinely carve up some fruit purchased at a farmers market, some of which isn’t available in the states, and put it on a plate before delivering it to the rooms of the two other pilots he’s flying with hours before meeting for pickup.

Above and beyond, I’d say!


Rudy’s delicious fruit from the market in Rio prepared and delivered to our rooms!

JET VIGNETTES

I‘ve flown with Catherine Caldwell for years, but I never realized what a true expert she was on getting the most out of her trips until reading her recently published book, “Jet Vignettes.” (Available on Amazon, the Kindle and as an iBook from iTunes.)

Catherine’s advice for dining in Paris resonated with me:

When I first started flying to Paris, I knew nothing of where to eat in the city. My crew members and I would walk to the Latin Quarter because initially no matter who we asked – friends, passengers, other flight attendants – all said the Latin Quarter. All said this area hits the quota mark for the highest concentration of “cute” Parisian restaurants. Each layover we went to the Latin Quarter, layover after layover, in search of the holy grail of true Parisian cuisine, the kind we heard and read about, the dinner that was the true pinnacle of dining in Paris. Each time, we passed the restaurants with flower boxes, checked curtains, old architecture, and beckoning waitstaff holding enticing menus. After five subpar meals of so-so food, expensive bills, sitting next to table after table of American tourists, it dawned on me, this was not the place to eat at all in Paris. That was 1996, and I have eaten in the Latin Quarter only once since, at a Greek restaurant that was actually pretty good (I picked up a card).

She then went on to talk about a few of her favorites in Paris as well as other places in Europe, and includes a section on pastis in Paris and shopping in local grocery stores while abroad. She includes a few telling anecdotes about her job, such as the requisite chapter on the Mile High Club and 9/11 as well as helpful chapters such as “Big Cities on a Flight Attendant Budget” and how to look like a local in various countries. Like Diane, Catherine regularly updates her blog after nearly every trip, it seems.

I wholeheartedly recommend “Jet Vignettes.” I even learned a few things about her job, and picked up some tips that I’ll put to use on international layovers.

In fact, all three of these extraordinary people have inspired me to get out and explore more while traveling, and subsequently to enjoy my job more. And that’s something every airline employee could use right now.

Cockpit Chronicles” takes you along on some of Kent’s trips as a pilot based in New York. Have any questions for Kent? Check out the “Cockpit Chronicles” Facebook page or follow Kent on Twitter @veryjr.

Paris most overrated city in the world – Parisians told to start smiling more

The poor French just can’t get a break – back in May, their capital was voted “most overrated in the world” by TripAdvisor, and most recently first they were voted “worst tourists in the world“.

Tourism in Paris is down a whopping 17%, and the French Tourism Bureau thinks it might have something to do with the lack of smiling Parisians.

The folks behind the campaign are asking people to put on their happy faces so tourists don’t feel the city is full of rude and obnoxious residents.

To help things along, they have even hired “smile ambassadors” who will be working around the more popular attractions in the city, and will hopefully help brighten up the atmosphere.

To me, the lack of smiles in Paris isn’t as annoying as the attitude from their cab drivers. I suggest Paris starts paying attention to those people instead of telling residents to “smile”.

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