Fare alert – Virgin America $38 flights to fun destinations

by Scott Carmichael on

Bored this week? Virgin America has some nice low fares loaded right now for travel to and from San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Los Angeles or Las Vegas.

At just $38 each way, you can get yourself a round trip ticket for just $97, all taxes and fees included. The prices only seem to be valid for travel in the coming week, so don’t expect $100 tickets during the summer months.

Normally, good fare deals usually involve trips from bad airports to places nobody wants to go, but a day trip from San Francisco to Seattle would probably make for a fantastic way to spend the day.

That’s right – these fares are also valid for same day returns. You could leave SFO at 7:15am and depart San Diego at 8:35, giving you an entire day to enjoy the city. A similar trip can be made from San Francisco to Seattle, leaving the airport at 9:55am and departing Seattle at 8:55pm, giving you plenty of time to visit Pike Place Market and take a ride up the Space Needle.

You’ll find the deals at the Virgin America web site, and don’t forget to bring your laptop or smartphone, because all these flights are currently served by Virgin America planes with WiFi service on board ($9.95 per flight).

As with most deals like this, the longer you wait, the fewer seats will be available at these low prices, so don’t procrastinate too long!

Oscar nominees for best movies that capture place: Six nominees

by Jamie Rhein on

Each year I see all the movies nominated for Oscars in all the major categories–plus more. As I watch movies, where they are filmed and how the place influences the story interests me. Perhaps this is because when one travels, the places one travels influences the experience.

There’s not an Oscar for movies that best capture a sense of place, but if there were, here are my suggestions for movies that came out this year. As you read the list, think of movies that have struck you. My list is from this year’s movies, but any movie and any year counts.

Best movie for capturing the sensuality and sexiness of place:

Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

This whole movie made me drool over Barcelona, Spain and the city of Oviedo, another location. The architecture, art, the fountains, the glasses of wine, statuary and little courtyards–divine. Plus, it was sunny! As a bonus, that delicious feeling of being young women off on a European adventure was perfectly captured. Who wouldn’t want to have a romp with Javier Bardem?

Best movie for capturing a place that is past its prime:

The Wrestler

With the economy’s downturn has come the closing or downsizing of beloved attractions. The scene in the abandoned carousel room at a no longer in use boardwalk in New Jersey where Mickey Rourke’s character danced with his daughter encapsulated that longing for simpler times and childhood memories gone-by

Best movie for capturing the intricacies of cultural interactions and neighborhood change:

Gran Turino

I was so disappointed this movie wasn’t nominated. The scenes between Eastwood and the Hmong immigrant family from Cambodia were superb. Also important were the shots of the neighborhood in Highland Park, Michigan. My favorites were when they kept plying him with food, something he eventually relished. What a wonderful tribute to the idea that culture is mostly about what makes your heart sing.

Best movie for capturing a place of color and vibrancy:

Slumdog Millionaire

As much as I wasn’t all that enamored with Slumdog Millionaire as a package, the vibrancy, sounds and colors of parts of Mumbai drew me in. Plus, what a feat to capture the footage in the sprawl of Dharavi, the “slum” community there.

Best movie for capturing how place influences how people live:

Frozen River

As I watched Michelle Leo steer the car across the ice of the St. Lawrence River next to the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation in Upstate New York, I thought about how where people live can affect outcomes. The storyline and place was a perfect match. I can still hear the sound of the ice crunching.

Best movie for capturing place that has been a heartbeat of change:

Milk

San Francisco’s role in the movement of gay rights was an integral part of this film. Along with depicting the important people like Harvey Milk and Cleve Jones (who started the Names Project, the AIDS Quilt), this was a terrific look at how the city has played an important role in U.S. history.

Best movie for capturing the sense of self discovery that travel brings:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons

All the footage of Benjamin Buttons traveling as a young man, particularly in Nepal, brought back memories of how travel is an integral part of developing a sense of self. Anyone who has washed out clothes and hung them on a piece of string in a country that is not your own, knows what this feels like.

The colorful murals of San Francisco’s Mission District

by Jeremy Kressmann on

San Francisco’s Mission District is a neighborhood with a number of faces. It is at once gritty and unique, increasingly filled with shiny new businesses yet still retaining the vibrant Latino immigrant culture and scruffy charm for which it has always been known. As one walks the area, it’s easy to get a feel for these differences – pungent taquerias and Quinceanera dress shops increasingly back up against indie booksellers and sleek furniture stores.

No matter the changes, The Mission remains the center of a thriving community of Mexican and Central American immigrants, which continues to give the neighborhood a distinctly south-of-the-border flair. This is especially true of The Mission’s vibrant street murals, a tradition that is evident just about anywhere you look.

Murals have a long tradition in Mexican art, particularly in the context of the Chicano movement, which represented the struggles of Mexican Americans for social and politcal rights. Mexican muralists like Diego Rivera played a large role in the movement, painting large scale public art in cities such as San Francisco which depicted a variety of social and political themes.

Though Diego Rivera is long gone, the legacy of his work lives on to this day in The Mission. The casual visitor will find the streets bordered by 16th to 24th and Mission to Valencia are packed with an assortment of wildly colorful murals. While some are strongly tied to the traditions of Mexican mural painting, others are thoroughly modern in scope, referencing themes as diverse as video games, 60’s Psychedelia, Hip-Hop and modern New York graffiti tagging.

During a recent visit to San Francisco we took a closer look at some of the many public murals dotting the area. Take a look at the gallery below for a tour of the murals of the Mission District.

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Photo of the Day (1-14-09)

by Jamie Rhein on

There is an impressionistic, dreamy quality about jrodjmanjr’s shot of the ice rink at Union Square in San Francisco. The two people in front, however, draw one onto the ice. Can’t you feel the movement of the foot pushing out, the swing of the red sweatered arm and the glide forward?

The fact that they are anonymous makes them like anyone and everyone you’ve ever seen moving in and out of the shadows of an outdoor skating rink at night. The back lit glow is also wonderful.

If you have a Photo of the Day candidate, send it our way at Gadling’s Flickr Photo Pool.

Galley Gossip: SFO airline museum, LAX airline show & a request for photos!

by Heather Poole on

Here are two different letters I recently received from two different guys named Ken concerning two different airline themed topics you may be interested in – the San Francisco airline museum and the airline show that is now on tour…

Heather,

Thanks so much for your blog and Galley Gossip, I’m a regular reader! As a matter of fact I gave your blog info to a pilot I met today (through my regular course of work) who actually has flown with and knows Kent Wien (and his brother) but was unaware of Kent’s Cockpit Chronicles on Gadling, which is where I found your site. Since you have a mini airline museum perhaps I will email you a few things from my Pan Am collection some day that would be suitable for framing! Don’t worry, no pictures of me! If you ever get a long layover in SFO check out the Airport Museum in the non-secure part of the International terminal. It’s pretty impressive and free!

All the best and I will continue to read and enjoy your work.

Warmest regards,

Ken A.

Ken A.

Thank you for reading my blog! And thank you, thank you, thank you, for telling me about the San Francisco airport museum located in the international terminal. I went to the website and found myself amazed. The museum is so cool, in fact, that I don’t know how it is I’ve never heard of this museum.

“I told you about that museum!” my husband exclaimed when I mentioned it in passing.

I looked at him like he was crazy. “You did?”

“Don’t you remember when I told your friend Stephen he should donate a couple uniforms from his collection to the museum?”

“Oh yeah!” I exclaimed. As for Stephen, he’s a flight attendant who has an amazing collection of flight attendant memorabilia that may just rival any museum in the world.

Anyway, next time I find myself at the San Francisco airport I will definitely make the extra effort to visit the exhibits on display. I’m bummed that I missed Take Your Seat, A History of Passenger Airline Seats, as well as Cathay Pacific Airways, Six Decades of Service, but I do hope to catch Cabin Comforts: Photographs of Airliner Interiors, which will be running until May 2009. And to think something so amazing is actually free!

Like you mentioned above, Ken, most airline enthusiasts have a mini airline museum of their own. I’d love to see your Pan Am collection. As you already know, I have my own collection of anything and everything airline related located in my guestroom closet. Gadling writer and pilot Kent Wien apparently has a pretty big collection, too, and my guess is a lot of his memorabilia has his name on it due to the fact that Wien Air, which folded in 1985, was the second oldest airline in the United States. So what do you say we – me, you, Kent, Stephen, and anyone else who has a collection – take photographs of our personal airline museums and share them here on Gadling? I’ll create the gallery. All you have to do is take a photo, just one photo, and email it to me at the address posted below.

Thanks for writing, Ken!

Heather Poole

Heather,

I just thought I’d let you know, that the airline memorabilia show will be held Sat. Jan.24th 9:00a-3:00p. It will be at the Hacienda Hotel on Sepulveda just south of LAX. I know you’re in NYC this month on reserve but i thought I’d let you know just the same. Hope you make it through reserve!!! UGH!!! Keep well. Fly Safe!!!!

Ken J.

Ken J.

Thank you for the reminder. I’ve been meaning to check out that airline show for two years now. After five scheduled days off, I’ll be on-call in New York on the 25th, so I’ll be commuting from Los Angeles to New York on the day of the show. Just my luck. But I did go to the website and saw that the show will be in New York at the LGA Marriott hotel on March 21st, so perhaps I’ll catch it then. Are you going to the show in Los Angeles? If so, let me know what it’s like, and more importantly, what is sold, because as you know I’m interested in anything with a flight attendant theme that I can add to my own airline museum, the one I will be photographing for the gallery I mentioned above. My husband recently boxed up my museum and put it in storage while I was away from home on a layover. Hey, that’s okay, just means I have more room for more stuff! Thanks again for the reminder.

Happy travels,

Heather Poole

Email photos to Skydoll123@yahoo.com

All photos courtesy of Telstar Logistics – flickr.com