copyright Sophia Dembling, 2005

Greek interlude

The drive from Athens to Delphi was long and hot in our un‑air conditioned car, which was not much bigger than a car‑shaped suit. We passed up a couple of viewful mountain tavernas at the beginning of the trip, then found ourselves in a wide, baking valley where, now ravenous, we ended up eating cheese pies (surprisingly delicious, actually) outside a gas station.

We arrived at Delphi during peak afternoon heat. The site was thrilling ‑‑ high in the mountains with powerful views that surely helped inspire the world to believe the words of the oracle who sat here. But by the time we had hiked all the way up to the stadium, we were beaten down by the heat, sun, dust, and long drive. We were dirty, sweaty and hungry, dangerously close to cranky and running low on fun.

We bypassed the town of Delphi, with its tour buses, tavernas and souvenir stores (and, granted, incredible views), driving instead about 30 minutes to the small resort town of Galaxidi, on the Gulf of Corinth. The town received just a sentence in one of our guidebooks, no mention at all in another, but friends had recommended a pension there. We would spend one night before pressing on to other important sights.

Galaxidi's outskirts were unpromising, as was the street on which the Pension Ganimede sat. But then we parked and walked a flower‑lined path off the street into a courtyard luxuriant with flowers. A fountain burbled, classical music played, and a pleasingly round man sat at a table reading and smoking.

He introduced himself as the owner, Bruno Perocco, and gave us keys to a couple of rooms so we could make a choice. The interior of the inn was simple and cheerful, unselfconsciously decorated with books and religious art. We walked up creaky stairs and chose a small room with a double bed, private bath and a church incense burner as a chandelier. Then we changed our clothes and went exploring.

Galaxidi is small and genial, popular with Greeks on holiday. It has typically narrow winding streets, sweet little churches, cascades of flowers. Most of the action is around a small harbor, which on one side has the traditional abundance of inviting tavernas, on the other a scallop of rocky beaches and a lovingly protected pine forest.

We dabbled at a beach (popular, we learned painfully, with sea urchins); shopped for supplies and indulgences (a fishing boat was converted into a checkout counter in the store where we bought cold drinks); and lingered over a snack of tender fried squid at a taverna where we watched a dog chase two cats up two trees, like bookends.

That night we dined memorably on Greek home cooking under the trellis of the otherwise empty Dervenis Restaurant. After dinner, we sat by the pier and watched the promenade of elderly couples and teens, families and friends, strolling, flirting, eating ice creams and generally taking a holiday.

We woke the next morning to an alfresco breakfast of Bruno's homemade jams, preserves chutneys and butters served with chewy breads and real coffee instead of the ubiquitous Nescafe. Italian opera and butterflies wafted on the warm air, birds splashed in the fountain and a rambunctious kitten tumbled among the tables. We lingered long over breakfast, then took a walk. Then it was time to pack up and move on.

Travel often puts me in the grips of momentum. I become greedy and want to gobble. Once I start moving it is difficult to stop. After all, the world is so big and we only have so much time.

This was only our first week in Greece. Galaxidi was lovely, but we had plans and intentions. Ruins awaited, other towns beckoned. There was no time for lollygagging or fatigue, for kittens or small‑town idleness.

Returning to pension to pack, we passed the car. It looked like a small, hot prison.

Bruno was again in his fragrant courtyard, talking to some people.

"We gotta go," we said as we hustled past.

"Why?" he asked, an eyebrow arched over the heads of his visitors.

We hesitated in our hurry, like a skip in a record, before continuing up the stairs.

"We don't know," my husband called back over his shoulder.

We went back to our room and bustled aimlessly for a few minutes. Then one of us, I forget who, said "One more day."

We went back to Bruno and announced we had decided to stay.

"I knew you would," he said with a sage innkeeper's look.

And we did.

copyright Sophia Dembling, 2005

Dig those crazy tourists

Tourists are crazy.

This occurred to me, during a recent trip to Switzerland, moments after shooting a photograph of my own foot next to a large slug.

This really was an extraordinarily large slug, one of the biggest I'd seen during this trip, and I'd seen quite a few. Slugs seem to grow larger in Switzerland than in the U.S. Too much chocolate, perhaps.

I decided to photograph this slug with my foot alongside it to give the viewer a sense of scale. As I focused the camera, I sincerely believed somewhere in my world was someone who would want to see a picture of a very large Swiss slug.

The second the shutter clicked, however, the delusion evaporated and the truth dawned on me: Nobody would ever be interested in my slug photo and tourists are crazy.

In a foreign country, everything is fascinating. Tourists treat supermarkets like museums, locals like sideshows, and the mundane like the fantastic. It's crazy.

Most tourists have their own version of my slug photo. Kira from California, a fellow tourist in Switzerland, photographed a cup of coffee one morning  "The waitress thought I was insane," Kira said.

She was, in a tourist way. So was a Swiss woman I met, whose photo album of a cruise she'd taken included a photograph of a hallway. Tourists photograph motel rooms, waiters, street signs, and scenes so obscure, their significance is quickly forgotten ‑‑ though at the time, in our tourist‑induced insanity, we apparently found them worthy of record.

I lost my mind again a few moments after the slug incident, which happened on a drizzly day while I explored one of Switzerland's wonderful footpaths.

What must that Swiss woman have thought when she stumbled upon me peering studiously at a receptacle called a "Robidog," which was designed specifically for dog doo disposal? I'd never seen such a thing before and it warranted investigation, but how could even the most eloquent sign language explain my fascination? I didn't try; I just blushed and hurried along.

At the next Robidog station, however, I checked for witnesses, then grabbed several of the plastic disposal bags (decorated with a picture of a doggie in the act) and stuffed them in my pocket as souvenirs. These were such a smash among my fellow crazies, several sought out Robidog bags for souvenirs of their own.

And how about the crazy things tourists say? I had trouble recalling at crucial moments the casual greeting, "grüezi," and so sometimes would simply mumble whatever "g" word first came to mind ‑‑ Guernsey, greasy, Gretsky ‑‑ and hope it sounded close enough.

Steven from Ohio, flustered by a stream of German directed at him, interrupted the verbose local by explaining, "I don't speak English." Kira, after a complicated interaction with a German‑speaking waitress, expressed her satisfaction with the outcome.

"Vetty goot," she said. What devious part of tourists' addled brains tells us that speaking English with a funny accent is just like speaking another language?

Even when tourists are not acting crazy, we may look it. Away from home and all our stuff,  we often must improvise, with sometimes strange results.

I forgot to bring a water bottle on this trip and planned to do a lot of hiking. In the refrigerator of my rented apartment I came across a half‑full plastic bottle of what, without studying the label, I mistook for celery soda. I decided to empty the bottle to use for water.

The moment I started pouring out the contents, however, I realized my mistake. Examining the label, I saw it clearly said "vinaigre." Oh well, I'd poured out much of it already. I emptied the rest, washed the bottle out, and it became my water bottle.

So, back to that damp day in the country, where I paused by the side of a narrow road for a drink of water. At that moment, a car drove by.

The driver had a funny expression on his face as he passed and I realized that, as far as he could tell, I was standing in the rain, juggling a camera, knapsack, and umbrella, and swilling vinegar.

I could almost see the thought balloon as he drove past.

"Crazy tourist...."

copyright Sophia Dembling, 2005

Road Romance

Shh. Listen. Do you hear it?

Fuzzy dice. Motel neon. Gummi Bears.

Dairy Queen. Walnut bowls. Jackalopes.

AM radio. Coffee-to-go. Bare feet on the dash and one arm out the window.

The road is calling.

As a young man’s fancy turns to love in spring, so does the lure of the road start whispering in my ear. I can’t help it. I’ve got those Got To Burn Fossil Fuel Blues.

Ah, I know America’s love affair with the automobile may be our downfall and I worry about that, I really do. My romance with the road feels illicit. But like the sad and ever-hopeful mistresses who write Ann Landers, I return again and again to my four-door lover. There is no feeling of freedom in the world like throwing a couple of suitcases in the car and pulling out of the driveway for … wherever.

The driveway leads to the street, which leads to the highway, which leads to the interstate, which leads onward, outward, anywhere whim and wheels can take you. The first couple of hours of the trip seems to take forever. Then your mind goes on cruise control and the hours, the sights, the states slip by like magic.

I love the highways that either scar the land or connect the nation, depending on how you look at it. I look at it both ways but confess (can you still respect me?) I am thrilled by the sight of a massive highway interchange, those tremendous road sculptures looming on the horizon, scaled for the size of America, shuffling and sorting us in our little vehicles.

Some road trips have a purpose. A visit with the in-laws in Chicago. Thanksgiving with cousings in Los Angeles. Vacation in Santa Fe with friends.

Some are pilgrimages. Friends of mine are planning a road trip to California to spend the night at the motel where Gram Parsons died and visit Joshua Tree National Park where his friends cremated him. (Some pilgrimages are warmer and fuzzier than others.)

Sometimes you can roll a destination and pilgrimage into one: The drive to Chicago is not complete for me without a stop at the puzzle store off old Route 66 in Missouri. It’s just plain wrong to drive through Amarillo without paying your respects to the Cadillac Ranch. For my husband, a trip to California is unthinkable without a detour to Vegas. Even the quick jaunt to Austin from my Dallas home has its required stop in West for kolache fortification.

For road-trip purists, the destination is beside the point. The point is a place in itself. Destination: en route.

En route, the world is both intimate and vast. It is contained within the four metal walls of your vehicle and it is everything outside. The nation scrolls by, showing off its best and worst. “Just another spectacular desert vista,” my husband grumbled happily on our last big drive, as the road revealed yet another glorious stretch of Southwest.

Seeing the world through the windshield is like the best TV ever, but unlike armchair travel, you can pull over and sample it at will. Step from your auto-pod and it is all right there, the whole magnificent country, and all you had to do was turn a key and press a pedal. With enough coffee, a few dollars, a gasoline credit card and lots of snacks (Gummi Bears for me, though some prefer Necco wafers and others beef jerky) it’s all yours.

Rumor has it there are people who actually get bored spending hours in a car, but that surely is slander. I simply can’t imagine being bored in a car. Not when there are views to soak in, philosophical discussions to have, life plans to make, music to sing along with, billboards to read, detours to take, wrong turns to bicker over, towns to explore and souvenirs to buy.

Maybe I’m just easily amused. But when the road calls, I pack my bags, fill up the tank and go wherever it wants to take me.

As you may have guessed, I love kitsch. But not all kitsch is created equal. I once sat in a restaurant by the banks of the pseudo‑Nile in Las Vegas' Luxor hotel, watching tour boats pass. The boats were filled with sightseers who paid good money to see me and my husband eating pastrami sandwiches. I've never seen such a bored bunch, despite the desperate joviality of the tour guide. Happily, this pathetic pastime is no longer offered at Luxor.

If you want to take a boat through a building, you have to go to Nashville's Opryland Hotel. A boat ride around Delta Island in The Delta wing of the hotel costs $4. I didn't invest in this activity while staying at Opryland, but suggest you're better off at the Dancing Waters show at The Conservatory, which is free and fun.

I didn't regret taking a Tour of the Stars homes in Nashville (or in LA, for that matter), but I've never felt quite the same about myself since I paid to visit the Country Music Wax Museum. I still have nightmares about some of things I saw there. (I'd rather not talk about it.)

In New York City, I went to the South Street Seaport once, drank a pink drink, and that was all I needed to know. But I have taken the three‑hour Circle Line sightseeing boat cruise around the island several times. I never tire of that view of the tiny island, packed tight with buildings and people.

Those are some of the winners and losers in my book. Of course, it's only one book and I would never suggest, or insist, that everyone agree with me. What do I know? Lots of people love Fisherman's Wharf.