The Four Seasons: Seattle's Cool

Here in Seattle we like cool.  Not the finger-snapping, head-bobbing, dark-sunglasses kind. The contemplative gray weather, subdued clothing and any-car-color-but-red kind.  We believe in elegance over flash, doing over bragging, and pocket protectors over gold chains.  A special occasion calls for a microbrew by the fire with friends on a rainy night, not Cristal on a sundrenched Malibu cliff with helicopters clattering overhead.

Which is why the Four Seasons Seattle is perfect.  It's everything a celebration-minded local could want, and everthing a luxury-minded tourist needs for a glimpse into our character.

Rising in a discreet block of stone and glass at the south end of the Pike Place Market, the Four Seasons does not dominate Seattle's skyline. Instead its shape echoes that of the Seattle Art Museum directly across the street. The hotel's location makes it possible to step directly out of the foyer to two of Seattle's major attractions.

That foyer pays homage to the location - housing a museum-worthy collection of works by promininent Northwest artists. But in keeping with Seattle style, the art never calls attention to itself.  You'll notice it when you look for it. Maybe while you're sitting by the sleek modern gas fireplace or headed to the hotel's ART Restaurant for dinner. There, behind a ceiling-high screen of stored Northwest wines a mix of locals and hotel guests are silhoutted against the shimmering bay. Servers glide back and forth lofting plates of Pike Place Market delicacies transformed into colorful arrangements like culinary versions of the bouquets sold by the market's flower vendors.

For our first visit to a Four Seasons hotel, my husband and I stayed in the least-expensive room we could book. Even so we found the level of luxury bordering on alarming. Twice-daily service, a pre-filled ice bucket and a view of ferries and freighters sliding across a section of Elliott Bay were some of the surprises. Also remarkable for a luxury hotel was the complimentary wi-fi. 

Best of all was the bathroom - a palace of warm brown marble with a separate room for every purpose.  Between the dual-headed shower and the bathtub big enough for snorkeling I would have begun to look like a Shar Pei puppy if I had remained much longer.

Not unexpectedly there was no in-room coffeemaker. We briefly toyed with the idea of pulling on jeans and sweaters to walk to the Market, but decided that we hadn't distilled an eternity of long work hours and late meetings into a night at the Four Seasons to do what we could do any other day.  So we called room service. The coffee setup arrived to the minute of  when it was promised, and another staffer arrived later unbidden to whisk away the empty dishes. 

For a luxury visit to Seattle it would be hard to top the Four Seasons.While the rest of the country broils, the Four Seasons is as cool and collected as a Seattle summer.

Nickeled and Dimed

On July 18 the New York Times ran an article on the pros and cons of "cafeteria" pricing for coach airfares. You know, those beguiling palm-fringed ads for cheap flights that morph, by the time you've "chosen" to pay for "extras" like checked (or in some cases carry-on) baggage, water and toilet paper, into less-alluring deals.

This fee structure has been lauded for giving customers the freedom to choose only those services for which they want to pay. It's hard to fault that argument, and perhaps I'm just revealing myself to be a dinosaur (maybe pterodactyl is a better metaphor) by my struggle to abandon the notion that little comforts and amenities like pillows, blankets and luggage transport are as inherent and non-negotiable a part of the flying experience as jet fuel and landing gear.

I now imagine Michael O'Leary, CEO of the legendarily "no-frills" Ryanair, thinking "Hmmm, jet fuel. Perhaps the flight attendants should pass the hat up and down the aisles a few times before takeoff. If enough passengers kick in, the pilot will fire up BOTH engines!"

But I digress.

The Times article noted that in a recent poll of air travelers 16 percent of respondents said they would pay extra to be first off the plane.

I'd pay extra to be first off the bus, or first in line at the discount lingerie bin at the start of Nordstrom's half-yearly sale, but that doesn't mean it's right. The problem with the airlines' ever-growing list of fee-based "amenities" is that they further separate the "haves" from the "have-nots."

Of course air travel itself is hardly one of life's necessities, and the world has far more pressing problems than whether Delta should charge for blankets. Airlines, like ocean liners, have a long and glorious tradition of charging extra for services. It's always been possible to pay double or triple the coach fare for the privilege of turning left when boarding the plane, to swill Champagne in an airborne BarcaLounger while the masses behind the curtain jostle for the armrests.

But the coach experience used to shared equally by all. The thrifty business traveler, the young family and the backpacking student had the same chances at a window or aisle seat, overhead bin space, exit-row legroom and boarding priority. Some flights you won,some you lost. But everyone was in the same boat, or plane.

Today, with the opportunity to buy your way ahead of fellow slightly-less-flush coach passengers, the creeping class-stratification of American life is reaching into Economy. Travel, even its vicissitudes, should be something that brings people together. An airfare policy encouraging cash competition for basic amenities at the expense of one's seatmate, seems like abandonment of a fundamental business commitment to provide a quality experience for all customers.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spread my leathery wings and turn my long, pointed head back home.

Rendezvous With a Shadow

Hidden under a thick pack ice of clouds for much of the year, the Pacific Northwest might not seem the ideal place for amateur astronomy. Weeks can pass without a break in the roiling mass of gray. But such conditions breed a certain combination of patience and optimism ideal for one particular aspect of the science: Eclipse-chasing.

A map of impending solar eclipses shows curving brushstrokes across the earth's surface:



These lines mark the path traced by the pinpoint tip of the moon's shadow, sweeping along the ground as the planet rotates.

If the sun, moon and earth had perfectly flat, circular orbits like CDs lying on a cosmic coffee table we'd have a total solar eclipse at the earth's equator every new moon and a total lunar eclipse every full moon. But contrary to the neat diagrams I studied in the World Book Encyclopedia when I was a kid, the orbits of all the planets and moons in the solar system are elliptical, and tipped at angles like a Calder mobile. (Also, protons and electrons are not, I've since learned, little spheres with pluses and minuses stamped on them as they were depicted in the Encyclopedia. But I still can't help thinking of them that way). The upshot of of all this cosmic complexity is that unless you are willing to stand very still in the same spot for about 400 years, you must travel if you want to see a solar eclipse.

But even getting to the right place at the right time is no guarantee. As any Northwesterner can attest, the weather can ruin the most carefully-laid plans. Imagine waiting months or years and traveling thousands of miles, only to have the appointed time come and go with the entire event hidden from view. It takes a certain strength of both spirit and wallet to keep trying, especially when all you have to show for the experience is photos. Unlike the big game hunter's house with its walls of glassy-eyed animal heads, the eclipse-chaser's home and hard drive are filled with Eye of Sauron-like images of black centers surrounded with flaming rays.




photo: Luc Viatour



Each is equally important to the stalker who bagged it, although in the case of the eclipse-chaser no animals lost any major body parts.

Determining how heroic an effort to make to watch a solar eclipse involves an equation of location congeniality (Honolulu or Mogadishu?), likihood of cooperative weather (San Diego in August, or London in February?) and practicality (Orlando or Easter Island?). Nature supplies an additional factor: Is the eclipse "total" or "annular?"

Because the moon's orbit isn't circular, its distance from earth varies slightly. The difference is not usually noticeable, but it creates two kinds of solar eclipses. When the moon is close to to earth at eclipse time it looms large enough in the sky to completely cover the sun's disk, creating the famous spectacle of a visible corona laced with raging fountains of fiery prominences.

When the moon is further away, it's small enough in the sky to allow a rind of the sun to show around its edges. This "annular" type of solar eclipse is much less of a spectacle, because if even a smidgen of the sun's disk is visible it's so bright that it completely overwhelms the corona.

Totality is the white-tie state dinner of celestial happenings, drawing important scientists, committed amateurs with imposing equipment, and vain celebrities in Learjets. Annularity is more of a local backyard barbecue; a few friends gathered around their telescopes for burgers and beer.

On May 20 of this year one of the brush lines on the map crossed through a swath of countryside in southern Oregon, 500 miles from my home. It was an annular affair, beneath the notice of the elite of the eclipse-chasing world, but worth a day's drive to me.


I needed a long head start on the moon's shadow, since it was traveling approximately ten times as fast as I was. The rain was unrelenting when I left, but I was trusting a forecast that claimed better weather awaited in Ashland. By noon, while I was on Interstate 5 south of Portland, jockeying for position through heavy traffic and clouds of semi-truck spray, the shadow hit the ground in Japan. Observers in Tokyo snapped pictures of the ghostly ring over their city's skies as the shadow began to slice across the Pacific at a thousand miles per hour.

An hour later, as the shadow swung over the Aleutian Islands and starting its turn south toward Oregon, the clouds began to break up and the air warmed. I accelerated over the final stretches of freeway, past columns of circling hawks teetering upwards on the bubbles of almost visibly hot air mushrooming from the lion-colored hills.

Sweating and glancing at my watch, I roared off at the Ashland exit and sped though town to the science museum where Twitter had promised the local astronomy club had set up public viewing stations.

Sure enough the parking lot was filling rapidly with parents who lofted their children onto their shoulders and or held their tugging hands. A line snaked into the museum building for free solar-viewing glasses.




One of the advantages of a solar eclipse is that it is easily seen via projection from a telescope onto a screen. So I had the good fortune to be able to crowd with the children around one projected image after another, watching the spectacle progress.

The shadow duly arrived about a half hour after I did, and the moon began to cross the face of the sun.






The bite got slowly bigger, as wisps of cloud drifted in front of the spectacle.





Soon the sun was nearly gone. The air cooled noticeably, and birds began to sing as though it was dusk.





Finally, the "ends" of the "crescent sun" joined into a ring.





People of all ages crowded around. I realized this was the first "Social Media" eclipse, live-tweeted around the world.



But plenty of people were just as happy to enjoy the spectacle in a more time-honored way:




The next solar eclipse in the Northwest will be the Big Event, totality in 2017. I hope to be there.

Bali Dining - Fire and Spice

Rice terraces, Ubud

 Indonesia’s thousand-mile string of islands arcs across the globe like a sword slung from the earth’s equator.   Near the bottom of the curve, at the confluence of the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, sits Bali.  A Hindu island in a Moslem archipelago, Bali has been washed for centuries by waves of cultures from China, Southeast Asia, and India. In the 1500s the Portuguese and Dutch arrived, the latter ruling Bali and the rest of Indonesia until World War II.  And in the age of the jetliner came visitors and expats from Europe, North America and Australia.

All of these influences can be seen in today’s Balinese cuisine. Curry from South Asia, cassava and chiles brought by the Dutch and Portuguese from their South American colonies, snake bean and bok choy cabbage from China, and French and Italian dishes from the modern global village.

Traditional Balinese cuisine is based on rice harvested from the luminous green staircase terraces that dot the island.  Flocks of brown ducks waddle through the paddies, eating insect pests and fertilizing the fields until they wind up on the table.  Lacking the Moslem prohibition against pork, the Balinese raise the art of roast pig to perfection.  Local people favor small, simple roadside restaurants called warung.

Many visitors stay in large international hotels such as the Intercontinental on Jimbaran Bay. In an effort to make guests from everywhere in the world feel welcome, this hotel’s restaurants offer a staggering array of cuisine, from Italian to Japanese.  The breakfast buffet in particular is a world on a steam table.  I bypassed fragrant heaps fried eggs, sausage and warm pastries to try my first Japanese-style cold-noodle-and pickle breakfast when we arrived on the island.  But I was also introduced to Indonesian specialties like bubur injin, a tapioca-like mixture of charcoal-black rice and palm sugar.  At another hotel, the Oberoi, we dined on glistening fresh sushi and French chocolates.  Both were first-rate, but the Balinese Chardonnay bore a remarkable resemblance to Pine-Sol, grapes being one of the few fruits that fail to thrive in Bali’s tropical climate.  Much better were the platters of local snakefruit.  Its scaly skin feels exactly like that of a garter snake caught by a child, but its crunchy sweet pulp is distilled essence of equatorial sun.

Restaurant at the Bali Oberoi, Seminyak

We soon grew anxious to move beyond the hotel scene and eat in a real Balinese warung. One of the most famous is Ubud’s Ibu Oka, where locals and visitors start lining up early outside the old wooden hall for the 11:00 AM opening.  Inside, staff are slathering the final coconut-milk bastings on four suckling pigs that have been stuffed with spices and roasting on spits since four in the morning.  Once the doors open the throng pushes inside and crowds up to the battered teak tables. The staff take shouted orders and bring heaping plates of steamed rice and slabs of butter-soft meat, each topped with a tile of roasted pork skin lacquered to a deep cinnabar color and shattering like porcine peanut brittle.

Warung Ibu Oka, Ubud

But our best experience of Balinese dining was the simplest of all. Just down the beach from the Intercontinental’s sleek restaurants is a row of ramshackle fish warung. Every afternoon a savory aroma of coconut-husk smoke drifted through the frangipani trees surrounding the hotel’s swim-up bar.  We resisted temptation for a few days, put off by the whizzing traffic on the road to these restaurants and the noisy aggressive touts accosting any potential customer who made eye contact.  But eventually we succumbed, picking one of the warung at random.  For the equivalent of $15 total, we were escorted to a rickety candlelit table in the sand just above the quietly lapping waves of the Indian Ocean.  The waiter brought platters of freshly-caught grilled fish, heaps of rice, and frosty mugs of beer.  Local children laughed and darted between the tables, touts waved at tourists down the beach, and the Southern Hemisphere stars came out. We dug our toes into the warm sand, sipped our beer, and soaked up a truly Balinese experience.

View toward seafood warung from Bali Intercontinental

Moving Through Hong Kong

In the 1960 movie “The World of Suzie Wong,” William Holden approaches Hong Kong on a scenic Star Ferry ride across sampan-littered Victoria Harbor.   Fifty years later my husband and I were sealed inside a gleaming, nearly-deserted bullet train whose windows revealed only black tunnel walls racing by.  Our progress from Chap Lap Kok airport to Central Station was marked by the progressive illumination of an arc of  blue lights on an electronic signboard. The only sound came from a flat-panel screen displaying stock reports and gold-future prices with narration alternating between Cantonese, English and Russian.

With its jumble islands, waterways and mountains Hong Kong can be challenging to navigate. Fortunately there are a wide variety of public transportation options, and my husband and I made good use of almost every one of them during a week in and around the city.  We had read prior to our trip about the “Octopus Card” pass, valid on eight types of public transportation (hence the name; eight also happens to be a lucky number in Chinese culture) and we planned to pick on up at our first opportunity.

We stepped out of downtown Hong Kong’s Central Station into the hot mist of a drizzly subtropical night. An attendant escorted us to the head of a long line of waiting taxis and piled our luggage into the trunk.  Our driver glanced at my crumpled Expedia hotel reservation printout and sped off through the slick streets. 

Bleary from a 14-hour flight from Vancouver, BC we gazed out of the cab’s rain-spotted windows at our first glimpse of Asia.  I had read plenty about the mighty forest of neon-lit skyscrapers that comprises this city of seven million, but nothing could compare to seeing it for the first time with my own eyes.  As the cab dodged and wove on the “wrong” side of streets that since the 1950s had never known darkness, the dazzling kaleidoscope made me feel much more than a day away from home.

Our hotel, the Lanson Place, was located in the Causeway Bay district.  Central enough to be neon-y and skyscraper-y and unmistakably Hong Kong, the neighborhood is nevertheless far enough from some of the major tourist sights to necessitate public transportation. 

The next morning we made our way through twisting streets jammed with underwear markets, sidewalk displays of whole crabs wrapped in banana leaves, backpack-toting kids in school uniforms and business people in sharply-cut suits.  After getting lost several times (“turn right at the Starbucks” isn’t good advice when there are two of them within three blocks of your hotel) we finally made it to the subway station.  Inside, we found Octopus card machines with English instructions.  You insert money (cash or credit card) in the amount you want, and out pops the card.  From then on, you just tap or swipe it at a reader for any form of transport.  A display will shows the amount remaining.  To add more money, just insert the card in a vending machine and repeat the process used to purchase it.

The MTR, Hong Kong’s immaculate, air-conditioned subway system, gets crowded at rush hour with commuters (including a surprising number of Westerners) reading the South China Morning Post on their iphones on their way to banking jobs.  Most of the stations are located in immense, shiny multistory shopping malls filled with luxury goods like Ralph Lauren, Prada and Gucci.  We enjoyed the window shopping and air conditioning, but after a while the sense of being hermetically sealed from the outdoors became too much and we ventured back out onto the streets.

Central Hong Kong is a maze of skybridges and overpasses, a sort of concrete Habitrail lined with potted bougainvillea.  It was confusing at first but there are small signs in English and we quickly found our way around. 

Our favorite neighborhood was the Mid Levels, a steep warren of streets crisscrossed by escalators and packed with tiny restaurants and shops.  We wandered from skybridge to escalator to stairs and back again, scaling a cliff face of wine bars, pubs, dressmakers and noodle shops.  Old buildings moldered away behind the neon, with banyan tree roots cracking through the pavement. One surprise was the Sunday takeover of the skybridges by thousands of Indonesian housekeepers. Sitting on pieces of cardboard spread on the walkways, they whiled away their afternoon off in large groups chatting, drinking tea and combing each others’ long black hair. 

One morning we decided to try one of the historic double-decker trams we had been watching from our hotel window far above. Tapping our Octopus cards at the driver’s station we climbed a narrow strairway to the upper deck.  With the decades-old signs sweeping by at eye level we could see that the neon tubes had been replaced by rows of LEDs. The bus lurched and swayed, making our ride in the wooden crow’s nest less than comfortable.

We postponed our trip up Victoria Peak for several days while we waited for Hong Kong’s notoriously hazy skies to clear. On the day the South China Morning Post finally declared the weather would cooperate, we joined crowds for the rattling Peak Tram ride up the vertiginous slope.  Banana leaves slapped the windows as the funicular creaked higher and higher. The skyscrapers disappeared into the still-swirling mist while the summit remained out of sight even as we reached the station.

The tram’s terminus was, unsurprisingly, a sleek shopping mall.  I take a back seat to no one as a shopper, but on this occasion nature had more allure than Armani and we opted instead for the Peak Trail. This paved, level path circles the top of the mountain through a subtropical jungle of ferns, vines and towering ficus trees.  Butterflies and jewel-toned dragonflies wafted by in the breeze.  The clouds parted as scheduled to reveal an undulating vista of white skyscrapers bristling between green forest and blue sea, with the gray, still misty mountains of mainland China receding into the distance.  Huge hawks skimmed between the buildings and swooped down to snatch fish from the bustling bay.  Placards every few hundred yards helpfully identified birds, trees and insects and reminded visitors that “It is an offense to pick the fruit.”  In the clearing distance the South China Sea was dotted with freighters waiting to enter the harbor.

Enticed by the sea view, the next day we boarded a ferry for the peaceful, car-free island of Lamma.  Our Octopus cards bought us a roughly hourlong scenic cruise through a warm sea churned by thickets of sampans, barges and high-speed catamarans loaded with Macau-bound gamblers.  Fleets of laughing schoolchildren darted about the deck while tourists snapped photos of receding cityscape.

Near the end of our trip we boarded a Star Ferry for the trip back across Victoria Harbor after an evening in Kowloon. By then we’d learned the locals’ trick of simply holding our wallets up to the reader, which could scan our Octopus cards through the leather.  Imagining William Holden and Nancy Kwan sitting on the same battered wooden bench half a century ago, I smiled at the thought of how much, and yet how little, Hong Kong had changed.

On the Aventine

There are oranges outside my window.




And yellows and golds. And cypresses and date palms.

Even the deepest nine-hour jet lag yields to the tinkling sounds of tiny birds and a shaft of spring sunlight falling across open luggage and scattered clothes.
Waking up after a night's journey halfway around the world can be disorienting. But to open your eyes in a room in the Hotel San Anselmo is to know you're in Rome.

Near the crest of the Aventine Hill, the San Anselmo is set in a peaceful neighborhood of quiet palazzos, elegant apartments and ancient churches. Down the street are parks with sweeping views of the Eternal City's domes, spires and jagged ruins.

The hotel's decor is a playful modern nod to the city's Baroque heritage, with striped canopies over the windows and inlaid marble bathroom floors. A blast from the dual-head shower followed by a warm towel from the heated racks is steadying enough for a trip down to the airy, orchid-filled breakfast room for the buffet of hot and cold items, included in the hotel's rates. The San Anselmo often hosts managers and consultants with business in the international agencies headquartered in Rome. The morning tables are occupied by serious-looking professionals logged in to the hotel's complimentary wi-fi, flicking intently away at smartphone screens.

There is no restaurant, but the barman is always happy to whip up a toasted panino and pour a glass of prosecco for you to enjoy in an overstuffed chair in the lounge. Or if you'd rather sit on the terrace with a cappucino while reading La Repubblica under the grapevines, you have only to ask.

Service at the San Anselmo is flawless. The staff are pleasant and efficient and graciously see to it that guests' needs are met. From a 3:00 AM wake-up to numerous phone calls and considerable time wrangling with an airline when I mistakenly thought I had left a pair of glasses on the plane, nothing was ever a problem.

And who needs a hotel restaurant when you are a few blocks' walk down a curving cobblestoned street from some of Rome's best dining? At the foot of the Aventine Hill, across the jumbled traffic of the Via Marmorata, lies the Testaccio neighborhood. Historically the site of the city's butchers, it's still the place to go to sample Rome's traditional snout-to-tail cuisine.

Testaccio is also home to the famous Volpetti deli, a jewelry shop of the finest delicacies the Italian peninsula can provide, from meats and cheeses to pastas, wines, and a densely sweet, espresso-colored balsamic vinegar the clerks will insist you taste.

Next to the deli is Volpetti Piu, a tavola calda where servers dish up ample helpings of roast chicken, octopus salad, stuffed zuccini blossoms and rice balls for patrons in a plain, fluorescent-lit space. Tourists and Roman families crowd the tables, sipping hearty house wine and discussing the day's events between forkfuls of steaming fresh lasagne and stuffed tomatoes.

The Aventine Hill is only a Metro stop or two from Rome's most iconic tourist sights. But after a day of noise, crowds, fake gladiators outside the Colosseum, spilled gelato and cultural overload, there's no more peaceful place to retire. Climb wearily out of the Piramide metro stop. Walk past the ancient Aurelian Walls and the pyramid-shaped tomb of imperial official Caius Cestus (like you, a tourist, who had his burial place modeled on those of the Pharaohs after a visit to Egypt). Head up the cobbled street, past the giggling schoolchildren and the yellow mimosa branches trailing over the stone walls. Wander on to the crest of the hill, past the discreet polished brass placard marking the Egyptian Embassy to the Holy See. Across the street is a plain wall, with a few tourists standing around, their black-leather-jacket-clad taxi drivers chatting near their idling vehicles waiting a few yards down the street. Approach the ancient door to see what the other visitors are bending down to view. The door, perpetually locked, has a keyhole that perfectly frames a view of Saint Peter's dome hovering serenely over the gardens of the Knights of Malta.

The other tourists get back into their taxis, leaving the neighborhood to silence and the singing birds. But you'll be lucky enough to walk a block back to the San Anselmo.

Hotel San Anselmo
Piazza San Anselmo 2
00153 Rome, Italy
+39-6-570057
info@aventinohotels.com
http://www.aventinohotels.com/inglese/sa/home.




Room with terrace, Hotel San Anselmo.




Bathroom, Hotel San Anselmo




Breakfast Room, Hotel San Anselmo

Outdoor Lounge, Hotel San Anselmo

Park with a View of Rome, Aventine Hill



Volpetti

Volpetti Piu

Keyhole view, Palace of the Knights of Malta, Aventine Hill (Wikipedia, all other photos by author.

Location:Rome

Business Time

For the March edition of "Across the Cafe Table, www.travelbelles.com asked contributors to describe exceptionally good or bad airline experiences.


When you're sealed into an aluminum tube with a few hundred assorted strangers, then hurled through the air for half a day and a night, you look for what creature comforts you can find.


So we arrived at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport five hours before our flight to London. We dressed "respectfully" and wore our best "We're great passengers and will be lovely to the flight attendants" smiles. All in the hope of persuading the British Airways gods to switch our assigned seats in the middle of the plane to my favorite spot in the last row.


Scoff all you want, but due to the 747's tapering fuselage the row in the plane's posterior consists of only two seats rather than the usual three. Plus there are opportunities to get up, stand and stretch while you peer through the emergency exit's porthole at the Greenland landscape creeping by seven miles below your feet. These amenities more than make up for the pungent aroma of Eau de Lavatory suffusing the space.


Sea-Tac is not Heathrow. No surging, 24/7 mobs of dashiki- and sari-clad passengers racing down the corridors to catch the next flight to Jakarta or Jo'burg. Here in my quiet corner of the world it's intermittent queues of the fleece-ed and fanny-packed headed for Disneyland or Dulles. Between spikes in activity there are long stretches of fluorescent-lit quiet.


It was during one of those peaceful intervals that I marched up to the BA counter, drew myself up to my full five-foot-two, cleared my throat like a seasoned world traveler, and asked if we could move from our assigned seats in the middle of the plane to the back row.


"I'll do better than that," said the bored-looking agent, snatching our tickets out of our hands. While he clicked away on a computer whose screen I couldn't see, I wondered what could possibly be better than the last row. A cone of silence banning crying babies and garrulous fellow passengers? A lifetime supply of British Airways socks? Free drinks?


The agent handed us new boarding passes, then stepped aside. I studied the slips of paper but couldn't see anything distinctive about them other than a possible error in our seat numbers. "That agent clearly screwed up" I said, handing the passes to my husband. The son of a Pan Am flight engineer, he's my guiding light in all matters aeronautic. "I'm going to ask him to reprint these," I said to Steve. Instead of nodding, my better half picked up our passports, grabbed my elbow and hustled me away. "It's business class!" he whispered into my ear. "Act casual and head for the gate!"


Business Class! The mythical land behind the curtain! For reasons known only to himself, the gate agent had granted us admission to the Oz in the front of the plane.


To turn left when boarding a plane is to travel back in time. To enter the old photos in saturated colors, with smiling flight attendants carving slices of prime rib for smartly-dressed, delighted-looking customers. To relax in comfortable seats. To have fine food, china and wine in the jet stream. It's what air travel was when I was an excited child dressed in my Sunday best and clutching my mother's gloved hand as we boarded an Air France 707 for my first trip to Europe.


But Business Class is also represents a less fortunate aspect of the past.
In 1950 a Pan Am round trip flight between New York and Frankfurt was $745. That's equivalent to approximately $5000 in today's money, a fairly typical modern Business Class airfare. The front of the plane is a throwback to a time when flying was only for the privileged few.


And now, thanks to a capricious agent, Steve and I were among them. I did my best to act nonchalant, graciously accepting the Champagne from what appeared to be our personal flight attendant and settling in to a "seat" that seemed more like one of those Japanese capsule hotels. We had plenty of storage, personal entertainment systems, soft bedding, and of course seats that slid at the touch of a button into any position from "bolt upright" to "Eames Recliner" to "fainting couch" to "flat bed."


Then there was the food. After selecting from an array of wines, we had the cheese course, the steak, the fresh salad, more wine, the pastries, the truffles and a nightcap. Hoping the "real" Business Class passengers wouldn't notice, I stuffed the menu into my carryon bag as a souvenir, behind the ziplocks of granola and gummi worms I had brought in anticipation of a more ordinary flight.


Did I sleep? Not a wink. Determined to savor every morsel and moment, every proffered hot towel and glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, I undoubtedly arrived in London more tired (and with more indigestion) than most of the economy-class passengers.


The experience ruined me forever, of course. Like an opium addict "chasing the dragon" I have scrimped and saved for the opportunity to fly in the front of the plane another time or two.


Some might call Business Class travel a needless extravagance. I call it a memory I'll carry forever.

Location:Front of the plane