utterly opinionated

Four hours and forty-one minutes outside Pittsburgh, anger slapped me in the face.  How ridiculous is this, I thought.  Only two hundred and thirty-three point eight miles in four hours and forty-one minutes?  If I were flying, I’d almost be in Paris.

While we fuss about better transportation inside our city, we are missing the boat (or the high-speed train).  Who cares about a slightly better connection between Downtown and Oakland?   We need a better connection between us and the rest of the world.  Right now it takes a startling twelve hours to go by train from Pittsburgh to New York.

A train that moves at just one hundred miles per hour would not only make it possible to get to New York, DC or Philadelphia faster, but would also open a flood of opportunities for Pittsburgh.  More jobs for those who live in our region, spread over a wider geographic area.  More opportunities for businesses located in Pittsburgh, with ready, fast connections to other places.  More.

Come on now.   Who’s working on this?

Black is de rigeur in Paris

Black coats, black boots, big black scarves, and even black hair.  Black is as certain as the methodical parade of grey stone buildings on every Parisian street. Paris wears black well.  Tres chic.

At home the exuberance of individuality is as messy as the backdrop of our chaotic buildings and streets.  Black hair is eclipsed by blond, red and even purple strand.  Colorful clothing abounds.  Gaudy sneakers encase happy feet.

The elegance of Paris and its inhabitants pleases me.  The exuberance of my fellow Americans puts a smile on my face.

Its my third coffee shop of the day and I’ve overdosed on coffee so this time I ordered tea.  Tea and a palmier.   I sat down around 4:30 and by 4;45 the coffee shop was packed.  Teatime, coffee time, snack time.  There is no other time as busy as this.  This is when the stores shut for a few hours and everyone takes a break before the evening rush.  Very civilized.

Unlike coffee shops in Pittsburgh, mine is the only computer in sight.  Parisians take their breaks seriously.   And unlike coffee shops in Pittsburgh this one caters to everyone.  The youngest person I see is 1 and the oldest is probably pushing 80.

Paris is a dense city.  There is not much space here.   Streets are narrow and crammed with cars.

A typical parking space in Pittsburgh measures twenty feet long by eight and a half feet wide.   This smart car fits into a space just nine feet long.  I measured it.   Fill a city with tiny cars and there’ll be twice as many parking spaces.

I’ve been sleeping through the winter.  Paris has woken me up.

24 hours ago I arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport, caught the RER metro into central Paris and settled into my tres petite chambre a coucher.   Tres petite.   Very un-American.  Lured here by a free room and a cheap ticket I thought what better way to emerge from the winter, but five days in Paris?

When I travel to a city I always promise myself that I will hit several museums and the important sights, but I should know myself better.  Once I start walking I am lost in the streets and there is no stopping me.   I cannot help myself.   Time inside seems time wasted.

On this trip I decided to focus on Le Marais, on the right bank of the Seine, and perhaps one of Paris’ most interesting neighborhoods.   My Eyewitness travel guide says this about Le Marais.  “ A place of royal residence for centuries, it was abandoned to the people during the Revolution and descended into an architectural wasteland, before  being rescued in the 1960s”.   Such a description cannot keep me away.  It takes an hour to walk there from my hotel and an hour back, but the journey is part of the adventure and it helps to burn off the endless food temptations along the way.  Tomato and mozarella pressed “sandwichs”,  crepes filled with nutella and wrapped in paper and lots of cafe creme.  Past the Jardin du Luxembourg and a school with children screaming in the playground, past scooter stands, markets, through the streets of the Left Bank, across the Ile de la Cite and then I am almost there.

This morning I set out after eating my petit dejeuner of french bread, croissant and hot coffee.  As I walked I absorbed the simple adaptions to life that Parisians have made in this very dense city.

We can learn from this.

Read on …

Just back from Australia, with my internal time clock still off kilter, I’ve turned around and headed back to Los Angeles for an intense, but fun, three day project.  The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has invited me to participate as a panelist in an SDAT in Downtown Los Angeles.  What an honor.

The SDAT program is a national community assistance program sponsored by the AIA that focuses on the principles of sustainability.  SDATs bring teams of volunteer professionals together to work with community decision-makers and stakeholders to help them develop a vision and framework for a sustainable future.

For me, this is more fun than a vacation.  I get to spend 3 days in a city I don’t know well and discover every corner of it.  And then I get to think about how to make it better.

Our panel is peppered with smart and interesting people.    An architect and preservation specialist from New York, a neighborhood and governance expert from Seattle, a downtown manager from Oklahoma City, Washington State’s bike/pedestrian/transportation planner, a streetscape and open space designer from Seattle and me, urban guru from Pittsburgh.

For three intense days we will immerse ourselves in the good and bad of downtown LA.  One day will be spent outside, touring, seeing and absorbing.  Another day will be spent meeting with downtown stakeholders -  advocacy organizations, government departments, politicians, neighborhood groups, the transportation sector and plenty more.  A veritable sea of faces.

And on Friday, from early morning until our evening presentation to the public, we’ll prepare our report here and hope that our efforts will have been worthwhile.

Sleepless in LA, but loving it.

Often, when I’m traveling that horrendous thirty hours from Pittsburgh to Australia, I day dream about laksa.  This Malaysian soup is worth the trip and I eat it whenever I can.

Ingredients

While I write this at four in the afternoon, in Pittsburgh the day I have just enjoyed has not yet dawned.

A week ago I made my way half way across the world.  First, bright-eyed,  from Pittsburgh through Minneapolis St. Paul to Los Angeles.   Then, bleary-eyed from LA to Melbourne in Australia.  Every time I make this journey I am determined to spend the horrendously long travel time well and at first I do.  I read, I write and I work.   By the end of the first fifteen hours, when I board the plane from LA to Melbourne, my resolve crumbles and the remaining hours are spent dozing while watching bad movies.

When I arrive I fight my way through the fog of jet lag (ferocious since the time difference is sixteen hours) to reconnect with my parents, my sisters and my nephew.  Family visits crammed into two weeks always leave me feeling dissatisfied.  They are both too short and too long.  I vow I won’t eat too much so I don’t have to wrestle the pounds back off when I get home.  But the food is a reminder of the home I grew up in. For two weeks I am tempted by the tastes that I cannot take home with me.  Milk bars, laksa, licorice, ginger beer, turkish bread and tropical fruit are all stronger than me.

Although I am Australian by birth, by now I have spent half my life in America and I am caught forever in between.  My strange half Australian half American accent  marks me.  Interesting in my adopted town.  A defector in my country of birth.  Quizzical looks wherever I go.

A few years ago I set about finding a way to fit in on these visits to Melbourne.   The trail that runs beside my sister’s house loops its way through and around the city.  This has become the starting point for my visits.  Two days after I arrive, my head still slightly foggy, I pull out her ancient bike and cautiously ride down the trail that was once unfamiliar but now belongs to me.  Here I fit right in. On a bike my strange accent is barely noticeable.

Here, on the trail, I am surrounded by people of every ethnicity.  This is where the people of the city congregate, on its trails and in its parks.  This is where differences fade away.  Just like in Pittsburgh.

Back in October, the great Venture Outdoor GAP bike tour.  From Connellsville, PA to Cumberland, MD, ride with me along the gorgeous Great Allegheny Passage trail.  We’ll wind our way along the Casselman, Youghiogheny, and Monongahela Rivers, visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and Ohiopyle State Park and see brilliant fall colors. Photograph breath taking sites, enjoy delicious food, and share the company of other cyclists like you that see life as an adventure.

This trip is perfect for cyclists and non-cyclists alike. Each day you have an option, ride a lot or ride a little. With Venture Outdoors vans for support, you can always skip some riding to take extra time for a walk, photograph wildlife, or fall asleep next to a lazy river.

Sign up here …

RAGBRAI (Register’s Annual Great Ride Across Iowa) is a week long ride from the west to east end of Iowa.  Every year, in the last week of July, 15,000 riders participate.   Seriously.  15,000.

My friend Seth Gernot rode it last week with VIRGIN tattooed down his calves.  It was his first time, but definitely not his last.   The 450 mile journey crossed Iowa from the Missouri River to the Mississipi.   Although the days are long, the intent is not to finish them fast.   ragbrai is a celebration first and a ride second.

The towns on the route were small, as small as 2,000, but they rolled out large quantities of food and alcohol.   Seth ate 13 different kinds of pie on the ride.  He stretched the limits of his spandex shorts.

15,000 tourists in the state of Pennsylvania wouldn’t be bad would they?   They could ride from Pittsburgh to Philly and visit every country fair and hamlet on the way.    They could eat pierogi, hot italian sausage sandwiches and drink local beer.

I want to stretch the limits of my spandex shorts.  I’ll do it in Iowa if I have to.  But I’d love to do it in Pennsylvania first.

From August 20 to 23 I’ll be biking the Great Allegheny Passage with Venture Outdoors.  I made the trip all the way from DC to Pittsburgh last year.  August’s trip starts in Cumberland and ends in Pittsburgh, the easiest, smoothest and prettiest section of the trail.

We’ll  pass through historic coal towns, wind our way along the Casselman, Youghiogheny, and Monongahela River, visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and Ohiopyle State Park. Sleep under the stars (or in a B & B), eat wonderful catered meals, and share the company of other cyclists that see life as an adventure.

Will you join me?  We’ll have a blast!