Traveling on business. You look forward to it like it is something great, awaiting you. Then you endure the solitary confinement and isolation for a week. If you are smart, you exercise. If I were smart, I would write a book in my off hours. l often hook up with an old friend, because most of them seem to leave the town we met and now live in the Bay area. There are many angles to look at with traveling. I pick my hotels by the neighborhood now. I dont go with the big corporate chains. I have a place I stay in North Beach that is affordable. It looks like a bit of a dump on the outside. It is actually on the border and in China town. If I stay in the City, I have hills to walk up in the morning which builds the life force a bit, gives me what I need. And I can hang out at the Vesuvio, walk around in the neighborhood when bored, go to a bookstore very close, one of the best (City Lights). This week I stayed in a boutique hotel in Old Oakland, an area that is being redeveloped. The Washington Inn. Nice. I was lucky to get in and could walk to the AC HQ office everyday. I tried to do a lot of walking but there were no hills. I was going to use the Marriott garage stairs, as my car was parked there, but I did not. Overall, the main pastime of the business traveler is drinking (1), eating (2) and walking around (3). There are only a few blocks in Old Oakland where I felt safe walking around. I did not even attempt to get to Jack London square, which was 5 or 6 blocks away. No matter what they do, the poverty stricken and mug oriented riff raff are still there. There was a young man walking around at night who looked out of place, black in color, but mainly it was his clothes that looked out of place. He followed me for a block, but I avoided him. I later saw him looking at cars out front of the hotel and in the morning found the tell tale signs of a car break in right where he was, broken window glass in small pieces on the street surface by where the car was, with the car now gone. It is not easy to change a society or a culture.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 14:47:11 +0000
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