When my mother graduated from college in the mid-60s, she took an ocean liner from New York City to London. It took two weeks, and every night there was a formal dinner with tuxedos and cocktail dresses, dancing to live ballroom music, and plenty of intrigue. She'd sleep off the martini hangover the next day, read on wooden deck chairs in the afternoon and then have dinner all over again. She has never forgotten the friends and couples she met on that trans-Atlantic voyage almost 50 years ago. The art of travel has changed and lost much of its class and patience. I went on my first cruise a few years ago, the Princess Cruise Line (The Love Boat!), and the company I brought along was great fun, but the boat was filled with tacky people in Gap shorts and flip-flops dancing to cheesy pop music and eating cafeteria food. Similarly, my mother just returned from a long train ride through scenic southern Canada. While the views were great, she said it felt like a long, cramped airplane ride with TV dinners and mini-bottles of cheap wine. Perhaps this is just what budget travel has become, or perhaps I see the old style of travel through a nostalgic lens, but boy, I'd love to spend two weeks at sea in my tuxedo, reading for long uninterrupted stretches, ballroom dancing to a live orchestra, and recovering from a martini hangover.
No comments:
Post a Comment