When I was a little girl, we used to fly pretty regularly from San Jose to Los Angeles. We flew on PSA, the airline with stewardesses (that’s what they were called then) in fuchsia and orange hot pants and microminis and funny hats. The planes had smiles and noses painted on the front of them. A ticket was $27 round trip for an adult, $18 for a child, and flying somewhere was an occasion.
I always took my Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal with me. For flying purposes, I felt he needed a little something special, so I had my dad teach me to tie a full windsor. Pooh’s necktie was made of a scrap of pink satin ribbon. The trip took 55 minutes and you were offered coffee, tea, punch or bullion in Styrofoam cups the flight attendants carried on trays. My mom would smoke the whole way down.
It’s different now. More like a bus trip. My brother insists that even riding the famed Green Tortoise buses was more comfortable than economy class flight is these days. Hoards of people are squished together. Because there is no more free food, people bring all sorts of things on board. I just got back from a trip to Tampa. The guy next to me had a Cuban sandwich with him that smelled of garlic and oregano and meat. That mingled with the scent of Chinese food a few rows up and pizza a few rows back. On the other side of me, a man crossed his legs and rested his foot on my knee. On the way back the woman next to me rested her arm on top of mine. Because you have to pay to check your bags now, the overheads were crammed. A very old man – maybe in his 80s – tried to shift my case to fit his in, but in such a way that the overhead wouldn’t close. I had to yell at him and get a flight attendant so that my bag wouldn’t end up checked. Flying doesn’t bring out the best in people.
It’s not that I don’t like travel. I do. I love to experience new places and am very open to different cultural experiences. I packed my life into two suitcases and a carry-on after graduating from UC Davis in 1986 and moved to Ireland to attend grad school at University College Dublin. I knew one professor there. I traveled around Ireland and the UK by myself in the two months before classes started. I took trips to Israel, Greece, and Italy. Later, I got a job at a publishing company based in Dublin and traveled on business to the Netherlands, the UK and Spain. It was always a blast.
But the horrors of air travel now – just how often do they sterilize the floors around the security checkpoints? Who thinks two bathrooms are enough for 200 people? Why does it cost twice as much for a bottle of water at an airport as at the grocery store? – make me dread travel. I don’t consider going anywhere during peak holiday travel, even if I have the chance to upgrade to first class.
Tampa is a strange place. I wouldn’t choose it as a vacation destination – although it does have what’s supposed to be a pretty good aquarium, and there are other attractions around the city. I was there with a friend for a writers’ conference. We stayed near the airport. There was a mall nearby, complete with a variety of chain restaurants and a food court. And strip clubs. Why do strip clubs congregate near airports? There were condos in the area and you could see homes a couple blocks off the main drags. But I didn’t see any supermarkets. Where do people get their food? Do they eat every night at Chipotle and each morning at the Waffle House?
Downtown Tampa was filled with new buildings, wide streets, and no people on the weekend. There were no open restaurants or shops. The exception: when we neared the waterfront and the streetcar terminal there were people streaming to a rally for Sarah Palin. A woman in an Obama shirt and her daughter were the lone protestors outside the venue. They held signs – the mom’s said something about there being more to leadership than a hairdo and that it’s a sin to lie. I liked the daughter’s better: it said that the VP nominee should stop killing animals from the air. The little girl knew what was important to her and was willing to put it on a neon green sign and wave it in front of the Palin posse. I thought they were brave to be out there. People – on both sides – have been pretty vitriolic during this campaign season. We saw the motorcade go by. I’m pretty sure I saw Ms. Palin in an SUV; she was bent over some reading material.
We wandered past the cruise ship terminals. The riverfront development is pretty in a theme-parkish way. The parking garage is actually a pretty structure, painted in pastels and brights that make you think “Florida”. While there were some independent shops – a coffee place, a chocolatier — there were also a Hooters and a Cold Stone Creamery, as if those getting on and off a cruise ship would be anxious for some chain food.
The streetcar system is great in Tampa. Actually, the whole transportation system is pretty darn impressive. Two streetcar lines run only during the week, but the line we hopped on runs every twenty minutes or so every day and takes passengers from downtown to Ybor City. The cars are beautiful and must be something old that was restored. I can’t see any local government springing for the cast iron and gleaming wood that adorned the cars. You can see pictures of the streetcars – and more of Ybor City that my friend Pam took here. She blogs about it on her website, too.
Ybor was founded by refugees after the war between Spain and Cuba in the late 19th century who started a thriving cigar trade. The buildings are brick, with wrought iron detailing and charming facades. It’s not all old: A new shopping development blends in fairly well and features such necessities as a Starbucks and a Victoria’s Secret. But there are independent shops amongst the Subways. We ate Cuban sandwiches at Sula’s – a relatively new place according to the ranger manning the Ybor City Historical Museum. It was the best meal I had in Tampa. We stopped outside a shop where an old man was rolling cigars by hand. His colleague beckoned us in to watch and explained in broken English what was happening. The leaves are selected from various piles – the man looked, chose, discarded, chose again — and rolled together and trimmed. They’re then put into a slotted wood mold, which when filled is covered and pressed for several hours. Where a typical cigar might cost a buck, these run $10-15. The tobacco was of several varieties – some from Ecuador, some from Columbia. I asked why no American tobacco, but I didn’t understand the answer. His English and my Spanish together didn’t make a coherent conversation together. While I’m no fan of tobacco or smoking, hand rolling a cigar is an art. The man was so intent on his selection and the rolling of each cigar. It was clear he took pride in what he did. It was hypnotic. But it also reeked of cigar smoke and I was happy to leave.
We walked to the museum – small but informative about Ybor, its founders, and its history — and toured the gardens outside, where a wedding planner and prospective bride were deep in conversation about the location. There is new condo and townhouse development on the outskirts of Ybor, and there is a community college within Ybor itself. But the area was strikingly empty. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. In Seattle, such an obvious tourist area would be bustling with outsiders, and those who lived there would be in the cafes or out walking their dogs. But we didn’t see antique shops; the galleries were closed. Even the museum store wasn’t open for business. There were empty lots in prime areas of a quaint arty village that screamed for development. Actually all over Tampa we saw empty parcels of land that wouldn’t have stayed vacant in Seattle no matter what the state of economy.
And throughout all our wanderings and bus rides and taxi and shuttle trips I still didn’t see a single supermarket. A lot of strip malls. A Wallgreens. A Target. Some small markets that carried canned chili and old apples and bananas. Maybe they could build one on one of those empty lots.
The city as a whole reminded me of Highway 101 between San Jose and San Francisco. Not pretty, lined with billboards, and lacking in a vision. Ybor City? There’s vision there. I’d go back again, but only if they invent the transporter so I don’t have to fly.
