travel – Page 2 – The Constant Harper

Honk If You Love Books

Not everyone does, you know.

If you believe the statistics commonly tossed around on the Internet, 80 percent of Americans didn’t read or buy a book last year.

Yet at the same time, the statistic munchers also assert that 80 percent of Americans claim they’d like to write a book. Picture the Venn diagram.

Well, we all know numbers lie. And words can too. But for my money, words deceive with more grace and wit and style. Thus, I number myself among the 80 percent with authorial ambitions. I’m a consumer of books, a lifelong lover of libraries and a connoisseur of book stores.

If you like bookstores, you’ll love Powell’s.

We visited Portland for the first time this week. I had a number of touristic objectives. We strolled through the famous Japanese Garden, admired the amazing blooms at the International Rose Test Garden, and marveled at the elegant beauty of Lan Su Yuan, the classical Chinese garden in downtown Portland. We stood in line for Voodoo Doughnuts, savored Stumptown Coffee and took in a Bite of Oregon. We heard some blues, some cool jazz, and a lot of high energy street music.

But of all the pleasures of Portland, the only one that made my heart beat faster was the city within the city: Powell’s City of Books.

I’ve been to The Strand in New York City. I’ve been to Elliott Bay Books in Seattle. I had high hopes that Powell’s would be their equal. It’s more. Much more. It’s a world of wonders, staffed by acolytes of the written word who not only guide customers through the labyrinth of volumes, but also seem to care about books.

Strong free-spirited independent book stores are a dying breed in this country. Portland is blessed to have Powell’s. Visit if you can.

Sleepless in Geneva

It’s two a.m. and I’m awake again.

You’d think that after walking around for sixteen hours in a foreign city I’d be exhausted. And I am. But sleep eludes me.

The pull of time, past, present, future, swirling around me stirs up so many thoughts. It’s like trying to sleep on a moving bus full of drunken sailors. Come to think of it, there appear to be some tipsy songsters outside the hotel at this moment, their merry voices cannoning off the stone walls in old Geneva.

I haven’t traveled a lot in my life. Always wanted to. But other dreams got in the way. Now I’m here, wide awake in a city loaded with Swiss Army knives, cuckoo clocks and chocolate, and I have no sense of time.

Depending on what block I wander through, the architecture places me somewhere between the 12th and the 20th century. But the confusion resulting from my unabating jetlag and woeful lack of foreign language skills has kept me reeling night and day. The shops are crammed with watches. Time is a big deal here, but I’m not in synch.

My computer insists on keeping Seattle time. And to make things more interesting, the cell phone I bought here speaks to me only in French, German or Italian.

It’s a curiously intoxicating environment. Of course that may be just the sugar rush from all the pastries. Whatever. I’m having a wonderful time feeling blissfully disengaged from the Fox News stream.

Here, the Rhone River glides serenely under the bridges, while the buses, trams, bicycles and pedestrians move about the city like cogs in some well-oiled machine. Except for me. I tend to stop and stare a lot. It must be time for some more coffee. Maybe a nap. Definitely some pastry.