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Wild Things About Flying You Probably Didn’t Know

If you were among the estimated 1 billion passengers served by US airlines last year, you too might be intrigued to learn why you always have a ferocious craving for Bloody Marys on planes, or why the in-flight movies turn you into such a blubbering sentimental idiot. So listen up, pub trivia nerds: Here are 25 things you probably didn’t know about flying.

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1. You lose out on a third of your taste buds during flights
*Seinfeld voice* Whaaaat’s the deal with airline food? It’s not bad just because airlines hire bad chefs. About a third of your taste buds are numbed at altitude, which is why that $8 Mediterranean snack box always tastes, eh, just OK. This also has the effect of enhancing the savory flavors in tomato juice — a big reason why people crave Bloody Marys and think they taste so much better on planes.

2. It’s impossible to lock yourself in the bathroom
You ever notice how the flight attendants flip a little switch on the lavatory door before takeoff and landing? That switch locks the door so it won’t fly open and can be flipped on or off at any time. So if they think you’re in there joining the mile high club or smoking a cig, they can fully barge in and bust you.

3. Pilots and co-pilots are required to eat different meals
Though it’s technically not mandated by the FAA, most airlines require their pilots and co-pilots to eat different meals on the plane, in case one is tainted. Dark.

4. Your flight crew only get paid when you’re in the air
For reasons stipulated in those collective bargaining agreements you hear about during airline strikes, pilots and flight attendants only get paid for the hours the plane is in the air. Meaning, it’s not their fault if your flight’s been delayed or you’re stuck sitting on the tarmac. So be nice, wouldja?

5. Airplane air is quite literally as dry the Sahara
You may have noticed how your hands get dry and your throat feels like sandpaper when you fly. That’s because the pressurized air in the cabin is kept below bone-dry 20% humidity — just about the average humidity of the Sahara.

6. You lose 8 ounces of water from your body for every hour you fly
That dry air saps the water from your body, to the tune of about 8 ounces an hour. Which, if you do the math, is roughly a two-liter bottle during a 10-hour long-haul flight. Stay hydrated, friends.

7. Dimming the lights for takeoff and landing isn’t a mood effect
It’s done so passengers’ eyes can adjust to the dark, just in case there’s an emergency that shuts off the lights. That way people aren’t running around blind in sheer chaos.

8. That little hole in the plane window might save your life
You ever notice that little hole in the bottom of your window? That’s the breather hole, and besides keeping in warm air so you don’t get too chilly, it regulates pressure — ensuring that should anything happen to the outer pane of the window, the pressure won’t cause the inner pane to break, at which point you’d suddenly be sucking in oxygen at 35,000 feet. Consider it Phase 1 before you get to the masks.

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9. More people die from plane exhaust than plane crashes
Plane crashes — especially in large commercial jets — are extremely rare now. Fewer than 1,000 people die in plane crashes each year, including small planes. But a 2010 MIT study found that about 10,000 deaths a year are attributable to toxic pollutants emitted by jet engines. So maybe think twice before lining up behind that runway in St. Maarten.

10. Usually, turbulence only drops you a few feet in the air
Though you might feel like you’re on the top floor of Tower of Terror, run-of-the-mill light turbulence only drops the plane a few feet in altitude. Moderate turbulence — the kind pilots tell the flight attendants to sit down for — moves the plane 10-20 feet. Severe, white-knuckle, talk-about-it-for-the-rest-of-your-life turbulence might move a plane 100 feet in the most extreme circumstances.

11. The toilets are actually vacuums
Unlike your toilet at home that siphons water down into the sewer, airplane toilets are basically vacuums: a valve opens when you flush, and the air pressure sucks what’s in the bowl down into a tank located in the tail of the plane. It uses about half a gallon of water and can flush in any direction. But older planes with outdated toilet systems are still up there flying, hence the occasional reports of raw frozen sewage falling from the sky.

12. The wingspan of an Airbus is double the length of the original flight
Wilbur and Orville Wright’s first venture into the skies in 1903 traveled only about 125 feet. Today, the wingspan of the largest commercial airliner, the Airbus380, is 262 feet.

13. The average Boeing 747 has around 150-175 miles of wiring inside it…
That’s almost enough to stretch across Massachusetts. Beyond the wiring, it also has 6 million parts.

14. … and is more fuel efficient than a hybrid
A Boeing 747 gets 0.2 miles per gallon, burning through 36,000 gallons of fuel over a 10-hour flight. Gas guzzling at its worst, right? Well, no. Do the math: With 500 people aboard that’s 0.01 gallons per person per mile, or 100 miles per gallon. Suck it, Prius.

15. The tail is the safest place to be during a crash
Again, plane crashes are totally rare. But a 2007 study by Popular Mechanics looked at 36 years of NTSB crash data and found the back of the plane gave passengers the best chance for survival. It’s also the most strategically advantageous for befriending your flight attendant and getting free things! Last off the plane wins first in the game of life.

16. Planes can fly with one engine, and land with none
Not that the pilot is going to get on the intercom and tell you about it, but commercial jets are designed to fly with only one operable engine. And can glide their way to the ground with no engine power at all. So if your plane breaks down mid-air, you’ll still likely land in one piece!

17. It’s impossible to technically “die” on a plane…
It’s rare, but it does happen; sometimes a passenger kicks the bucket mid-flight, yet the flight crew cannot declare a person dead for legal reasons. The most common thing done with corpses is to move them to an empty row. Where are there most often empty seats? Up in first class, of course. Pretty steep price for an upgrade, though on some airlines totally worth it.

18. At any given time, there are 9,700 planes and 1.2 million people in the sky
The exact numbers, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware, are on average, 9,728 planes with a total of 1,270,406 people. That would make the skies the 156th most populous country in the world, right between Estonia and East Timor.

19. There’s a red light on the left wing and a green light on the right
At night, it’s hard for pilots to see other aircraft. Every plane has a red light on the left wing and green on the right, so other pilots can easily identify which way the plane is facing and what direction it’s going.

20. Many commercial planes still have ashtrays
Smoking has been banned on commercial flights for over 25 years now, but most planes still have ashtrays. Quite confusing, but the FAA requires them in case someone completely disregards the signs and decides to light up anyway. That way there’s not a lit cigarette floating around the plane that could potentially start a fire.

21. At takeoff and landing, planes travel between 150 and 200 mph
Fast, huh!?

22. If you find yourself getting weirdly emotional on planes, you’re not alone
A few years back, Virgin America conducted a highly scientific study on its Facebook page, in which 41% of men admitted to crying at in-flight movies, and 55% of people said they felt more emotional while flying. We, too, have straight up bawled watching Gran Torino on a flight, so we looked into it — the stresses of travel, plus the decreased oxygen and mild hypoxia one experiences at altitude, has a major effect on moods. It’s not just you.

23. A Boeing 767 holds 1,200 minivans worth of fuel
That’s 23,980 gallons, and it can be filled up in 28 minutes. It also puts enough air through its engines to fill a Goodyear Blimp in seven seconds.

24. A Boeing 787 can fly 10,000 miles on one tank of gas
That means it could fly the circumference of the Earth and only need to stop for gas twice. Dads around the world, rejoice!

25. If you think of the world as a globe, planes would be flying about 1/10th of an inch off the surface
This is assuming a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet. It’s a big ‘ol sky up there.

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Reason to Smile in Your Passport Photo

While “natural” smiles (whatever that means) are good to go in passport photos, non-neutral facial expressions are a no-go—and might even cause your application to be denied. But murky rules be damned: A study published last week by the University of York suggests that a smile might actually be more effective at preventing identity fraud, as reported by the The Independent—take that, TSA.

Here’s the science behind it: Researchers took a group of some 40 people and asked them to look at pictures of strangers: each person was shown with both a close-mouthed smile and a big, toothy smile. The study found that it was easier for participants to identify someone by a smile, both when looking at two pictures of the same person with different expressions, and comparing two pictures of similar looking people. Even when images only displaying the lower half of the face were used, the big grin prevailed. Thus, when it comes to airport security, the researchers believe using these types of photos in passports could help cut down on travel-related identity fraud, per the study.

Though smiling is—again, with stipulations—allowed, there are still a few things that aren’t. You’ll have to leave your beanies and hats at home, and glasses still aren’t allowed, so be sure to wear contacts unless you’ve got a prescription. Wearing a costume is also prohibited, unfortunately (save the left shark onesie for another time), as are goofy facial expressions. We’re still patiently waiting for those study results to come in.

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More: 5 Trips Inspired by Your Favorite Authors

There are some authors that are forever tied to specific locations: Jack Kerouac: North Beach, San Francisco. Maarten Troost, Vanuatu. Ernest Hemingway, Havana, Cuba and Hunter S. Thompson, Aspen, Colorado. And there’s no better way to pay tribute to these luminaries than by following in their footsteps—literally. Visit home towns, tour cities of inspiration, or walk the steps of fictional characters to breathe new life into these writers’ timeless words.

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Julia Child: Rouen, France

Paris is the perfect starting point to feel Julia Child’s presence. It was here that she studied at Le Cordon Bleu, and you can attend one of their many culinary workshops during your visit. Another activity? Exploring the narrow aisles of E. Dehellerin, where Child often shopped for kitchen supplies. But it was in the smaller French city of Rouen where she first found her fondness for fine foods. As described in My Life in France, the lunch she and her husband shared at La Couronne upon arriving in 1948 was “the most exciting meal of my life.”

J. Maarten Troost: Vanuatu

J. Maarten Troost spent two years in Kiribati, when his then-fiancé accepted a position on the island, during which time he wrote The Sex Lives of Cannibals. He ended up returning to the Pacific, this time landing in Vanuatu and penning Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu. To experience Vanuatu Troost-style, you’ll need to immerse yourself in the culture of the island and stay a bit off the tourism grid. Head to the capital city of Port Vila and immerse yourself in the daily markets. Of course, if you are looking for beautiful beaches and adventure, Fiji won’t disappoint either.

“No one who claims this to be a small world has ever flown across the Pacific.” —J. Maarten Troost, The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific

Jack Kerouac: North Beach, San Francisco

Although he never resided in the city, Jack Kerouac, a pioneer of the beat generation and forefather to the hippie generation, features San Francisco in one of his most widely read books, On The Road. Today, the city’s North Beach neighborhood is essentially a Kerouac temple—you’ll see artwork and window displays at every turn. It is home to The Beat Museum, where you will find memorabilia and original manuscripts of the author’s. Don’t leave the neighborhood without seeing the 60-foot-long, pedestrian-only thoroughfare, Jack Kerouac Alley. You can follow the poetry-inscribed bricks to City Lights Bookstore, where Kerouac would often hang out with the likes of Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg.

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.” —Jack Kerouac, On the Road

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Ernest Hemingway: Havana, Cuba

With the ability for Americans to travel to Cuba comes comes a new way to experience a piece of Ernest Hemingway, as he penned seven of his books there (including For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea). Ten miles outside of Havana is Hemingway’s former home, now a Cuban government-run museum called Finca Vigía (“Lookout Farm,” named by Hemingway). It is here that he wrote his Pulitzer Prize- and Nobel Prize-winning novel, The Old Man and the Sea. The 23-karat gold Nobel Prize medal resides at the Sanctuary at El Cobre, where it has been (with the exception of a short period when it was stolen and returned) since Hemingway gifted it to the people of Cuba. While on the island, you would be amiss not to pick up a fishing pole—or at least be a spectator at the fishing event that Hemingway founded, the annual Ernest Hemingway International Billfish Tournament, one of the oldest fishing tournaments in the world (usually held in May or June). After a long day casting lines, head over to one of Hemingway’s two favorite watering holes, La Floridita or La Bodeguita, and enjoy a cocktail.
“Then he looked behind him and saw that no land was visible. That makes no difference, he thought. I can always come in on the glow from Havana.” —Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

Hunter S. Thompson: Aspen, Colorado

To understand Hunter S. Thompson, author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and father of gonzo journalism, head straight to Aspen. First stop: Hotel Jerome. The hotel’s J-Bar served as Thompson’s official campaign headquarters when he ran for sheriff, and his unofficial mail sorting area after his daily stop at the post office. He had late-night parties in the hotel pool, and the first of his two funerals was held in the Grand Ballroom (the second was at his ranch). For those looking to pay a more spiritual homage to the writer, a shrine dedicated to Thompson is located near the Gunner’s View run at Snowmass. Updated each President’s Day, it features magazine covers, Tibetan prayer flags, and bottles of his favorite whiskey. After searching for the shrine, warm up with your own drink at Woody Creek Tavern, Thompson’s former watering hole, which is adorned with pictures and press clippings of him.
“At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards.” —Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child In the Final Days of the American Century

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by MEG REINHARDT

6 Trips Inspired by Your Favorite Authors

There are some authors that are forever tied to specific locations: Charles Dickens and London. Walt Whitman and Brooklyn. Ernest Hemingway and Cuba. And there’s no better way to pay tribute to these luminaries than by following in their footsteps—literally. Visit home towns, tour cities of inspiration, or walk the steps of fictional characters to breathe new life into these writers’ timeless words.

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John Steinbeck: Monterey, California

To capture a piece of John Steinbeck’s writing, head to California’s bayside town of Monterey. First stop: Cannery Row, formerly Ocean View Avenue, but renamed for Steinbeck’s 1945 novel. Then take a stroll down Main Street, noting buildings 201 and 247, which are featured in East of Eden. While in the area, take the 17-mile drive to Steinbeck’s birthplace, Salinas. Here you can visit the National Steinbeck Center, which houses first-edition books, interviews, and artifacts.

“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.” —John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

Christopher Isherwood: Berlin

In 1930, novelist Christopher Isherwood settled into the Berlin neighborhood of Schöneberg. He immersed himself in the nightlife to write the novel Goodbye to Berlin, which was later adapted into the Tony Award-winning musical Cabaret. Although none of the bars from Isherwood’s era are still open, you can swing by retro cocktail bar Sally Bowles (named after his famous character) to get an idea of what he might have experienced. Isherwood would most likely still find comfort in today’s Berlin—a destination for creative, young people.

“Berlin is a skeleton which aches in the cold: it is my own skeleton aching.” —Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

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Mark Twain: Hannibal, Missouri

Mark Twain was able to tell the stories of the mighty Mississippi River and its people like no other author—no surprise, since he practically lived on the water for part of his life. As he wrote in Life on the Mississippi, “When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades… to be a steam boatman,” and he eventually did serve as a steamboat pilot for two years in his twenties. A stop in the author’s hometown of Hannibal, Missouri will bring you to the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum, and the Huckleberry Finn House, where the “real” Huck Finn (Tom Blankenship) grew up. From there you can take a steamboat tour on the river, and drive along Great River Road (a National Scenic Byway) which follows the river. Before leaving town, stop off at the Mark Twain Memorial Lighthouse for a panoramic view of both Hannibal and the great Mississippi.

Charles Dickens: London

Charles Dickens showed his affection for England’s capital by featuring the city in each of his novels. To fully immerse yourself in Dickens’s London, set off on foot, starting at the Charles Dickens Museum, his home-turned-museum where you can view a sampling of the 100,000-item collection that includes manuscripts, rare editions, and personal items. It was here that he completed The Pickwick Papers and wrote Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. Next set off for Marshalsea Prison, where Dickens’s father was imprisoned when Charles was a young boy—and the setting of Little Dorrit. Continue on to visit the Palace of Westminster, which appears in 14 novels. Your journey should now take you through Covent Garden, the main vegetable market in Dickensian London. Two plaques are dedicated to Dickens, the first marking the offices where he published his periodical All The Year Round, and the second where he worked as a child. Visit The Old Curiosity Shop, a 16th-century store constructed from the recycled wood of ships. Many consider the London landmark to be the inspiration for the novel The Old Curiosity Shop, with its crooked ceilings and uneven floorboards. Cap off your day by resting your feet at The George Inn, where Charles Dickens was a frequent visitor.

Walt Whitman: Brooklyn, New York

Walt Whitman spent time in Brooklyn throughout his life, including a stint as editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from March 1846 until January 1848. Although the original Eagle building has long been torn down, a new building and plaque dedicated to Whitman now stands in its same spot in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood. During his time at the newspaper, Whitman was an avid supporter of Fort Greene Park, designed by the famed Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux (who also designed Central Park and Prospect Park). One of Whitman’s most famous poems, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” was inspired by his travels between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Literature buffs should pay a visit to Brooklyn Bridge Park, featuring pier railings inscribed with lines from the poem.
“Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers! / Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!” —Walt Whitman, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”

Jon Krakauer: Alaska and Mount Everest

To fully understand Jon Krakauer and his sources of inspiration, it helps to have a sense of adventure. Take off for Alaska and visit the replica bus from the film adaptation of Into the Wild, found at 49th State Brewing. Just outside of Denali National Park, you will find endless trails for hiking and camping—but be safe, and report your location before going off alone, (learn from Chris McCandless, the subject of Into The Wild.) If that’s not enough thrill for you, you’ll need to put in plenty of training for the ultimate mountaineering expedition. Krakauer successfully climbed Mount Everest in 1996, and this would serve as his inspiration for Into Thin Air.

“It was titillating to brush up against the enigma of mortality, to steal a glimpse across its forbidden frontier. Climbing was a magnificent activity, I firmly believed, not in spite of the inherent perils, but precisely because of them.” —Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster

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by MEG REINHARDT

Uncommonly elevated in Mexico City

Just because mezcal is served in a shot glass does not mean you should shoot it. Consider this a public service announcement from your correspondent, who has only himself to blame. True, I may have to rethink the intentions of a Mexican pal who watched me knock back shots of Oaxacan firewater last night as he took delicate hummingbird sips. At least, I tell myself, I did not eat the worm.

We had finished our feast at a no-name restaurant in the city center, my friend and I, stopping afterward at a bar specializing in the fermented agave liquor. Both of us were already happy by then, although not in the liquored-up sense.

It occurs to me now that my spirits are always uncommonly elevated in Mexico City, a place I began visiting with my family while still in my teens. Recently I have begun returning on a regular basis, drawn to this tumultuous and paradoxical city (it is also often tragic: after my most recent visit a powerful earthquake decimated swaths of it, leaving more than 200 dead) for reasons reducible to two elements: food and art. For a week in April, I set myself an ambitious program there of satisfying both belly and eye, alternating art consumption with meals at the dining spots where a generation of Mexican chefs is elbowing its way onto the global culinary scene.

I have an unusual advantage. Buzzy and overpopulated Mexico City may be, but during the days between Palm Sunday and Easter large numbers of its 22 million inhabitants decamp and the city hangs out a vacancy sign. As if at a stroke, the capital’s paralyzing traffic vanishes, the frenetic pace of street life slackens, hotel rates plummet. Suddenly, getting an 8:30 dinner reservation at hot restaurants is no big deal.

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For my initial night in town a hotelier friend suggests dinner at a spot exemplifying why the foodie press has flocked to Mexico City lately. With only seven tables, Sofia Garcia Osorio’s unnamed place (“What’s important is you and the experience, not the restaurant or me,” she says) can accommodate 28 diners at a time. Located on a sketchy side street near the Paseo de la Reforma—the broad avenue diagonally bisecting the city—this restaurant offers hopeful evidence that Mexico City’s faded center is making a much-touted and overdue comeback.

Despite its location between a defunct theater and a convenience store, Ms. Garcia Osorio’s place draws a stream of patrons from throughout the city. That many are unlikely to have set foot downtown before speaks to the contradictory nature of a city where wealth disparity often verges on the grotesque, the cheapness of human life colors daily existence with a hard brilliance, and the solemn beauty of a deep and ancient culture is largely obscured by the noisy soap opera of Mexico’s perennially corrupt politics.

As if in response to her country’s complexities, Garcia Osorio likes to keep things simple at her restaurant, turning out densely flavorful meals using the most basic of ingredients and means.

“Real food doesn’t need a lot of adornment,” she tells me by phone after my visit. “I don’t like menus that say, ‘Oh, this is a plate with blah-blah- blah.’ We try to leave out the explanation and let the flavor speak for itself.”

Cooking in cast-iron or clay comal pans and, where possible, without oil, Garcia Osorio renders subtle fare, like a moist organic saddle of rabbit in a smoky peanut mole, or a guacamole studded with nuggets of green tomato, frills of pipicha, and a mysterious ingredient that pops on the tongue like a piece of Freshen-up gum.
“What is that?” I ask my companion, as we duel for the dip with homemade tostadas.

“Oh, that?” he asks, nonchalantly shoveling in a bite. “Toasted grasshoppers.”

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Lalo – Mexico City

Class Insecta is, of course, the latest frontier of culinary exploration, and yet Mexican cuisine has exploited it for a millennium. Exactly how common and essential insects are to traditional cooking in this ancient capital becomes clear to me a few days after my inaugural meal, when I wake one groggy dawn at midweek to join the chef Eduardo “Lalo” García on a trip to the vast wholesale food market called La Merced.

Lalo – Mexico City

It was at La Merced that Lalo, whom many consider the best chef in the country, found his culinary purpose and soul. As a child of undocumented migrant workers, Lalo spent much of his childhood trailing his parents around the United States picking: citrus in Florida, Vidalia onions in Georgia, blueberries in Michigan, wild mushrooms on cold Pennsylvania nights. Finding stable work as a kitchen grunt in his teen years, Lalo’s work ethic and talent quickly attracted the attention of a series of mentors, who propelled him on an upward trajectory from dishwasher to busboy and eventually to garde-manger at Atlanta’s high-end Brasserie Le Coze.

Very likely he’d have remained in his adopted country had the United States government not sent him packing a decade or so ago. Deported to Mexico, he settled in the capital, working for several years before opening, first, the casual but refined Máximo Bistrot Local, then the French-inflected Havre 77, and finally a lively breakfast spot called Lalo!, famous for its chilaquiles, a sure-fire hangover cure.

Now, in the chilly lightless morning, I wait outside Máximo Bistrot Local for Lalo to saunter down the street from his nearby apartment, unlock his beat-up sedan, and drive us through the dark to the city’s eastern perimeter and a place less like a market than like a far-off galaxy.

At La Merced vast sheds covering hundreds of acres are crammed with every imaginable foodstuff . Here you can find countless types of chili; an entire pigskin deep-fried in a drum; buckets of grasshoppers sorted and alive or toasted and priced according to terroir. As many varieties of foods as there are at La Merced, there are at least that many overlapping realities. Nopal vendors, for instance, occupy a sector also favored by round-the-clock prostitutes. Shaving spines off cactus with the speed of magicians, the merchants stack the paddles, resembling lazy green tongues, into piles. Guys specializing in wild foraging reach under their tables as Lalo approaches, drawing out plastic-wrapped blister trays of mushrooms as furtively as if they were selling contraband and not chanterelles.

Fast-moving Lalo is easy to lose in the dim, crowded aisles, and so I trot behind him trying not to slosh the steaming café de olla he bought me all over myself. Processing through a lane seemingly upholstered with yellow squash blossoms, we arrive at an area where zucchini are piled high in baskets sorted by size. Each bears a hand-lettered sign raunchily advertising the seller’s wares. Later, in the car heading back to my hotel, Lalo and I debate which was choicest.
My favorite, I say, was a sign that read, in Spanish: how ya like my big one, sluts? Lalo, thoughtful, pauses and says: “I kind of liked the one that said, sit on this!”

Back by seven o’clock, I grab a catnap and a bite of breakfast before trekking the short distance through Chapultepec Park to the Museo Nacional de Antropología in time to be there before its doors are unlocked. Said to be the most visited museum in Mexico, this monumental structure opened in 1964 and was designed by a team led by the architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez. It is certainly the most visited by me. No matter how often I experience it, the freshness of Vázquez’s conception never stales: Its regionally organized collections are displayed in themed exhibition halls, which surround an open-air courtyard shaded by an immense concrete umbrella fountain that rains down on the plaza and refreshes the air. Despite the hordes that reliably descend on the place, it is pretty easy to find an empty gallery—as I do today, bypassing halls dedicated to the death-obsessed Aztecs for another dedicated to the enigmatic peoples of Mexico’s eastern coast.
If little is known with certainty about the Olmecs, there is less still to ratify the origins of a small sculpture I’ve come to see, hardly more than a knick-knack compared with the colossal basalt heads that are the postcard of Olmec artistic achievement, and yet monumental despite its modest scale.

Dynamic, sexy, curiously depicted in a seated position, the sculpture was supposedly discovered in 1933 by a farmer near the Uxpanapa River in the state of Veracruz and is known as The Wrestler, though it might just as plausibly represent a ballplayer or a shaman or even a god.
That some skeptics insist it is a 20th-century fake improves my opinion of it, since like so much else in Mexican art and politics and literature and culture The Wrestler invites and equally resists interpretation. This truth in turn underscores a conclusion I arrived at long ago about this country: If you are not at home with paradox, Mexico is not the place for you.

Museo Jumex

Leaving the anthropology museum, I dart across the Paseo de la Reforma to another section of Chapultepec Park to tick off my next agenda item: the Museo de Arte Moderno’s “Monstruosismos” exhibit, which examines the prevalent duality of beauty and monstrosity in Mexican art. In a typical demonstration of Mexico City’s embarrassment of artistic riches, two other fine subsidiary exhibitions (on Sigmar Polke and Jean Arp) are running concurrently at the museum. I whip through the Polke and skip the Arp because I’ve got other stops to make—at the Museo Jumex ’s sawtooth David Chipperfield building; at a “contemporary art church” run by the creative art collective Biquini Wax; at the Museo Tamayo ’s installation of cloud paintings by the British artist Tacita Dean, works whose imagery was inspired by the skies over Los Angeles (a city that, it seems worth remembering, was once part of Mexico).

Museo- Tamayo

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Also, there is lunch.

During any other week the ride from my hotel in tony Polanco to the working-class Azcapotzalco neighborhood would take an hour. Now I’m whisked there in 20 minutes by one of the city’s cheap and plentiful Ubers, deposited in front of an unpromising squat storefront whose windows are covered with black-out shades.

Founded in 1957 by María Elena Lugo Zermeño, Nicos is a durable institution rediscovered in recent years by both local chefs and the ever-adventurous Japanese. Just over a decade ago its kitchen was taken over by the owner’s son Gerardo Vázquez Lugo, who, though he refreshed the menu to embrace Slow Food precepts, left largely unaltered the recipes of his mother’s solid and deeply traditional homemade fare.
The unfussy atmosphere of Nicos seems almost as time arrested. The white-shirted waiters are methodical and brisk, powering rolling carts to tableside, where they toss Caesar salads or sauté dishes like the one I’d come seeking—escamoles, or Aztec caviar.
These edible ant larvae, harvested from beneath the roots of the maguey cactus, have been considered a delicacy since pre-Hispanic times; references to them appear in the Florentine Codex, a compendious 16th-century ethnographic treatise on Mesoamerica by a Spanish Franciscan friar, who omitted mention of their crunchy texture and nutty flavor, a taste greatly magnified when escamoles are pan-fried in quantities of butter sufficient to stop your heart.
Paying up at the cashier, I summon another Uber for a quick dash to the historic center, my destination the 16th-century Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso.
This austere stone complex constructed by the Jesuits is often said to be the birthplace of the Mexican muralism movement. Yet it isn’t priests or painters I think of on my visit but a famous urbanist who once remarked of old buildings that what they need are new uses.

Repurposed in the 1990s as an arts and cultural center, San Ildefonso is a testament to that notion. And few places seem more conducive to the display of contemporary art than this structure, whose arcaded cloisters and bare vaulted chapels make it a particularly suitable backdrop for the German photographer Candida Höfer’s portraits of landmark buildings throughout Mexico, monumental images that strike me as almost more metaphysical than architectural depictions, portals to other worlds.

After an hour here I walk into the bright sun and make for the nearby zócalo and the city’s main cathedral, where bell ringers are chiming the hour. It is Maundy Thursday. After today, the city begins in earnest to pull down its shutters, a fact I accounted for in my planning by booking into a hotel that has elements about it of a museum gallery.

Camino Real Polanco México

Critics snipe that the Camino Real Polanco México has degenerated over the decades into a soulless convention and business-travel factory. And at over 700 rooms it is hard to discount this complaint. Yet, especially during Holy Week, this elegant resort hotel—designed in a Mexican vernacular style by Ricardo Legorreta and opened in time for the 1968 Olympics—again becomes the civilized oasis I remember from when I was young.
The excitement has hardly faded from those days of turning off Calzada General Mariano Escobedo and passing through an opening in a large magenta screen wall sculptured by the German-Mexican artist Mathias Goeritz, into a forecourt centering on Isamu Noguchi’s roiling “eternal movement” fountain. And while some of the important art commissioned when the Camino Real was first built was sold off when the hotel changed owners in 2000, a great deal remains.

Camino Real Polanco México

Gone is Alexander Calder’s untitled abstract spider, auctioned at Christie’s New York for $5,831,500 in 2003. But Rufino Tamayo’s wall-size mural Man Facing Infinity remains, as do Goeritz’s masterful Abstract in Gold and Pedro Friedeberg’s wackadoodle 16 Riddles of a Hindu Astronaut.
Freed from any further ambitions, I spend my penultimate day in the city reading on the balcony of a suite overlooking the pool and walled garden, my only venture off property being lunch at a restaurant I’d never have gotten into at any other time.

Pujol Restaurant – Mexico City

The place is Pujol, of course, the most celebrated restaurant in Mexico City, and newly reopened on a residential side street in nearby Polanco. It was almost a year ago that the chef, Enrique Olvera, abruptly shuttered its predecessor after 17 years, deciding the time had come for a shift in philosophy and change of address.

The white-tablecloth primness of the old Pujol had come to feel out of step for a chef who wanted a new canvas for presenting what the New York Times termed his “playfully elevated street food.” “I realized with Cosme that I like restaurants that are fun,’’ Mr. Olvera said, referring to his popular spot in New York’s Flatiron District. To that end he commissioned the architect Javier Sánchez to design an airy and low-slung bungalow and set it behind a perimeter fence and garden. If Sánchez’s mellow design evokes Southern California as much as it refers to the complex city that surrounds it, the kitchen leaves no question as to where you are.

Pujol Restaurant – Mexico City

Food at Pujol is prepared in a kitchen with no burners or sauté pans, most dishes seared on a wood grill and finished in an oven to preserve the familiarly Mexican savor of smoke. Tortillas are toasted on a comal. A brick oven pit is used for slow-cooked preparations, like the fork-tender lamb barbacoa served as part of a course on what Mr. Olvera terms a taco omakase menu.

Taking my place alongside some regulars at an 11-seat counter, I sit back for a meal that arrives— sushi-bar style—in successive courses, with dishes presented so briskly I barely manage to scratch out notes on what I’ve been served.

There is a Lilliputian ear of corn slathered in coffee mayonnaise and dusted with powdered chicatana ants. There are infladitas, pulled corn tortillas with caviar and crème fraîche. There is a mini-tlayuda, or Oaxacan masa cake served with refritos, white Oaxacan cheese, and herbs. There is a taco of raw sea bass on a corn tortilla drizzled with a puree of cilantro, jalapeño, ginger, and xpelon beans. There are tacos of pork belly, of waygu beef, of barbecued lamb.

“I recommend you take a little taste of every sauce first to see how much you can handle,” says a friendly server whose elaborate mane of dreads is caught up in a bright bandanna. Along the same lines, she improvises a drink pairing for each course, beginning with a can of Tecate served with a wedge of lime.

The meal ranges on for hours, and the drinks keep coming: a Chenin blanc, a xoconoxtle margarita, a tamarind agua fresca garnished with a salt of ground maguey worms, a garnet Palo Cortado sherry, and a red wine whose label I forget.
I am wiser by now and limit myself to judicious sips. When offered a generous pour of a 12-year-old mezcal by the server, I mention my recent firewater mishap and ask for the check.

“Mezcal,” I say as I pay up, “is a mistake you only make once.”

GUY TREBAY

The philosophy in Norway seems to be: If you must build something, build it with style.

Stigrøra (top of Trollstigen) and the architecture of the facilities for visitors are spectacular. The philosophy in Norway seems to be: If you must build something, build it with style. And Lindås
and Watery sunset in this small village in Nordhordland district in Hordaland counts as a watery morning

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Los Jameos Del Agua – Punta De Mujeres, Spain

Los Jameos Del Agua on Lanzarote found a champion in locally born architect, César Manrique.

Manrique was a dedicated protector and champion of the unique geology of the island and lobbied successfully for strict building regulations to protect it from those horrible high rises that blight so many warm weather destinations in Europe.

Consequently, the vast majority of buildings on the island are tasteful low-slung whitewashed structures which create a great contrast with the surrounding environment. That along with a famous Grand Canaria #architect Fernando Navarro, who built this three story family home in the centre of Las Palmas in the 1800s.

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The Azores may be reminiscent of the British Isles but the architecture is all #Portugal.

The landscape of the Azores may be reminiscent of the British Isles but the architecture is all #Portugal.

Though they’re sparsely populated and feel quite remote and isolated feeling, the islands are actually only two hours by plane from mainland Portugal and four from the east coast of USA. Years ago flights between #Barbados and the UK had to stop here to refuel.

Vila Franca do Campo, Azores and Nordeste, Azores

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