Latest / Letter to America / All Aboard

Transcript

All Aboard · Letter to America

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: From an early age, my dad grew up in a motel my grandfather had built in Minneapolis.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: My grandfather wanted to have his own business, one that wouldn't pull him away from his family on trips and force him to go to an office every day.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: The Cross Keys Motel's motto was friendly comfort, and it had a small pool and offered airport transfers in a VW bus.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: They had fresh coffee and crispy cream donuts in the lobby.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: My dad and uncles worked in the operation for their allowances, and they lived in an apartment on the premises.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: My dad cleaned the dirt and bugs off the windscreens of guests' cars to pick up some extra tips, and a ten cent bounty from the gas station next door if guests went by to fill up.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I remember visiting there once as a young boy myself and was blown away by what I called the authomatic coffee machine that would fill a cup automatically when you put in a quarter.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Travel and hospitality were in my dad's blood, and one of my favorite stories was about the transatlantic leg of his trip to Hydravont, India, as a Fulbright scholar in 1963.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: The program mandated that everyone use American travel companies as much as possible, so he was booked on the 100% made in the USA, SS, United States, from New York to Southampton, England.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: The ship was built for speed with modern technology and materials.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: They bragged that the only wood on board was the butcher's block and the Steinway Grand Piano.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Her maiden voyage was a decade or so earlier, and she was like the Concorde of passenger ships, built to break the speed record.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: She did so on her maiden voyage in 1952, winning the Blue Ribbon Prize for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic by passenger ship.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: She did so in three days, ten hours, and forty minutes, and the record stands to this day along with her 35 knot average speed, over forty miles an hour.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: My father said that despite cruising at more reasonable speeds, the ship was not as comfortable as you might imagine.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: More function than form.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Its design was mid-century modern in a way that made it feel austere and cold.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: The decks were so windswept you really couldn't spend any time outside.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: In 1958, Pan American's Transatlantic Jet Service had launched and marked the last year that more passengers crossed the ocean by sea than by air.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: By my dad's voyage, the state-of-the-art ocean liner was losing its pride of position, but still left an impression on a young man experiencing the romance of travel by ocean liner, even sharing the voyage with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: He was amused that the couple's dogs were walked several decks down from their suite on my father's.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm writing this today from the Grapes Inn in Southampton, a few hundred meters or yards from the ocean terminal where the United States would have docked.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: My dad hopped on the statesman boat train to London to meet up with family friends for a few days before he continued his journey with the PO line through the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean on slower, more comfortable, and yet less glamorous ships.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: His first night on land, he stayed in a luxury hotel for the first time, the Savoy of London, a place conceived and committed to service.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: London's first luxury hotel in 1889, electric lights, elevators, ensuite bathrooms, and limitless hot water.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: My father recalled heading to the bar and being stopped at the door by the manager.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: He approached and said, Excuse me, sir, I have a problem.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: He proceeded to explain that he could be fired if my dad were to enter without a coat and tie.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: He apologized and asked my dad if he could do him a favor and let him lend my father a coat and tie to wear.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Properly attired, he enjoyed his first evening back on land and went back to his room, the Chinese suite filled with antiques.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: A decade or so later, he got an MBA in hotel administration and a job offer from the Istanbul Hilton Hotel, which opened in 1955 and was their first destination beyond the Americas.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: It added air conditioning and iced cold drinking water piped into every room to the definition of modern luxury.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: By the time we got there in the late 70s, it was what my dad affectionately called a lifeboat hotel, an American cocoon, to shelter you from the foreign country you've come to visit.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: It delivered efficiency and consistency to ensure you had a safe place to rest and recuperate from your day exploring foreign lands.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Intercontinentals, Sheratons, Marriottes, and many other fleets of lifeboats were scattered on distant shores over the decades, providing a sense of security, but not much in the way of service.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: But that Hilton was the garden, swimming pool, and playground that we didn't have in our neighborhood.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was given free reign around the property.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: The chef showed me the huge lobster claw he'd found.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: The PR manager, a former Miss Europe, made me blush every time I saw her and gave me a long-haired Dachshund puppy from the first dog show in Turkey that took place in the ballroom of the hotel.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was like a real life Eloise, but at the Hilton, not the plaza.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Then our world changed.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was in college, and we moved from Cairo to Hong Kong on a Thai Airways flight in first class.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was the start of a 10-year love affair with the air travel, hotels, and service like I'd never experienced before.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: For the first time in my life, I got a taste of the kind that my dad had experienced at the Savoy.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Over the next decade, I was lucky enough to stay in every Mandarin Oriental in the chain at the time, except Hong Kong, because I lived there, literally.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: After graduation, I moved to Hong Kong and ended up working with the ad agency for regional international hotels.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: I lived in a tiny studio apartment in mid-levels on Hong Kong Island.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was well designed and clean.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: But let's just say in order to fit, I had to sleep diagonally across and point my legs off the edge of the bed.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: I avoided going home until it was time to sleep and spent as much time as possible out and about.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Especially after my parents moved to Istanbul a few months after my arrival.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: The mandarin became the living room, dining room, and general hangout that I didn't have at home.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: John Nielsen, the bartender at the Chinnery Bar, Gary in the lobby, and Giovanni, the concierge, kept an eye on me and steered me towards help when I needed it.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of people who lived in mid-levels, I struggled to find a taxi in Central and used the Mandarin cab stand as a hack.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Cabs always turned up there looking for a big fare from a tourist going to the airport or Stanley Market.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'd stand in line and give Gary the small tip that I could afford for letting me use it.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't let me cut like a guest would have been allowed to, except when it rained.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Then, when the line wrapped around the hotel and I stepped out the door, Gary would greet me enthusiastically and say, It's great to have you staying with us, and shepherd me into the first cab with a knowing smile.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: A friend once said that the best way he could describe the concept of feeling at home was the way he felt his room was prepared for his visits in our house.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sincere care and attention paid to needs, but also to comfort and aesthetics.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Not what's done, but how and why.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: A book or a magazine we'd talked about left on a side table, a bag of toiletries or clothes left from a past visit in his row.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: His favorite snacks or beverages already in the fridge.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: When I was checking in at the Grapes Inn in Southampton, the young bartender handed me the keys and asked me where we were heading the next morning.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: I told him we were heading to the railway station to catch a ferry.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Let me arrange a cab for you.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: They're hard to catch on the pedestrian road out front.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's close to traffic.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: I thanked him and was even more appreciative the next morning when the cab pulled up at 9 15 a.m.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: sharp.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: The pub wasn't even open.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we dropped the keys in the box and headed off.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is Hondoline from the Isle of Wight.