Friday I got so wrapped up in La Fete de la Musique that I left out quite a few other things.

First of all, today is World Refugee Day, a day to consider the 40 million refugees worldwide. This evening at 8, Books & Books in Coral Gables is hosting a discussion of the international refugee situation with Irwin Stotzky of the University of Miami, Denise Wallace of St. Thomas University, and the staff of the International Rescue Committee.

Sweet Mango Tours is offering a trip to northern Thailand December 20, 2008 - January 4, 2009. Price is $2,750 (not including air) and the trip involves a homestay in a rural rice-farming village. Linda Wheatley, who leads the tours, wrote: "I did this with my two kids when they were 10 and 14 - we trekked through northern jungles and spent Christmas in a host village. Then we celebrated New Year's with my friends in Northeast Thailand - lighting fire-crackers, sweating in the tropical heat and wandering an enormous city fair. I'm hoping to engage other American families in trying a different kind of holiday season - for those looking to give of their hearts and receive in kind."

Some big names are coming to Miami: The Rhythm Foundation is bringing the great Brazilian singer, songwriter and, more recently, cultural minister Gilberto Gil to The Fillmore Miami Beach at the Jackie Gleason Theater Saturday, July 5.

Three days later (July 8), Salman Rushdie will speak at Temple Judea in Coral Gables (the crowds he attracts are too big to fit in Books & Books).

If you're traveling, the wonderful klezmer duo of Deborah Strauss and Jeff Warschauer will be performing and teaching at the Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow, Poland, June 28-July 6. I've been to the festival twice, and it is a fascinating event.

And - now for a little self-advertisement - if you're in Australia next month I'll be speaking, and teaching, at the Melbourne Festival of Travel Writing July 19-20.

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La Fete de la Musique began in France in 1982 as a way to recognize musicians and entertain the public during the summer solstice. The thinking, clearly, was that maypoles just didn't cut it anymore.

I was in Paris once for the event, which was like nothing I had ever seen. You wandered the neighborhoods, stumbling upon solitary folk singers, classical trios, R&B bands, African drummers, French chanteurs. Music seemed to emanate from every street, and carried on long into the night. It was as if the city had been turned into an endless series of open-air studios, with the public passing freely from one to the other.

The festival was so popular it has now spread around the world. Tomorrow, from 6-11, the Alliance Francaise in Miami will hold its own Fete de la Musique at its headquarters on Calle Ocho. And, as in Paris, there is no charge.

It's a start. But wouldn't a Fete de la Musique be great for the city of Miami? Imagine starting at the Arsht Center (where else?), strolling up Biscayne Boulevard serenaded by sounds, and then heading into the Design District, where the normally quiet streets would be animated by singers, bands, people, life.

Just a thought.

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It's hurricane season, and there's one part of Florida that feels so safe from hurricanes that it's offering a "Storm Free Guarantee." That would be Amelia Island Plantation, which promises the same rate on a return trip if the first is disrupted by, I don't know, Hanna. Plus $100 credit at the resort's restaurants. It's been more than 40 years since Amelia Island, off the northeast coast of Florida, experienced hurricane conditons. I remember in St. Augustine a few summers ago, people telling me that hurricanes just don't come ashore there either. We shall see.

Every time I open an envelope that's got "Tower Theater-Miami Dade College" written in the top left corner I find something interesting inside. The latest was a notice about a guitar concert by Dr. Rene Gonzalez (the chair of the guitar department at the University of Miami), Jose Alfredo Fernandez, and graduate students. It's June 26 at 7 pm, with a reception at 6:30. Afterwards you can have a nice dinner on Calle Ocho. Call 305-649-2960.

If you're going to San Francisco (or if you're already there) the city is presenting free concert and film series this summer. These include the Del Monte Square Film Festival (Aug 3-24); Film Night in the Park (now through October); Golden Gate Park Band (every Sunday through Oct. 12); and Jewels in the Square which takes place at Union Square and features, among other groups, the "original Spanish Surf Mexican Gypsy Pirate Pop Band" (through the end of October). You know it's summer in San Francisco because the film festival notes that hot beverages will be available for purchase.

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The wonderful local jazz singer Adriana Samargia will be performing tomorrow (Friday) at the City of West Palm Beach Library from 5:30-7:30. The library is at the corner of Clematis and Flagler, and the event is free.

I heard Adriana in Fort Lauderdale a few months ago, backed by her trusty quartet, and was totally captivated by her voice, her presence, her sweet-and-sultry rendition of jazz classics. She is a little-known treasure in South Florida, and deserves a wide and faithful following.

Adriana's new CD, Both Sides, will be for sale at the library. It is also availabe through her website.

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A few ideas:

Prince Edward Island is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Anne of Green Gables with the opening of a new theater - the Montgomery - which will be presenting works by writers who influenced Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Gray Line of Seattle is offering eight different culinary tours of the city throughout the summer. A chef from a top restaurant boards the bus, takes participants to a market to shop fo dinner, and then brings everyone back to his (or her) restaurant to eat it. $99.95 per person.

Churchill, Manitoba is often billed as the "polar bear capital of the world," and you can go there with The Great Canadian Travel Company. (I told you last week there was something about that name.) There's a six-day trip scheduled for Oct. 30 and a three-day trip on Oct. 31. Price for the first is $1,969, for the second $1,589.

An e-mail arrived this week from the Department of State urging me to tell everyone that, beginning June 2009 - in other words, in one year - Americans will need "a passport or a passport card, or some other way to prove you're an American citizen" - no matter how you travel outside the United States. Because of this, they recommend that people who need passports apply for them now. Visit www.travel.state.gov/passport

The French Open (OK, I'm a little obsessed) reminds us that the U.S. Open is just a couple months away (Aug. 25-Sept. 7). The Bryant Park Hotel in Manhattan is offering special U.S. Open rates starting at $289 a night (plus taxes) for two people for a superior room. That ain't bad for New York.

A company with the nearly all-encompassing name of Global Eco-Spiritual Tours is offering a trip to Leh-Ladakh, India, to work on low imact ecological projects in the Himalayan Mountains.

Here in Florida, the Lower Keys are getting ready for the 24th annual Underwater Music Festival, a salute to the November "eel-ections" when "Reefpublicans" run against "Democrabs." Saturday, July 12.

And Thursday, June 12, the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society will host jazz drummer and composer Reuben Hoch at 6 pm at the New River Inn. Free for Gold Coast Jazz Society members; $5 for everyone else.

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If I were in Vermont next week I'd definitely head to Brattleboro for the annual Strolling of the Heifers. So much more civilized than the Running of the Bulls. The parade takes place June 7, and is followed by a Dairy Fest and Market Place and - new this year - the Miss VerMOOOOnt Beauty Pageant.

Clearly, Vermont is a state interested in the graceful, because up in Killington Ballroom Vermont is hosting a 5 and a half day Dance Camp for Grownups. Sessions are July 20-25 and July 27-Aug. 1.

Across the country, Cannery Row in Monterey, California, is celebrating its 50th birthday. Actually, it's been around longer but, in honor of John Steinbeck, the town christened the stretch of old canneries with the name of his novel in January of 1958. It offers a new IMAX 3D Theater and InterContinental hotel. And the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary is still one of the world's great marine ecosystems and popular with both kayakers and sea otters.

Speaking of the sea, The Great Canadian Travel Company (something about that name, boastful as it is, that I like) is conducting a one-week tour to Baffin Island called "Igloolik Whales and Wildlife" (another catchy name). Base camp at Igloolik Point, with guided book expeditions daily. The place apparently is ripe with mammals - walruses and seals in addition to whales - and birds: loons, snowy owls, plovers, etc. Price per person (double occupancy) is $4,999 and includes airfare between Ottawa and Igloolik.

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Happy World Turtle Day. Here are some (unrelated) tips:

Traveling, you want to be on top of things. So why not take a professor along? History professor Bob Feldman is leading a tour titled "The Changing Face of Russia" Sept. 11-22. Four days in Moscow, six in St. Petersburg. Price is $5,990 from New York. www.eastwest-tours.com.

Taking a professor's guidebook along with you would be the next best thing. Stephen Solosky teaches in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Processing at Nassau Community College in Garden City, NY, but for years his other passion has been Paris. So much so that he has written a concise (29-page) guide to the city that is available in a digital format - for free. Write to solosks@yahoo.com

Not a professor - but a former Sun-Sentinel business writer - Alan Snel is leading a one-day, 170-mile, coast-to-coast bike ride (from the ocean in Vero Beach to the Gulf in Clearwater Beach) on June 1. The ride is being held to memorialize the life of Bill Fox of Middletown, NY, who died in a bicycle accident in the Hudson Valley on June 1, 2002.
alansnel@yahoo.com

It always seemed to me that if you can't make it to faraway places, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival would be the next best thing. The festival is held every summer on the National Mall and showcases a number of different cultures. This year: Bhutan, NASA and Texas. Dates are June 25-29 and July 2-6.

Back in Florida, The Inn on Fifth in downtown Naples is offering special summer rates for Florida residents: $119 a night Sunday-Thursday; $129 Friday and Saturday. Good through Oct. 31.

Up in St. Petersburg Beach, the TradeWinds Island Resort is offering rates of $169 a night for Florida residents (good through Sept. 30).

The nearby Don CeSar (aka The Pink Palace) has rates of $189 a night from June 1-Sept. 30 and you don't even have to live in Florida to get them. You can live ANYWHERE!

And next Friday, May 30 Slow Food Miami is presenting a screening of King Corn: You Are What You Eat at the Wolfsonian in South Beach. The film, at 7 pm, is free; dinner afterwards in the museum's Dynamo Cafe is $100 (plus film and champagne reception at 6:30).

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No, it's not Friday (unfortunately), but I've got some things that really shouldn't wait.

Tony Horwitz, the travel writer with a thing for history, is going to be reading at Books & Books in Coral Gables Friday evening at 8 pm. Horwitz, author of Confederates in the Attic and Blue Latitudes, has a new book, A Journey Long & Strange, in which he goes in search of this continent's early explorers. Horwitz has been writing a blog of his book tour, so if you show up Friday and fling him a question he's never been asked, who knows, you might end up in it.

"Living Among the Artists Workshops" is a program sponsored by Fort Lauderdale's Legacy Art Studio, and takes place June 18-23 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Classes are in sculpture and oil painting ($500 for five). Accommodations at The Gallery Inn are $125 a night. 954-527-5606.

The Fort Lauderdale Historical Society is hosting a reception for a new exhibit, Charles Mills: Portraits in Jazz and Life, May 29th from 6:30-9:00 pm at the New River Inn. Vocalist Nicole Yarling will perform. $25 for Historical Society and Jazz Society members; $35 for everyone else.

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Mei from WildChina is now in China, and just sent me this message from one of her guides, Philip He:

Today we went to Dujiangyan, the both sides of the streets are almost all occupied by tents of different shapes and from different material. Most people are still scared to go back to their apartment buildings. There are some better tents with big Chinese character 救灾(Disaster-Relief), mostly they are only used for injured people or people who live in a big apartment building which have collapsed fully in the strong quake.

When we came to the Dujiangyan TCM Hospital (Traditional Chinese Medicine), we were shocked by large group of people standing outside with expecting eyes. Most of them have been waiting there since the happening of Earthquake, which make a big in-patient building collapsed and buried hundreds of people and patients. Soldiers and policemen are standing in lines outside by the side of the waiting people.

Inside the gate, two heavy excavators are working. I was told they have been working here for 4 days without stop. Whenever there is a body found, a certain person will come and tell some features of the newfound body. The relatives who think it might be the person they are waiting for will be allowed to go in to indentify. Then the body will be sent to a place shrouded in yellow plastic cloth.

At the gate, we met two middle aged ladies. They were waiting for their relatives. They were from one family. About 14 of their family members were in that hospital discussing financial help to a poor injured family member from a car accident. Just at that moment, the eathquake happened. The father of the injured man reacted so fast that he got 3 family members escaped from the window bars. Later on, he rescued another two persons from the collapsed buiildings. But no more good lunck fall upon him. No more suvivors of his big family have been found. After 4 days of waiting, only 3 bodies have been found, though he still hope miracle would happen.

While they are waiting, most of people still can't understand why all the buildings around them collapsed and one still stands steady after the strong earthquake and so many aftershocks.

When we left they were still waiting with hope and pain, the pain is not just from the loss of their closest family members, but also from the equally fragile buildings...... They hope one day someone will give them a good answer.....

I hope this answer will not be long.

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Just throwing out a few ideas...

Value World Tours is offering discounts of $500 a person on its 11-night cruise on Ukraine's Dnieper River, starting in Kiev and ending in Odessa. Which means fares now range from $1,199 to $1,698.

The Caribbean island of Dominica is hosting its 15th annual Dive Fest July 11-20.

If you want to travel a little closer to home, Fort Myers has some deals. The Wynstar Inn & Suites is offereing Summer Golf and Summer Spa packages of three-night stays for, respectively, $490.83 and $391.43. And Homewood Suites by Hilton has an Edison & Ford Winter Estates Package for $129 a night plus tax (based on availability).

If you prefer traveling vicariously, the Tower Theater on Calle Ocho in Little Havana is showing classic Italian films in its Cinema Italia program running the third weekends of May and June. Luchino Visconti's Ossessione starts things off this evening. Phone 305-642-1264.

And get ready for the 12th Brazilian Film Festival of Miami, with films screening throughout South Beach May 30-June 7.

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My mom and I arrived a little before noon, driving past Moravian College, the 6th oldest in the United States (founded in 1742). There was an art fair on Main Street, so we browsed the booths set up in front of handsome brick buildings, the familiar red facades of Pennsylvania.

The Moravian Book Shop took up several storefronts and included a gift shop and cafe, where we had lunch - quiche and salad followed by delicious rice pudding. A man was happily giving away samples of chocolates at one table while a woman - Ukrainian on one side of her family, American Indian and Pennsylvania Dutch on the other - painted intricate designs on eggs. Easter eggs in the Christmas City.

A little before two we headed south across the Lehigh River, empty steel mills rusting on our left. Mom said that there were plans to build a casino on the site. Gambling in the Christmas City.

Well-dressed people walked the sloping paths of Lehigh University - blue blazers and grey slacks were in abundance, and bow ties occasionally appeared under heads that looked professorial. Trees wore fresh green leaves and the dogwoods blazed.

Packer Memorial Church was packed. Our seats were in the north transept, close to the orchestra and 70-plus choir, and with an unobstructed view of the gorgeous stained glass windows.

The conductor appeared, and the music began: J.S. Bach's Mass in B Minor. The church filled with an exquisite, moving, ageless music. H.L. Mencken used to come up from Baltimore for this festival - this was the 101st - and in one of his articles about it he surmised that even if no one came to hear them, the Bach choir of Bethlehem would still sing, with the same passion and conviction, the music of the great German composer.

It is probably true, but it was not a thought that occurred to me on Saturday. Because the audience was large, and wrapt, and rose in enthusiastic applause after the appropriate period of silence that followed the last note. When the conductor Greg Funfgeld spoke at the end, he thanked the audience for its support during his 25 years at the helm. To which a man in the pew across the aisle from us shouted, "Thank YOU!"

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On Wednesday, May 7th - the eve of the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel - cities throughout the country, not just Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, will celebrate with fireworks, laser-light displays, and music.

Last year saw more Americans visit Israel than ever, and tourism is up 51% this year. Nothing like a birthday party to bring in guests.

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Photo by Jennifer Fondo-Cohen
I didn't get to watch too much of the festival on Book-TV - C-Span 2's indispensible 48 hours of nonfiction book coverage every weekend - but I have friends in interesting places. Clink on "comments" for one woman's report of her day at the fair.

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As you've probably gathered, I'm a big fan of Miami, but until this past Saturday I had never been to a University of Miami baseball game.

"It's hard to imagine doing anything else on an evening like this," said my friend Toby, a long-time supporter of the team.

And it was. From the first base line we had a beautiful view down to the two spreading ficus trees shading the bleachers at the terminus of the third base line. If you moved your eye from the pitcher on the mound to those leafy twins you could imagine yourself watching a game played in a pasture - in a field of dreams.

A student with the made-for-baseball name of Yonder Alonso hit a home run to give Miami the lead. There was music between innings, but it wasn't blasted the way it is at Marlins games. At 9 o'clock Billy Joel sang, "It's 9 o'clock on a Saturday."

"That's what's so great about baseball," said Toby's daughter Jane, a student at U of M law school. "You can just break out in song and it's OK. Nobody looks at you funny."

There was also a between-innings quiz. "In what country is the Nobel Peace Prize given?" (Norway.)

After Miami won it in the bottom of the 10th, we walked to the parking garage, our way scented by the flowers of an orange jasmine hedge.

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Speaking of Miami, one of the unpublicized glories of the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Miami is how accessible it is making those arts.

A couple Fridays ago, my wife and I enjoyed Carmina Burana from $15 seats. Yes, we were in the top balcony, a few rows from the back, but it's not a piece of music you have to sit next to the stage to enjoy.

This morning I just bought a ticket for $10 for Handel's Julius Caesar this Wednesday. (Tickets are a bit more expensive on the weekends.)

At a time of soaring prices, this is an unexpected bargain.

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The Friday tradition continues...

If you've ever wanted to be a lighthouse keeper (and live by the side of the bay), Traverse City, Michigan, is offering you the chance. The "tiny" 138-year-old lighthouse is at the tip of Old Mission Peninsula (in the northwest part of the state) and is available for $800 a month.

Somewhat related, the vacation rental company Untours (love that name) is offering an enticing package - 14 nights in a cottage in Provence, round-trip airfare from New York, car rental and on-site support for $2,289 per person.

Sea Kayak Adventures has a 6-day trip (by kayak wouldn't you know) around the island archipelago off Port Hardy, British Columbia, an area rich in whales, seals, sea otters and porpoises. The cost of $1,195 includes water taxi from Port Hardy, guides, meals, camping and kayaking gear.

A few festivals of note: The Palo de Mayo (Maypole Festival) takes place throughout the month of - you guessed it - May in - here's the surprise - Nicaragua. Lots of costumes, beauty pageants, reggae dancing, etc.

The fourth annual "Taste Trinidad & Tobago" will take place in Port-of-Spain May 24-25 and focus on the relationship between tradition and food. Restaurant week follows May 26-31.

Jen reminded me that this weekend is the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, so if you're in Southern California you can hear, among others, Pico Iyer talking about his new book on the Dalai Lama.

And if you're in Washington, DC, from May 3-17 many embassies and cultural centers will be opening their doors to visitors.

The Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan has come up with a "The Girls Are Back in Town" package (in honor of the release of the Sex And The City movie) which includes a room at the Roosevelt, cosmos at the new Mad-46 Rooftop Lounge, a Sex And The City Tour, a milk and cookies midnight snack and breakfast in bed. Cost is $521 for two, based on double occupancy and a minimum stay of two nights.

Not to be outdone, out on the west coast Esotouric (another wonderfully named company) and City Lights Books are offering "Haunts of A Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski's 'LA' Bus Tour" on May 31 (appropriately, during BookExpo) from 5 pm - 9 pm. The tour will include visits to Skid Row, Crown Hill and favorite bars and liquor stores. There will be no milk and coookies.

Now friends - as the Republican candidate for president likes to say - what interesting things are happening in your backyards?

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Thank God it's ... that day when we look at the best press releases.

First off, if you're in Fort Lauderdale tonight you can hear in person one of the most recorded voices in musical history as the great Indian singer Asha Bhosle (left) performs at the Broward Center. As of yesterday afternoon, $35 tickets (the cheapest) were still available. (I know because I bought two.) More expensive seats are probably available too. Call 954-462-0222 or contact the Rhythm Foundation.

Experiencing a place like a local is always one of the most rewarding but also one of the most difficult parts of travel. The folks at Visit Britain are making it a lot easier with something called British Friends. Located all over England, Scotland and Wales, these people are ready to help tourists by telling them things only the locals know, like what's the best pub in town and where a good band is playing. And you can contact them through the website.

If you're still feeling a little upset about the QE2 being taken out of service, you might want to cheer yourself up with some ocean liner mementos. Swann Galleries in New York City is holding a Maritime Memorabilia Auction May 22, which will include, among many other things, "letters, photographs and postcards" from the Titanic. Call 212-254-4710 or write to ggarland@swanngalleries.com.

A press release arrived announcing a new biannual magazine, Girlfriend Getaways, and its editor Erik Torkells. Yes, the editor of Girlfriend Getaways is a man.

A note to readers: You're not only well-informed, you're well-dispersed. What's coming up in your parts of the world? Drop in a "comment" and let us know. Like the Brits, we can create our own network of locals.

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It wouldn't be Friday without ... the best of the week's press releases.

There are a lot of bike trips through countrysides, but not a lot through cities. Fat Tire Bike Tours takes cyclists around London and Paris (where you ride during the day and at night).

While in London, you could stop by the Imperial War Museum and check out For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond. The exhibit is on through next March, as this year marks the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth.

If a bike is a little too fast for you, the Wayfarers are offering a number of walks through delightful regions of France and Italy (like Provence and Cinque Terre).

Divers love Bonaire and vice versa, as evidenced by something the Dutch Island calls "Bonaire Dive Into Summer 2008." Among the events are International Year of the Reef Week, June 21-28 and Scuba Diving Magazine Week, July 19-26.

And if you're in Fort Lauderdale next Friday (April 18) you can pretend you're in India, and see one of that country's most popular singers, the ageless Asha Bhosle, at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. The event is sponsored by the Broward Center and the wonderful Rhythm Foundation.

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Yesterday, Lawrence R. Samuel spoke at the Broward Main Library about the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair. (I told you he would.)

Even though I attended the fair five times, I learned a lot yesterday. (Hey, I was a pre-teen in the mid-60s!)

The Ford Mustang and the Belgian waffle were both introduced at the fair. The Mustang actually was from Ford, but the waffle wasn't from Belgium; it was from a company called Bel-Gem. (That it became known as a Belgian waffle is, when you think about it, fitting culinary justice for the country that invented the French fry.)

The Unisphere, which still stands, is the largest representation of Earth.

The IBM pavilion, which I recall as a kind of giant egg into which a rising bleacher would regularly disappear, was actually a representation of the ball of a Selectric typewriter, which IBM had recently introduced. For their pavilion, the company decided to replace all the letters of the alphabet with three - IBM - repeated over and over again. (I still remember vividly waiting in line for a seat on the bleacher and listening to a guitarist play The Girl from Ipanema. Ah, the '60s.)

The most visited exhibit was General Motor's Futurama. The second most visited was the Italy pavilion, which contained Michelangelo's The Pieta.

The creator, Robert Moses, broke with World's Fair protocol and charged countries rent. As a result, only 66 participated.

Walt Disney did four of the pavilions: General Electric, Ford, Illinois (an audioanimatron of Abe Lincoln) and Pepsi-Cola, which featured the now-famous "it's a small world" (no capital letters) exhibit. He wanted to build Disney World on the site after the fair closed, but Moses wouldn't allow it. So he moved it to a small town in Florida.

Many more interesting facts can be found in Samuel's The End of Innocence: The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair (published by Syracuse University Press).

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If, like me, you're fond of things Brazilian, South Florida is about the second best place to be right now.

There is a retrospective of Brazilian cinema - Fome de Film - going on now through May 3. It is sponsored by Florida Atlantic University and the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.

And, in honor of the 50th anniversary of Bossa Nova, Books & Books in Coral Gables is featuring concerts, lectures, and workshops every Monday evening this month, beginning tonight.

It's a blue, yellow and green April.

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It took place, appropriately perhaps, in New York City from 1964-1965, and over 52 million people attended. Though that figure may be a bit high, since many people went more than once. I made the trek from New Jersey five times.

Last year a book about the great fair appeared, The End of the Innocence: The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair, by Lawrence R. Samuel. And the author will be speaking at the Broward County Main Library, Gallery 6, at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, April 8.

A footnote: One of the things the book probably doesn't discuss is the fair's influence on a generation of American travel writers.

Last year at the annual Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference in Corte Madera, CA, the conference organizer, Don George, mentioned the fair, as he had grown up in Connecticut during the '60s.

Immediately, John Flinn, travel editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and former Philly boy, said he'd been there too, as did Jeff Greenwald (Long Island), author of Shopping for Buddhas.

I wasn't surprised. As I write in my book, A Way to See the World:

"That doomed city in Queens was the first one I learned by heart, and it was there that I acquired a taste for maps, streets, buildings, and mingling with, what seemed to me then, all the conceivable races of the world."

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When I'm feeling low (yes, even travel editors get the blues) there are two places in South Florida that can instantly cheer me up: the MacArthur Causeway, especially on a weekend when the ships are in port, and the Hollywood Broadwalk.

The Broadwalk is like a safe house away from all the posturing and pretension of South Florida. The faces you see are not sophisticated but they're real. They often have a toughness that speaks of hard lives, hard winters. And this makes the smiles all the more precious.

So if you're in need of a lift, take a stroll on the Broadwalk this Saturday. And when you're done, head over to Young Circle, where something called "an eco-diversity event" will be taking place. I'm not sure what that is, but I do know that it will include music and dance from Latin America, West Africa, Turkey and India. So you can feel uplifted AND transported.

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I walked through the gates a little before 11 and within minutes had my first revelation: Ana Ivanovic looks a lot leaner, but not necessarily meaner, in person. After her morning practice session she dutifully signed autographs for her adoring fans.

By the far practice courts I found the tennis coach for Cardinal Gibbons. Jodi was watching her boyfriend hit with the South African doubles team he coaches. He was staying, like a lot of players, with a local family - the same thing she had done when she was playing professionally. It gave the tour a homey touch. She said her hosts were always cooking for her, insisting she taste the local delicacies. "I'd always gain about five pounds," she said laughing.

From there I headed over to the playing courts. Loud chanting was coming from #8, where Francesca Schiavone was playing Dominika Cibulkova. I found a seat in the first row, just in front of Cibulkova's coach.

"Bratislava," he said, when I asked where he was from.

"Slovakia's got some good players," I said.

"Used to," he said, before suggesting that the national federation wasn't doing a good job.

"Like in all the former Communist countries now," he said, "everybody's trying to get rich."

"Except us," his friend said smiling.

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