IN TRANSIT: ABU DHABI -- I had the good fortune of flying to the Gulf aboard Etihad, the UAE's #2 airline (and, like Avis, they try harder). Etihad was Abu Dhabi's response back in 2003, when Dubai's Emirates was already well on its way to world domination. I was lucky enough to be upgraded to Pearl (i.e. Business) class for the 14-hour non-stop to Abu Dhabi, which included one of the softest, 180-degree lie-flat beds I've ever slept on at 36,000 ft. Emirates may be serving New York with three flights a day, and Qatar Airways may have just started service (via a stopover in Geneva, which means your sleeping patterns have more time to adjust, I guess), but I arrived on Etihad with one of the milder cases of jet lag I've ever known. We'll see how I do in coach on the way back -- a 2 AM departure, and an 8:30 AM arrival. Ugh.

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IN TRANSIT: NYC -- Typically, I like to fill notebook after 99-cent notebook from CVS when it comes to jotting down thoughts in the field. But Studio Touristique's double-sided "Observations In Airports/Observations On Planes is too convenient (and too cute, really) to resist. It will no doubt come in handy on July 3, when I end up in Abu Dhabi International with 8 hours to kill before my 2 AM flight back to New York...

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IN TRANSIT: DUBAI -- Taken on the runway of Dubai World Central, the $42 billion airport that will be the world's largest someday (around 2017 or so, they're hoping). But for now, it's just 140 sq. km of desert, and they can't keep the camels out.

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IN TRANSIT: DUBAI -- Sorry for the light (read: nonexistent) posting schedule. I've been in the Arabian (sorry: "Persian") Gulf region for the past week already, hop-scotching from Dubai, to Doha (the capital of Qatar) to Abu Dhabi (the capital of the United Arab Emirates, not that you'd ever know it with Dubai glittering nearby so brightly. I'll be doing my best the rest of this week to get caught up, starting with a few photos. The tower to your left is the Burj Dubai, rising above the smaller towers of the "Old Town" development that surrounds the Burj itself. An example of typically witty Dubai real estate humor is to dryly mention that "the Old Town isn't finished yet." Get it? BTW, the Burj Dubai itself will cost $1 billion to build, while the complete 500 acre development (which includes the Dubai Mall, the world's largest) will cost a cool $20 billion. As you'll see, that's merely the ante for building in Dubai.

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IN TRANSIT: PACKING FOR THE MIDDLE EAST -- I have a 14-hour flight to Abu Dhabi to look forward to on Monday, and the only thing that will carry me through with my sanity even partially intact is my pair of Bose Quietcomfort2 noise-canceling headphones. At $300 a pair, they aren't cheap (although they cost $50 less than the slightly smaller, somewhat tweaked Quietcomfort3) but they reduce the roar of in-flight white noise to a more manageable whisper. They are the single most important travel tool I own, the key to sleeping on a plane (along with a mask), and to actually getting any writing done.

But they aren't the only pair out there. David Pogue has a roundup in today's New York Times comparing the Bose models to eight somewhat more affordable competitors. He found plenty of models to like, and in agreement with Wired (in a story that doesn't appear to be online), that Audio-Technica's ATH-ANC7 pair of headphones for audiophiles is the winner. Do yourself a favor and pick up a pair before your next flight.

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IN TRANSIT: PACKING FOR THE MIDDLE EAST -- According to Weather.com, it's currently 93 degrees in Dubai, with 63% humidity, which makes it feel like 104. And it's 11 o'clock at night. But even now, the round-the-clock work crews are adding floors to what will soon be the world's tallest building. It was a 35-story stump when I visited in February 2006; it's more than a hundred stories tall now, and it's still only halfway finished (as you can see in the rendering). Tonight (i.e. Wednesday, June 13) at The New York Academy of Sciences, the architects of SOM and the engineers of Samsung (yes, Samsung is into heavy construction, too), talk about the challenges of building the world's largest, state-of-the-art tower. From the program copy:

"Height, heat, and concrete are three basic challenges of this titanic project being constructed by the high-rise experts of South Korea’s Samsung Corporation. Turner International is the project and construction manager. The executive in charge of Highrise Building and Structural Engineering Divisions for the Samsung Corporation, general contractors Burj Dubai, will explain the planning and execution on this unprecedented feat of skyscraper construction."

Sponsored by the Skyscraper Museum, which is hosting an exhibit on the Burj Dubai through August, the lecture promises to make structural engineering sound fascinating. And considering I'm leaving for Dubai on Monday (the high that day: 107), I won't miss it. Walk-ups are welcome, and the details are here.
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IN TRANSIT: PACKING FOR THE MIDDLE EAST -- The last of the Persian Gulf's emerging Big Three airlines is finally scheduled to begin non-stop service to the U.S. later this month. Qatar Airways will join the Dubai-based Emirates and Abu Dhabi–based Etihad in flying from Doha to Newark, along with flights to Washington Dulles a few weeks later. The three are locked in a battle to be the biggest and most luxurious carriers on lucrative long-haul routes, so passengers should be thankful for the extra competition. I'm hopping a flight on Etihad to Abu Dhabi on Monday, then catching a ride on the complimentary car/bus service (even for coach passengers) to Dubai, which is only 60 miles away. But I am using Qatar Airways to zoom up to Doha and back the week after that. (And, with any luck, I'll have a chance to speak with the airline's executives while they're waiting for the first flight to New York.) Just to give you a taste of how these carriers differ from American ones, even on short haul flights, here's the list of meal options offered to me on a 55-minute flight from Dubai to Doha:
• Asian Vegetarian
• Bland Meal
• Child Meal
• Diabetic Meal
• Fruit Platter (my choice for breakfast)
• Gluten-free Meal
• High Fibre Meal
• Hindu (non Vegetarian)
• Infant/Baby Food
• Low Calorie
• Low Fat, Low Cholesterol
• Low Protein
• Low Purin
• Low Sodium
• Non-lactose
• Oriental
• Raw Vegetarian
• Seafood
• Vegetarian (lacto-ovo)
• Vegetarian (non-dairy)
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IN TRANSIT: ANN ARBOR -- Calling Zingerman's Deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the "Dean & Deluca of the Midwest" is an unfair comparison... Zingerman's is much better, and much, much more expensive than anything you'll find in SoHo.

Although Zingerman's has won more than its fair share of foodie plaudits (most recently, Food & Wine dubbed it one of the World's 25 Best Food Markets, and one of only two from the U.S.), but I first discovered it five years ago in the pages of Inc., which, in another burst of hyperbole, called it "The Coolest Small Company in America."

Founded 25 years ago by Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw, Zingerman's Deli is the linchpin in an entire ecosystem of artisanal eats, including Zingerman's Bakehouse, Zingerman's Next Door, Zingerman's Creamery, Zingerman's Roadhouse, and a catering business -- all of which are in Ann Arbor and none of which are franchised. It's an organic empire that any city in America would kill for, and the bobo enclave Ann Arbor's got it.

I made a pilgrimage last week while I happened to be passing through, and decided to pick up a sandwich as well as a gift for Sophie. I elected for the "Bagel Over Tokyo" (a toasted bagel with lox, cream creese, and wasabi), a side of cous cous, a soda and a bag of rugelach. The total? $28.42. The rugelach alone was $9 for six pieces. (D&D, I will never mutter under my breath about you again.)

The food was delicious, of course (and I've ended up eating most of the rugelach myself), but what utterly blew me away was the service -- Midwest charm and hospitality ratcheted up to a near-absurd degree. First there was the cheerful girl taking my sandwich order and warning me that it would take a good 20 minutes to be made. Deciding not to wait for my sandwich before paying, I stood in line behind a regular named Maggie, to whom I mentioned I was from out of town and who then insisted on buying me one of Zingerman's famous (and justly so) brownies. Then the girl at the register gave me strict instructions for what to do while I waited: "Keep shopping, sampling as much as you. Make sure you walk next door and sample the gelato case. Don't stop asking." I followed her instructions to the letter, although I gave up sampling gelato early to feast on the free WiFi instead.

I had nearly forgotten my sandwich when yet another staffer walked into Zingerman's Next Door calling my name and holding my sandwich in a plastic bin. Setting it down at my table, she quickly packed my sack dinner to go, and once again encouraged me to sample the gelato on my way out. Unreal.

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IN TRANSIT: DETROIT -- On my free night in Detroit this past week, I decided to go cruising for ruins. One of Detroit's major "attractions" is its breathtaking and heartbreaking collection of pre-Depression brick skyscrapers dotting its skyline. Grand Circus Park, which lies just to the west of Comerica Park and Ford Field (the home of baseball's Tiger's and football's Lions, respectively) has long been described as a "skyscraper graveyard" thanks to buildings like the Kales Building, Broderick Tower, and the demolished Statler Hotel. Gorgeous Art Deco towers that would have been converted to condos 20 years ago anywhere else are finally beginning to undergo some restoration (with the Book-Cadillac Hotel leading the way).

But there is no hope for the Michigan Central Depot.

Opened in 1913, and designed by the same architects who built Grand Central Station, the MCS has sat abandoned far from downtown for nearly 20 years. Ransacked over and over by vandals and scavengers, with every single window on its 18-story facade busted, it is the Ozymandias of urban architecture, and a tombstone on the grave of urban density. Built far away for the purpose of luring Detroit's central business district to the area, that plan backfired when the Depression hit and the city closed both trolley and streetcar service across the city. (When everybody has a nearly free car from their Big Three employer, who needs mass transit?) The station entered immediate decline. The advent of Amtrak helped it stick around until Jan. 6 1988, when the last Amtrak train pulled away from the station. There are no current plans to either restore or demolish the building.

I circled the hulk in my car and gaped and wanted to cry. Around back, portions of the fence hadn't been topped with barbed wire and I climbed over, hoping to go spelunking, but there were no obvious safe routes into the structure (and who knew what still lurks inside?)

Just up Michigan Avenue are the remains of Tiger Stadium, flash-frozen since the end of the 1999 season, when the Tigers moved to Comerica. As you can see, every sign is still in place, if increasingly weathered, and the streets around it are named after Tiiger greats like Al Kaline.

Downtown Detroit is an exercise in sad "what ifs?"

What if Grand Central Station had been build in Long Island City and then cut off from the subways?

What if the Waldorf-Astoria was abandoned for 20 years and then finally torn down because the city was too ashamed to let Super Bowl XL attendees see it?

What if Boston's Fenway (which opened on the same day as Tiger Stadium in 1912) was left to rot, isolated, while the Red Sox moved to a PoMo park across town?

I found myself wondering: does Detroit even deserved to be saved?

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IN TRANSIT: LONDON -- ...or at least at the offices of Eos, Silverjet, MaxJet and L'Avion, now that Virgin Atlantic intends to launch its own premium-class-only planes between Paris, Amsterdam, Zurich, Milan, and Frankfurt to New York, and possibly other U.S. cities, according to a report Monday on WSJ.com. The ability to launch premium flights from anyone in Europe was made possible by the Open Skies agreement that takes effect next year, and the fact that Virgin has stayed aloof from the world's major alliances, which allows it to attack Europe's cooler capitals all at once. And this could well spell the end for the nascent premium-class airlines flying between London and New York (or from Paris, in L'Avion's case). They've been hard pressed competing with each other already. With Virgin able to bring its loyalty program to bear from the major financial centers of Europe, look out...

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IN TRANSIT: DENVER -- The first paragraph in Tuesday's New York Times said it all: "What Starbucks did for coffee and JetBlue did for air travel, a growing number of new hotel brands is trying to do for the overnight stay: create an experience that offers something different from the status quo, then replicate it around the globe."

While Intercontinental and its ilk are busy trying to trick us into believing that their new chains are anything other than Generation Y's answer to the Westin or the Hyatt, there are a few hotels out there trying their best to evolve the concept of the boutique beyond lobby bar, furniture lifted from last season's West Elm catalog, and an iPod playlist cobbled together from chill-out CDs.

One of these burgeoning chains is the Magnolia Hotels, which marry unique, truly urban settings with Midwest charm rather than a strained air of "cool." Owned by the Stevens Holtze Corp., which primarily focuses on redeveloping historic buildings in true downtowns, Magnolia branches have so far opened in Dallas, Houston, Denver, and even Omaha. (The Dallas branch may be the most striking, with a glowing red Pegasus mounted on top.)

I stayed at the Magnolia during my visit to Denver, liberally helping myself to the cold milk and warm cookies at night, free breakfast, free WiFi, and the gym, while stocking the fridge included with my suite with my own stash of beer (and thus avoiding the de riguer lobby scene). The building itself was vintage—brass plaques in the elevator proudly announced they were the restored originals, then apologized for how slowly we crept upstairs. All-in-all, the Magnolia struck me as a welcome antidote to the tired boutique concept—all of the amenities, none of the attitude, and an air of the truly authentic.

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IN TRANSIT: CHICAGO -- Let me admit right away that I found Weegee not through my own reportorial instincts or through the urgings of cocktail-addled friends, but through last week's New York Times. From the looks of the place on Sunday night, however, it seems that no one in Chicago reads that paper very much. And none of my half-dozen friends had ever heard of the place, or spent much time in the decidedly ungentrified Logan's Square neighborhood on the city's west side.

Weegee's is part of the mini-boomlet in studiedly retro cocktail lounges. In New York, this already seems to be the dominate mode of new bar openings, between places like (the late?) Death & Co. and PDT (Please Don't Tell), which should have opened by now beneath Crif Dogs in the East Village. But what Weegee's most reminded me of was my beloved Brooklyn Social in Carroll Gardens -- less pretentious, more quiet, and more reverent toward the hooch. We sampled Negronis (my new summer cocktail -- it's so tart that it's impossible to unthinkingly gulp down), Old Fashioneds, and even a perfectly frothed Grasshopper than one of compared to the late- and much-lamented McDonalds Shamrock Shake. It was too late for shuffleboard, but we did cram all of into the photo booth for a distorted group portrait that may have repulsed even Weegee himself.

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IN TRANSIT: DENVER -- Denver Stapleton was once one of the country's busiest airports until the city opened Denver International on the edge of town, giving it the excuse the shut Stapleton down for good and force the airlines to move out there at gunpoint. Even before the last flight departed, the city had hatched a plan to hand the site off to developers ready and willing to embrace the New Urbanist planning principles. Where there had once been one of the nation's most claustrophobic airports, there would one day be a neighborhood of 40,000 residents designed by the architects and planners of Calthorpe Associates, one of the standard bearers in the New Urbanism. (In an ironic twist of fate, the enlightened developer is Forest City Enterprises, a close corporate cousin of Forest City Ratner -- which has Jane Jacobs making steady rotations in her grave due to its hated Brooklyn Yards project.)

In 2001, construction began, and today there are several thousand homes on the Stapleton site, at varying price points and a menagerie of retrotfitted historical styles. On some blocks, homes equipped with turrets sit across from Cape Cod cottages just down the street from Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired lofts. But nothing stupefied me as much as the rows of fresh brownstones on 29th Ave., the main drag just east of Stapleton's "town center." Why would anyone living in Denver -- who had either grown up for the wide open spaces or moved there for them -- want to live in homes that looked airlifted straight from the gentrified precincts of Brooklyn?

Demanding answers, I went door to door, knocking and asking questions to anyone who answered. The four who answered included an executive coach who had moved here from Washington D.C., a textbook sales rep who just happened to work for one of the imprints owned by my publisher, a former flight attendant-turned graphic designer, and a stay-at-home software engineer.

While I'd accepted that one could build some very nice housing in the footprint of airports (or the remnants of one), I'd resisted the idea that anyone could ever recreate the brownstones of Brooklyn and attract enough Richard Floridian types to stock it successfully. It turns out I was wrong; you can build Park Slope from scratch.

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IN TRANSIT: FRANKFURT -- I've seen my fair share of airlines' First Class lounges, the creme de la creme of lingering jet set glamour, and more often than not, I've been disappointed. This is largely due to my own ridiculously high expectations (I keep expecting Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Orson Welles to come strolling through, as if life were like "The VIPs.") Of all the ones I've seen -- Singapore Airlines in Singapore, Emirates in Dubai, Swiss in Zurich, and United in Chicago -- only the Virgin Clubhouse at Heathrow had transcended the model of a comfortable, well-appointed waystation to a delirious destination in its own right. (Between the inhouse spa, the olive trees growing in the bistro, and a furious effort to channel the spirit of Eero Saarinen, it's tops.)

I've been looking for a challenger to Virgin's crown, and have found it in Lufthansa's First Class terminal at Frankfurt. Housed in an entirely separate building from the main terminals, the FC lounge outdoes Virgin in terms of pure service. Passengers don't check in, per se -- they simply hand their documents to a personal assistant who later collects them when it's time to finally board (thus removing that final bit of anxiety while hanging in the lounge). While they wait, passengers can sample one of 60 or so small batch whiskies, grab a cooked-to-order meal (my mouth watered at the sight of heaping platters of Scottish lox and Viennese pastries), or even take a bath in a full-size bathtub (rubber duckie included).

When it's time to leave, passport control is helpfully located downstairs, and either a Porsche Cayenne or Mercedes S-Class ferries them to their plane. The terminal has a fleet of 30 cars standing by, all of which were gratefully donated by the manufacturers. So, in case Sir Richard is listening, I'd like to know when I can expect a ride to Upper Class in an Aston Martin (or at least a Mini Cooper).

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IN TRANSIT: AMSTERDAM -- While most frequenters of luxury hotels are obsessed with service, I've always been willing to overlook a few hiccups in return for top flight amenities, design, or location. (What can I say? I'm a child of the Schrager generation.) But even I was touched by the staff at the College Hotel in Amsterdam, a two-year-old boutique near the Museumplein, practically around the corner from the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh. The name has a double meaning -- not only is the building itself a former school, but the hotel essentially doubles as the Top Gun of hospitality for Dutch students. Every time I turned around, there were eager young twentysomethings either leaping to help or else turning to their mentors for help when an impatient and frightened guest insists his reservation is actually for two nights instead of one.

The rooms themselves were decorated in a style of studied loucheness I now think of as "Tom Ford Chic" -- dark woods, velvet, and a shampoo that seemed to consist solely of musk. My room on the third floor was formerly the school's attic, accountingly for the sloping ceilings and weather beams protruding from the floor. (In a nice touch, the requisite flatscreeen television was pinned to one such beam).

But what makes the College Hotel so charming (and leads me to recommend it over the Lloyd and the NH Grand Krasnapolsky, where I had stayed during a previous trip) was the bright-and-eager eyes of the students, who are in some ways wise beyond their years (one bartender made me the perfect Negroni) and in some ways still learning (I had to teach another bartender the proper recipe for a mint julep, which turned out quite nicely).

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IN TRANSIT: AMSTERDAM -- On my free Saturday in Amsterdam, I made sure to pop into both Frozen Fountain and Droog Design. It's safe to they're the pre-eminent (or maybe just the most famous) of the city's haute interiors stores, with Frozen Fountain the more conventionally edited of the two. (Why it wastes space carrying Vitra reissues of the Eames lounge is beyond me.) The confederacy of designers behind Droog are more akin to performance artists -- how else to explain beautiful impracticalities like the individuals drawers belted together into an ad hoc cabinet, or the cigar box blown up into the size of a wardrobe?

In addition to the products -- which comprised a sort of "best of Droog" collection upon my visit -- is a rotating exhibition of even more outlandish products. Osman Kahn's "Play With Food" combined your typical tabletop with motion detectors and color projection to create a table that splayed color across the tabletop depending on what was sitting there. Stationary objects -- like a plate, or a lime -- produced long bands of pixels running the length of the table. The effect was hypnotic in person, although I have a difficult time imaging anyone installing project equipment in the dining room.

If you're looking for a piece of Droog on a budget, I'd personally recommend the roll of tape imprinted with the border of a picture frame. It's perfect for adding a touch of class to your nephew's dorm room "Reservoir Dogs" poster, or the like.

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IN TRANSIT: FRANKFURT -- Sorry I've been MIA for the past week, but there wasn't much to write home about from the basement of the Sheraton Hotel next door to Frankfurt's airport, where anyone who's anyone in airport planning circles (a glamorous bunch, to be sure) spent the better part of three days chewing over retail concepts and securitizing their parking revenues. My only means of escapism was the hotel's WiFi signal, which meant paying another $25 a day for the Sheraton's WiFi in addition to the $25 I was already spending for daily access at my actual hotel, which followed the $30 per day The College Hotel charged me back in Amsterdam.

I expected to return home from Europe with a smoking hole in my AmEx card thanks to the exchange rates ($1.35 to the Euro? Gawd), but the $50 a day on Internet access alone didn't have a line in my budget. Orbitz, Kayak, if you're reading this: please list which hotels charge for WiFi and which ones don't when you present me with a list of options. In-room WiFi is already my make-or-break criteria for even considering a hotel (which is how I ended up at the Artisan Hotel in Memphis, so perhaps my criteria is a bit flawed), and knowing whether I should build another $20 a night into my hotel room might lead me to choose one over another. Regardless, the whole idea of hotels charging for Internet access strikes me as ridiculous in 2007. Why try to drive me into the hands of Starbucks or someone else offering bottomless WiFi on the road for only $30 a month when you could keep me in my room? You'd be better off using WiFi as a loss leader, trust me.

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IN TRANSIT: AMSTERDAM -- I first visited the Lloyd in January 2005, not long after it opened. Although the visit was ostensibly to garner press for the boutique hotel, the first wave of rave reviews was already cresting in design magazines. Since then, the Lloyd has become the unofficial headquarters of Amsterdam visitors more interested in the architecture of the Easter Docklands than chip shops or call girls. From the outside, the Lloyd is interesting because it stands in such stark contrast to the Jetsons-esque buildings surrounding it (like the elementary school I posted about last week). It's a giant brick pile dating back to 1875, and at various points was an emigrant processing center, a prison, and a juvie hall. (Which might explain the prison-like unglassed-in showers present in even the best rooms.) Today it's a unique boutique containing its own "Cultural Embassy," an exhibition space that feels organic to the hotel, rather than something grafted on in the pursuit of Platinum AmEx-equipped aesthetes.

But what makes the Lloyd truly special is the veritable furniture fair of designers represented inside. The dutch firm MVRDV set out to ensure that no two rooms were alike, resulting in a star system of rooms (rated one through five, with five being "exceptional") that include features like a bed for sleeping eight or a grand piano or a bathtub that sits in the middle of the room. I was given a four-star room on the fourth floor that was spacious, had plenty of light, and maybe the softest bed I've ever slept in. And then there was the shower, which sprayed water across half the room as it ricocheted off my body. I put down towels to clean up the mess while grumbling about such an obvious design flaw. The next morning at breakfast, I overheard a chirpy English girl complaining about the same problem. "What, your room didn't come with a squeegee?" her companion asked. No, but mine did. It just never occurred to me I would have to squeegee my own floor after every use of the shower. I'm such an American that way.

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IN TRANSIT: AMSTERDAM -- Try to envision the look and feel of Amsterdam, and any number of clichés immediately come to mind. Some envision the city as a super-sized Red Light district where the only thing separating the prostitutes' windows are hash bars. Others picture the scenic canals and 17th-century row houses, while still others (like me) think of the modernist jewel box homes on the reclaimed islands of the East Docklands (where the Lloyd Hotel is nestled.) All three are essentially tourists' images of the city (especially the first) while the real action -- at least as far as building the 21st-century cityscape of Amsterdam goes -- is to the south, at Zuidas.

If you haven't heard of Zuidas, you're not alone (I discovered it during this trip). The literal name (it means "South Axis" in Dutch) refers to the new central business district south of the city. Zuidas is the home of Amsterdam's courts, an increasing number of law firms, and both of the country's largest banks, ING and ABN Amro. Sounds like Manhattan's Financial District, only more exciting, right?

But consider the fact that you've probably already seen ING's headquarters in the pages of a dozen different architecture magazines. You know, it's the one built on stilts. ABN Amro's tower was built by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, i.e. I.M. Pei's old firm. I paid a visit on Thursday and was stunned at the number of starchitects pouring into the area -- Michael Graves, Rafael Viñoly, and Toyo Ito have already seen their designs built here. (Hell, the Ito building -- seen in the photo above -- is even named after him.)

I was disappointed to see that the creators of Zuidas (private developers are spearheading the project) brought in so many mercenaries overseas, but I am eager to see whether they will succeed in building high-density residential blocks around the towers in later phases. Leave it to the Dutch to essentially build the World Trade Center done right.

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IN TRANSIT: AMSTERDAM -- The Aalsmeer has 13 auction rooms, each of which is capable of seating several hundred buyers. The auctions begin at 6 AM sharp and run until the day's supply is exhausted is two to four hours. During that time, the flowers in question flow continuously through the room for the buyers' nominal inspection. The Aalsmeer auction isn't decided by the highest bidder, but the fastest -- a buyer typically has two seconds or less to press the button on his (and yes, it's overwhelmingly male) console.

The "Aalsmeer Shuttle" is a robotic train that runs along 10 miles of track spread across the central building (where the auctions take place) and VBA South, a second building filled with the on-site warehouses of many flower exporters. The two buildings are separated by a roadway, so the shuttle was built as a means of accommodating buyers who wanted to get their orders on planes or on trucks as soon as possible to their own customers without having to schlepp them inside the complex first. This photo was taken inside the covered bridge spanning the road, where one of the trains was whisking a batch of flowers to their new owner.

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IN TRANSIT: AMSTERDAM -- Welcome to the Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer, the largest flower auction in the world. More than 20 million "stems" pass through the world's largest warehouse complex every day; the photo above is only the tiniest fraction of the total floor space of 1 million square meters. (Sorry, they use the metric system over here.) And nothing on the floor is available for sales to the tourists. I made sure to pick up some bulbs for Sophie, though...

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IN TRANSIT: AMSTERDAM -- Delta Air Lines announced on Wednesday that it would become the first airline to implement a "voluntary carbon offset program" for passengers feeling guilty about the carbon dioxide emissions of their flights. Starting June 1, passengers who book their tickets through Delta.com will be able to make small contributions ($5.50 domestic/$11 international roundtrips) to The Conservation Fund, which will plant enough trees on your behalf to soak up the CO2. Delta is also making contributions on behalf of every passenger who flies this Sunday, Earth Day, although I don't know for how much.

Delta isn't the first airline to realize the marketing angle of going green (that would be Silverjet, which builds the price into your ticket), but it won't be the last. I have a running argument going with my friend Andrew, who can make a pretty persuasive case that a backlash is brewing in the U.S. against the environmental impact of air travel. When the director of airport development here at Schiphol tells you that emissions and sustainability are the gravest concern facing the airport (even ahead of noise, the previous great bugaboo) you have to take those arguments seriously. But I refuse to believe that either Americans or Europeans would seriously hamstring the lifelines to the iPods and Toyota Prius engines being manufactured in Asia and airshipped over here. Still, why not offer passengers a chance to assuage their guilt and make your airline look good in the process?

My only question is who is accounting for the donations in question... and how? Delta has vowed that "100%" of donations will be passed along to The Conservation Fund. Assuming it catches on, I wonder how long it will be before a chunk of those donations are earmarked as "processing fees," and how long after that before those fees start dropping right to the bottom line.

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I've always wondered why it is that the Netherlands produces avant architects the way the state of Florida produces blue chip college football prospects. What is it about Rem Koolhaas and his ilk that they're able to think rings around Americans when it comes to architecture. Then I land in Amsterdam and it all becomes clear. Their visual vocabulary is much, much cooler.

Take the building pictured above. It's not famous. It wasn't designed by a starchitect. It just happens to overlook the tram station next to my hotel. In fact, it's an elementary school, which means Dutch children are probably learning more about architecture through osmosis than some programs back in the U.S..

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One of the things they don't tell you about overnight flights in business class (or above) on top-notch international carriers is that the amenity kits frequently come your personal set of pajamas. Virgin Atlantic has its "sleep suits," while Singapore Airlines recently reconceived its Givency-provided loungewear as a Juicy-esque tracksuit that obviates the need to change back into your street clothes until you reach your hotel. Since this works so well in business class, I wondered, why not coach as well? Especially coach on Continental, the best of a frequently bad lot as far as U.S. carriers go.

To test my premise, I packed a pair of airline-provided pajamas for my flight to Amsterdam last night. The oxford cloth PJs pictured above are from ANA's international business class, and although I felt a little awkward emerging from the bathroom in them only 45 minutes into the flight (at approximately 8 PM) that feeling wore off as soon as I settled back into my seat. Wrapped in crisp cotton, wearing my Bose headphones and a sleeping mask (and having downed three Tylenol PM and two gin and tonics), I slept like a baby for close to five hours. I'll never wear my clothes on an overnight flight again.

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Tucked into the back of Cafe Atlantico on 8th St. in Washington is minibar, the capital's outpost of molecular gastronomy. With only six seats at the bar and only two seatings nightly, it's impossible to snag a last-minute invitation, but with a little begging on Wednesday night, I was able to convince Cafe Atlantico chef Katsuya Fukushima to let me sample some of the dishes he and partner José Andrés had prepared at a perch nearby. This request morphed into a 14-course chemistry lesson of their greatest hits, including a mojito "gusher" (i.e. a mojito shot suspended in gelatin that explodes in your mouth), a tuna ceviche wrapped in avocado with corn nuts, the last of which tasted exactly like Fritos (and was brilliant because of it.) There were three more alcohol courses (a cotton candy mojito, an Americano made with carbonated campari, and a piña colada desert course), along with more savory reinventions of scallops, veal cheeks and quail.

While Fukushima and Andrés are America's most direct link to molecular gastronomy's progenitor, El Bulli's Ferran Adria (Andrés returns every year to play in his mentor's kitchen), they've been somewhat left out of a conversation dominated by Wylie Dufresne at WD-50 in New York, and the dueling Alinea and Moto in Chicago, where chefs Grant Achatz (Alinea) and Homaro Cantu represent the polar extremes of the MG crowd, with the former striving for respectability and the latter embracing his mad scientist persona.

"We're not as far out as Homaro, but we're not as calm as Grant, either," Fukushima said after our meal. As weird as it sounds, minibar is middle-of-the-road as far as molecular gastronomy goes. And it's delicious.

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Jack Fry's carries on in Louisville the tradition of quasi-speakeasies best embodied in New York's P.J. Clarke's and L.A.'s Musso & Frank. Bathed in warm hues of brown, with a piano player tucked in a corner and worn leather banquettes along the walls, Jack Fry's has an ambience it probably started with in 1933. The restaurant went upscale a long time ago, however, and now the food skews more toward ambitious glosses on southern comfort food (shrimp & grits), along with beef and bourbon (and sometimes both in one: the filet mignon has a glaze made with Woodford Reserve). Somewhat counter-intuitively, I had the tuna steak instead. I'm generally afraid of ordering any fish in the Midwest (or South, barely), but what the hell—it had probably arrived via a UPS jet that morning.

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Across the street from Memphis' 21C Hotel is a row of classic cast-iron buildings reminiscent of nothing so much as SoHo before it became a giant shopping mall. A block of those buildings are nothing but shells, however, as they're slated to be an entrance to the massive diagonal elevator that is one of the hallmarks of Museum Plaza, the oil derrick–cum-skyscraper planned for the Louisville waterfront. Majority-backed by Steve Wilson and Laura Lee Brown (the owners of the 21C), Museum Plaza is the brainchild of Joshua Prince-Ramus, the Rem Koolhaas protegé who recently built the ballyhooed Seattle Library. Museum Plaza, which is slated for completion in 2010, soar 703 feet and 62 stories, becoming the tallest building between the East Coast and Chicago. The now-$465 million project includes a Westin Hotel, a connection to the nearby Muhammad Ali Center, office space, museums, and, of course, luxury condos. I'm told the prices for those condos start at about $1 million each. Perhaps I've been living in the New York real estate market too long, but $1 million for a 60th story apartment in a starchitect building is starting to make a lot more sense than a two-bedroom in Brooklyn.

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The 133rd running of the Kentucky Derby is only 26 days away, which means the bartenders at Churchill Downs and your local Kentucky-themed dive are already busy preparing the giant vats of Mint Julep mix that give the drink a bad name. A much better recipe was handed down to me last summer by Maker's Mark's master distiller during a tour of the bourbon's landmark distillery down the road from Louisville in Loretto. His recipe, which works best for a pitcher of Juleps, went something like this:

1. Wrap a large fistful of fresh mint tightly in cheesecloth. Pour enough bourbon (preferably 90 proof, and preferably Maker's if you want to minimize the burn) into a bowl in which you're able to submerge the mint.

2. Let the mint soak for five or 10 minutes. Remove the mint from the bowl, and wring it dry into a pitcher coated along the bottom with sugar or simply syrup (how much depends on the degree of your sweet tooth). Doing so allows the mint to slowly infuse the bourbon, a process that's helped along when you crush the mint by wringing it.

3. Repeat steps one and two -- submerging the mint and wringing it dry until the mint has soaked up much of the bourbon in the bowl. Then add the remaining bourbon (assuming you're pouring from a 750 ml bottle) and stir to dissolve the sugar. Garnish your glass with a mint sprig and add club soda or seltzer to sufficiently cut the potency of your drink. And there you have it. The exact measurements are fungible, but the wringing of the mint yields an essence so powerful that guests at our Mint Julep party last summer could smell it three floors below...

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Photography by Kenneth Hayden (Louisville, KY).

One of the ongoing themes of this blog, I hope, will be the the current state of boutique hotels (i.e. what are they good for?). Having perhaps hit rock bottom already on the very first try, I'm trying to make it a point during my travels to stay at places that attempt to reflect their city's true character. (It's my little rebellion against the motel parks ringing most airports, although asking whether an airport Sheraton or Hyatt can have a soul -- like the Sheraton Charles de Gaulle or Grand Hyatt DFW -- is also a question worth asking.)

Louisville's entry in the boutique hotel sweepstakes is the 21C Museum Hotel, now a year old. Backed by investors and heavy-duty contemporary art collectors Steve Wilson and Laure Lee Brown (an heiress to the Brown-Forman bourbon fortune), the hotel has been cobbled together from five buildings on Louisville's Main Street, including a former tobacco bank and a whiskey warehouse. The hotel is stuffed with art -- literally hundreds of pieces from the owners' personal collection, spilling over from the galleries into the lobby and into rooms (a video installation was dancing across my flat-screen when I arrived.) The hotel's mascots (as seen above) are the plastic red penguins produced by the Crackling Art Group. They lurk inside the hotel and out, occasionally appearing in guest rooms (in the bed or in the shower), in a sort of postmodern take on The Peabody's ducks in Memphis.

The rooms are equipped with the requisite flat screens and iPod docks (the concierge calls before your visit to ask what music they should stock your room's iPod with -- I opted for bluegrass), along with Malin & Goetz toiletries I gleefully swiped (including the peppermint soap). In short, I love the place, right down to the bar that mixes a mint julep with so much simple syrup in it that was drunk before I even noticed. As a boutique hotel, the 21C just works -- local owners, local flavor, raison d'etre that's unique and organic, all of which means that it will soon be wrapped up with a tidy bow and exported to other cities that have nothing in common with Louisville. I'm not kidding -- according to the hotel's director of sales and marketing, aspiring hoteliers in Austin, Cincinnati, Chicago and Orlando (Orlando?!) have already called about franchising the model, which would theoretically include traveling exhibitions between the various hotels.

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One morning in Memphis, I was due to meet with the CEO of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Jack Soden. But owing to a mix-up in scheduling, Soden couldn't make it, and as a consolation prize, I was sent next door with a free ticket to Graceland. An hour later, I walked away convinced that the only thing separating Graceland's perfectly bad taste from good was the absence of irony.

As evidence, I offer the "TV Room," which Elvis had professionally decorated sometime in the late '70s, according to the gravelly narration on the audio tour. He had three televisions mounted in the wall after hearing that LBJ liked to watch all three networks at the same time, but no explanation was given for the yellow-and-black color scheme, or for the simian statue on the coffee table.

Awful taste? Sure. But wasn't Elvis just ahead of his time? Three years after his death in 1977, the Italian designer Ettore Sottsass founded the Memphis Group in a deliberate effort to create some of the ugliest furniture the world has ever known. (Although he named the group after a Bob Dylan song, the parallels are hard to ignore.) But while Graceland continues to be mocked as a cathedral of philistinism, Memphis is practically respectable in some circles. A critical reevaluation is in order, I think. It's just not fair.

The Artisan Hotel in Memphis is, according to Orbitz.com, an "upscale boutique" that is "newly renovated, featuring tasteful art" and "an extraordinary pool area." Based on this description, it might sound like a fusion of Louisville's 21C "museum hotel" (where I happen to be staying next week) and the Delano in South Beach. Also according to Orbitz, the rooms here start at $49 and up. I knew they were low, but not that low. I booked the room through the site's new "Roadwarrior" mini-site featuring package deals on flights, hotels, and rental cars. Since I'm paying for my expeditions out of my own pocket, more or less, I'm happy to go the no frills route where appropriate. So it's not as if I was rushing to embrace the serendipitous discovery of Memphis' first (and as far as I know, only) boutique hotel. (Hell, the last time I was here, Orbitz recommended me to a Clarion Hotel near the airport, on Brooks Road. Just down the street is a gentlemen's club named "Babes: The name says it all.")

Trip Advisor has nothing nice to say about this place, and I've found very little to cheer for myself, except a lobby that has reproductions of famous paintings mounted on the walls and ceilings, accompanied by a smooth soundtrack that's reminiscent of an 18th generation knockoff of the Hotel Costes series. (Oh, and the WiFi signal is strong and free, which is all I really care about. And they let me check in at 9:45 AM.)

One of the reviewers on Trip Advisor mentions that they callled the hotel and asked for what level of service they should realistically expect. "I was told that they are the equivalent to a Hampton Inn." Close, but not quite. While parking my rental car in the underground garage this morning, I discovered the Artisan's true DNA: "Ramada parking this way," the signs said. Okay, so this is the swankest Ramada I've ever stayed at. I'll take it.

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Above, left: A look down the central stairwellls. Above, right: One of the many landscaped atriums tucked away inside Lufthansa HQ.

Generally, you should be afraid when a proud company would like to show you its headquarters. I wasn't expecting much when we trundled over to Lufthansa's (relatively) new headquarters for lunch on Thursday. But the design and architecture was as impressive as they obviously thought it was—giant atriums and glass-curtain walls captured an unbelievable amount of light. Not only did every office in the building open onto a window (as required by German law), but most even had narrow balconies overlooking the tree-filled expanses below. Furniture in the common areas were throwbacks to mid-century mod's greatest hits... and clad in screaming Lufthansa yellow.

Above: The mid-century modern throwback furniture in headquarters' many open spaces is, of course, painted Lufthansa yellow.

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Frankfurt's answer to Munich's permanent Oktoberfest in the form of the Hofbrau Haus is Adolf Wagner. Famous as the home of applewine instead of beer—mix it with a little sparkling water and you have the weakest hard cider imaginable—it's apparently Frankfurters' favorite place to get their schnitzel fix. Seated at one of the restaurant's long benches, our group ordered up pork en masse—schnitzel, spareribs, sausages, sausage, and more sausages. I had the Nurnberger Rostbratwurschte, i.e. a half dozen small sausages, mashed potatoes, and briny sauerkraut, chased by apple strudel for dessert. I'll be eating salad for days.

Go to www.apfelwein-wagner.com

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Every lounge serves beer. It's what they're there for — to quench the thirst of the weary consultant or salesman unwinding before this Thursday night flight back to Chicago or wherever. The Lufthansa lounge at JFK serves beer too, but you wouldn't find Bud Lite or Coors Light or any swill like that. (In fact, attempting to brew Budweiser in Germany would be illegal under the country's quality laws.) And they don't serve it in the highball glasses you'll find in lounges from here to Detroit to Denver. The Lufthansa lounges serve Spaten. In steins. The way beer is meant to be served. (Now, if only it weren't foam all the time.)

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Above: the A380, nosed up to the gate.

My first thought on seeing the A380 parked at the gate at JFK: it's big. More ominously, so was the crowd waiting to board the packed flight, which spilled over two gate lounges. A member of Lufthansa's PR team mentioned that technical route proving—in which a series of flights are designed to demonstrate the aircraft's capability of operating on a continuous schedule with normal conditions—also included figuring out how much lounge space would be required for each flight, along with turnaround and boarding times. Dr. Reinhold Huber, Lufthansa's VP of product management and innovation, mentioned later that boarding at Frankfurt had taken an unbelievably brief 21 minutes, thanks to three separate bridges (I only saw two in use at JFK).

Above, left: Upstairs, Downstairs: Peering down the stairwell at the front of the plane... Above, right: Looking up from the bottom of the stairwell.

My first thought on seeing the plane's interior, however, was "is that all there is?" I knew going in that the seats were essentially generic—Lufthansa won't unveil its custom interiors for another two years—but I was disappointed at how misleadingly drab they were. The "first class" seats were barely on par with British Airways' redesigned Club World (i.e. business class) or Virgin Atlantic's Upper Class. The business class seats (one of which I was lucky to score as my seat assignment) were functional but a generation behind. Of course, the next-generation interiors have been the bane of Airbus' existence all along—the epic delays aren't the result of any problems with the airframe, but with the 300+ miles of electrical wiring required for 1,000+ channels of seat back entertainment.

Above, left: Airbus' idea of what a First Class seat should look like is about five years behind the curve. Above, right: The in-flight bar. Sadly, it would remain closed during the flight.

Some random thoughts during the flight:

• Maybe it's the power of Pavlovian suggestion on the part of Lufthansa PR, but the A380 does seem noticeably more quiet than the A340 or B747. You can have a normal conversation on this plane, for the most part.

• At least where I'm sitting, at the front of the plane on the upper deck, you have no sense of the plane's enormity. The hundred of passengers tucked away in the back of the bus or down below are out of sight, and thus out of mind.

• The cocktail party I'd hoped for is nowhere to be found. The mood onboard is closer to that of a family at the end of a long vacation—more exhausted than exhilarated. The bar downstairs never even opened.

Above, left: At the top of the stairs, on either side, is a little lounge-style seating, in case passengers wanted to take a meeting, or just get to know each other a little better. Above, right: Onboard Airbus technicians monitored noise, cabin temperature, ventiliation systems, and other environment factors during the flight.

• The most incredible entertainment option of all—on the ground, at least—is the camera mounted on the plane's tail. Seen on screen, the plane looks like some giant bird of prey, with the fuselage and wingspan entirely visible. Cameras mounted in the nose are cool; but this was cooler.

• Lufthansa is still figuring out its cabin concepts, but has settled on the idea that First and Business Class will occupy the top deck, with Economy stored below. The privileged few will never even see the coach customers, thanks to the separate boarding bridge. By the time the A380 arrives for real, Lufthansa will have built separate boarding lounges for Business Class as well. (First Class passengers will continue to be bused via Porsche from their own terminal to the foot of the plane.)

• While Huber was very mum on what the new in-flight product will look like, one idea that has already been vetoed was bunk bed-style seating in Business Class. More than anything else, he said, frequent fliers want their space.

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Above are the contents of my carry-ons (and the carry-ons themselves) for my two-day trip to Frankfurt. By the end of my travels, this lineup will probably look quite a bit different -- spiffier and dingier. The breakdown:

The back row:

• Peeking out of the upper left corner is my vintage (read: bought on eBay) plaid Burberry trenchcoat and Coach leather gloves.

• Leather messenger bag by A.G. Spalding & Sons.

• Wool turtleneck by Brooks Brothers.

• Jeans by Diesel

• Oxford shirts by Brooks Brothers.

• The black rectangle just below my messenger bag is: My dopp kit, a recycled Emirates First Class men's amenity kit.

The middle row:

• Jack Spade silk ties. Together with the Brooks shirts, these are my standard-issue reporter's uniform while traveling. They rumple easily and, I like to think, elegantly.

• Leather passport holder by Montblanc.

• Noise-canceling headphones by Bose.

• Universal power adapter.

• Leather sneakers by Tretorn. A new purchase, to replace my frayed Jack Purcells.

• Cell phone by Sony Ericcson. Cool five years ago, it barely works overseas now.

• 60 GB iPod by Apple, with stereo microphone by Griffin. My tools for tape-recording. It replaces cumbersome tapes with perfectly searchable, high-quality digital audio. I don't leave home without it.

• Sunglasses (in case) by Cutler & Gross

• The white square above the laptop is: a spiral-bound notebook, from CVS. A buck a piece, and I buy them by the dozen.

Front row:

• Cotton trousers by Trovata, grosgrain belt by Sophie Donelson.

• TWA logo t-shirt by Interspace180

• 12" Apple Powerbook

• For light reading on the plane: the new travel issue of CITY, and issue #2 of Monocle.

And off to right, on the floor, is my carry-on, a rubberized cotton bag by Rafe.

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I'm a hitching a ride tonight on the Airbus A380</