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Andy

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Andy Steves’ Weekend Student Adventures

I hope you enjoyed Jackie’s blog of her and her brother’s South American adventure. Jackie’s back in school, and Andy’s in Prague today. I just got off the phone with him, and he’s in the middle of a different kind of adventure…an entrepreneurial one. Fresh out of college, he is starting up his own tour business, and I’m proud as a Dad can be.

Andy’s business niche: to help American students on their European study-abroad programs enjoy efficient, fun, meaningful, and economic three-day weekends in his favorite seven destinations. He’s organizing €150 student tours of Prague, Rome, London, Paris, and more. Each tour includes meals, two nights in hostels, major museum admissions, and local guided tours.

Andy conceived this exciting business plan while taking a Notre Dame semester abroad in Rome and seeing how the students had to scramble to put together their weekend adventures. His company name describes the niche he’s filling: Andy Steves’ Weekend Student Adventures (WSA). While in Rome, Andy found himself helping friends organize their plans for three-day side-trips (biking in Sicily, chartering a sailboat from Athens, and jetting off to the Alps, Paris, Prague, and Dublin on dirt-cheap discount flights). And he saw the frustration, and mistakes, and lost opportunities fellow students with less experience endured as they fumbled around the Continent, eager to come home with lots of great experiences.

I’m enjoying tracking Andy’s business evolution and remembering what it was like when I started my business. While there are clear parallels, he’s light years ahead of me when I was 23. While I was a cash business without a hint of Internet, insurance, or even a plan, Andy is going through all the business hoops in a much more solid and formal way. He’s had to get insurance and negotiate with a bank to accept credit cards. And he’s built a website enabling students to click over to wsaeurope.com and book a tour as easily as they might book a theater ticket online.

While Andy has competition, other companies seem to cater to students’ interest in just partying. Andy hopes to distinguish WSA by appealing to the interests of parents and school administrators, as well as those of the students. Parents and foreign-study program coordinators want to economically and safely enhance their students’ study abroad experience with educational and meaningful weekends. And students want to party with other students in exciting foreign capitals. It’s Andy’s challenge to come up with a good mix, satisfying students, teachers, and parents at a great price.

While Andy has traveled solo nearly each summer since he graduated from high school and has experience assistant-guiding our tours, his real tour company experience is being gathered this fall as he’s spending two months in his target cities, fine-tuning his three-day tour plans, making contacts, and becoming the necessary expert in student travel there. He’s offering one shake-down tour (which he’ll personally lead) of each of his destinations this November at a no-profit intro price of €150. Prague sold out practically overnight, Paris and London are nearly full, and other destinations have plenty of seats open. When Andy gave talks directly to students in Rome, he sold piles of tours. But he doesn’t have the web traffic yet to sell well without personal appearances.

Check out his website, wsaeurope.com. Any feedback or constructive suggestions to make it better would be appreciated. And if you know any students in Europe this semester (or next) looking for lots of fun, Andy’s Weekend Student Adventures promises to offer a great experience.

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South America Isn’t Europe

My kids, Andy (23) and Jackie (20), are heading for South America. And, for the next 17 days, Jackie will guest-host my blog, with daily reports on their adventures in Peru, Argentina, and Brazil.

Why a South America trip on a European travel blog? Four reasons come to mind:

The spirit of our work at Europe Through the Back Door is to inspire people to turn their travel dreams into smooth and affordable reality by equipping themselves with good information and an expectation to travel smartly. As Andy and Jackie venture south of the equator, I hope you’ll join me in following their adventures. They are unescorted, don’t speak Spanish, have virtually no international travel experience outside of Europe, and will use non-Rick Steves guidebooks as they follow their wanderlust. They plan to travel both smart and well. They’re basically doing what any of us could do (though likely with a lot more late-night clubbing tossed in).

A photo from my Asia Through the Back Door days.

Enlarge photo

I’ve long said that Europe is the wading pool of world exploration and that many of my favorite destinations and experiences are beyond Europe. Ages ago I wrote a guidebook called Asia Through the Back Door by simply adapting my Europe tips to my experience traveling in the Far East. For me, Europe was a fun and easy first stop to making the world my friend. As we follow these youthful adventures through Jackie’s candid reports, I hope we can envision ourselves taking the experience and confidence gained in Europe and using it (with a youthful vigor) in more distant corners.

I hope Jackie’s hosting of my blog will also cause parents to consider the value of young people gaining self-confidence and a broader world view by venturing beyond our borders — whether that be Europe or into more challenging places. As any parent knows, it’s both scary and exhilarating to see your children outgrow accompanied trips and fly away on their own. I’m betting this trip will be a rite of passage, and Andy and Jackie will come home with a better understanding of both themselves and the world around them.

Finally, I have a patriotic motive for turning my blog over to Jackie. My theme this season — inspired by all the Quran-burning, foreigner-fearing, anti-intellectual legions in our country — is this:  “Fear is for people who don’t get out much.” Given the mesmerizing power of our media, it’s understandable that elderly Americans might be riddled with paranoia. (Observing my parents and my friends’ parents, I have a theory that people who can’t work or don’t have DVRs are limited to watching TV live, and 24/7 news is always there for them.) But even young people are susceptible to the fear-mongering that’s wracking our great nation. It’s my hope (but I could be wrong) that Andy and Jackie’s experience will help inoculate them to this new and virulent strain of pest in our society. And it’s also my hope that travel adventures can help us all better recognize the good and the joy in our world and then — rather than fear it — celebrate it.

With that, I’m going to step back and give the bully pulpit to my daughter. South America, here we come!

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Where Does a Good Lutheran Catholic Eat?

I’ve been blogging for three years, and make it a point not to respond directly to comments. But so many people think I’m “anti-Catholic,” I need to address this issue. (I have been writing all day…on a roll, finishing Madrid before diving into Basque Country. But I want to organize and share my thoughts on this.)

For years, my travels have caused me to think about organized religion. (When I got my history degree at the UW, one of my favorite classes was “History of the Christian Church.”) And for years, I’ve believed that anyone who enjoys getting close to God should pack their spirituality along with them in their travels. For two decades, I walked the tightrope of being a Christian tour guide wanting to facilitate spiritual growth among the religious ones in my secular groups without offending those who didn’t have a faith.

One of my favorite tour guiding challenges was to organize “back door fellowships” on Sunday mornings, with an open, sharing atmosphere where spiritual people — from conservative Catholics to Buddhists to tree-huggers to Methodists to curious European bus drivers who’ve never seen this on a tour — would enjoy the chance to share spiritual ideas stimulated by their travels. We’d learn a few things about our bus-mates that would normally never come out in the everyday chit-chat of a tour social scene. I’d routinely get well over half the group to attend, and it was always a rewarding hour spent together. And we rejoined the group without having created a divide between us and those who choose sleep over worship that Sunday morning on the Rhine (or wherever).

My most political travel educational experiences have been as a participant in Center for Global Education tours put on by the Lutheran Augsburg College in Minneapolis. Through these, I developed the same Christian passion for “sanctity of life” that anti-abortionists have. But I defined “life” as something much broader than a fetus — rather, I kept a special focus on how structural poverty denies innocent people (precious children of God) the fulfilling life their Creator envisioned for them here on earth.

Most of the Central American staffers for CFGE were Catholics. I learned that many Catholics doing the Lord’s work in Central America are excommunicated for their “social and economic justice” politics, and they just keep on keepin’ on. I was inspired by their belief that part of their vow of obedience to the church was disobedience to the Church. (I draw a huge distinction between little-c church and big-C Church.) While many angry atheists hate God because of bad things the big-C Church has done, I cut God a little slack in that regard, knowing that Church government is made of people — as feeble-minded and plagued with greed, power, and corruption as political and business leaders can be.

Because I work observations about religion into my travel writing, I anger a lot of people unintentionally. I actually had death threats against me before a lecture in San Diego a few years ago from a fundamentalist Muslim group because I wrote that many parents throughout Islam were naming their children Saddam and Osama. The angry Muslims took my point very wrong. My point was that good people can celebrate courageous people in their culture standing up to empire (much like many good people supported Geronimo and Lenin and Spartacus and, of course, Jesus). Brutal and corrupt a dictator as Saddam may have been, to people who have a different perspective, he symbolized taking back control of natural resources from the USA. (I believe that, more than his meanness, was his downfall. There are lots of mean dictators with longevity…but not many who violate US claims to their natural resources.)

So, those San Diego Muslims thought I was insulting Islam, when I was actually explaining to ethnocentric Americans how someone so universally despised in our country could have a local following — and how good people might even name their children after him. (San Diego provided me with a police escort for my visit…and I gave the lecture without being hurt. It was kind of exciting.)

In a similar way, I can write things that some Catholics love and others hate at the same time. So, to all those who say, “Rick, stop picking on the Catholic Church, don’t disparage the Catholic Church, lay off the Catholic Church, don’t be so anti-Catholic” — let me say this: I believe Christian churches offer Christians spiritual nourishment. Like different ethnic restaurants can offer the same quality nourishment with entirely different menus, I think different denominations can serve different congregations. Spiritually, I love to “eat Lutheran.” While some would say only Baptists or Catholics or Latin-speaking Catholics or hat-wearing Wisconsin Synod Lutheran women will go to heaven, all of that seems kind of small-minded to me (and, I imagine, to God). If you want to feed your faith…just eat and eat where you like the menu. It occurs to me that “ecumenism” is one of my favorite words. I love to think it, do it, even say it. Ecumenism.

I consider myself a Lutheran Catholic (as Martin Luther would). My beautiful wife is Roman Catholic through and through. For years she was on the worship board of the Lutheran church in our little town, contributing her rich Catholic heritage to our worship style and making my church, Trinity Lutheran, a better place. I can’t ever remember wanting anything so bad as for our daughter Jackie to be accepted to Georgetown University so her mind could be nourished and shaped by Jesuit higher education and professors. Our son, Andy, has had a great four years at Notre Dame (a Holy Cross Catholic school).

Yes, my brother-in-law, John Jenkins, is the president of the University of Notre Dame. I have a tremendous respect for him — personally, intellectually and spiritually. He is an inspiration in every way. And we differ in our style of Christianity. Ten years ago, when I was writing the script for a Lutheran (ELCA) video designed to tell the story of Martin Luther and the Reformation (which we filmed in Germany), I asked Father John for help (because I strove to make a balanced script and didn’t want to offend Catholics with our history). John and I worked on it. But, finally (and wisely), John said, “For the good of our relationship, I need to end this collaboration.”

(The video was an exciting project — eventually it was sent to all 11,000 ELCA churches, and is used to tell the story of the Lutheran Church to all those congregations. It’s on YouTube and available with four other shows I’ve done with the ELCA on a “Faithful Travel” DVD at our website. Until my Iran show, it was about the toughest scriptwriting challenge I’ve had.)

But back to my brother-in-law, Father John. Today Notre Dame is embroiled in a controversy because they’ve invited President Obama to speak at the graduation ceremony. Conservative Catholics who can’t accept a leader who differs from them on the abortion issue are trying to stop the event. (They’re even pestering Father John’s dear mother.) That 95 percent of the seniors on campus want Obama to give the talk doesn’t matter to them. Some people just “know” what’s right, and can’t accept people who differ.

This is not the first controversy that Father John has confronted, and it won’t be his last. He is a principled Catholic leader making sure Notre Dame is right up there with its secular competitors as one of the nation’s leading universities. And he will not be bullied by people who think they have a lock on the definition of sanctity of life. I believe in the sanctity of life. Father John Jenkins believes in the sanctity of life. And the people threatening to stop supporting Notre Dame because Obama is coming to South Bend do, too. The idea in this country is that no one gets to be the boss of what everyone else thinks. I like it that way.

Am I anti-Catholic? Some would think so. I choose to be Lutheran — it’s just so right for me. The woman I love is a Catholic. I’ve sent both of our children to Catholic schools. I don’t hesitate to say when I believe the Church (big-C) is wrong. I love what the Catholic Church has done in supporting people in Central America. I don’t like what the Catholic Church has done (past or present) in Spain. Do I hold it (and religious wars, and pedophiles, and witch burnings, and the other things that make people really angry about Church) against God? Nope. And when I’m hungry, I’m glad there’s a good place to eat nearby — and people willing to cook.

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Celebrating Homecoming with a Good Cigar?

 finished my trip with a sprint — updating Bruges and Brussels in a frenzy and using the flight home to input my notes. Getting home was wonderful — seeing family after nearly two months away…finally catching up with Anne…enjoying the last days before empty-nesthood as Jackie, our youngest, is heading off to Georgetown University in three days…and Andy is heading back to Notre Dame in a week.

Our last nights with Andy were particularly fun, as he shared photos from his semester abroad. (I was envious of the fun he had — which we’ll be sharing in a series of entries here shortly.) He’s so excited about the experience, that he’s building a website to share and organize information for other students making weekend trips from their European study home bases.

Travel has gotten Andy into the ritual of appreciating fine cigars. It’s both strange and fun having a 21-year-old son sit on the deck and teach you how to appreciate a good Cuban cigar. Sophisticated as he was in explaining the qualitative differences in cigars from various Latin American countries, he admitted it was un-cool to smoke it right down to the very end. (And sophisticated as he was, I was struck by the fact that this 21-year-old cigar aficionado with the burny fingers had never heard of a roach clip.)

Andy’s youthful sophistication intrigues me. When we met up in London, I took him out to dinner and squirted oil all over my shirt while ripping the head off a shrimp. Andy looked at me and said something like, “Not staining your shirt when you’re eating out is a lifestyle.” Then he shared a highlight of his London stay with me — a cigar lounge. He took me into his favorite, and together we shopped for the best cigar money could buy. (He also showed me how willingly cigar salespeople can slip the ring off a Cuban cigar and slip the cigar into a tin from a country not weathering an American embargo, and suddenly you have no way of knowing where that tobacco actually came from.) Andy knows how to make that effete scene and feel like it’s not forced.

One great thing about doing my work in Europe is that I’m out of touch with the day-to-day challenges back in my office. My first few days back home are always spent getting briefed on things. Tim, my radio producer, announced that (in just our third year on the air) our radio show is now carried weekly by 99 stations. He gave me CDs of new shows (with guests like Salman Rushdie, David Sedaris, Lord John Alderdice, and others) that are just better than ever. We must have a party when we crack 100 stations.

The best news of my homecoming was about our Iran show. The network offered our one-hour special to the public television system and well over a hundred stations responded enthusiastically, saying they’d run our show. Only seven said, “No, thanks.” This means this January, we’ll have our Iran show running in nearly every major city in the USA. Now we set about finishing the show, and I am busy turning my Iran blog and photos into a companion booklet.

Within days of my return, our staff enjoyed a sunny, annual office picnic. It seems like just a couple years ago when there were 20 of us and only a few little kids. Now there are 70 — with probably 30 kids old enough to toss water balloons and whack a piñata.

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Very, Very Small Fish

Today, after 12 days of research in Portugal and 10 days of filming in Greece (we’re nearly finished with two Greek TV shows), my battery ran out.

I told the crew I’d take the afternoon off while they covered more of the script in Athens and sent home a pile of precious tapes via DHL. Lounging on the 10th-floor roof terrace by the pool at 5 p.m., the sun was strong enough to burn.

I went to dinner with a print-out of my son Andy’s travel journal (experiences enjoyed as weekend side-trips from his semester-abroad base in Rome).

The hotel (the epitome of a “front-door” place the tourist board kindly set us up in for our filming) lances my spirit — noisy tour groups, smoking business men, and menus with international food for triple the price you’ll find for the equivalent just down the street.

I walked around the corner to a great little dinner spot. Ordering dinner alone without the TV crew (Simon and Karel), I couldn’t share dishes and therefore had less variety. It made me realize how much fun I’ve had with Greek food. The mixed appetizer (meze) approach is great — the three of us order one fish plate and four or five (meze)plates.

We joke how each night the bill comes to almost exactly €45 (about $23 each). The selection, while predictable and routine after 10 dinners, never got old. Tzatzikidip, garlic dip, fava bean dip, or a mix of all three on single serving plate (€4 with fresh bread — often toasted). Fried aubergine (eggplant) or zucchini. Four big grilled peppers on a plate — red or green — stuffed with feta cheese. Always a big Greek salad (€7, one salad feeds three people and the waiters are honest about not up-selling…each night saying, “One is enough”).

While the salad Nicoise so popular in France comes with a variety of recipes and lots of controversy on exactly what makes a proper salad Nicoise, the Greek salads we ate were always the same simple, wonderful, locally grown, fresh ingredients (tomato, green pepper, cucumber, onion, olives, feta cheese) with the perfect olive oil.

And then something from the sea — grilled calamari or sardines or a plate of fried small fish (three inch), very small fish (two inch), or very, very small fish (one inch). One night we took it to an extreme and had taramosalata(fish roe spread) — underwhelming.

The Greek beer, Mythos, comes in a big half liter bottle is good and feels right here. Big lemons beg to be squeezed and just about everything is cooked in or drizzled with olive oil.

Proud Greeks told us that their new prime minister is stopping the practice of Italians buying Greek olive oil to sell as Italian. Until now, the Italians (with their extra virgins) have the marketing edge…but the Greeks are determined to show the world that (regardless of virgins) their olive oil is at least as good.

It seems when our bill hits a certain threshold (or we come back for a second meal) we are given a free little dessert (halvah with shredded coconut tonight).

For price of club sandwich in our boxy skyscraper hotel (€17), I get a plate of very small (two-inch) fish, a huge salad, and a big cold Mythos. It was a delightful evening as I was alone with my son’s journal (24 crisp pages printed in the hotel business center). Andy’s writing shows me that a critical part of the mix is generating experiences. He does Europe without business concerns — filling each day with new European friends and college kid adventures and artfully describing it all. I hope to serialize his journal this June on this blog (when I’m back home for a month). Stay tuned.

With three-inch fish, I leave the head and tail (and try not to wonder about the once inky, now dry-black guts). With two-inchers as finger food, and working my way through my son’s journal, there’s nothing left but a line of greasy fingerprints on the fringe of my paper tablecloth.

I walk home a traveler, an eater, and a dad well-satisfied.