Getting Around with William O'Connor

Happy 4th of July weekend, and congratulations on making it through the heatwave. It broke in stupendous fashion last night, with thunder that rocked the house. As many of you readers know, I fell madly in love with Seoul. It’s in the top-tier list of cities one can easily spend a week or two in—pigging out, shopping, and sightseeing. So I thought I’d share the review I just did for National Geographic on my favorite hotel by far (I stayed in eight) in the megacity.

Chris Dickey loved to take me to lunch at Les Deux Palais in Paris. Not because the food was particularly good, but because the legendary Washington Post and Newsweek journalist thought it made for great people watching, and he liked to take photographs of them in the mirrors. I always felt lucky to be one of the young journalists Chris spent so much time getting to know.

Before we dive into this week’s newsletter, I wanted to take a minute to promote a project I worked on at National Geographic. It’s our first-ever Crash Course. This one is on the American Revolution to help readers refresh their memories in time for all the America 250 celebrations! I hope you’ll check it out. Among the myriad challenges of being an adult that I could not have conceived of as a child is having to come to terms with who you are not. Despite my love of nature, I am not a camper.

The Transamerica Pyramid may be one of the beloved symbols of San Francisco today, but it was not always so. When the once-famous and now-forgotten architect William Pereira revealed its design in 1969, it was pilloried. ​His tapering tower was nicknamed the “splendid splinter” by some and “Pereira’s prick” by potty-mouthed others.

Plus, a sketchy move by Hyatt properties, restoring Ford's Amazon ghost town, and France turns on three luxury hotels. “We will fight hard,” President Macron of France declared. “And we will ask them to remain in Paris!” ​The leader of the 7th largest economy in the world wasn’t talking about some manufacturing giant or cutting edge tech company when he said that. No, he was referring to Netflix’s Emily in Paris. The much-derided show was contemplating a turn in Rome at the time.

Plus, the coolest-looking metro in the world gets its due, stop taking pics of yourself in front of art, and more bad World Cup news There are few things as heady as being in New York City as a visitor. The cliches are true, from the palpable energy to the drama of its canyon-esque streets to how it often does feel like you’re in a movie.

If you loved a place the first time you visited, one of the riskier things you can do is go again. Those treasured memories, grown only more rosy with each passing year, are put at risk on the chance that some concoction of circumstances—weather, people, your headspace, etc—might not be replicated. Leaving those beloved memories to grow ever more romanticized with time is the safe bet. Getting Around with William O'Connor is a reader-supported publication.

You can first define muffins by what they are not. ​They are not cupcakes. They are not supposed to be light and fluffy with a sweet sponge. They shouldn’t glisten. The sweetness comes not from the bread (pumpkin and banana muffins being the exception, but I’d argue they should be in the cupcake family), but from the fruits packed in—blueberries, cranberries, rhubarb, etc. And there should be an emphasis on packed in. Nothing worse than a miserly muffin.

Ensconced in the Amtrak quiet car, coiled to strike if I hear somebody start chatting on their phone, I’m finishing up this week’s newsletter. I love visiting NYC. If you don’t get a little thrill when you see the skyline come into view, consider that an official diagnosis for cynicism. But every time I get on the train to go back to my life of peace in DC, I happily sigh, and that sigh is probably audible.

Whatever the travel equivalent is to virtue signaling (“an attempt to show other people that you are a good person, for example, by expressing opinions that will be acceptable to them, especially on social media”), one of its frequent victims is Los Angeles. Need to show you’re not basic? That you like “real” cities with a commitment to urbanism? That you seek depth? Say you don’t like LA. That you “don’t get it” or there’s nothing interesting to do or nobody interesting to do it with.