TALKINTRAVEL™

Italy Can Ruin Your MarriageBy: Ruth Wertzberger Carlson
 >From a woman swiftly approaching the age of 50, I have words of advice for young brides. Avoid Italy. It almost led to my divorce. On our way home from our honeymoon, my new husband and Rich and I missed our train because he had to run back to a store and buy a sailing poster. We were frantic about reaching our plane home to San Francisco, which left from Germany. Rich approached the train counter window and asked the Italian employee for a schedule. I couldn’t help notice that the Italian had thick wavy hair, coal black eyes, a Roman nose and rosebud lips. He threw Rich a schedule through the window and while my husband complained; “This is in Italian!” my new boyfriend shrugged, ignoring my six-foot tall blonde Swedish American husband. Instead he smiled at me and raised his eyebrows, promising a romantic evening if I could just lose the ‘American clod’ and my diamond wedding ring. I don’t speak Italian but sometimes language differences don’t matter. Stunned at his beauty and his brazen behavior in front of my new husband, I made sure Rich didn’t see the exchange. We jumped on the next train hoping for the best, but when Rich fell asleep, I decided I would save the day by asking the conductor for a faster route to Germany. Fortunately the conductor spoke perfect English and was more than willing to help me. He could not match the counter employee in looks but his sweet personality made me want to take him home). In between talking on the two-way system, he patiently looked through stacks of train schedules as thick as phone books and asked me about California. In the meantime, Rich woke up and feared the worst. He searched bathrooms and the cafeteria, fearing that I had been kidnapped or fallen off the train. When he finally found me in the conductor's office he angrily said, “There you are!” and stomped back to our cabin. The frightened conductor said “I guess you better go” but I answered, “No it’s fine now he knows where I am.” (We still had never had a major fight and I honestly believed everything was okay-I was only 26!). While the conductor was still working on getting us to our plane on time, Rich came back again, asking what I was still doing there. By that time the conductor had instructed us where to change trains so we’d reach our plane on time. All was forgiven, I thought. But now that I think about it, we’re travel journalists and in the ensuing 27 years, we have visited Australia, Croatia, France, Ireland, South Africa, Spain, New Zealand, and countless other places in the U.S. but not Italy. My five sisters want to take away for my 50th birthday and perhaps I’ll suggest Italy…are you reading this Rich?

SF Women Making Waves

By: Ruth Wertzberger Carlson

It took a woman to start the America’s Cup, but 150 years later, few females are involved in this prestigious sailing competition. Three Bay Area women are breaking the glass wave, trying to make history by winning the America’s Cup in Valencia, Spain this spring.

In 1851, when Britain ruled the seas, Queen Victoria accepted a challenge from the upstart American colonies to race around the Isle of Wright. The yacht “America” famously won the bet and the America’s Cup trophy has been the coveted prize of the world’s richest men ever since.

It doesn’t get any more macho than the America’s Cup. Wealthy titans use their considerable financial resources to try and capture the world’s oldest international sporting trophy.  Larry Ellison, CEO and founder of Oracle, has spent millions of his own money on the BMW ORACLE Racing team. A member of the crew, he often takes the wheel. “It’s all about egos,” says Marcus Hutchinson, America’s Cup spokesman, which arguably is one reason so few women are involved in the competition.

It’s not due to physical limitations according to Dawn Riley, the sole female general manger of an America’s Cup team, Areva, the French contender. “Sailing is a physical sport, but it’s a sport that needs different size bodies and different skills,” says Riley, who lives in San Francisco. “You have to be in the top 10 percent of women in sailing to compete with the guys on these big powerful boats, but if you’re small you can be a sail trimmer, in the afterguard, (helmsman, navigator, strategist), or in the bow position. In this America’s Cup, I am bigger than seven men on the team. It’s an assumption that women are small things and they can’t be strong--that’s crap.”

Riley, the first American, man or woman, to compete in three America's Cups and two Whitbread Round the World Races, complained that she’s no longer “one of the guys,” because she has to spend more time behind a desk than on a boat. “Last year I raced every race-this year I only raced four times. When I’m out there I realize how much I miss it. There is something about the stress relief of being out there and sweating and working through the pain…you don’t think about the fact that the budget came in a couple hundred thousand dollars under, or the human resources issues, or the sponsor problems… all you’re doing is concentrating on that single focus --it’s amazing.”

Riley says she’s not as lonely as she once felt in the sailing community. She recalled one Saturday a few years ago when all the secretaries had the day off and Riley was the only woman present on the base. “Today there are more females in professional sailing, they’re just not always on the boats.  Now you have women in the sail loft, women in marketing, women on the shore team, and in the sponsorship area.  They’re not always on a boat, but they’re in the America’s Cup and it’s a major sporting event. They’re doing a great job and getting paid and that’s progress.”

Melinda Erkelens is one of those critical women working onshore. A Piedmont lawyer, she’s a legal and rules advisor for the BMW ORACLE Racing Team.
Although it may seem strange to need an attorney for an athletic competition, the America’s Cup transcends sports.  “It’s a really odd event based on a deed of gift two pages long that was written in 1887. The winner of the Cup is the trustee for the next race,” she says.

BMW ORACLE Racing is the official challenger to Alinghi, the winner of the last America’s Cup. The Challenger of Record approaches the Defender and makes a hip-pocket pre-race agreement, called a protocol. Since it is very brief, there is still a lot of negotiating that takes place before the actual racing. Whoever holds the Cup can decide on the rules.  In class rule meetings between the Defender and the Challenger of Record, (BMW ORACLE Racing), Erkelens was always the only woman in the room. “It was me and ten guys,” she says. 

Teams must be sponsored by a yacht club and BMW ORACLE Racing flies the flag of the Golden Gate Yacht Club in San Francisco. Erkelens sits on the Yacht Club’s Board of Directors and serves as a liaison between the Club and the Team. The U.S. held the Cup for 132 years; the longest winning streak in sports history, and Ellison is hoping to bring the Cup back home where it would be on display in the GG Yacht Club. The winner also gets to decide the location of the next Americas Cup, so San Francisco could be hosting this prestigious event in the future.

Erkelens’ job requires the perspective of a historian, the experience of a sailor, the practicality of an accountant, a politician’s skill, and the cunning of James Bond. She helped draft provisions outlawing spying, including a clause forbidding helicopters from looking down on the yachts and taking pictures.

The best advisors for the Americas Cup are those who know what’s worked in the past, according to Erkelens. “America’s Cup has turned in to a big spendathon and there are ways to control it or ways to let it happen,” she says. “It gets too silly.  In the past there were big weather teams, 15 little boats looking at weather patterns. We decided we didn’t need an armada.”

“It’s an amazing event that helps drive technological advances in the sailing industry. People spend a lot of money on R and D.  Who can afford to do research and development? It’s trial and error, but this is a place where they are doing advances and the cost effective ones trickle down to mainstream boating, such as sail material and rig designs. That’s a really cool thing.” She benefits from those advances on her own Moore 24 foot boat.

An amateur sailor, Erkelens has competed in women’s match racing. “I’ve been sailing since I was about six and racing since my teens.  I grew up in the Bay Area and raced in four Pacific Cup races (SF to Hawaii) and one Transpac (LA to Hawaii). In 2005, I raced on Transpac with an all women’s crew, and we finished 2nd in the Cal 40 fleet. Working on an America’s Cup team is a nice way for me to combine passion and profession.”

She and her husband Bill began working for Ellison 12 years ago when they took care of his 80-foot-yacht Sayonara. “In 2000 Larry said do you want to work on the America’s Cup? This is a good idea, right?” laughs Erkelens, who said the multi-year event can take over your life. “Larry loves sailing, it’s a passion, and it’s a world where everyone is passionate about it.”

“We did a lot of traveling in the first campaign and now we have two children seven and nine years old so we need to be settled,” says Erkelens, who conducts a lot of her work from home. “This time I’m not completely absorbed by the America’s Cup which can easily happen. Aimee is in a good spot with her husband right there.”

She’s referring to Aimee Daniel, the Sailing Team Coordinator for BMW ORACLE Racing, who is married to team member Rodney Daniel, a grinder. “My job is taking care of onshore logistics so the sailors can concentrate on wining races,” says Daniel. “I look after our sailing team of 36 people. We have to be ready each day to take 2 boats sailing - with a crew of 17 on each boat.  And, with the crew rarely being the same from day to day, compiling the list is somewhat intricate.  I am responsible for making sure this group knows where they should be, and when they should be there. If we travel for an event, I handle logistics on the ground once we arrive to these foreign places.”

“Because I have a sailing history and I know what it takes to produce results on the water, I can contribute to the onshore process and allow the sailors to focus on their jobs.” Sailing since she was a teen, Daniel’s accomplishments include winning the 2002 Women’s Match Racing Worlds, the 2003 Santa Maria Cup, and the 2004 U.S. Women’s Match Racing Championships. Daniel, who lives in Oakland, grew up around boats. Her mother and stepfather own and operate Pineapple Sails – a sail loft in Alameda. “Kame, my stepfather, started this business about 34 years ago,” she says. “They are the last Bay Area sail maker where a customer can actually see their sails made from start to finish.”

Aimee, who calls the Americas Cup  ‘a sea of men,’ says it’s a good thing that more women have joined the team because “women are so much better at communication. It’s amazing how men get anything done at all, ” she laughs.  Working on the same team with her husband has its advantages.  “We have the same days off and I don’t have to ask ‘How was your day?’ I already know.”

Unless women find romance with another sailor, they can find it difficult to form relationships. Although Riley has a residence in San Francisco, she said she travels constantly, so her home is wherever she happens to be. Single at 42, she was engaged to a sailor who is now shore manager for the New Zealand team, a syndicate now located next door to Areva, and he isn’t speaking to her. “The sailing world is a huge extended family or soap opera depending on the moment,” says Riley. “Right now I'm dating a guy from Seattle who has nothing to do with sailing. Part of the problem with dating sailors is that I start out at the same level or below the guys in terms of skills and position and end up rising above them.”

“It’s such a coveted position to be a part of a sailing team that you need to focus your total commitment and your total life on it,” observes Riley, “and a lot of times women are less stubborn and smarter than guys. They say ‘you know what, I don’t need to bang my head against a brick wall, I can become a doctor or a lawyer.’ So you have women dropping out for very valid reasons.”

With San Francisco women leading the way, the glass wave is breaking. “I have competent, intelligent young women who are interning and believing that it is possible to be a professional sailor,” she says. “ That didn’t happen ten years ago. In 1992 there were six women out of 240 team members; we’re talking marketing, retailing, administration. Now a quarter of the team are women and this is something you are seeing across the board on all the teams, which makes it a more welcoming, less intimidating situation.”

Relax You're on Spanish Time

RELAX Magazine March/April 2006 

LIVE WELL Magazine May/June 2006

By: Ruth Carlson

“Spanish people don’t have a lot of money, but they live well,” explains my friend Maria, who relocated from Spain to Silicon Valley a few years ago.

and travel when they are too old to walk!” I laughed out loud but the words ring true. The birthplace of high tech could learn something from a country

Despite their two hour lunches with wine and dinner that begins around 9 pm, the Spaniards take care of business. The secret to their success may be

their balanced lives. Nicknamed “the Germans of southern Europe,” for their strong work ethic, Spain just won a fierce competition to hold the 2007

America’s Cup sailing race in Valencia. The only American contender in this season’s competition is from Silicon Valley and BMW Oracle led by

Larry Ellison, Oracle’s CEO, may have the technical advantage. Valencia is anxious to have the rest of the world visit this Mediterranean town, the

third largest city in Spain, and the fastest growing city in Europe. Most South County residents have heard great things about Madrid and Barcelona,

First stop to satisfy all three: The America’s Cup Village. Valencia has turned an old industrial port into a complex for the America’s Cup and it

really is a city unto itself. Some of the city’s best restaurants have outposts here and there are plenty of shops to buy the official America’s Cup

merchandise. Kids will have to fight off their dads for controls of the remote controlled America’s Cup sailboats and the whole family can send a

postcard home electronically after standing in front of a huge screen and picking the Spanish background of their choice. Both are free! There is also

an America’s Cup museum highlighting the 152 year history of “the Auld Mug” and for the first time, you can walk up and take your picture

A new hotel, Valencia Center, is located within walking distance of the America’s Cup and the City of Arts and Sciences. The modern rooms

come with an extensive buffet breakfast including sausages, fresh fruit, eggs, and pastries that should last you until it’s time for lunch or tapas.

Fortunately one of the best tapas spots in Valencia is just a few doors down the street. The tapas tradition began to satiate folks who were hungry

between lunch at 2 and dinner at 10. Admirably the Spaniards have hung on to their traditions while embracing technology. Despite pressure

from the European Union, they are clinging to dining times that seem unusual to the rest of us. Around 2 am, you’ll find locals sipping the water

In addition to the America’s Cup, the City of Arts and Sciences or Ciudad De Las Artes Y Las Ciencies has the world looking anew at this ancient city.

Created by Valencia’s favorite son, famed architect Santiago Calatrava, the museums encourage visitors to explore science and culture. There are four

buildings; a planetarium, science museum, an aquarium and an opera house, still under construction. The science museum has fun hand- on exhibits

for children and costumed characters such as Edison walking the halls and interacting with the guests. L’Oceanografic is the largest aquarium in Europe

and children will be entranced in the long glass tunnels where they are surrounded by fish swimming on all sides and overhead. Be sure and see the

beluga whales, walruses, and dolphin show. When you’re done, stop by the submarine restaurant where fish swim around the perimeter of a circular room.

Walk off your lunch next door at Turia's Garden and dance by the outdoor fountain, choreographed to music and the inspiration for the Las Vegas

Bellagio Hotel’s waterworks. The Garden’s medieval wall, decorated with ancient gargoyles life, is meant to resemble a church. Any given Sunday

you’ll find families rollerblading, bicycling or just canoodling. “Spanish people walk,” says Maria. “People in the United States are always in their

Spending time with family is a priority and a typical Sunday in Valencia, the birthplace of paella, will find generations gathered together, preparing

this dish. One enterprising young man, Roman, gave up his dentistry practice to start a tourism business, uses a replica of a former mail boat to take

visitors to Portalbufhera where a chef in the traditional costume roasts the meat in an outdoor building made especially to cook paella. Although

we associate paella with seafood, the original recipe from Valencia was all meat. While waiting for the paella to simmer, you can watch children

play, wave to other boats as they lazily glide by, and catch up with friends while sipping Sangria. Like paella, every Spaniard has a special recipe

Good food is the glue that holds the Spanish families together so they take care buying choice ingredients from the source. At the oldest market in

Spain, Mercado Central, you can buy everything from live eels to Spanish rice and turron, a locally made fudge with almonds similar to toblerone

In addition the traditional dishes, trendy new restaurants that fuse meditterean and Asian cuisine are flourishing in Valencia. These new restaurants

take traditional dishes like gazpacho and use fresh fruit so instead of the cold green soup we’re used to, they serve red, cherry gazpacho with prosciutto

on top so it’s not too sweet. All the meals start with little dishes so you get a lot of taste without getting filled up. Lunches typically last hours

The hip restaurants are fun, but Valencia’s traditional restaurants may be the best deal in town. For instance, a four course meal costs $35.00 at

Restaurante Vinatea. The menu includes salmon in puff pastry, philo Italian pizza, foie grois, tiny sausages, and mashed potatoes with caviar,

Kids won’t appreciate the formal places but they’ll love Horchata Daniel. They specialize in a local treat called horchata, a creamy sweet drink

History buffs will want to visit the Valencia Cathedral, home of what many say is the Holy Grail, the Cup Christ used at the Last Supper.

Other historic sites include a ceramic museum and the old Silk Exchange. If you have a cell phone, look for a sign outside of all the museums and

While you’re in Valencia, do as the Spaniards do and visit the beach. Grab a bus or rent a car to see the beach towns of Gandia and Denia, about

an hour out of town. Gandia is best known as the home of the Borgia family, known for producing two popes. After you view the Duke’s Castle

(note how they are taking painstaking care to restore this piece of history,) stop for lunch at Arrops, a local hangout. The people watching is

If you get to Denia, don’t miss Les Pigo restaurant on the sand. Huge, fake, green cactuses line this white modern spot that offers a cool respite

from the sun. Try the tiny mussels appetizer with beer and lemonade, mixed together—very refreshing. Afterwards, relax on the beach, but don’t

1. Make meals a priority. Take time shopping for fresh, local ingredients and cooking dinner. Gather the family together--it doesn’t have to be

5. Spend some of your discretionary income on experiences not objects. “An American couple I knew told me they were saving their money

6. Dress to impress, it’s a sign of respect for yourself and others. Spaniards don’t leave the house unless they are satisfied with their total look.

You don’t have to spend a lot of money to look pulled together but please throw away those high waisted jeans from the 1970s!

7. If you’re not happy with your job, find your passion-many of the Spanish people I talked to had changed careers when they got bored.

8. Try new things. The Spanish are open to outside influences-they have to be –since their country went from Arab to Christianity rulers.

10. Live outdoors. Get out of your house and away from your computers--people need human interaction and nature. We’re lucky enough

12. Have a different outlook on time. Think of a someone showing up late as an opportunity for you to reflect. Spanish time is not American time.

We spent five days in the northwest corner of Ireland to Sligo, Shannon, and Donegal. That trip is now up on our TV show Talkintravel TV www.talkintravel.tv

It's been an exciting summer with visits to Stockholm, Sweden; the Auvergne region of France with a few days of sunning in Biarritz, and back to Valencia, Spain for more of the America's Cup sailing competion.  All these regions will be featured on Talkintravel TV as well as feature articles in various magazines.  Check back at www.talkintravel.com for the latest stories