Matador Network's Blog, page 987

Stephen King’s house for writers

You might not be too eager to put yourself in the stories of Stephen King, but now you can at least put yourself in his shoes. King’s house in Bangor, Maine, is becoming a writer’s retreat after the Bangor City Council approved an application by King to rezone the 3.27-acre property for use as a nonprofit. The house is where King and his wife Tabitha raised their three children and where the popular horror author wrote many of his most famous novels.

The house is certainly consistent with King’s work, as the spooky gate is even adorned with bats and gargoyles. The town of Bangor may be familiar to fans of King as it’s featured in many of his stories, including “IT,” “Insomnia,” and “11/22/63.”

On Facebook, King wrote, “We are in the very beginning of planning the writers’ retreat at the house next door, providing housing for up to five writers in residence at a time. The zoning change getting press coverage was the first step. We are one to two years away from an operating retreat. The archives formerly held at the University of Maine will be accessible for restricted visits by appointment only. There will not be a museum and nothing will be open to the public, but the archives will be available to researchers and scholars.”

So while the retreat isn’t up and running just yet, it sounds like plans are in full swing — and applications will surely be competitive.


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Visit Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girl

To Gilmore Girls fans, the town of Stars Hollow might feel like an out-of-reach utopia, but now they can actually visit it in real life. No, this doesn’t just mean you can visit a town that looks like Stars Hollow or is renovated to mimic it. The Warner Bros. Studio Tour in Hollywood will transform into Stars Hollow for the holiday season, with all the original sets and props. That means Luke’s Diner, Stars Hollow High School, Lorelai’s house, and the town gazebo will all be there. Props like Lorelai’s jeep, and Lorelai and Rory’s wardrobes, are also still intact.

The main town square, including the gazebo, has always been viewable by taking the studio tour, but the sets have been repurposed dozens of times, so it never fully felt like the real Stars Hollow. For this event, though, the sets will be decorated specifically to replicate Stars Hollow at Christmas — twinkle lights and all. Now, considering the studio tour is in Los Angeles instead of Connecticut, it probably won’t be covered in snow — but you never know what movie magic the studio will pull out.

Photo: Warner Bros. Studio Tour

Fans of the show know that the only way to tour Stars Hollow right is while munching on junk food, so the tour will provide plenty of snacks (and, of course, coffee coffee coffee) along the way.

Garo Soloff, Director of Marketing at Warner Bros. Studio Tour, said in a press release, “Gilmore Girls touched the hearts of so many fans and spans generations. This holiday season, our guests will enjoy a one-of-a-kind fan experience as they tour the iconic Warner Bros. backlot that will be transformed into the majestic town of Stars Hollow.”

The experience will take place at the Warner Bros. Studio Tour in Hollywood from December 21 to January 5, and tickets can be purchased online.


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Forty-page haunted house waiver

Some people go to haunted houses for a few scares, some laughs, and view it as a fun way to get in the Halloween spirit. Others go to haunted houses to get the bejeezus scared out of them and potentially not sleep for weeks. For the latter group, McKamey Manor in Summertown, Tennessee, is your Super Bowl. Featured on Netflix’s Haunters: Art of the Scare, McKamey Manor is perhaps the most extreme haunted house in the country. So extreme that no one has successfully completed it.

For starters, you can’t even participate unless you sign a 40-page waiver, create a safe word, pass a physical, pass a background check, provide proof of medical insurance, and pass a drug test. And the entry fee is only one bag of dog food, since the manor’s owner, Russ McKamey, has five dogs. If you do make it out on the other side, you’ll be awarded $20,000, but there’s a reason no one’s ever completed it.

Among the haunted house’s warnings are “intense audio, lighting, extreme low visibility, strobe and fog effects, damp and wet conditions, physically demanding environments, close contact with creatures (you might be touched), very real and graphic scenes of horror.”

The key to McKamey’s success is his mastery of the mental game. “You’d be surprised over the years how many people have claimed something happened to them inside,” he said, “and I need to go back and show whoever needs to see it the raw and unedited footage, saying ‘here ya go, here’s the complete show.’” McKamey films each experience mainly for legal purposes, to protect himself in court.

Allegedly, he crafts each show according to people’s individual fears, so the haunted house is never the same twice.

To attempt McKamey Manor, and have a shot at the $20,000, you can contact Russ personally.


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Chocolate cruise around Europe

Sailing around Europe and eating chocolate all day and night might sound like an unattainable fantasy, but this cruise is actually making it a reality. As part of a collaboration between Italian cruise line Costa Cruises and the annual Eurochocolate chocolate festival, the Eurochocolate Cruise was born. As the name suggests, the cruise centers around chocolate, with chocolate-focused workshops, tastings, animations, and excursions to places like the Chocolate Museum in Barcelona.

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that chocolate is absolutely everywhere aboard the ship, including a chocolate sculpture and chocolate cooking classes, workshops, and laboratory experiences taught by expert chocolatiers. Of course, you’ll also get to partake in tasting sessions, where the chocolate will be paired with wines and Mediterranean dishes.

“We try to offer unique experiences to our guests […] and this is possible also thanks to prestigious partnerships like the one with Eurochocolate,” Carlo Schiavon, Costa Cruises’ Italy country manager, told Lonely Planet. “[It] will allow us to have for the first time aboard a cruise ship the vibe, the fun and the tastes of the greatest international festival dedicated to chocolate.”

The cruise departs from Civitavecchia on April 16, 2020, and is scheduled to dock in Genoa, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Malta, and Catania.


More like this: 6 must-visit destinations for chocolate lovers

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Addressing conflict while traveling

Traveling with someone is a wonderful way to strengthen your bond. It can also be stressful, and when you’re hangry, tired, and you’ve just missed your bus, tempers will rise. The added pressure of being in an unfamiliar place and situation means things that would usually wash over you become way more irritating than they normally would.

Travel hiccups aside, spending all day with someone means you’ll get to know them extremely well — the good and the bad. And if something they repeatedly do irks you, or you fall into a pattern where one person makes the decisions while the other follows, it could spell storm clouds on the horizon.

The first thing to bear in mind is this: Conflicts happen. When you’re traveling with your romantic partner or best friend, it’s tempting to think you’re the perfect match, and that an argument is the beginning of the end. It’s not. Relationships need conflict. It clears the air, resolves issues, and helps you better understand each other’s needs. And the sooner you learn to overcome these hurdles, the less daunting and unpleasant they’ll become.

By following these steps, you’ll find it easier to navigate those tricky situations and learn to appreciate each other’s differences. Here’s how to have difficult conversations with your travel partner when you hate conflict.

1. Understand why we need conflict.

Accepting conflict is an important part of getting your voice heard while traveling. But if the thought of speaking out makes you nervous then relax, you’re not alone: Most of us prefer to avoid difficult situations. We naturally have a built-in fight or flight response when faced with threats, and often, flight is much easier.

There are a range of excuses people use to avoid dealing with an issue. From self-preservation to perceptions of what the other person will think, we tend to do everything we can to avoid the most obvious solution: talking. But biting your tongue not only hurts you in the long run, it allows tensions to simmer and resentment to build — something that complicates the original problem, which has now become a chain of resentments instead of a single, easily fixable thing. Acknowledge when there’s a problem, and you’re halfway to sorting it out.

2. Don’t put it off.

While it’s definitely a good idea to sleep on an issue (not getting pizza for lunch might not seem like such a big deal after you’ve had a nap and a bite to eat), holding things in for days and spending sleepless nights imagining scenarios and outcomes will leave you exhausted, confused, and cranky — all while the other person is completely oblivious.

Try to understand why you’re putting it off. Is there a difficult conversation from your past that still haunts you to this day? Fear often comes from previous negative experiences, so try to understand where your worry is coming from and approach the conversation without any expectations.

3. Plan ahead.

It’s time to address the situation. But before you dive in, you need to lay the foundations for a constructive conversation. This means planning ahead rather than bringing it up in a bar after you’ve had a few drinks, which is a recipe for drama. Make sure you’re both well-rested, fed, and hydrated — and choose somewhere private to talk so you can discuss things without worrying about other people overhearing. It’s also a good idea to put phones and other distractions away so you can give each other your full, undivided attention.

4. Be direct.

Many people shy away from being direct because they’re worried they’ll come across as rude. But not getting to get to the point is frustrating for the other person and you risk failing to achieve your goals.

Before you begin your conversation, make sure you have an end goal in mind and try not to lose focus. Now is not the time to bring up every little issue, and doing this will dilute your message and leave your audience feeling attacked. Instead, think about what the real problem is (all those little things could lead back to one overarching topic), get straight to the point, and hold it in your mind throughout. And remember, being direct is an art form you can learn. To make sure you don’t come across as nagging, mean, or aggressive, keep your tone positive and your body language friendly (no crossed arms or tapping feet).

5. Keep the conversation on track.

If you have a tendency to wander off-track or you’re the kind of person who gets nervous and forgets what they meant to say in the heat of the moment, then write down your talking points. If you feel embarrassed about taking such a formal approach, just explain why you’re doing it to the other person — they should understand.

If the other person is bringing up other issues and getting off topic, lead the conversation back to the main issue. You can do this without sounding aggressive or dismissive; acknowledge that they have other things they’d like to discuss (note it down if necessary) and tell them you’d like to discuss these separately. There are endless ways a conversation can go, but if you listen and respond with empathy then the conversation is way more likely to be a productive one.

6. Pay attention to emotions.

There’s no right or wrong way to feel during a difficult conversation, but there is a right and wrong way to respond. Pay attention to both your own mood and how the other person is responding, and be aware that people express distress in different ways.

If you find yourself becoming flustered, tearful, or shouty, let the other person know your emotions are running high and take a timeout to calm down and refocus your thoughts. This could include a coffee, a walk around the block, or even a good night’s sleep. Similarly, if you spot signs of frustration, anger, or fear in your partner’s body language, then take the initiative and suggest you both take some time to regroup. Breathe; the hardest part is over, you’re almost there.

7. Take it slow and let them speak.

When we need to get something off our chest — especially when we’re nervous or upset — we have a tendency to rant. Try to pause between sentences, and ask the other person what they think at regular intervals. It not only keeps your message measured and coherent, it also makes it easier for the listener to digest and ask questions if they need to. Remember, this is a two-way conversation, not a monologue.

8. Keep things positive.

This is a two-way thing, and while you’re fighting for your own goal, bear in mind the other person has their own needs to consider too. Try not to assume their agenda; instead, consider every possibility so you have the best opportunity to form a solution that keeps you both happy. Avoid words or phrases that appear to dismiss your partner’s points. “No” is an obvious one, but phrases such as “yes but” can sound like you’re not acknowledging the issue being raised. Instead, respond to their comments with encouragement for elaboration, rather than conversation killers that lead you to a dead end. If you don’t agree with their opinion, firmly and empathetically express your view, then try to reach a compromising solution that accommodates both sides. Remember, it’s okay to disagree with each other. This isn’t about winning, it’s about finding a better way to travel together.

9. Pick your battles.

Compromise is an important part of traveling with someone else. It’s essential you speak out if you really do or don’t want to do something, but equally, it’s a good idea to be sensitive to the needs of your travel partner(s) and stay flexible — no one needs to fight to the death over what to have for lunch. And if you do feel this way, then pause for thought: are you being inflexible, or does your anger lead to a deeper issue — such as you feeling like you never get to call the shots?

The difficulty here is when you’re feeling tired or hungry, which makes even the most laid-back among us snappy. Remember to always have an awareness of your tone, and keep in mind what’s really important. Take a nap and grab a bite to eat if necessary. You may find that conflict doesn’t seem so important after all.

10. Look after yourself.

Voicing your needs is an important part of traveling with someone, and if that involves a difficult conversation or two, then so be it. But what if you end up having endless conversations or you feel like you’ve reached a brick wall? In this scenario, you may discover you’re just incompatible — or your travel partner might turn out to be a total jerk. In which case, rather than going through the pain of repeated conflicts or compromising your travel plans and experience, it may be easier to just head off solo. Again, this will likely involve at least one more difficult conversation, but if you follow these steps, you should be able to turn a tricky situation into a positive (or at least productive) one.


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The post How to have difficult conversations with your travel partner when you hate conflict appeared first on Matador Network.

Tourist loses hands in shark attack

While on a whale-watching expedition off the coast of Moorea in French Polynesia, a tourist was attacked by a shark and lost both of her hands. The 35-year-old French citizen was swimming when an oceanic whitetip shark bit into her arms and chest. She was quickly treated by nurses on the scene — who happened to also be on the excursion — but the damage had already been done.

Local firefighter Jean-Jacques Riveta told AFP, “When we got to the hotel jetty she was conscious but in a critical condition. She had lost a lot of blood and both her hands had been cut off at the forearm.”

Although the woman is now in stable condition after being airlifted to Tahiti, she did lose both hands in the attack.

Jacques Cousteau, the famous conservationist and oceanographic researcher, called the oceanic whitetip shark the most dangerous of all sharks, though attacks near land are extremely uncommon as they prefer deep ocean areas.

Attacks may be extremely rare, but according to the International Shark Attack File — a database on shark attacks — the number of attacks should be expected to increase. “As world population continues its upsurge and interest in aquatic recreation concurrently rises,” it said, “we realistically should expect increases in the number of shark attacks and other aquatic recreation-related injuries.”


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Study finds yoga vacations stressful

Beyond the fact that hip stretches can be a serious cause of anxiety for the flexibility-challenged, a new study also found that doing yoga on vacation can leave travelers more stressed than going to amusement parks.

That’s right. According to a recent survey from the fitness equipment review site FitRated, yoga ranked the highest of any vacation activity for leaving people feeling stressed after they got home. Its top spot was just ahead of the endless lines and $19 hamburgers at amusement parks and lagged way behind peaceful pastimes like hiking, fishing, and going to the beach.

Now it’s not like everyone who does a little chaturanga on the road goes home feeling like they need a vacation from their vacation. Only about 12 percent of the 1,001 employed people surveyed reported being stressed after doing yoga while away. Then again, it didn’t rank in the top 10 of activities that left people most relaxed, either. And it was one of only two activities that left over 10 percent of respondents stressed.

“I can’t really speak to why people thought this way,” said Corie Colton, who works on FitRated’s creative team, when asked why yoga, of all things, was the most stress-inducing vacation activity. “Yoga is often a stress reliever so maybe the results turned out like that because people turn to (yoga) to relieve their stress.”

That is, people driven to take yoga breaks during their vacation are probably already having stressful vacations. So the yoga isn’t so much the cause of the stress as a way of dealing with it.

Another explanation could be the stress involved with finding a place to do yoga. As anyone who’s ever Ubered to Orangetheory while traveling knows, finding fitness studios away from home can also be a source of anxiety. Locating a good studio, lining up its class schedule with your plans, and getting to and from the place all add more stress to a time that’s otherwise supposed to be peaceful.

“I do yoga so I can definitely speak to that,” said Colton. “When you go to a new studio, it’s stressful to get there on time, everything has to be in order with your paperwork. It’s another possible explanation.”

Of course, it wasn’t all vacation stressors in FitRated’s survey. It also looked at the activities people found most relaxing. That list was unsurprisingly topped by fishing (95 percent), camping (93.8 percent), and reading (93.1 percent). Exploring a new city also ranked highly, with 89.1 percent of respondents saying it left them feeling relaxed. It’s amazing what a GPS and a fleet of rideshares can do.

The stress of working out ultimately relaxes you

The study found that just over half of respondents had exercised on their last vacation and found 91 percent of those who did went home feeling relaxed. That’s compared to about 86% of those who didn’t exercise.

If you’re hellbent on keeping your workout routine on the road, you may want to think about going it alone. Solo travelers were far more likely to exercise on vacation as well, with 56.6 percent reporting working out compared to just over 40 percent for those traveling with families. One in five travelers said they were peer pressured into skipping the gym by a traveling companion.

The most popular place for getting exercise while traveling? Simply walking around a new city and getting the lay of the land. Somehow literally no one listed huffing through an amusement park in the height of summer as their favorite form of physical taxation. Though anyone who’s ever taken their shoes off after a long day at Disney knows it’s harder than half the world’s marathons.

While gyms or fitness studios were barely the fifth most popular spot for away-from-home activity, Colton still offered some advice for minimizing any potential exercise-induced stress.

“If you’re going to work out on vacation, make sure to do it in a way that will add to your relaxation,” she said. “Whether that means planning ahead to go to a new gym, or doing something that doesn’t involve a lot of preparation like going for a run along the beach, or bodyweight exercise in hotel room. The point of your trip is to relax and disconnect, so don’t let any kind of exercise add to your stress.”

What she’s saying is, if your hips just don’t get as far down as they used to, maybe opt for a nice walk on the sand instead.


More like this: A guide to yoga teacher trainings around the world

The post Doing yoga on vacation is more stressful than theme parks, a new study says appeared first on Matador Network.

What is apple orchard wassailing

If you were alive in eighth-century England, you might have heard the local nobleman proclaim “waes hael” — be in good health — at the banquet celebrating the new year. Then you, along with the assembled crowd, would shout “drink hael” in reply, taking a sip of cider from a communal bowl. This tradition, which developed well before the spread of Christianity, became known as wassailing. Yet as the centuries passed, wassailing evolved from a toast to the health of your neighbors to a ritual that scared evil spirits out of apple orchards. Today, a friendly modern version of drinking is being revived in England and the apple-growing regions of the Northeastern United States.

Historian Robert Doares writes that, from the beginning, wassailing has been connected to drinking, celebrating, debauchery, and cider. Before battles, 11th-century Saxon warriors sometimes recited a toast that included the lines, “Rejoice and wassail / Pass the bottle and drink healthy.” Another legend from around the same time recounts that a goblet filled with spice wine would be offered as a tribute to a king, along with the blessing “was hail!” The tradition of wassailing — offering a blessing of good fortune and health — was so ingrained in English culture that it even appears in the epic poem Beowulf, which laments that “no harp resounds, in the courts no wassail, as once was heard.”

Photo: Rimma Bondarenko/Shutterstock

A typical wassail drink consisted of “warmed ale, wine or cider, blended with spices, honey and perhaps an egg or two,” according to historian Ellen Castelow. The mixture was served in the wassail bowl (essentially a large drinking vessel) with pieces of toasted bread floating on top (hence the origins of the word “toast” as a term for speech accompanied by a drink).

Banquets where wassailing happened often occurred around wintertime when locals would gather to pay tribute to noblemen. Each party guest would call out “Wassail!,” give their neighbor a kiss, and then take a sip from the wooden wassail bowl. The custom survived all the way into the Renaissance.

In medieval Britain, however, wassailing inspired another tradition. On the Twelfth Night — January 5, the last day of the 12 days of Christmas — farmers took to their apple orchards, singing songs, banging pots and pans, splashing the trees with cider, and drinking to the health of their oxen. The ritual scared away evil spirits from the orchards and blessed the trees so that the following Autumn would yield a plentiful harvest. Revelers often placed bread soak in the wassail drink on the branches of the trees as an offering to appease the tree spirits and prove that last year’s crop had been fruitful.

Photo: Liz Boynton/Shutterstock

From here, the history of wassailing turns dark in England and New England. Alexandra Coghlan’s book Carols From King’s recounts how, throughout the 1600s and 1700s, groups of young men went door to door demanding entry to the living room as well as a hot drink, sometimes forcing their way in and growing violent if they were refused. Around the same time, troupes of wassailing young women sang carols to their neighbors and offered them a hot drink of cider or spiced wine — demanding money in return. In 1712, one fed up Bostonian wrote that Christmas time is marked by “Mad Mirth, by long eating, by hard Drinking, by lewd Gaming, by rude Reveling.”

Despite rowdy locals taking advantage of their neighbors’ hospitality and any opportunity to get drunk for free, wassailing the orchards remained a widespread tradition up until the 18th century. For hundreds of years, the custom almost entirely vanished. However, in the mid-2000s, a wassailing revival began in England, and the tradition is once again flourishing throughout the country.

Photo: The Ethicurean Restaurant/Facebook

Most modern wassailing celebrations revive ancient customs: At The Fleece Inn, in Worcestershire, the annual orchard wassail takes place on January 11 and involves Morris dancing, elaborate costumes, a procession to the orchards, and lots of live music and yelling of “was hail!” to wake up the trees and scare away spirits. The Ethicurean restaurant in Bristol serves a four-course meal for its wassail celebration, followed up by a torchlight parade to the orchards led by the wassail king and queen, a Mummers play (an English folk play usually involving a sword fight), the banging of pots and pans among the sleeping trees, and a large fire ring. Other orchard wassails, in places like Cumbria, Devon, and Somerset, still hang toast soaked in wassail on the tree branches as an offering, and almost all of them involve cacophonous noise-making.

There are also some farmers who have kept the wassailing tradition alive in the US, especially in the orchards of upstate New York.

Fly Creek Cider in Otsego, New York, holds Wassailing Weekends throughout November as an opportunity for visitors to learn how to make traditional wassail. The cidery’s current owner, Bill Michaels, who inherited the family business from his parents, says his current wassail recipe was passed down to him by his mother. Visitors can grab a jug of Fly Creek cider and a sachet packet filled with a mixture that includes cloves, anise, nutmeg, and allspice to make their own batches of wassail at home for holiday parties and family gatherings.

Photo: Rootstock Ciderworks/Facebook

The custom of celebrating the harvest and scaring evil spirits out of the apple trees hasn’t gone entirely extinct, either. Since 2015, DeFisher Fruit Farms (and its accompanying cidery, Rootstock Ciderworks) in Williamson, New York, has held an annual wassailing celebration at its orchard. The event invites guests to enjoy an evening singing to trees to them make happy, as well as banging pots and pans near the trees to evict any negative energy from the orchard. Revelers can then enjoy a bonfire, more singing and live music, and a buffet (burgers and pierogies have been offered in the past) that includes hot wassail to drink, of course.

Luke deFisher, a fifth generation farmer who operates the orchard with his father and grandfather, calls the annual wassail a raucous “winter party.” The family holds the celebration when the weather is coldest (usually in January), and some people even arrive on their snowmobiles.

The wassail won’t be held in 2019 as the family is focusing on growing their business, but Luke nevertheless thinks wassailing is a tradition worth saving — even if it has moved on from the days of waes hael and drink hael.


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Staircase from ‘Joker’ movie overrun

Everyone loves to visit the sets of their favorite movies, but some people take it one step too far. Popularized by the dancing scene in the movie Joker, the stairs connecting Shakespeare and Anderson Avenues in the Bronx’s Highridge neighborhood are now overrun with tourists. The stairs have their own Instagram hashtag with over 700 tagged photos and were even added to Google Maps as a “religious site” — though the designation has since been removed.

As with many tourist attractions located in neighborhoods, the residents aren’t exactly pleased. Neighbors are encountering heavy foot traffic using the stairs to get to work and school, and some have stopped using them entirely.

Twenty-nine-year-old Jonathan Francis, who has lived in the neighborhood his entire life, told Gothamist, “We hope it ends soon because we don’t need this. We feel disrespected.”

According to another resident, Brayan Felix, “It’s not just selfies and hashtags. Understand that people live in those places and that just you taking a picture is gonna have an impact in that community.”

Posters have even been taped to nearby lampposts and walls saying, “It is disrespectful to treat our community and residents as a photo opportunity.”

That doesn’t mean there’s no silver lining to the situation. In the past, residents have complained about the cleanliness of the stairs, and State Assemblymember Latoya Joyner thinks maybe all the attention will help change that. “It’s more now about how do we keep the areas clean and attractive for the residents that actually do live there,” she said, “and are there on a daily basis and have to walk up and down those steps.”


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JetBlue agent commits wire fraud

With flights as expensive as they are right now, you can’t fault people for trying to find loopholes to make trips more affordable. You can, however, fault an airline employee for committing wire fraud to do so. Thirty-one-year-old Tiffany Jenkins pleaded guilty in federal court on Friday to exploiting her position as an airline gate agent with JetBlue. Jenkins, a resident of Chelsea, Massachusetts, admitted to converting low-cost domestic flight tickets to more expensive international flights at no additional charge for friends and family.

During her work shift, Jenkins would use the airline’s computer reservation database to change flights for customers at no extra charge using a special code. The code allows agents to change flights for customers who miss their flights or experience a death in the family, but Jenkins used it 505 times to benefit over 100 of her close relations.

According to the official statement, once a passenger booked one of the airline’s cheaper fares, “Jenkins exchanged those tickets for a completely different city pair, generally involving much more expensive international locations, for friends, family and acquaintances.”

A charge of wire fraud comes with a fine of $250,000 — a lot more than an international flight ticket — and a prison sentence of up to 20 years. Jenkins’s sentencing is scheduled for January 21, 2020.


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