Arts & Culture

Travelog: Lunches, Finks and Recalls 

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I’ve found myself in a bit of a tourist funk… or maybe I’ve found myself thinking that it’s near impossible to escape a tourist funk. After all, vacation takes on an impossible role in contemporary life. Vacation is (at least functionally) a coping device for the relatively privileged that takes on all the weight and challenge of one’s perpetual monotonous labor: A faint light at the end of a tunnel that one can point to during any workplace hardship or grueling week. As a reward for that labor, privileged in its compensation but nonetheless inevitably miserably capitalistic, one may get a chance to briefly experience a wonderful sedentary artwork, striking natural feature, oasis of relaxation or distinctly bustling metropolis. The lifetime of same-old same-old interrupted by the once-in-a-lifetime brush with eternity.

Columns

GRANT & FALLON | Deceptive Identities of a Textbook World

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Every winter, spring and summer break, Cornellians can be found around the world volunteering their time to communities abroad. Most students perform marvelous achievements, acts of good and return to campus refreshed to take on the next semester. Yet, at the moment of return, the coming home to Ithaca, we are forced to ask ourselves if our work was truly in the spirit of service and cross cultural exchange. This winter break my co-writer, a Cornell Traditions Fellow in the school of Hotel Administration, explored the complexity of cross-cultural volunteerism with the organization Unearth the World, a nonprofit that prides itself on its mission to provide both opportunities for service and authentic cultural immersion. In the spirit of service-based learning, we had been sent articles to prepare us for our excursions, ranging from country ‘quick facts’ to the importance of ethical photography.

Uncategorized

Nothing Says 'Home' Like a Tourist Trap

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Like people, there are tourist traps of all types, colors, shapes and sizes.
For example, a restaurant that is sparsely populated with native speakers but that also touts a near-perfectly translated English menu is a sure low-grade tourist trap. If you have just ordered “crude ham with broiled cheese and salad green,” you will be paying too much for that croque monsieur, monsieur.

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C.U. Sights Appeal to Tourists

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With its sweeping hills and unique architecture, Cornell offers a great deal of beauty for its students. But is that beauty enough to turn Cornell into a tourist destination? In The New York Times Travel Section from Mar. 1, Jane Margolies praised the Ithaca campus as one of five campuses that “have become popular tourist draws for their cultural offerings.”
Ithaca, as the urban capital of the Finger Lakes, is a common stop on journeys to the various vineyards and other local attractions for New York City residents, according to The Times. Cornell, as the largest attraction in the city, draws a large number of those visitors.