Salon.com > Vacation

I went on a freaking cruise

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Over the week of Thanksgiving, I was on a cruise. The idea of my going on a week-long cruise provoked a seemingly endless series of smirks and scoffs from everyone I told beforehand. I am not exactly the cruise ship type. Cruises, as we all know, are environmentally disastrous post-industrial American extravagances, bloated and vulgar parodies of the classy transatlantic voyages of yesteryear, with more than a touch of colonialism in the way they deposit their hordes of rich passengers on poor islands, making small economies dependent on their tourism dollars but keeping the vast majority of them for the fantastically profitable companies that own the boats. Cruises are gross and weird and I was sure I would hate going on one.

When I agreed to write about my time At Sea, I did so knowing that it is unwise to invite comparison to the beloved author of That One Essay everyone mentions when you tell them you are going on a cruise. I've read it, of course, though not in 10 years, at least. I'm not half the writer that the author of that particular beloved piece was, though I think I'm perhaps better able to enjoy myself than he was. (Though not without assistance, as my bar bill showed by the end of the week.)

Vacation from hell

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 21:40:00 +0000

Mikhail Sebastian’s trip to American Samoa redefines the term nightmare vacation.

Instead of a five-day holiday to the lush, tropical US territory in the South Pacific, the 39-year-old has spent more than nine brutal months there caught in an immigration law hell. Experts agree it’s an unprecedented illustration of America’s broken immigration system.

The key sticking point: Though he’s lived legally in Houston and the Los Angeles area for years under a special arrangement with the Department of Homeland Security, Sebastian is stateless, with no citizenship at all. The federal government argues that during his vacation he “self-deported” from the United States — despite the fact that American Samoa is a US territory.

Now the part-time travel agent and barista is stuck on the 76-square-mile island as federal and local officials hash out what to do with him. Though the local government is putting him up with a local family and giving him a $50 weekly allowance, Sebastian can’t work under American Samoan laws and can’t travel off the island.

Europe’s amazing vacation laws

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 11:16:00 +0000

Imagine this: You work 25 hours a week at the McDonald’s in Cairo, New York, and have finally earned two weeks of paid vacation. You set out on a bike trip. On the first day in the saddle, you hit a pothole and crash, cracking your collar bone. You sit on your couch for the rest of your vacation watching the Tour de France. Tough luck.

Unless you worked for McDonald’s in Europe. If you did, you would be entitled to a fully paid do-over, according to a June 21ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the highest court in Europe (whose rulings must be followed by all member states). This court ruled that all European workers are entitled to their full vacation after they have healed: