One of the many advantages to international travel is the exposure to all kinds of news and sports that we just don’t see covered on TV here in the U.S. of A.

I just got back from almost a week in Poland, and the only English-language channel on my TV was CNN. Over the course of several days I got to see (over and over) a report of a sport just coming into its own in Germany: chess boxing. Two guys who can be best described as nerdy but muscular compete in alternate rounds of, you guessed it, chess and boxing.

The championship match I saw was pretty short. A thousand fans watched a match in Berlin on July 5 for the light-heavyweight championship. After trading some good punches in the second and fourth rounds, the previous titleholder was “knocked out” in the fifth round by a 19-year-old Russian math student who took his queen for checkmate, thus ending the match.

The match hit the European news right after it happened. In all fairness, I can’t swear that it wasn’t also shown on CNN here–I wasn’t here, after all–but it didn’t make it into the major print media here until July 10, when Time magazine gave it a few paragraphs.

ESPN sports center also ran a story that’s a more general introduction to the sport. It described the sport as being “not actually the best of both worlds - or even the best of either.” It wasn’t posted on YouTube til July 13.

So for a few days, at least, those of us who were traveling in Europe knew something the rest of America didn’t know: all about chess boxing. Not quite an Olympic sport yet; and maybe really not all that much worth knowing. But definitely something for when you run out of cocktail party chat.

- Mary Hunt, editor, eFlyer

One doesn’t equate Poland with Florida weatherwise, but I got off the plane in Warsaw to find almost identical weather to that I’d left in Florida - complete with thunderstorms.

It’s been quite warm–mid-80s at least–in Warsaw the last couple of days, and in mid-afternoon it clouds up and rains a bit. Today I was heading for a castle on the outskirts of town when the heavens let loose with thunder and lightning and lots of rain. So we made a detour for a bit of lunch, and sure enough the sun came out enough for us to walk through the lovely park surrounding Wilanow, Warsaw’s mini-Versailles, and get to the building, which is a museum of art and architecture inside a once-residential palace. It was clouding over a bit when we left two hours later, but we made it to the car safely before the rain came again.

It’s been 19 years since I’ve been to Warsaw, which is amazing to realize- how time flies. All the lovely things I remember are still here, the old town is lovelier than ever. Prices are higher, but the people are happier and thriving too, development is booming, and it’s generally a lovely place to visit for business and pleasure. It seems to even have managed to have nicer weather!

- Mary Hunt, editor, eFlyer

I flew from Tampa to Atlanta the other day and, miracle of miracles, the flight wasn’t full. I had the window seat and a nice young gentleman had the aisle seat.

Early into the flight, he pulled out a copy of a hotel management magazine and we began discussing the hotel industry these days–how was business, etc.

We realized that we felt quite “business class” having the empty middle seat, and how pleasant it was. We also remembered how nice airplanes can be for networking, and we both mentioned that it had been quite a while since we felt that way.

That’s probably why, in part, when I was offered the chance to upgrade to business class for the transatlantic portion of my flight I jumped at it. There was one paid upgrade available on the Atlanta-London leg of my flight, I didn’t particularly like my coach seat, so I handed over my credit card and took it.

My seat neighbor in Club Class on BA mentioned that, two hours before the flight, he’d only seen seven seats booked in Club. The flight was overbooked, so we guess that most of the seats were either upgrades for elite members, or a shuffling about of premium economy passengers into Club so and economy passengers into premium economy so that all those holding economy tickets could be economy. I do know that my upgrade was the last one that had an actual Club meal available.

Paying to fill last-minute seats seems an ultimately sensible way to make a bit more money for the airlines. It was too bad that more meals weren’t available because they stopped selling the upgrades for that reason. Similarly, if the Tampa-Atlanta flight was so lightly booked, most of us probably would have paid a few extra dollars to guarantee that we had that middle seat free. Unfortunately the airlines aren’t set up for so much last-minute flexiblity, but as a suggestion–it’s a good idea!

- Mary Hunt, editor, eFleyr

Anniversaries and birthdays tend to make one look back, and what I’ve been looking back on the last few days is Portugal.

The reminiscence was triggered by Ron Bernthal’s review in the June 25 eFlyer of the Terreiro do Paco restaurant in Lisbon. I haven’t been to the restaurant, but I’ve been to the square. While I’ve been to the city many times, I remember my first visit well - it was my very first press ‘junket.’

I’d been to Europe before, and I’d been on press trips before, but they’d all been individual. This was the first time I’d gotten to mix with other travel journalists, and I believe I was the youngest person on the trip. I remember being grateful that I’d traveled a bit in the previous year so that I didn’t feel like a total neophyte. There were also some editors who didn’t travel as much as the freelance writers, so I wasn’t the only person who hadn’t been to Lisbon before.

Anyway, I still love Lisbon to this day. I remember how beautiful the Jeronimos Monastery was (is), how impressed I was with the Explorers monument, walking the cobbled streets of the Alfama. Odd things stick in my mind, like what I was wearing the first day, and having a chicken cross my path in the Alfama.

I also remember that it was my first experience of being flirted with by married men, that there were couples who traveled together and I wondered if they both really worked or if it was a dodge, and thinking that a few of the women were ‘old’ - at the same time being glad that it looked like a career that wasn’t age-dependent.

That was 30 years ago, so I guess that means I’m living proof that my last observation was correct!

- Mary Hunt, editor, eFlyer

This week marks the anniversary of Global Traveler’s blog, and this weekend marks the anniversary of my first blog here. Last year, my first blog was on my birthday, though thanks to leap year, my birthday isn’t til Monday this year.

Looking back over the last year, of course it’s the travels that stand out. In the last year I’ve been to Colorado, New York, England and Israel, and I’m off to Poland Wednesday. I’ve also had the privilege of virtually traveling to the wide range of locations visited by those who write reviews for eFlyer (a special hat tip to Ron Bernthal).

On a more parochial level, I moved again this week, just about a mile. Packing and unpacking is a good time to revisit memorabilia. My favorite from my travels is a little trophy I got from the Harbor Bay Yacht Club in Cape Town, basically for being a good sport; we never did catch any fish that day, but they said I was the first American–not just American woman, mind you, but American–who hadn’t begged to turn around after tackling the surf in the ski boats they use for fishing off the shallow shelf of the Cape. It’s just a little plastic thing, but it’s engraved with my name, and it reminds me of being young and intrepid and being in Africa for the first time.

- Mary Hunt, editor, eFlyer