Happy 2nd Birthday Let's Travel Radio

Thursday, April 2nd is a very special day for us. Come help us celebrate our 2nd birthday and the start of our 3rd year as we reminisce on all things travel on Let's Travel Radio. It's also our 101st show! Our special guests will tell you about some of their secret places and share some of their adventures with you. Returning are Professor Barry Goldsmith, who teaches architectural history and design at New York University, Motivational Speaker Jon Haggins and Freelance Writer and Photographer Denise Mattia. Traveling on Let's Travel Radio coudn't be better!










Guests

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Barry Goldsmith, Humor and Architecture Professor
New York University



From Barry:


I'm 46 years old, which is the exact same age Lenin was, when he was 46.

I am a high-school dropout. (I had early admission to Princeton). Graduated from Rutgers at 18 with a year at the Sorbonne's Ecole des Beaux Arts. Two masters from Columbia -- architectural history and architectural design.

After graduation, I worked at an architecture firm in the late 80's for $260 a week designing drain pipes. Read in the NY POST that Joan Rivers was starting a talk show from NYC. I figured that I was in the gutter anyway, so I thought I would write for her.

How I go the job writing and doing Man in the Street on the Joan Rivers Show -- Sent her my Phi Beta Kappa Key and told her that with hers PBK key, she can have earrings made. But she had to read the material I wrote on spec. I did. And I wrote for her show and others.

I also wrote a sitcome: Fab Rehab for the BBC in the mid-90's and was a consultant on the BBC's Noel's House Party

I have been teaching at New York University for 10 years. At first humor and now humor and architecture. What does architecture have to do with humor? "I'm off the wall."



To read a past article in the New York Times written by Barry Goldsmith, click here







Jon Haggins, Motivational Speaker


Jon Haggins is a motivational speaker who inspires people to get up and go, that anything is possible. His background includes travel, fashion, interior and food. Jon has been featured in and have written for numerous publications. He has also been a spokesperson for Procter and Gamble's Ultra Detergents. The Museum of the City of New York featured a retrospective of his fashion designs. And the Schomburg Library has acquired his fashion archive of photographs and editorials. Jon is the producer and host of a national travel show GlobeTrotter Jon Haggins TV, which is available every Sunday at 9PM in 2 million homes in New York City and it's also streamed over the Internet. In addition, he has contributed travel segments to NPR Radio. NPR has a listening audience of 25 million.







Denise Mattia, Freelance Writer and Photographer


A freelance writer and photographer (underwater and topside) Denise Mattia's works are published nationally and internationally and include all aspects of leisure travel: art and architecture, culture, sports (scuba diving is her specialty), resorts, spas and hotels. Born and raised in Manhattan, New York, where she resides, Ms. Mattia holds two degrees in Theatre and Art from Hunter College of the City of New York. In 1990 she was awarded a grant from the Horace W. Goldsmith fund for her efforts in reef conservation. Her goal is to update editorial and photographic coverage of European, Asian and Pacific areas. In addition to the Society of American Travel Writers, she is also an active member of the New York Travel Writers Association, the North American Travel Writers Association and the professional photographer's organization, AG Editions.

Although Ms. Mattia has experienced many episodes in her lifetime, learning to dive holds a special place in her heart and mind. As she relates:


"In the early 80s scuba gear wasn't made for petit women. When I signed up for a resort course (now known as an introduction to scuba) in Mexico, nothing, except the mask, fit. The weight belt, life vest and the old fashion "horse collar," which held the scuba tank in place, were tied over and around me, and still I had straps trailing in the sand." With weights, tank, the regulator (that's the apparatus that allows you to breathe air) hose dangling over her shoulder and with the straps under foot, she made it to the water's edge, stumbled in and waited for her instructor to tell her what to do next. "He asked me to follow him," she recalls, "and I tried," she continues. But all did not go as smoothly as planned.

"The water rose. First to my shoulders. Then to my lips. Weighed down by equipment and unable to move, unable to breathe through my nose because of the mask sealing off the air supply and fearing this was going to be my watery grave, I raised my chin above water and began to hyperventilate."

"My instructor remained a few feet away and, looking me in the eyes commanded, ‘Don't fight the sea, Denise. She is bigger than you are. Put the regulator in your mouth and breathe.'" "He waited while I forced myself to calm down, think about where the regulator was, grab it and insert it between chattering teeth."

Still frightened but breathing air through her regulator, she recalls watching the water rise above her mask as she followed her instructor. "I was sinking. I fought back an initial claustrophobic reaction and went deeper. Then suddenly I was floating."

"It took only 25 minutes to suck up almost all the air in my tank, and my arms did more work than my legs, but I swam into the most wonderful world I'd ever seen, and reached a 30-foot depth on Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA). I was hooked."

In 1984 Ms. Mattia became certified and went on to the Advanced Open Water level. Still, having benefited greatly from what she learned during that period, she's never forgotten the lessons of that day. "That I wanted something badly enough to endure discomfort, that I overcame fear, didn't panic and learned to trust my instructor and my equipment, that I would always respect the sea – became lessons for life," she said. She later learned that those lessons are the rudiments of SCUBA, and that they become every diver's mantra. "It's a chant that's with me underwater, and on land as well," she admits. "They're ‘Stop, Think, Act.'"

Ms. Mattia doesn't have a favorite place to dive and admits that, "25 years ago my favorite island was Cozumel, Mexico, but having dived in many other places around the world, I've found that each reef is different – each is special." She adds, "Most new divers want to go places where they're guaranteed to see big fish – sharks, manta rays – the pelagics, which occasionally make it to the same reef where the divers are. Newbies want a Disney-like world, where everything is displayed in front of them, and they forget that finding small creatures can be more exciting. Today, more divers are becoming involved in saving the reef from over fishing or pollution. We evolved from the sea, and there's no feeling quite like returning to this natural environment. For me, that special place is anywhere under water, and we should do all we can to preserve it."