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At the Coca-Cola pavilion, the visitor takes an amusing, self-propelled international walk, first through Hong Kong, where there are fish stalls in teem ing markets, with the smell of incense heavy in the air. For one startled moment, sniff again. Damned if the incense doesn't smell like Coca-Cola. Move on, turn a corner, and there is Garmisch-Partenkirchen, high in the Bavarian Alps, where the towering balsams have the unmistakable scent of pillows stuffed with Coca-Cola. A few more giant strides and there is a Cambodian jungle, where monkeys inhabit the high vegetation and Coke bottles dangle in cool rushing streams, secured by their necks to trailing, primeval vines.
Million-Dollar Touches. Two of the fair's most attractive edifices stand out for their sense of permanence in a garden of transience. Spain's incredibly beautiful pavilion could probably ride the meadow for a thousand years if it were permitted to, and it should at least be moved somewhere in 1965. It was designed by Architect Javier Carvajal, and somehow suggests the courtyards of Castile and the filigreed palaces of Andalusia in its unending surprises of space and light. Spain, bidding for new status in the conversation of international trade, has spared no expense to shine at its national best. Flamenco dancers of what Spaniards would describe as great purity perform in the pavilion's theater. From the Prado come Goya's great majas, clothed and nude. One could do worse than spend a day in the Spanish pavilion.
The Belgian Village looks as if it had been standing right where it is for at least 500 years—or will when it is finished. The biggest international exhibit at the fair, it is a giant section of a Flemish town consisting of 134 buildings. The roofs are being made of real slate and real tiles. The windows are leaded. The streets are all paved with cobblestones.
Three-year-olds and upwards are entranced by nearly everything at the fair, but there are certain stops, like the Pepsi-Cola ride, that are particularly smashing from their point of view. U.S. Rubber's Ferris wheel (50¢) is the largest replica of a tire ever made, and no child wants to miss it. The flume ride (95¢) is a bumping, bouncing, water-sprayed trip in a hollow plastic log through a reasonable simulacrum of rapids, ending with a plunge into still waters. General Cigar presents a brief but first-rate magic show. Sinclair's Dinoland is dinolated by nine prehistoric monsters made of fiberglass, scattered through a grove of pines. At the end, there are machines that make plastic dinosaurs. Put 500 in, wait a while, and out pops a little dinosaur like a hot dinner roll.
Cash Flow. One of the most common sights at the fair is of grown men wandering dazedly, holding their trouser pockets inside out in the timeless gesture of bankruptcy. People who have just rounded their first million sometimes go there to celebrate and are paupers by nightfall. No complaint is more frequently heard at the fair than the cries of the nouveau broke.