There’s a lot about cruises I’d rather not touch on. There’s a lot of food, for starters: a buffet line and themed cuisine for every hour of the day; a lot of people in line for food, even at 3 p.m. when the lunch trays have barely been cleared away and dinner’s already looming; a lot of deck chairs occupied by scowling place-savers whose Bahamaventions seem not to have yet kicked in—who regard one’s position on the promenade as competitively as they probably jostle for slots on the 6 train; a lot of loudspeaker announcements; a lot of souvenir shops; a lot of herding. A lot of stomach bugs!
But there are a lot of perks, too; luxuries I wouldn’t mind re-experiencing. The bed, for example: ENORMOUS and with the smoothest, softest sheets imaginable. Even with the Caribbean calling it was hard to leave that bed. And the balcony: there’s nothing quite like sitting outside at sunset with a book while the waves slosh below you. And the pina coladas went a long way towards drowning out the sound of the emcee’d limbo competitions.
The best and most memorable part of my cruise, however, had nothing to do with 1200-count sheets or with a sign-n’-swipe card…
Disembarking in Costa Maya—a “town” “built specially for cruise ships!”—my boyfriend and I took one aghast look around us at the walled-in shopping mall and in rudimentary Spanish asked the first person we saw for directions to the nearest beach. He put us on a bus, where for a few dollars we were dropped off ten minutes down the road in the coastal town of Mahahual (accompanied now too by my boyfriend’s sister and her husband and their eighteen-month-old son, who had charmed every passport official between here and Orlando).
We headed down the sandy path towards the beach. It was still before noon, but the sun was already blazing merrily down. Delighted, we dropped our backpacks and set up camp oceanside, ordering guacamole and a bucket of Coronas from the owner of the beach umbrella we borrowed. We could see two or three mammoth cruise ships parked alongside each other on the horizon—but if you looked up instead of out, all you could see were palm tree leaves.
It was a great day.
Five hours later we were all of us (except the baby, who’d had four overprotective minders judiciously applying sunscreen every half-hour) burned to a crisp. We had sand in our shorts and sea salt in our swimsuits. We were stuffed with fish tacos and fried plantains and sleepy from that last bucket of beer. We had a camera full of pictures of one very happy, waterlogged baby and four very happy, finally relaxed adults.
Back on the ship, those amazing sheets soothed our sunburns. Drifting off, to sea and to a late-afternoon nap, I drowsily felt ready for anything…even the impending captain’s dinner.
- by Laura Arnold
photo by Liz Saucier
Dan submitted this post and now I’m craving lemon chicken…Enjoy! – cb
Traveling isn’t always about doing something different. Sometimes it’s about doing the same things differently.
For example, in 2005 I took a two week tour of Scotland and England. In Scotland we stayed in the town of Ballater (population: “Yeah, I know her”) where I shared a bus to the train station with 40 children who first had to be dropped off at school. Coming from New York City, where kids don’t ride public transportation or go to school, I considered this experience something different.
However, in England I stayed in the heart of London. I rode the tube, visited museums and ate at a variety of eclectic restaurants. Every morning I went to the Starbucks across the street for a latte. It was exactly the same as my life in New York, except twice as expensive. I considered this doing the same things differently.
I won’t say the Scotland portion of the trip was intrinsically better (certainly not the part with the haggis), yet I couldn’t help but feel that the London portion was unnecessary, like I could have been doing the same thing back home without converting currency or using a map. Still, there was something about taking all the enjoyable parts of my life (and there are many) and doing them somewhere else: my life with a twist. It’s the difference between going to Vegas to have sex with someone new and taking your girlfriend to Vegas to have sex somewhere new.
This is the exact reason why destination weddings are so popular – because lemon chicken is more exciting in Bermuda. It’s a fact. I checked. In the early 80’s, lemon chicken was still exciting here due to its scarcity after the war. Over time, it became more common, thus less exciting. So now even though people still want to get married, throw flowers and do the conga, they just don’t want to get married, throw flowers and do the conga in America. It not only needs to be special, it needs to be different.
The latest extension of this is the disturbing trend of destination adoptions. Like our lemon chicken, our orphans have become unexciting. Couples want to adopt, they just don’t want to adopt here. And why would they? Maybe giving birth at a strip mall off exit 46 would be different and exciting, but adopting a child there? Where’s the novelty in that?
Besides, anything you bring back from vacation is intrinsically special. I’m not criticizing; I do the same thing. The Oxford shirt I bought in London looks the same as my other Oxfords. But I only wear it on special occasions because it’s British. It’s no different than the others, but how I bought it was different. And that’s why I love it. Just like I love my “different” Vietnamese children more than my “boring” American ones.*
* This is just a joke. I have no children, neither the adopted nor the boring kind.
- by Dan Murphy of [redacted] fame
Desperate to escape New York after too many weeks of gray skies, remaindered snow, and angrily crowded subways, my boyfriend and I alit upon a Jet Blue deal and the perfect spring getaway: four days in New Orleans.
It will be my first visit. I remember watching the Katrina coverage, sickened to my core but also shamefacedly selfish with regret that I had never gotten the chance to visit. Watching CNN in 2005, it didn’t seem like I ever would.
Back then my concept of New Orleans was based vaguely and entirely on Coming Through Slaughter and The Awakening, on my roommate’s annual King Cake and my batty French professor’s obsession with nearby Lafayette.
Now I’m wondering what I’ll find. I’m gleefully anticipating hurricanes and dirty martinis, beignets and gumbo, shrimp and crawfish and jambalaya, Terrence Blanchard and Buckwheat Zydeco. But then I come more soberly down to earth. A year and a half after America watched New Orleans drown, is it really already so blithely revitalized?
The New York Times reports that according to the Brookings Institution, “infrastructure repairs in New Orleans are ‘basically stalled’” and that out of 115,000 applicants for federal aid, only 2,300 have begun to receive access. I had to dig for these facts, though; New Orleans’s post-Katrina difficulties aren’t as high up on the media’s radar as Brad and Shiloh’s father-daughter strolls.
I worry: By visiting New Orleans as a tourist instead of as a helper, am I being selfish once again?
But the answer is no. Rebuilding isn’t the only thing that’s been slow to recover: tourism has been, too. Exploring historic New Orleans isn’t self-indulgent (um, entirely); it’s also bringing money and happier statistics into a place that needs and deserves them.
Besides, I’m going with a Tulane grad. I have a feeling most of my “touring” will be of the local bars.
- by Laura Arnold
Geez, can’t think of many things that make me more envious…A month in Biarritz. Check out this, the first of many great posts by Terry Ward. – cb
This must be what it’s like to be retired.
My boyfriend and I compromised on Biarritz in the south of France (I know, relationships can be so demanding), as the place to spend a month ‘settling down’ before continuing our travels.
My requirement was that I wanted to be in France, and Chris’ was that there had to be waves to surf. And voila, here we are – with nothing to do, not a care in the world and a schedule as wide open as a senior citizen’s Saturday. We have a phone but it only rings to signal text message announcements from our provider.
So far, we know only one person (a local surfer, Thierry, who we met on Couchsurfing.com), and it takes everything in our power not to call him every five minutes to see if he wants to meet for a drink or tapas.
It’s weird, attempting to live in a foreign country and not knowing a soul – especially when you don’t have a job that ensures social interaction on one level or another.
But it’s liberating, too.
I wake up in the morning, let the daylight in through the volet shutters that fold up, slat by slat, filling our tiny studio with sunshine, and then start wondering what the day will bring.
Conjugal visits to the corner boulangerie are no longer allowed. Chris prefers to go on his own so, like a leering grandpa living off social security and pain au chocolat, he can flirt with the cute cashier while procuring our power breakfast.
Today he returns, wondering, “If someone says ‘Bonjour Madame,’ to the bakery girl, does it mean she’s taken? Mais oui, I explain to Chris – if not, they would call her mademoiselle.
I, too, get my thrills by random encounters with people in retail settings. And I’m reminded of my own grandpa, who used to live for his daily outings to the post office and bank.
Watching shop owners scrunch their faces with bewilderment when I begin struggling in French, then seeing their expressions relax into sudden comprehension is like a virtual pat on the back for my progress with the language.
Who needs French class and weekly exams? Success! I have made myself understood.
– by Terry Ward
My previous experience with surfing consisted of just two weeks on the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i. I paddled around in protected bays in 85 degree weather, and rode three-foot waves. Not exactly the stuff of “Endless Summer”.
Fast forward to The Dead of Winter, 2007, Florida’s Space Coast—My boyfriend Jacob, who spent the last 10 years surfing up and down the Pacific Northwest, suggests we head out the day before a scheduled thunderstorm. “That’s the only time Florida gets waves,” he says. I try to remember the reason I stay out of the ocean during strong winds and rain. Oh, yes – because of strong winds and rain. While he obsessively checks surf reports and live beach web cams, I repeatedly tell myself that being cold was just a state of mind. Really, how bad can Florida beaches be?
The guy at the surf shop gives me one of the big foam surfboards they give to all beginners, for fear that anything else will come back wrecked. “These things are so sturdy,” he assures me. “You’ll break before this does.” Wonderful.
Between the time we enter and leave the shop, the sky has darkened considerably. Jacob drives around until he finds a spot where the waves “look consistent.” There are 2 other people in the water, both in full-body wetsuits. We’re wearing skimpy rash guards. It begins to drizzle. One of the wetsuited surfers has caught a wave. He tries to stand, loses his balance, and plummets into the ash-gray water. “So are you ready?” Jacob asks.
I guide my foam board out as waves hit me in all directions. The ocean before a storm has ADD. When I think I’m in water deep enough to start paddling, another step forward brings the water back down to thigh-level. This happens repeatedly. Finally, I fling myself onto the board and hope for the best. The next 20 minutes are a blur of paddling, trying to stand, falling, and dragging the board back out. The waves are rushing to shore one after another, repeatedly, ceaselessly. There is not enough time to balance, let alone gauge whether the wave on my right or the wave on my left is going to hit me first. I have swallowed enough water and I’m shivering uncontrollably. I give up. I go back to the car while Jacob paddles further out to try his luck.
I change in the car and turn the heat to full-blast. I begin to warm up. I try to find a radio station that isn’t Top 40s or country. I peruse a New York Times. The rain lets up. I contemplate going for a run.
Jacob suddenly appears over the boardwalk, looking as cold as I felt not too long before. “Alright. It’s windy, I’m tired, and I didn’t catch a single thing.” As we drive back, it starts to downpour. He launches into a long tirade, about how waves in Florida are either nonexistent or just choppy, how there’s no REAL surf culture, and why in the world would anyone even bother surfing here, let alone hold international competitions. “So what do you want to do for the rest of the trip?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” He pauses. “Let’s check the surf reports tomorrow. There’s supposed to be good waves right after this storm too.”
- by Diana Kuan of Indietrekker fame
It’s the first week of Spring and my mind is on getting the hell out of here. There’s no legitimate reason – during Spring wherever you are is likely as good as anywhere else; shit renews everywhere – but it’s not just the surroundings, it’s the act of moving. For the next six months, days are longer than nights: hibernation is over and my legs need stretching.
Years ago, my wanderlust would be satisfied by Spring Break. Indeed, for me it was more about the travel than the destination. My freshman year, a friend of mine hopped in my 94 Saturn and drove almost 4,000 miles. We met a girl for some turkey bacon in West Virginia and left the next morning for New Orleans. There, it rained for two days straight, so while sitting on a stoop outside a grocery store drinking scotch from a bottle we said, “Let’s blow this joint.” We drove to Miami to visit relatives I hadn’t seen in 10 years. Along the way, we forgot to factor Alabama into our driving time, leaving us stranded in a park and ride halfway down the Florida turnpike at 1:00AM. We took nips of cough medicine to sleep, woke up the next morning, put our chairs in the upright position and drove on to Miami where we promptly fell asleep on South Beach.
From there we decided that Key West was too close to be ignored. We drove the road suspended over the Gulf, drank beer and ate conch on a pier sticking out into the water, bought two t-shirts for $5 and left. That’s still my favorite t-shirt.
We bypassed Miami on the way back leaving a message for our hosts that said, “Thanks for the pancakes.” Instead we opted for a stop at Disney World. We rented a wheelchair to get to the front of the lines and when returning it my friend stood up and walked away from the park claiming the Magic Kingdom had healed him.
We stopped to see my friend’s sister in North Carolina on the way home, sneaking into a jazz club for a few drinks merely by saying we weren’t underage. Probably because we didn’t feel underage at all. We felt like we’d just lived a lifetime without stopping for a day. That’s what movement will do for you. Ask me my favorite part of that trip and I’ll tell you coming home – because my legs were limber and tired and finally I could sit back and enjoy the weather.
- by Dan Murphy of [redacted] fame
Spring teased us a couple of weeks ago. And then winter dropped it’s britches and showed us who’s boss. Now spring is teasing us again. And with it seasonal shifts, moods like heart-sway, people all tied up and wondering where it’s headed next.
Headed to Troy, New York.
In between, in that cold-hard week of reality that shut the Northeast down real good, I passed through Troy, a town suffering some post-thaw re-freezing that had things pretty well stained. Funny how things sag after hefty ice and thaw, ice and thaw. Here’s some video to prove it -
The thing with standing at the top of a half pipe in the middle of a noreaster wearing tennis shoes is that your feet get so damn cold and start to sting like snake guts and then they go numb and you can’t feel them at all. And that’s when the imagination starts to set in. I’m the jackass who packed his stuff in speed and haste, leaving for the US Open in Stratton without me trusty waterproof shoes.
I get to thinking of my feet shriveling and the water freezing all up, inside and out. Then my feet going brown, corky knots of flesh with no feeling, drying cold and my toes falling off. Like out of those crazy expedition photo essays, craggled guys and gals all chapped up and going non-stop. I don’t pretend to be a big mountain man. I wear wimpy shoes. Folks can’t tell from my face but I hurt on the inside. And then they go numb. No feeling. Somewhere someone told me once that when they go numb you’ve got maybe an hour to get the circulation pumping before frostbite sets in. Then the rot. I don’t know about no rot.
So I race back to the lodge, mostly on my ass down the mountainside because my feet aren’t circulating or effective. Young children in expensive gear race by me, free and sailing. I fight the ice and the ice wins, bootfulls of victory.
Takes me like fifteen minutes to get one sock off and then the other and the gentleman at the rental counter asks why I’m renting boots without a board and that it’s probably too much to spend this close to closing and I say, brother take a look at my socks and he says say no more.
I make it back up to the top of the half pipe, little breath to spare. With these boots I could conquer anything save a snowboard. I don’t slide too well. But what a view. Heck of a view. Feeling comes back, snow starts falling, wind picks up. I’m happy for my beard.
Towards the end of last week I gave a shout-out on the blog, looking for hyperbolic travel tales of mirth, ingenuity and everyday wonder. Emily was kind enough to share this tale of derring-do – cb
There’s something about throwing yourself off a bridge for sport that really sticks with you. I could say that it was my spirit of adventure, but I don’t think I would ever have gone bungee jumping in Queenstown, New Zealand, if it wasn’t for the alcohol.
Our story begins with a 9 a.m. wine tasting. Who goes wine tasting at 9 a.m.? Well, my family. We call it “getting a start on the day.” It was soon after that I found myself on the Kawarau Bridge overlooking a humongous body of water. So, I decided to stretch. But why would I stretch before bungee jumping? I mean there’s no athletic prowess necessary; stretching before bungee jumping is as beneficial as telling the truth on your internet dating profile. But that’s what you do when you want to look productive, not terrified.
I wanted to turn back, but my father had decided to join me. Meanwhile, my mother thought we were both crazy and was finalizing my father’s will.
My father volunteered to go first. With a little whoop he took off, falling in a perfect arch. It was truly a thing of beauty. And 3.5 seconds later, it was my turn.
I started to sweat. And my knees got weak. And I really wished I had gotten my wine in a to-go flask. But I mustered up what was left of my pride and jumped. And it was amazing: at least for the first two seconds. Then the rational side of my brain started to fight the booze and the adrenaline. You do realize that you’re attached to a glorified rubber band, right? My brain said. And at almost exactly the same moment, my bulky sweater and my loose jeans started trying to escape from my body in different directions. How had this turned into a Girls Gone Wild video?
All I knew was that in the videos I had seen, (the bungee jumping, not the Girls Gone Wild) everyone always had their hands up in the air. So I used one hand to try and hold my clothes together, and the other one to pump the air, all while screaming my head off.
And in another 1.5 seconds, it was over. I was none the worse for wear and I kind of wanted to go again. But not before having a drink to calm my nerves, of course.
- Emily Epstein of b’scuse me? fame.
Here they are… your Friday top 5 videos!
1. FOUND: Moon Collector
2. The Map: Moon Madness
3. The Consumer Electronics Show
4. The Map: Spring Break
5. Concierge.com: 24 Hours In New York
Big week for The Map…!
A name says a lot. Or at least it says something. Whether you’re a local to Travelistic, a rambling passerby, an active contributor or an oggling wanderluster, you might be wondering – “What’s up with the name?”
Well, the travel part is easy. The -istic gets a little more mysterious. And while we love the mystery of it all, things have a way of getting defined.
Who’s defining that which is Travelistic? You are, friends.
It’s music festival season: this weekend South by Southwest is in Indie-rocking in Austin, and next week Miami Beach will descend into a disco inferno as the Winter Music Conference (WMC) rolls into town from the 20th to the 25th. Despite the oddly nondescript name, the WMC is one of the world’s premiere dance/ electronic music events, bringing together DJs, industry peeps, and party kids for six days and nights of hedonism on the dancefloor. Most of the world’s top turntablists will be helming the decks somewhere in Miami, with 280 events at 85 venues, spanning genres from deep house to electro. Some 20,000 hotel rooms are expected to be booked for the duration of the conference, but the Super Bowl this ain’t, there are still plenty of rooms to be had on Orbitz and other sites. To help party-goers plan to hit all the right events, our plugged-in friends over at Flavorpill have launched a WMC site special, with their insiders’ picks for each night of the conference.
– Winter Music Conference (Official Site)
– Flavorpill WMC ‘07 Guide
– Tagged: Music
– Tagged: Nightlife
This otherworldly sunrise at California’s Mono Lake comes courtesy of Copeg’s photostream. Mono Lake is a geologic anomaly, a salt lake on the dry side of the Sierras that’s the oldest in the US. The jagged, tooth-like formations sticking up from the water are called “tufa”, they’re calcium carbonate towers that have grown out of the water over the centuries, as in-flowing spring water reacted with the highly alkaline body of the lake.
– Mono Lake (Official Site)
– Tagged: Photo of the Day
– Tagged: Geology
South by Southwest is underway in Austin, with the much vaunted music portion of the festival kicking off tomorrow. For four days, everyone who’s anyone in the music business (or hopes to be) will be playing or attending showcases at every bar, venue, church, patio and rooftop in town. If you’re already on the ground, Austinist’s interactive guide to each day’s parties and showcases can help you navigate the mayhem. Also, check back for their local take on each night’s concerts and film screenings. If you’re going to make a last-ditch effort to attend, cost be damned, you might be able to find a ride or room share at SXSW Baby!, and Craigslist Austin has plenty of questionable listings offering festival wristbands and badges for sale. If this year’s SXSW isn’t in the cards, though, you can start planning now for the Austin City Limits festival from September 14 – 16, when a smaller, but still sprawling, number of artists will play on eight different stages in Zilker Park.
– South by Southwest (official site)
– Austinist
– SXSW Baby!
– Austin City Limits Festival
On Travelistic:
– Tagged: Music
– Tagged: Festivals
– Video: Austin City Limits
Once a year the city of Valencia does its level best to blow itself up to celebrate the arrival of spring. The festival is called Las Fallas and includes a full week of daily fireworks barrages (mascletà) in the central plaza, parades, and parties all leading up up to St. Joseph’s day on March 19th. The main attraction are the fallas, huge figures and scenes – some towering several stories high – made of flammable wax, wood, plaster, and cardboard, and mounted on a base of firecrackers and fireworks. Hundreds of neighborhood organizations (casals) within the city each construct a falla for display in the streets or squares, and each gets a parade before being put in place. The designs get bigger and more complex every year as artisans attempt to outdo each other, and include everything from fairytale scenes to satirical political jabs; take a look at Flickr’s fallas tag to get an idea. On the night of the 19th, each display is torched in a huge bonfire, with the best falla of the year incinerated last. Just imagine if Burning Man’s climactic burn were wedged into narrow medieval streets, instead of taking place in the relatively fire-proof expanse of the Nevada desert, see user sacasonrisas’ video from last year’s festival if you don’t believe me:
Last month, reporter Jane Engle tested out the new system for pre-screened travelers (who’ve also forked over $100) to clear security faster and found many things lacking. Her chief complaint was that, quite simply, it wasn’t any faster:
“On my visit, special lanes for Registered Travelers were open for business. But no one was using them because the enrollees were still waiting for access cards.
Check-in kiosks to prescreen members were open too. But the shoe scanners and explosives detectors weren’t activated, so members had to go through the same security process as everyone else, removing coats and shoes and taking laptops out of bags.
The much-delayed program, overseen by the Transportation Security Administration but run by private vendors, is going nationwide after 18 months of testing in Orlando. It is enrolling thousands of members and gaining momentum, but problems also abound.”
While some of these issues – malfunctioning cards, inactivated detectors – have likely been resolved by now, others may prove to be intractable. According to the article, only a small number of airports, including Cincinnati, Indianapolis, New York (JFK), Orlando and San Jose, have the scanners, but they’re not available in all terminals. Also, our American insistence on running airports like private businesses means that different vendors, using different names, have been licensed to run the system in various places. Not very Clear™ is it? And for all this you can pay $100, and allow them to ferret around in your background to determine if you’re worthy to wait online just like everyone else.
– “Is the fast lane stuck in slo-mo?” (LA Times)
– Tagged: Airport Security
Traveling equals palate-cleansing in this weekend’s headlines.
Foodie Travel
– “A Culinary Odyssey, on a Path Blazed by Orwell” (Myanmar) (NYT)
– “Copenhagen Dining: Beyond Danishes” (Washington Post)
– “A pizza tour of New York” (Times of London)
– “Four classic food adventures” (Times of London)
– “Cookery courses around the world” (Times of London)
– “Paris on a plate” (Times of London)
– “Helsinki’s bounty” (Times of London)
Also:
BC’s Revamped Ski Town
– “Refreshing Fernie” (Globe and Mail)
Camping California’s Coast
– “California Coasting” (NYT)
Chiang Mai
– “Dazzling, dizzying Chiang Mai” (LA Times)
Disney World in One Day
– “It’s A Ginormous World After All” (SF Chronicle)
Gujarat’s Beach Island
– “Love me Diu” (Sydney Morning Herald)
San Francisco
– “Lombard Street, San Francisco, Begins to Shine” (NYT)
Utah Skiing
– “Utah’s Epic Ride” (NYT)
CN Traveler’s got a new blog over at Concierge.com. They’ve assigned Canadian food and travel writer Mark Schatzker to go around the world in 80 days, never traveling more than 100 miles-an-hour so that he’ll have the time to feel the distances, and of course “eat, drink and blog” along the way. He’s currently on day four of his journey, crossing Nevada into California as he attempts to make LA, where he’s got a ticket to cross the Pacific by ship starting on Sunday. Though the pacing of his trip may be a throwback, all the gear that’s he’s taken along for the ride is the smallest, fastest and lightest (see: Flashpacking). Watch as Mark packs for his trip, and get his running commentary on his multitude of new gadgets:
Something new this week, Travelistic viewers: your most watched videos, showing lots of love for The Map and The Experience, and a lunar theme, with Kelly Loudenberg’s “Moon Collector” clip picking up an item Liza mentioned in last week’s “Moon Madness” show.
– The Map: Moon Madness
– The Consumer Electronics Show
– The Experience: Cockfight Madness
– FOUND: Moon Collector
– Focus on Amsterdam:
The wild New Zealand theme continues, only this time, the food strikes back. One of the most common truisms about NZ is that there are more sheep than people: around 40 million woolly residents, and 4 million humans. After being outnumbered for so many years, it looks like the kiwis have finally cracked. Black Sheep, a new local B-movie, features rampaging herds of mutant sheep attacking their keepers and taking over the country that’s rightfully theirs. You can see the trailer here, and never fear, it’s light on gore and heavy on slapstick. The effects for the movie were designed by local hero Peter Jackson’s WETA workshop; before he was legitimized by the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson directed some pretty schlocky horror-comedy flicks of his own. Somehow I don’t think flesh-eating sheep are going to do as much for regional tourism as those adorable hobbits did. (via Transbuddha)
– Tagged: Movies
It must be Foodism day at Travelistic. First, I posted about wild food in New Zealand, and now, our friends at Savory have uploaded a passel of new culinary clips. Eight fresh videos round up some of Manhattan’s best restaurants from Midtown to the L.E.S, great California Cuisine in San Francisco, and for those who prefer fine drinking to fine dining, an interview with Audrey Saunders of New York’s Pegu Club, one of the country’s top mixologists.
This weekend, the tiny town of Hokitika, New Zealand, population 4,500, will be flooded by 17,000 foodies, who are flying, driving and bussing in from all over to sample the oddest delicacies they can get their mitts on. The town’s 18th annual Wildfoods Festival takes place March 10 and 11, celebrating local produce and specialties from NZ and Australia. The menu includes everything from toffee grasshoppers to ostrich, crocodile and kangaroo, but the main attraction is the wide variety of prepared bugs and beetles. One stand, operating under the moniker “Freaky Native Sushi,” is even pickling them and rolling them into insect maki.
If that doesn’t sate your appetite for locally raised or foraged foods, look into an article from last week’s Globe and Mail travel section about the Maori take on Slow Food, which is bringing lots of near-forgotten flavors to the region’s contemporary cuisine.
– Wildfoods Festival (Official Site)
– “Maori munchies” (Globe and Mail)
– Tagged: Food
– Tagged: Bug Eating
(image via Mielitabeetle’s photostream)
Ooh, this is a tough one. There are no maps, no hints, all you have to rely on is your own knowledge of geography…and spelling: The United Nations has 192 member states, how many can you name in 10 minutes? (I made it to 110). (via World Hum)
– 192 UN Recognized States in 10 Minutes (Andys.org.uk)
– Tagged: Games
In this weekend’s travel pages: traveling in Japan, last-chance winter fun, and urban travel in a new crop of destinations.
Japan
– “A Mountain of Tranquility Near Tokyo’s Frenzy” (NYT)
– “Island-hopping mad in Japan” (Times of London)
Enjoying the Last of Winter
– “The Cold Show in Fairbanks, Alaska” (NYT)
– “How to Enjoy a Nordic Ritual at Any Age” (NYT)
– “Learning to snowboard at Mountain High & Bear Mountain” (LA Times)
Urban Travel
– “Bogotá: 100 Percent Colombian” (SF Chronicle)
– “Food? Art? History? It’s all in Lyon” (Chicago Tribune)
– “Instant weekend: Bucharest” (Times of London)
(image via ruudb0y’s photostream)
Saturday, March 3 is serving up one of nature’s very own spectacles, a total lunar eclipse during the full moon. The event will be visible from parts of all seven continents, but viewers in Africa, Europe and Eastern North America will get the best of the show. According to NASA:
“In the USA, the eclipse will already be underway when the moon rises on Saturday evening. Observing tip: Find a place with a clear view of the eastern horizon and station yourself there at sunset. As the sun goes down behind you, a red moon will rise before your eyes.”
Sounds pretty epic, doesn’t it? The NASA page also has a viewing chart showing roughly when the eclipse will occur all across the globe. Gaze at this week’s episode of The Map to find out about more lunar happenings. (via Gadling)
Based on the top searches on Travelistic this week, I’d say that European-summer-trip planning is kicking into gear:
There’s a free-roving “World Bests” meme on the loose this week. Thus far it’s attached itself to subway systems, waterfront cities, and cab rides in international destinations. Find all the detailed info below, if you crave to know where you can hail a ride from a 1950’s convertible with tailfins, which city’s main square “reaches out like an octopus, drawing people toward it—both from the city streets and from the waterborne routes of the bay” (says the Project for Public Spaces), and what city has a metro system that includes a monorail.
– World’s Best Taxi Rides (Forbes)
– Great Waterfronts of the World (Project for Public Spaces)
– Top 11 Underground Transit Systems (Virgin Vacations)
– Tagged: Subway
– Tagged: Taxis
– Tagged: Harbor
Icelanders are famous for knocking back Brennivín, a local version of schnapps so lethal it’s also known as “black death,” but beer was illegal on the island for 75 years, until March 1, 1989. To honor this momentous occasion, the first of March every year is celebrated by the hard-drinking islanders as “Beer Day” – basically another excuse for a party to stave off the chill. Bars and restaurants host special events, but drinking out in Iceland is a pricey proposition at all times. Do what the locals do, and hit the Víking Gylltur before you head out. To quote our resident international booze expert, the Thirsty Traveler: “Nothing screams Iceland like Viking Beer!”
