Part One (Uno) The people of Lentini, Sicily are eating well. They’ve got their crispelle, their arancini, briosce with granita and – of course, pizza and pasta. They’re not starving, in fact they’re eating like kings and queens. This hamlet, not to be confused with their very close neighbor, Carlentini, has a rich history of […]
Read more "Nuccio"Uno First you hear the cow’s joyous “MOOOO!” Then comes a recorded human voice over the same loudspeaker, an excitable man shouts something or other about propane gas tanks. Then the cow moos again. That’s how you know you’re in Oaxaca City, Mexico. That’s also how you know it’s 7:35 am, the bastard. Backing up […]
Read more "Oaxaca (pron. “Wuh-HA-kuh”)"For once I was in constant contact with my AirBnB host and she knew when to expect me. For some reason phone service was working again. Her name was Anke, Danke without the D, and she was just delightful. A strong, independent feminist type so I was completely comfortable in her badass penthouse apartment near […]
Read more "Hanover. Or Hannover. No One Knows."montreal My “frenemy,” as he likes to say for some reason, was scheduled to be married across the Hudson from West Point one June afternoon. Even though he uses that moniker, I was to be a groomsman. On my way to New York from Texas, it occurred to me that, because my job lets me […]
Read more "Montreal: Fake Paris"Toronto sure is something. You ever see people looking at movie posters for other movies before their theater opens? Or standing semi-uncomfortably in a random lobby, not really paying attention to anything, just kind of existing, checking their phones repeatedly even though we all know no one has texted? That’s how Toronto struck me at […]
Read more "Toronto: It’s Just Kind of There"Ninety short miles due west of Calgary is Banff (pr. “Banph”), a small resort town in Banff National Park – in the Canadian Rockies. Surprisingly, not a lot of people have heard of Banff, it’s not in most spell checks. The drive is excessively breathtaking, the road itself, extremely well-planned and exceedingly well-constructed. So far, […]
Read more "Banff: Canada Day – 班夫：加拿大國慶日"Though the train ride from Edmonton to Vancouver sounded too good to pass up, I found a $60 plane ticket. At this point, getting there sounded better than a once-in-a-lifetime trip through the most beautiful land imaginable. I turned in the rental, trusted an airline I’d never heard of and sat next to an Indian […]
Read more "Vancouver: Nĭ Hăo!"paris When I was roughly 11-years-old, a friend and I found a stack of nudie magazines near the dirt bike trails by the highway. I remember to this day that one of them was called “O-U-I” and that’s how we said it, as if you were saying “F-B-I” or “C-I-A.” It would be at least […]
Read more "France: Oui"barcelona “What are all those flags I keep seeing?” you may ask yourself upon arriving in Barcelona – if, like me, you didn’t read much about it before you arrived. They hang straight down off of balconies all over the city. Yellow with red stripes, a blue pennant at the top end, a white star […]
Read more "Barcelona: Not “Barthelona”"ferry fun After spending two full days somewhere, I start putting serious thought into what the next town will be. Then it’s time to check flights everywhere, train schedules or, as was the case in Barcelona, the ferry schedule to North Africa or Rome. The following evening, I was boarding a huge ferry boat/small cruise […]
Read more "The Balearic & Tyrrhenian Seas"
The Neighborhood 