My well-worn passport and international driver's permit. I'll be renting a car to get to southern Greece, and need to assure the rest of the world that I know how to drive.
My trustly travel wallet, which I chain to me. I should probably add a rubber band to deter pickpockets.
Cargo pants and heavily pocketed shirts. This is the only time you will see me wearing stuff like this, because while traveling, you need a place to put all of your things.
Gore-Tex shoes, good for dealing with the rain and pretty solid for rough terrain, yet also appropriate dress-wear.
Cold weather gear. Good if you're up in the mountains, especially as we get closer to November.
A black no-wrinkle suit and no-wrinkle shirt. Normally I wouldn't wear anything but I nice wool suit, but these wrinkle-free fabrics are indispensable while traveling, and a guy never knows when he might need to put on a suit, so it's good to have one in reserve.
Travel guides and my trusty Greek-English dictionary.
Some light reading. Those long plane trips and train rides are some of the few chances I get to do a lot of long reading. This stack of books is basically what was on my bedside table that I have been meaning to finish for a while.
Other useful things I bring with me: a nigh-indestructible compact umbrella, a first aid kit, Pepto-Bismol, and Advil.
Well, I'm off!
]]>That said, I'm reluctant to give up physical copies of media. I still buy CDs. I need to "own" something, not just have a "license" to read something that can be granted or erased on the whim of the license owner and that I can loan to friends or sell at will.
I also own a lot of books. I like having them. They're like the story of my life. This is something that makes moving sort of a pain, however... these books aren't even counting the multiple shelves worth of computer books I have in my office:
My Most Favorite Food
Upper West Side
247 West 72nd St
Started out as a dessert company, they have great brunch! I had the excellent challah bread french toast, but they have a great selection of omelets,as well.
Telepan
Upper West Side
72 West 69 Street
Upscale with a $28 prix fixe menu. Amazing crepes and extremely carefully constructed omelets. The bacon looks decadent, as well, and they have a great breakfast cocktail selection
Big Daddy's Diner
Upper West Side
2454 Broadway, between 90th and 91st
Family breakfast food with a retro-diner aesthetic along with decorations featuring your childhood toys. Nice selection of pancakes, plus they have malted-flavored waffles (my favorite).
Sant Ambroeus
Greenwich Village
259 W. 4th St.
Small Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village. You have your choice of their paninis or excellent brunch food. It's surprisingly reasonably priced, but the wait can be quite long if you don't get there early, but a nearby alternative is....
Tartine
Greenwich Village
253 W. 11th St. at W. 4th St.
Nice little tiny French place. Cash only and a prix fixe menu of about $15.
Cafe Mogador
East Village
101 St. Mark's Place
MIddle Eastern/Moroccan food. Many egg-based breakfast foods.
Little Giant
Lower East Side
85 Orchard St
In addition to their french toast and hearty breakfast foods of biscuits and gravy, they have tasty, decadent sandwiches and burgers, as well. I recommend the duck sandwich. I've been meaning to try their bread pudding, but haven't gotten a chance. Cash only.
Rosewater
Park Slope
787 Union St. Brooklyn
Fresh "seasonal" food, but I'm not sure if it's local. Prix fixe menu. Once again, I went for the french toast, which was fabulous. Next time I plan on trying the crepes.
Miriam
Park Slope
79 5th Ave.
Middle Eastern food. Just about every breakfast selection has egg in it or with it. They seem to specialize in omelets.
Jack the Horse Tavern
Brooklyn Heights
66 Hicks St.
American bistro food. I recall the coffee being very good. Didn't have much of a wait and was off the beaten path of Brooklyn Heights' main drag of Montague St.
Perch
Park Slope
365 5th Ave.
My friends go for the omelets here, but my favorite is the waffles with raspberry butter.
Olea
Fort Green
171 Lafayette Ave.
A Mediterranean Taverna. Along with their great French toast, another one of their brunch highlights is "Green Eggs and Lamb."
Today I got a chance to see one of Amsterdam's more interesting Christmas traditions, welcoming Sinterklaas to Amsterdam where he arrives from Spain (he lives in Spain, you see) in the middle of November and stays until the feast of St. Nicholas on December 6th, handing out candy to the good boys and girls and throwing the bad ones in a sack and kidnapping them away to Spain.
One of the more interesting parts of this tradition is how Sinterklaas is accompanied by his Moorish helpers, the Zwarte Pieten or "Black Petes"-- lots of people dressed up in medieval costumes and covered in blackface makeup. This looks pretty strange to American observers. And really-- the black Petes are like the stars of the Sinterklaas events: there are hundreds of them handing out candy and engaging in acrobatics. And if you think I am going to post pictures of people in blackface on my blog, you are sadly mistaken.
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At the moment, I am in Amsterdam, having arrived from Iceland early this afternoon, but I flew into Reykjavik on Sunday morning, which was only a 4 1/2 hour flight from JFK airport. This has been a great time. Now, Reykjavik isn't exactly a bustling big city-- it has just 100,000 people, and it's quiet in the winter time, but it's lots of fun with plenty of cafés, live music, and things to do. I spent some time hanging out at Café Babalu, spent an evening at the geothermal pools, went hiking on the Sólheimajökull glacier:
and got myself wet going too close to the Skógafoss and Seljalandsfoss waterfalls:
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Gotta make sure to keep up with my gym routine....
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Our parents came to this country, escaping persecution, poverty and hunger. Hunger, Harold. They were very, very hungry. They wanted to live in a land that treated them as equals, a land filled with hamburger stands. And not just one type of hamburger, okay? Hundreds of types with different sizes, toppings, and condiments. That land was America! America, Harold! America! Now this is about achieving what our parents set out for. This is about the pursuit of happiness. This night . . . is about the American Dream! Dude, we can stay here, get arrested, and end our hopes of ever going to White Castle. Or, we can take that hang glider and make our leap towards freedom. I leave the decision up to you.]]>
Let's reflect on the memories:
A tree falls on my car
My car hits 120,000 miles, meaning it's overdue for a tuneup
I'm reminded how expensive it can be to fill up the tank when gas prices spike
I hitch my car to a UHaul truck and drive it down to DC
My car fails the DC inspection after having rusted brake calipers and a muffler that's rusting away
Some idiots smash my window, but don't actually take anything
But I kept the vehicle in good running order and made sure that it was well maintained. It had a full life. Goodbye, old friend.
I'm heading out to take a metro ride to the car dealership to pick up my new car.
]]>Auto enthusiasts across the country were dismayed by the news Friday that General Motors was planning to shut down Saab, the Swedish carmaker it bought two decades ago, after a deal to sell it fell apart.Some of the technology has been sold to a Chinese company while various other companies are considering picking over the pieces.
Check Jalopnik for a list of the seven cars that killed Saab.
UPDATE: Dutch supercar maker Spyker makes another offer to GM in an effort to buy Saab.
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I've touched on this before in reference to offensive Christmas songs, but this applies even moreso when it comes to TV special which will be playing over and over again this month. We need to face some facts here: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is a story of how an object of oppression and abuse will willingly serve his own abusers once he can be found useful in service to the machine. The appropriate response to the other reindeer who used to laugh and call him names is to tell then to go stuff themselves-- and Santa, too -- both of whom didn't care too much for Rudolph because of his physical deformity until his red nose was necessary to bail Santa out of a jam.
And is this what the misfit toys should learn? That they must remain in exile on their island unless they, too, are deemed to have some attribute worthy of the very system that has rejected them?
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It's something in the Greek genes: a mugger attempted to rob my grandmother as she was heading to the bank with the week's receipts from her flower shop, and she pulled out a knife and chased him away.
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