Adventure of the month

Me, making reservations for a dinner cruise on Manila Bay: "Hi, there will be 8 of us and I will be needing a vegetarian meal." Manila Cruise People: "Do you eat pork?" Me: "No, I am a vegetarian?" MCP: "Do you eat fish?" Me: "No. I am completely vegetarian.  No meat, no chicken, no pork and no fish" MCP: (pause) "We checked and it is ok if you bring your own food." Me: "Do I still need to pay the full price for the dinner cruise?" MCP: "Yes" Me: "Then could you please just add extra vegetarian sides? Maybe a cheese sandwich?" MCP: "Um, ok"

1. The Food .This could also be reasons 2-10 but that might make me look a bit gluttonous. I say this as someone who, ironically enough, could not eat about 70% of what was on most menus. Island cuisine=lots and lots of seafood. But the things I could eat, particularly the papas arrugadas (or wrinkled potatoes) and the tortillas Españolas were more than enough to keep me fat and happy. Add to that the tapas, usually marinated olives or homemade chips, that came with every drink and it is a miracle I did not roll off the island. 2. The Public Transit. For three days, we stayed in the capital city of Las Palmas. I briefly considered renting a car to explore the surrounding areas but once I took a look at the bus schedule, it was clear that there was no need. Public buses frequently do the loop around the island in either direction, making it easy to get to anywhere you want to go, usually without transferring.

When the people at my hostel suggested I go check out the block party taking place in our neighborhood, I used the only frame of reference I have and imagined a couple of arepa trucks, some lukewarm beer and a bunch of stands selling random crap. Sure, I would walk over there and see what was going on but my expectations were set to low. They handed me a map of the area with about a dozen non-connected blocks highlighted. It seemed odd to me that the party would be so spread out in what looked like a pretty haphazard way. How many arepa trucks did these people have? I only got as far as the first block before I realized that I was dealing with a totally different animal. This was not the typical street fair, not by a long shot. This was neighbors coming together to throw one hell of a party.  And not just any neighbors, this was a decidedly local (read: no tourists except maybe the ones from my hostel), hip artsy area throwing down.

T-Mobile recently up'ed their roaming game. Already my favorite for providing free 2G data and text messages in over 140 countries, they declared that all summer long, their users could access high speed data all over Europe. For someone with a very close relationship to Google maps, this was huge. As with most corporate absolutes, the announcement was then followed by an asterisk which led to a disclaimer that said "** Except Andorra. Apologies to the proud people of Andorra!" Why the tiny 180 square mile country was singled out, while its French and Spanish neighbors were free to roam willy nilly is a mystery to me. I learned about this slight on my 2.5 hr road trip from Barcelona to Andorra la Vielle. I was using the BlaBlaCar app (think carpooling meets uber for long distance trips) and my driver, Marco, was a Spaniard who worked in a resort in Andorra but returned home every other week to see his girlfriend. He gave me advice on what to do during this day tr...

My first Game of Thrones fan tour led me to King's Landing and Qarth- or as nit-picking cartographers would call it "Dubrovnik". A new month meant a new destination and this time I made plans to go to Braavos. For those that do not have either (a)an HBO Go subscription or (b) way too much time on their hands, (SPOILERS APLENTY COMING UP) this was the place where that little badass Arya went to train with a cult of weirdo assassins. You might remember that most of her time was spent running through crowded markets while being chased by a crabby blonde chick with a stick. Either that or selling oysters. I wanted to go to those markets. Turns out that all of those scenes were filmed in the Catalan city of Girona.  To get there, one could easily do a day trip from Barcelona (less than 1 hr by train) but the wee medieval town really does merit at least an overnight.  This is particularly true if you are hoping to transport yourself to Braavos (with a little bit of King...

Two years ago, after a lot of planning combined with a dash of luck, I finally had a chance to see the  Brussels' biennial flower carpet .  This is when the city of Brussels takes what is, in my opinion, the prettiest square in all of Europe and dolls it up with a couple million begonias. Every two years, there is a different design.  In 2014, the theme had been a celebration of the Turkish rug. With its jewel tones and symmetrical pattern, the flower carpet was glorious.  The hotel I'd stayed in was both funky and fresh. The weather had been (mostly) good. Overall, it had been a great trip which I remembered fondly and mentioned every time someone brought up Brussels in conversation. That is exactly what I did when a coworker told me she was thinking of going to Belgium.  Realizing that it was an even numbered year, I pulled out my phone to check for her when the carpet would be displayed.  It was that very weekend!  She was off the weekend...

Country #103 was a toss-up. From Dubrovnik, there are two days trips that are widely available. You can either head north to Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina or go south to Kotor and Budva in Montenegro. Both sounded promising. Mostar has the middle eastern architecture I love and one highly photogenic bridge. Montenegro has beaches and a miniature walled city version of Dubrovnik. Since a good portion of the day was going to be spent going to and from, it came down to which was the more scenic drive. Everyone I asked had the same answer. "The one with the Bay of Kotor!!" Either this is very common knowledge or I asked some all the right people because stunning does not begin to describe the vistas around this meandering bay. Out of practicality and because I wanted to see as much as possible in a limited amount of time, I opted to do one of the organized bus tours.  And then I remembered why I don't like them very much. If it was up to me, I would have been pu...