Goodbye Warm Weather, Goodbye Bike Rides, Hello Cold

Perhaps it is a bit cruel to go on vacation to a higher latitude, but the locale was not in my control. While beautiful this time of year, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine were best experienced from a window last week. It was the first time I had really experienced fall in a while. With the election last year, Barcelona before that and 2 years in Miami, noticing foliage being anything other than green has been half a decade past due. I'll admit it, mountainous drives through the reds and oranges were pretty, but all that ends when it's 34 degrees and sleeting on you.

Here's my homage to wonderful warm weather events gone by:

Wake Up the Earth Festival, Jamaica Plain

Revere Beach, Revere

First Thursdays, Jamaica Plain

Walden Pond, Concord

Lantern Festival, Forest Hills

Blue Hills Brewery and State Park, Milton

Minuteman Bikepath, Arlington

(too busy biking to take pictures)

St. Anthony's Festival, North End

Whale Watching, Gloucester

Riversing, Cambridge

Honkfest, Sommerville

Elite means I'm better than you.

Watch out dining establishments in Boston - I am now a Yelp Elite Squad member. One bad meal and you are crushed. Conversely, I will shower love and praise on my favorite restaurants and shops. Coincidentally, this induction does include free food events.

Elite Squad is just a few rungs below New York Times' food critic and above anonymous blogger.

A Week of Nature Porn

I barely watch tv, what with my rabbit-eared ten year-old set in my living room not having the best picture, but even I know about the new Ken Burns documentary series--National Parks: America's Best Idea.

It's astoundingly beautiful and has already made me pull out my USA guide and start planning trips. I highly recommend to start watching if you haven't yet and try your hand at this week's lonely planet National Parks contest.

Ode to the Charles

Now I know to start inviting folks earlier. Going it alone wasn't so bad though, in fact I loved the community vibe.

Riversing is put on by a local band of merry-makers who also run pub sing-a-longs a few times a year. This is the sixth year they've done Riversing in an attempt to create new traditions and build community. There's an amateur choir, a few professionals, a white-haired, spectacled man in a white tux that leads the whole thing and then a few hundred people that join in song.

Joggers still out of breath from their run. Women with popped collars singing in high sopranos. Older men with raspy baritones. Children holding hands and spinning in circles while they sing. Moms singing to their babies. College students singing, yet trying to be cool. Bikers still with their helmets on, balancing their bikes and reading the lyrics in the program.

We all sang our odes to the River. No need for worshiping any omnipotent God or celebration of any special battle. Just people coming together, thankful that they live in such a place where these kind of things can happen, where there's a river and parkland that people work to conserve and that the summer was good and the autumn has arrived.

In between songs we heard poems about rivers. As one poet spoke the line "a flock of geese flew overhead." a flock of geese appeared in the dimming light and flew overhead, swinging back to settle down on the bank opposite us to watch the show. The crowd oohed. More staged magic occurred as the event closed with us serenading a saxophone who had come on a boat with a giant puppet moon and sun. Circling near the shore, we alternated between our voices, his riff and a low bowing of the cello.

Some photos from the evening:

Riversing

Leave the Cahr at Home for visiting Southies

Monday of Labor Day weekend was another bike-full day. I pulled out my Walk Boston book and biked the South Boston tour. When you think working class Boston, The Departed, that retahded accent: you're thinking South Boston. Once a not-so-nice neighborhood. It's rising in status considerably as the yuppies who like being close to the center have moved in and renovated homes.

It's also really hilly, so my calves got quite a work-out. First was one of the highest points in Boston: Telegraph Hill. The site of where Washington ordered a cannon to be placed and how we won one of the first battles of the revolution. You can see how close the neighborhood is to downtown from this point, and the water that surrounds the neighborhood. How did they get that cannon up here anyway?

Next stop: Castle Island. Not technically an island anymore and nothing like a castle. Our kind Southie guide gave us a free tour of the fort and all it's history since the Revolutionary War.

The fort has a big park around it . . . with lots of lovely people enjoying the holiday. It reminded me a bit of Montjuic in Barcelona, until I saw these two lovely ladies.

Definitely America. You can see here how the park curves around. Castle Island is now a park and beach with a ring of land around it--perfect for biking of course.

I ended my Southie adventure with a pint at the bar where Good Will Hunting was filmed, chatting it up with a local on a work break about home prices in the area and in Miami.

All in all, a beautiful day, a good workout and an authentic Boston experience.

Many minutes on the Minuteman

Third installment of my labor day weekend now that I'm through with some of the days' labor.

After a late night at the Donkey Show on Friday and a long day looking for whales and checking out the brewery on Cape Ann on Saturday. I was ready for some time alone. I took the T out to Alewife and rode the Minuteman Bikeway out through Arlington, Lexington and to Bedford. The trail is wooded and generally away from civilization, with nice little interludes through downtown Arlington and Lexington. The ride didn't take very long and once I got to Bedford and hit up their little old-timey railroad display I felt like I could go anywhere. I started planning cross-country trips in my head.

Back in real life, I decided to bike as far as Concord, another 5 miles. Concord, the town where Paul Revere rode through warning revolutionaries "The British are coming!" (I have new respect for how far they walked now!) I had an an amazing crab cake sandwich at the Main Street Cafe. A decidedly non-chain bar, coffee shop meeting place, the Main Street Cafe, does not allow cell-phones or laptops (take that Panera's!). I read books at the fabulous local, independent book store and had ice cream at the Bedford Depot. Nothing beats homemade ice cream after a 16 mile ride.

I hopped on the commuter rail back to Cambridge. Apparently, I wasn't the only one with this idea. The front of the car I was in was packed with bikes. I slept all the way back to Porter Square and didn't even get charged. I had another 5 mile ride back home and stopped to run errands along the way.

A lovely day in all. I'm really in love with my bike. It's my gym, my transportation, my meditation. Nothing has been better than bike riding lately, and I know that come first snow-fall in Boston, there'll be a huge a hole in my life.

For now, I'm taking advantage.

View Larger Map

A map of my ride.

Day Trip to the Cape, Cape Ann that Is

Everyone knows about Cape Cod--Kennedy's, cranberries, beaches. Cape Ann is Cod's northern counterpart. Lesser known, but no less beautiful and interesting.

To be truthful I didn't know much about Cape Ann until I went. I had bought a whale watching coupon for $20 on groupon. Then I got excited after I saw this article in the New York Times on the North Cape.

Labor Day weekend traffic got us off to bit late of a start--no where near as bad as traffic going to Cape Cod though! We had lobster rolls at Morning Glory Cafe over looking the bay and the Man of the Sea statue. (side note: The Man of the Sea overwhelmengly was voted by residents to be the image put on the back on the quarter for Massachusetts, yet was passed over because it was not a National site. It's owned by the city. And beloved by everyone.)

Whale watching is a simple business. You take a boat out and point to whales for your customers. Cape Ann Whale Watch does this fairly well. We saw a lot of beautiful whales. The trip is run by whale scientists who are not great showmen, but have a lot of knowledge. . . And they sell really cheap boxed wine.

Continuing on the booze trail we went next to the Cape Ann Brewing Company. Now this is something I'd love to have in my neighborhood: a homey bar with a brewery in the back. Your choice of seats--rocking chairs, bar stools or long benches. We did the full tasting, which might have impared my first time playing Yahtzee since grandma was alive.

Colleen's Yahtzee was just fine.

Now I'm reading The Last Fish Tale by Mark Kurlansky to learn more about this fascinating blue-collar beach town, which is still home to enclaves of immigrant communities from the Portuguese Islands Azorea to the western part of Scillily. It also is one of the last true local fishing ports left in America, which is now being threatened by overfishing. I hope for the sake of the fish, the whales, the folk of Gloucester that we figure it out.

Explore Your Backyard!

I hate the word 'Staycations': the idea that folks don't have the money or time (or imagination) to actually take a real vacation, so they take a few days off and vacation at home.

All these blogs that love the idea of staycations need to get out a bit more.

Websites like Supereco recommend going to the library, investigating a local farmer's market and trying a new restaurant. I'm of the mind that you should be doing all these things already. If you need a staycation to check books out of the library, shop at a farmer's market and try a restaurant then something is wrong. Even I work 60 hour weeks and manage to fit these things in.

Home and Garden magazine recommends planning a tv night or gardening. I wonder what these writers do when they go on vacations. Consumer Reports gets a little more edgy recommending train rides and going to museums. Again, one should do these things in normal life.

So this labor day weekend I refuse to label my activities as a 'Staycation.' What I had was a series of backyard adventures.

Friday's adventure started out with a picnic after work in front of the Harvard libaray. We wildly brown bagged a few bottles of wine and snacked on some cheeses. I got a few giggles from students when I recycled the bottles at the library when we were done.

As usual I found a coupon code for our entertainment for the night: (hint: the code is MANIA) Donkey Show. Regularly priced tickets at $28 were just $14 for us. And before you freak, it's not that kind of donkey show, well, not really. Donkey Show is Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream set to disco in a disco. The show happens all around you and with you. Glittery, scantilly clad, gay boys dance around and bring you into the action. The characters are wildly dressed in spandex and roller skates or orange polyester suits and afros. After the show we stuck around and danced for another hour. I forgot how fun silly 70's music could be.

That guy behind him is just an unsuspecting audience member. Perhaps not so unsuspecting, though? His outfit is pretty wild too.

City Spy

I'm a big fan of tour books for the planning stages of a trip. Nothing gets my travel juices flowing more than a big eyewitness, full-color guide book. Reading novels taking place in my destination--I drool. But lug those thick hardcovers across an ocean--no way!

Instead I often rip out the pages you need or the Lonely Planet feature Pick & Mix, which lets you buy chapters of the books for cheap and print them out yourself.

The best on the ground resources, though, has got to be Mr. Gordonsky's City Spy maps. You can try reading it online, but I promise you the grammar and typeset will frustrate you. Instead check out their hostel recommendations and pick up a copy in the lobby. In person the maps are charming and quirky. The maps fold up easily to fit in your pocket and usually have the best, local low-down on where to eat, drink, party and stay. They even have a handy phrase guide. Handy phrases being "Who here would like to do a body shot with me?" or "Can you help me with my zipper?"

These things are obviously geared to the younger traveler, which makes them the perfect suplement to the Rick Steves guides.

So far Mr. Gordonsky covers Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Krakow, Krumlov, Prague, Riga, Vilinius, Wein and Wroclaw. And I'm starting my own Boston one soon.

Perhaps with better grammar though.

Eating for Less

I'm definitely an expert on eating for pennies. There was my one week on the election last year I had grits 3 meals a day and there's my perfecting the ol' steal lots of food from the dining hall during college routine.

There's always the tension though--have a fabulous meal out on the town or save it for your next trip to Europe. However, part of experiencing your backyard and abroad is experienceing food. Here's some ways to break your PB&J habit and still save.

• Groupon is the new, viral group-coupon. Everyday get a hard-to-believe deal on local businesses. My recent snags? $20 for $50 worth of sushi. $20 for $40 at the Savant Project. $15 for $30 at the Boston Cheese Cellar. They're such good deals you'll have to hold back to not buy them everyday.

• Restaurant.com certificates are the most tacky, but the best deal. $25 of food certificates are just $10, but get on their e-mail list and you'll be alerted when even that low price is 50%-80% off. There's always some hitches on these things--having to buy two entrees, can't be used for alcohol, having to whip out this folded up print-out coupon at the end of the meal--but the price is right.

• Sometimes a meal is made by the surroundings. Dining al fresco is a great way to feel fancy and foot-loose. Technically you could say it is eating out, but without the tipping. You pick the food. To keep it cheap I recommend a brie and bread. Feeling a little lawless? Pack a bottle opener, plastic cups and a cheap bottle. The locale depends on your city, but my favorites in Boston are the Franklin Cemetery, Blue Hills Park and the Harbor Walk.

• Go ahead, feel a little chichi. Tastings might not fill you up, but you get to taste expensive wares for free. For a list of places near you type "free tasting" into yelp.com. My favorites in Boston are the Solera, Best Cellars and the Wine Gallery. It doesn't stop at wine--taste beer at Sam Adams or Harpoon's breweries or cheese at the Cheese Cellar.

• Eating ethnic is usually more interesting and cheaper than eating out American. Go straight to the source--eating Chinese in Chinatown is infintely cheaper than PF Chang's. For the cheapest results choose dingy hole-in-the-walls or trucks.

• Don't go out hungry. I kind of think of it like pre-gaming. Have a drink and some snacks before you go out. Then hit up an expensive place and share an entree.

• I'll be the first to admit Restaurant Week isn't cheap, but its probably the only way you're going to be able to afford a meal at most of the restaurants on the list. Coral Gables to Houston are doing restaurant weeks now and many places have extended the 'week' to be one or two months long. Lunches are the best deal at around $25 for three courses and dinners run around $35.

• Finally, you resist the need to eat out, by making eating in special. Get a fancy cookbook out of the library. Light some candles. Sit on the porch. Change it up and you won't feel so bad about staying in.

Showing off Boston

For a few weeks each year I give up my relatively cushy job for a 70-hour work-week. My postings have fallen by the wayside, but that's not to say my adventures have. Even with 70 hours at work I use what time I have left to enjoy the sunshine that has finally graced us with it's presence.

Last weekend I had a chance to show off my city to my parents. I used this as an opportunity to eat out at fancy places I'd been eyeing the past few months--Harvest in Cambridge (divine!) and Ten Tables in JP (take it or leave it). It was also a weekend of small-world run-ins. This has been happening quite often actually. Two friends ended up getting a table directly next to us at Ten Tables. Waiting for our table for brunch at Centre Street Cafe on Sunday we ran into my highschool friend and her mom--turns out she just bought a house down the street.

Here's some sightseeing highlights:

Lantern Festival in Forest Hills Cemetery

Biking and shopping along Centre/South Street

Sam Adams Brewery tour (I've got quite the collection of free tasting glasses now.)

Sand sculpting Festival at Revere Beach

Top Ten Ways to 'Travel' in Your Own Backyard

1. Sunbathe


Put on your swimsuit, pull out your beach towel and layout. It doesn't take too much imagination to picture your self on a beach somewhere--close your eyes, the sun is the exact same sun. The quiet woosh of the cars are waves. The birds? Well those are seagulls!

When your tan gets really fabulous and folks ask you where you just got back from vacation to, feel free to lie and say Aculpoco.


2. Eat foreign food.


I guarantee that unless you really live in the backwoods, you have some ethnic restaurants in your hood. Now eating pizza at the Upper Crust here doesn't count. Chinese joints with forks are nixed too. The more times that 'authentic' appears on the yelp review page, the better. Live music gets double points. Go to an Indian restaurant on a night they have a sitar player or when your local Mexican joint has a mariachi band.

An equal substitute would be to shop in ethnic markets for food--dip into one of those European markets or Indian groceries. If you can't understand the language of the shoppers, you're in the right place.


3. Take the train or bus to the last stop.


I'll never forget the time I took a train to another train to a bus and then walked a quarter mile to a park seemingly in the middle of nowhere--in Queens. I had the place to myself for the day as I hiked, crossed bridges, spotted egrets. There are dozens and dozens of the 'end of the lines.' Pick one and see what you find.

This picture here is not some National Park--it's the Hollywood Hills--see LA in the background (beneath the smog)?


4. Attend a cultural festival.


Every upstanding cultural group has festivals. The summer is the best. Week after week saint processions go down in the North End here in Boston. We've got Chinese Dragon Boat racing, the Puerto Rican parade, Bastille Day. Get yourself out on the street, bring your dancing shoes and some cash for all the great street food.


5. Hang out in an ethnic neighborhood

That said, don't think you need to wait for a holiday to experience another culture. Just go hang out there. Los Angeles is the best for this: they boast the most Mexicans outside of Mexico, the most Koreans outside of Korea, Samoans outside of Samoa. You get the picture. Each neighborhood is surprisingly distinct. I ended up getting my apartment in Koreatown last year. I learned to love kimchi, would drink pitchers of Hite, hang out in Korean-style coffee shops and party it up in the local Karaoke bars.

Perhaps your town doesn't boast a Korean-only 20 block radius for you to immerse yourself. But I bet there's a Chinatown with some cool shopping or a Hispanic neighborhood with killer arepas or pupusas.


6. Go to touristy places.

This is the opposite of going to cultural-hot spots, but nonetheless fun, and will put you right in the 'I'm a tourist' mindset. Take a guided tour. (Here in JP, our historical society offers free tours every Saturday.) Go on a harbor cruise. Go to the museum. Have a drink at Cheers.

For the love of God, however, please do not eat at Hard Rock Café, Johnny Rockets or Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. This will not make you feel like a tourist--just an asshole.


7. Get lost.

How many streets are in your city? How many do you actually walk down everyday to get to work--5, 6? Take a wrong turn and see where it takes you! Maybe you'll find a cute botique you never knew about or a creperie off the beaten path.

8. Show someone around.


There's no better way to force yourself to look at a city anew than to show someone around. They'll notice things you never have. It also gives you an excuse to act like a tourist. I never would have taken this picture if I wasn't hanging out without my mom.


9. Pretend!

Boston's not too far from the old world, so it's easy to walk some of the financial district on the way to the post office for work, pretending I'm off to a museum in Vienna. At Haymarket I pretend that I'm shopping at a Catalunyan Boqueria. Bike through the Fens and pretend they are Dutch canals. A little imagination and you can put yourself anywhere.


10. See with new eyes.


Part of that special travel feeling is seeing things for the first time. Retrain yourself to notice the details in your own city. Raising my line of sight just a bit, I saw the art-deco embellishments on buildings downtown I had walked by hundreds of time without wonder. Biking across the Harvard Bridge last night at dusk I saw the city's skyline from an angle and time of day I never had before and all of a sudden it was new and beautiful.

Travel Posters

A great way to keep the travel dream going is decorating with travel posters. Nothing from this century is worth framing (see my earlier post on advertising), but the posters of yesteryear are gorgeous.

I just got my new shipment of posters: one of New York, Malibu and Santa Monica. Like kitchy t-shirts I only buy posters for places I've been or seriously plan on going (hence the NYC, Miami, Mexico and LA posters).

Some great websites to look for posters are:

www.art.com (e-mail me for coupon codes)

www.allposters.com (almost the same as art.com)

www.postergods.com (bad selection, but tons of $5 posters)

Museums also hold a great collection of vintage travel posters. Check out the Boston Public Library's collection at Flickr. Absolutely gorgeous!

Dreaming of Travel

In general I think I've adjusted quite well to 'civilian life.' Being off the canvass has given me the time and leisure to explore hobbies, books and places that I never had the luxury for before. Today I biked to the grocery store and picked up ingredients to make french toast. I laid out on the grass and a read a book. And I just woke up from my beer-induced mid-adfternoon nap. (I think the free Sam Adams brewery tour might become a Saturday staple.) As I woke, this poem came into my head:

In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day.

-Robert Lewis Stevenson

It's hard to say how much A Child's Garden of Verses influenced me as a child. I couldn't recite any of the poems now like I can nursery rhymes, but reading them now, they all come back vividly, and with the pictures that accompanied them in my book.

I think the book stayed with me mainly because I remember the tattered copy my mom gave me, saying, "This was my favorite book growing up." I took that seriously.

I realize today that the simple child wonderment at everyday simple things in the world is something I try to capture everyday and something that travel gives you. One of the things I lvoe most about traveling is the pure joy you get from doing everyday things in a foreign place: taking the train, speaking to a friend, going grocery shopping, even taking a shower. Everything is new and different.

I find myself able to reclaim that feeling at will now, the feeling of wonder as the season turns, noticing the arcitectural details that lie above my normal line of vision when I walk to work, turning down a different street than I normally would take to the grocery store.

I find myself staring at the big poster of the coast of France across from my bed.

Is travel my drug?

Some of R.L. Stevenson's dreaming of travel poems:

Foreign Lands

Pirate Story

The Land of Nod

Travel

Well-read Weekend #10

Most travel books adress the big W travel questions like Where? When? What? I doubt that the well-fed tourist cruise ship passenger or the stag-party attendee in Prague stops to ask Why?

It's a question worth asking I think. Why are there folks like Nomadic Matt that travel for years on end or endless websites detailing how to live life on the road? Why do we spend hundreds on luggage and havea whole genre of 'travel lit'?

I feel there's a whole load of tourists who fit into one of two categories: the travel to 'get away from it all' and the travel 'to see it all.' Neither strikes me as particularly good. If I wanted to get away from it all, all I'd need do is yank my internet cord out of the wall, turn off the cell phone and go lay in the park. Same rest, lots less money. Seeing it all means that you pack so much into your days, that yes, you might have seen the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa and a can-can show, but what do you know of Paris?

Rick Steves aims to make folks' travel political. Alain de Botton takes a look at why travel is good for the soul in The Art of Travel.

Mr. de Botton is a philosopher at heart. His other books: Status Anxiety, The Consolations of Philosophy, The Arcitecture of Happiness. The Art of Travel is a delicate weaving of philosophy, yes, but also personal narrative, history and art.

His essays take delve into all the feelings we go through when we travel, from the anticipation of departure to the sublime views of nature's grandeur. He looks at topics through a few lenses--first his own travels, then of great travelers throughout history, through art or poetry and then brings things back to apply to our own lives.

For anyone who is more interested in the experience in traveling and less in the checklist of sights or the amount of sun one can absorb, this book is for you.

Well-read Weekend #9

A thouroughly useless, yet entertaining travel read, How to Make Friends and Oppress People. Has a sensible title, much like the Museum of Jurassic Technology. It sounds logical at first and then -- what technology during the Jurassic period? or wait, one should not oppress people!

It probably goes without saying that How to Make Friends and Oppress People: Classic Travel Advice for the Gentleman Adventurer by Vic Darkwood was written with a sense of irony.

Some favorite travel advice gems from the author:

On the best mode of travel:

"Women are hormonally prgrammed to be impressed by males who show a certain amount of dash, and in the modern world this commodity is usually made manifest by an impressively bushy moustache, a shiny red sports car or a large private income Right at the top of the dash stakes, however, is being the owner of a hot air balloon."

On improving your peripherial vision for driving:

"One of the best ways I have found of tgraining the eyes is to site for hours in a cinema with one's head turned sideways to the screen. . . Another good technique is to get a friend to drive a golf ball at you side on and attempt to dodge it."

But some of the fun is taken out when you know this advice is tounge-in-cheek. So perhaps the best advice comes from the many citations of actual travel books from the turn of the century.

"When talking to your Chinese boy you use Pdigin English. Here are a few words and their meanings; chop, chop, quickly; all same this, like this; man man, stop; no can cuttee, cheaper; no b'long plopper, that won't do . . . though round about, this baby mode of talk is tolerably successful."

"Should you be attacked by a mob in the East, hurt one of the crowd and hurt him quickly. The others will gather round the injured man and you will be able to slip away."

--The Happy Traveler, Rev'd Frank Tatchell 1923

"Every lady should, to my mind, know how to use a revolver. She may at any time be in China or some other country where there are savage natives . . . A lady can carry a revolver hidden for self-defence in many more ways than a man, owing to her draperis affording more places for concealment. Inside the muff is about one of the best places."

--Hints on Revolver Shooting, Walter Winans, 1904

Prepare to be amused and perhaps learn a thing or two about how to treat the natives.

Busy Busy Busy!

It's been a while, I know.  Since my last post I've been to DC, NYC, Montpelier--whew!  

I'm looking forward to spending some time in the city.  To make sure I don't miss a thing, I've started a google calendar with cheap to free events in Boston.  You can find it here.  Here's some highlights:

Cheap tapas in Roxbury every Thursday with live music

Fisherman's Feast in the South End in August

3 Levels of Dancing at the Liberty Hotel to celebrate Bastille Day

Gin, Rum and Vodka all made in Mass tasting at Blanchards

Outdoor Showing of Mama Mia