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

Discerning Travel

It's been nearly 8 months since I last set foot in Virginia. As hard as the Community Voters Project I helped run down here, I definitely look back on my time here fondly. Even when you are working long hard hours towards a seemingly unattainable goal, if you are near the beach, things all seem better.

You might have to wait 20 minutes at a street corner in the projects to take a 1 hour city-bus ride home at 11pm at night, but when you wake up to this . . .

life will seem better. I firmly believe that a little reprive in nature does the soul good. For me my ideal natural setting is water, so here I am again in Virginia Beach. My friend is turning 30 (:::gasp::: am I nearly there too?) and I took the opportunity to use my vacation days.

I still don't share the view that vacation days should be used to go somewhere and then just lie somewhere, so its a bit of a tension to fly somewhere and then have no agenda or things to see. I know, however, that this is many people's idea of a 'vacation.' Why else are there cruise ships and places like Sandals Jamaica.

Somehow my regular mastercard got upgraded to a "World Elite" mastercard. Now I get big glossy brochures mailed to me with great deals like get your 8th night free when you buy 7 nights at a "couples resort." What is a couples resort you ask? It's an all-inclusive, every detail planned for your, vacation spot in a beachy locale where only couples are allowed. (Who does this appeal to? What are they implying about single people here?) Or book a 7 nights Chianti package and get a Ferrari tour with free police escort. (And what are they implying about having a Ferrari in Italy?)

Is it worth it to spend $4709 for 4 nights in Lima, roundtrip private transfers, private city sightseeing tour and business class flights? When traveling half the experience is meeting people, private tours and flights might save you a few annoyances, but take away half of the memories of your trip.

They bill their packages as being for the discerning travelers. But do discerning travelers really have it better? If discerning means having special insight and understanding, aren't you missing the essence of a place by setting yourself aloof and apart?

One of my most memorable truely discerning stays was in Barcelona. After e-mailed a few dozen Barcelonians for couch space, we finally got an affirmative reply back. When we arrived it turned out our host, a generous, gregarious Italian had said yes to a German couple and two French girls as well!

Freddy showed us his roommates' room. "She's gone for the weekend--put everything back exactly as it is when you go." What a great roommate!

During the day we all went our seperate ways exploring the city, but at night we came together for a big dinner party. Other Italians and Spaniards were invited over. I cooked an impressive risotto with fresh, chewy mushrooms from the market. We opened a half dozen bottles of wine. Ate glorious olives and ripped pieces of bread off from a loaf from the downstairs baker.

One Italian brought his guitar and as we settled into our spots on the floor, the couch, in folding chairs, he strummed us a flamenco. A girl from Seville sang a sad song and danced a Sevillana. I asked for a basic blues, sang Goin' to Chicago and danced a little charleston. When it got to a proper 'going out' hour, say 2am for a Spaniard, we headed out to the student barrio to duck into dark smokey bars and hear more music.

At the end of the weekend we compared our digital picture of the items that had been on the bed to our recreation of the scene--a sock just so, a book laid open, a blanket pulled back. We showed it to our host--"Perfect, she will never know!"

My Backyard

This week I drove practically the whole big rectangle of Massachusetts.  Following the coast from Boston I spent Monday on the Cape.  

Not wanting to miss a opportunity to spend some time on the beach I booked a campsite at Scusset Beach.  We were assigned the same site my friend Libby and I shared 6 years ago our summer of canvassing.  A bit errie.

The weather didn't cooperate and while we enjoyed a nice, warm hearty meal at a British-style pub in Sandwich, our attempts to start a fire took a lot of time and lighter fluid.  I managed to warm up enough marshmallows for s'mores and chugged a couple glasses of Cape Cod Beer poured from a growler. 

The next day I drove back up through Boston, across the top of the state to Greenfield, down to Northampton, back to the top Northeast corner to Williamstown, down to the southeast corner and all the way back home.  The rolling mountains and stormy lakes didn't get much exploring as I zipped by meeting to meeting, but I got a few shots out the window.

Lastly, Friday was perfect.  Finally the sun came back out and every tree, bush, flower, lawn, having had it's fill was glowing green.

I spent the day in historic Concord.  In between meetings I did lunch and a walk around Walden Pond.  

Staring at the site of Thoreau's cabin, I too decideded to live deliberately.  

I caught a bit of the Sleepy Hollow cemetery--final resting place of Thoreau, Emmmerson and Louisa May Alcott and did a quick drive by Alcott's childhood home.

 My pictures capture some of the gorgeousness of the old history lain in the green, but I'm sure if you are in any area of the country that is waking up from winter, you can fill in an even brighter green than the camera could capture in your mind's eye.  

What a whirlwind of a week! 

Travel and advertising

I really hate travel ads of today.  Open up any travel magazine and it's cover to cover ads of cheesey slogans ("Life's a breeze" "Recharging is invited" "Big State, Big Family Fun") and pictures of gleeful women in heels clutching shopping bags.  This is a shame since there's so much power in a real picutre of a place that can draw one in.

Old vintage travel posters get at that a bit.  I've taken to decorating my room in them.  Like these two on my walls now.

No slogans, no gimicks.  But who wouldn't want to jump on the next plane and go?  Both pictures take you from your room to a place just a mile or so away from the cities--not all the way there.  As if to say, you're not so far away--let's go.  

So I'm not one for today's advertising, but this recent film/ad  makes me want to jump on the next plane to France and Morocco.  Probably because it's not an ad for travel, but for Chanel N°5 perfume.  

The ad is a 2 1/2 minute movie starring Audrey Tautou of Amelie fame.  It is a tale of eros as two strangers cross paths while traveling, but for me, it is the travel that takes my breath away.  Forget the man here, we're hopping on the train in France, hanging out the window as it whisks through the mountain passes, boarding a boat in the Mediterranean, and meeting again in the stately train station lobby as Billie Holiday sings in the background.  

How could you not want to go with Audrey?  To me, nothing is more romantic than travel.  Already, your senses are awakened by the new, that everything looks lovely--the train,the  mountains, the sea, the sky, oh and yes, the man.

Well Read (and Drank) Weekend #8

This week's book has served me well so far: The Good Beer Guide to New England.

How is screwing in a canoe like American beer?  It's fucking close to water. 

But not the craft beer of New England!  These past two weeks I've dove into the New England beer culture head first.  The Good Beer Guide to New England is a great beer-tasting companion.  

First on my beer tour is Brookline--no breweries here, but 2 beer tastings which I happily, and a tad tipsily biked in between.  Last weekend was a perfect day for biking and beer.  My favorie find?  A chipotle beer from Cisco Brewers on Nantucket and a mango-tinted IPA from Mayflower Brewing Company.  The Wine Gallery provided a great location for the local beer and cheese tasting.  The venue has a built in tasting room and a "wine jukebox" where you can spin a crazy looking contraption and make your own tasting any day.

 My own neighborhood of Boston is home to the Sam Adams brewery, but I haven't been there yet, so I'll leave a review of Sam until another day.

My first stop outside of Boston was the Beer Works while I had to kill some time out in Lowell.  I sampled a bit of quite a few brews, but settled on one (I was working, after all)--the Boston Garden Golden.    Lowell was a suprise.  Once the 3rd largest city in New England, Lowell's decaying factories and poverty problems are what it's known for these days.  Certainly, with with different weather, the city would have been more depressing, but as it was the river and falls I found gorgeous.  I spent a nice afternoon at the brewery where there was, thankfully, great internet connection.

Next stop: Cape Cod!

Mass Backyard and Abroad

This past month I've had the chance to travel a bunch over New England, mostly for work with a tad bit of fun squeezed in.   

Follow me as I travel Massachusetts this week for work, armed with a bunch of meetings with great Toxics Action Center members (have you donated yet?) to meet with and the Good Beer Guide to New England. 

 

Is Settling Down, Settling?

These past few months I've settled down in Boston.   I hate to use the word 'settled'.  It sounds as if I've given up my travel dreams.  Or maybe regulated them to the dream realm.  Perhaps I did cut out a bit early from my leave of absence, but now that I'm back to the 9-5 (or 9-8 more aptly for the nonprofit world) I hold onto the thought that my 4 weeks vacation are there for the taking.  

Whereas some women wonder if they can 'have it all' and mean family, job, etc., when I think about 'having it all' and  I wonder if I can see the world and have a job that makes an impact on the issues I care about and allows me to hold onto meaningful ties with friends that I really value.  

This year is that test.  

It doesn't happen automatically.  You have to write vacation proposals and then advocate for them.  You have to throw yourself into your work to make sure it actually works.  Friends, even when they love you, are prone to forget to call, so you must pick up the phone and make the plans.  

So far, somewhat good?  There's still places I miss.  I still wish I was better at my job.  There's still people I wish I had brunch with every Sunday.  But I'm finding the balance.  I continue to find the community and beauty of Boston entrancing.  I learn more at work.  I buy plane tickets to see friends and arrange dinner dates when I sweep through their city.  

I don't want to settle, but I am settling down and letting the scale balance itself out to a comfortable place, a balance of travel, impact, and friends, that all might actually be good for me.

20 Tips

Well actually not 20.  Just one--but I made number 2! 

What am I talking about?  If you're a reader of Budget Travel magazine, you no doubt laugh at the funny top 20 tips from readers each month.  Most of them are hilarious little strange things that middle-aged travelers do to make themselves more comfortable while on the road -- like bringing hooks with you when you travel in case your hotel room doesn't have anywhere to hang your towel or save shower caps from hotels to put over your bike helmet when it rains.  Every once in a while you get a gem.  Mine was one of those gems.  

I'm tip number 2 this month in Budget Travel magazine!  Grab it on newstands or check it out online.  

For getting my tip featured I get a year's subscription to Budget Travel--not bad.  

What's my tip you ask?  

"2. Vacation education Anytime I plan a trip, I subscribe to blog feeds and news from the area I'm visiting. It helps me catch up on the culture and gets me even more excited about what's to come! Megan Stokes, Boston, Mass."

Here's a little how to do this.  

*Go to reader.google.com. 

*Sign in with your gmail account (or get one).

*Click on the add a subscription button and type in keywords like "Mexico" "Budget Travel" "Lativian News" or "Boston Art."  
*Visit the website whenever you want and new blog entries will show up in one convenient place to read them all.

If you sign up--let me know!  I really want to get some more folks on Google Reader.  There's a 'bookmark with comment' function that I love.  You can then follow your friend's articles that they like and comment on.  Pretty neat and a much better way to share interesting stuff than forwarding.  Check out the little box to the right that says "Megan's shared items," it's a sampled of my bookmarked articles from Google Reader.

Well-Read Weekend #7

 

I think the sky in Boston knows when it's a weekend.  Every Friday afternoon rolls around and it decides to cut loose in celebration of the work week being over.  All winter this meant horrendously blustery snow storms every weekend.  The sky cloaked in grey, throwing gales of snow down like confetti.  Except for me this was no party.  People say they like the winter because they get to feel all 'cozy' when they go inside.  These people do not pay their own heating bill.  To get cozy I'd pile on two sweatshirts and wear my jacket while I ate dinner at home.

 

But now the sky is letting loose in a different way.  All week we had rainy weather, but on Friday--gorgeous.  It was as if the sky was obliged to do it's April shower thing all week and let loose as soon as the job was done. 

 

In honor of the beautiful sky, yesterday I spent the day exploring Brookline by going beer tasting to beer tasting by bike.  My guide along the way?  Not for Tourists. 

 

I highly recommend these books if they offer them for your city.   You'll know the ins and outs of each neighborhood better than a long-time local, be able to surprise your friends with the hippest bars in their neighborhood they didn't even know about and find where every swimming pool, skating rink and bowling alley is town.

 

This book was my bible in LA.   Well-worn and well-loved.  It lived in my bag or my car, depending on my mode on transportation and guided me straight to the best eats and bars in town (and around the confusing highway system). 

 

In Boston it's indispensible for biking around when streets double back on eachother (did you know Tremont intersects with Tremont?) and knowing the story behind the old amazing church you're staring at. 

 

Each guide really does a great job at being for the local.  All the guides show you where banks, book stores, bars, etc. are.  The LA guide also has a detailed one-pager on each mall and beach.  Boston has dots on each map to show you where donut shops and community gardens are.  (Interesting commentary on what's important for Angelenos v. Bostonians, no?)   LA's guide is large with a pull-out highway map.  That would never work in Boston, where you usually get around by foot or T, so it's guide is condensed and fits in a pocket.  

Right now you can great deal on the notfortourists website: buy a customized wall map of your neighborhood and get a free book!

More Beantown Steals

At the risk of turning this into one of those deal/coupon blogs, I'm going to share with ya'll the MassValue Pass.

I was lured into visiting the site by their colorful ads in Budget Travel mag.  But nothing hooks me like a good deal.

Download the MassValue Pass here.  Especially for a mass resident, there's some good discounts here:

• * Buy one get one free admission at the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum. (Save $12)
• * Buy two tickets, get the third free for Ahla Brookline food tours.  (Save $44) 
• * Boston Bike Tours Discount -- they offer a brewery and beaches tour! (Save $8)
• * Boston by Foot by one Get One Free Tickets (Save $24)
• * 25% off Charles River Canoe and Kyak (Save $4/hr)
• * and 25% off some crazy thing crazy thing called Boston Interactive where they send you on a scavenger hunt around Boston neighborhood's sending clues to your iphone (god knows how much this costs--they've use improv actors!)

I'm mainly bookmarking these for my own use, but join me if/when you're in town!

Well-read Weekend #6

So far I've managed to keep myself apart from the Italy craze.  On my last Europe trip we skipped over the country entirely since it's in such an inconvenient place--jutting out into the water protected on to by the Alps.  (slight sarcasm there) I haven't read Under the Tuscan Sun or felt any deisre beyond 'graci' to learn the language.  Folks oooh and aaah over Italy and I'll counter with my love for the Eastern European capitals or Spain.  

But when a friend whose opinion you trust hands you a book and says you must read it, you read it.  This is what happened with Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr.

At the face of it, Four Season looks incredibly cliche--new parents with twins from Iowa move to Rome.  They live out the stresses of being parents in a foreign city.  What struck me at first from Anthony's stories is that I do not want to be a parent.  It seems like hell.  Wailing constantly, the toothing children sweating from the summer heat don't sleep through one night.  If and when I go to Rome I am definitely going childless.

But then as Anthony and his wife slowly get over what seems like the horror of child-rearing and get into the groove (and a babysitter), Anthony's recondite perceptions are fascinating.  He gleans the deepest truths from his everyday experiences with the city, his children and his stuggles writing.  He connects his life with those of thousands of years of Romans before him.   He draws strange parallels of his observations with those of Pliny the Elder's as he reads Natural History.

The city ceases to be a cliche of Romans and cathedrals and more of a year long meditation on the generations before and to come and what we think of the world.

Since reading this book I've rented A Roman Holiday and made pasta primavera, so I'm afraid I've fallen from my pedastool above fads.  Perhaps Rome is more than a fad, no?

Deals on Local Restaurants - Wherever Local is for You

I still can't believe that this is even real.  I am always looking for new impressive gifts to send my parents that don't actually require packaging and mailing them myself.  And since I'm a procrastinator--something that arrives in one's e-mail inbox is even better.  A couple years ago I googled "restaurant gift certificate" and found www.restaurant.com. 

I gladly paid the $10 for a $25 restaurant gift certificate to be sent to my dad.  He then was able to browse and pick out a hot new place in Philly and have dinner on me.  But now they send me these discount codes so that you can literally pick up a $100 gift certificate for $12.

There's a just a few catches--most have some restrictions on them.  Like you have to buy 2 dinner entrees or it's not good on Friday.  Be careful about large gift certificates; they have high minimum spending limits.  

The worst is probably being a bit embarresed when you hand over the printed out gift certificate.  Buy hey, a deal is a deal.

Try it yourself!  Here's how it works.

Go to the www.restaurant.com website.

You can buy a specific restaurant certificate, but I recommend you just go to buy a gift certificate and then send it to yourself.  You then can use portions of the total amount anytime you'd like by signing in to your account.

At checkout enter 'FEAST' into the coupon code box.

Wah-lah--70% off already discounted gift certificates!

You'll thank me for this one.