Painted building, Christiania, Copenhagen
Having a blog means you get more spam comments than real comments. I have reposted my favorite spam comment below. First, it starts with “Tex!” Don’t all statements sound better when they start with “Tex!”?
Reading this delightful “comment” reminds me of 3 things:
1) I need to keep on righting,
2) I must retell the story of the pizza on the heater, and
3) I am awesmowe Continue reading
Travel book review of Without Reservations: Travels of an independent woman by Alice Steinbach
Targeted at middle-aged women, this is a pleasant, but not remarkable, memoir of a single woman traveling in Europe.
Quite frankly, the target audience for this book is defined by the subtitle: travels of an independent woman. Continue reading
A review of the travel book Tales from the Torrid Zone: Travels in the deep tropics by Alexander Frater (2007).
Alexander Frater was born in a missionary family in what it is today Vanuatu, so his stories are intertwined with his family’s history as missionaries and preachers in the islands. Tales from the Torrid Zone is a look at the tropics (history, geography, and ethnography) combined with a personal family history, so its depth exceeds that of other South Seas travel books (like Getting Stoned With Savages). While Fraser explores all the tropics, the book is deeply dependent on the remote islands of the South Seas. The stories can be eye-opening, like the voyage to Pentecost Island where “bungee jumping” (actually “land diving”) originated. Locals jump from rickety towers with vines tied to their legs to ensure a bountiful yam harvest, Continue reading
At the original Cafe Sacher
Visitors to Vienna are instructed to try sacher torte, the dry chocolate cake with a thin layer of apricot jam, invented at the Hotel Sacher.
Yet, I have read that tourists are disappointed in the sachertorte at the Hotel Sacher. Why is this? We want something to be more epic in its original setting. We want angel choirs and rainbows. We want flavor explosions and mouth orgasms. We want it to resemble nothing before, causing our brain to whir into motion while analyzing these new and exciting flavors. Continue reading
Palm trees make me happy.
I am a palm tree savant. Show me a landscape, and I will find the palm tree before you even realized that one was there. So it is difficult for me to pass up a palm house.
In the 1700’s, palms were an exotic plant, carried by European explorers from tropical lands back to Europe, where they built greenhouses and cultivated these plants for their own enjoyment. I like to think of them as 19th century tiki bars where Jimmy Buffett’s royal ancestors would sit with their mango iced teas and Mai Tais in their velvet regal housecoats. As a native of Illinois, where white oaks outnumber palms (surprised?), I can understand the need for a palm house. Continue reading
Vienna State Opera
It was hard to buy tickets for the opera in Vienna. Purchasing the tickets was easy, but making the decision to buy tickets was excruciatingly difficult. I have never been to an opera, and 19th century entertainment sounds unentertaining.
View from the "expensive" standing room only seats
Operas in Vienna are wonderfully accessible. Each performance at the world-famous Vienna Opera House has several hundred standing room only (SRO) tickets at 3-4 Euros each. All you need to do is show up early (they go on sale 80 minutes before the show) and wait. We “splurged” on 4 Euro tickets (instead of the cheap 3 € ones), and our “box” was located behind the seats on the main floor, directly facing the stage. Awesome! Plus, we had access to the lobby just like everyone else, so we could take in the beauty (and take some pictures). Vienna’s Opera House is famous, and, even though much of it was destroyed during World War II bombings, the original lobby is intact and exactly what a historic opera house should look like.
The SRO crowd was about 80% foreign tourists, dressed in everything from t-shirts to sport coats, so we were not out of place. The box itself had velvety rails to lean up against, and by the time the opera started, it was nearly sardine style and starting to get hot, and, quite frankly smelly. Continue reading
Vienna was once the center of world power. I didn’t really know that. I feel like I learned a lot about history in school—but it was American history. While American history will always be my favorite, traveling helps me fill in the blanks about what I never learned. I thought Vienna was just the former capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (i.e. Austria and Hungary). But once the Hapsburgs ruled much of eastern and central Europe, even today’s Belgium & Luxembourg, from their capital in Vienna. Hapsburg family members controlled Spain, and even Maximilian of Mexico was the brother of the Hapsburg Emporer Franz Josef before his ouster by Benito Juarez. Where did I nod off in history class? Or did they forget to teach me this? Continue reading
There is only one way to experience the full impact of the Lincoln Memorial. Do not turn around until you reach the top.
When you arrive at the base of the steps, look up. You must focus only on the steps. As you begin your walk up, you will want to stop and turn around. You may stop, but you must not turn around. When you (finally) reach the top, and you finally turn around, you will experience one of the most incredible All-American views possible. You will see what Martin Luther King, Jr. saw. This is America.
Then you can walk up to Lincoln, who is always much bigger than expected, even if you have been here many times. And the simple inscription says more than any history book could: Continue reading
Oh, fried oatmeal creme pie. I wanted to love you, but I can't.
In the South, we deep fry things. Corn dog = yum. Funnel cake = yum. Okra = yum.
On a trip to Rodeo Houston, I took culinary travel to a new level by testing out the fried oatmeal crème pie (Spell check added the accent, so I left it there to sound more exotic.)
The esteemed oatmeal crème pie is made with corn syrup, flour, and partially hydrogenated oils as its primary ingredients. If I need to explain why this is wrong to begin with, then you should probably quit reading now.
At a food booth at Rodeo Houston, they took this shortening-based food, rolled it in batter, and dropped it in shortening, which, dear reader, is quite unlike dropping ice cream in milk to make a delicious milk shake. Instead, the “pie” hoovered up the oil, leaving us with a battered squishy mess. The crème itself clearly wanted to escape, and like mingling of the waters between the Amazon and the Rio Negro, the white crème joined with its darker and less tasty brother, the hot oil in the fat fryer, Continue reading
