Recently in Travel Category

A few seconds of Czech Scooby Doo, recorded at about 5am, on my way up to my room from Hell in the basement of the Hotel Thermal in Karlovy Vary on July 7th.

A thought struck me when I was riding in from the aiport in Toronto, the other day: In Canada, are they just simply called "Geese?"

Another day, another festival. Or is it another beer? Well, same difference, sometimes. At any rate, it is another film festival, my umpteenth + 4, I think. This time it's the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF, often pronounced, awkwardly: "K'viff") in the Czech spa town of the same name. I am currently in the lobby of my hotel, the Thermal, drinking a wonderful Pilsner Urquell at the extortionate hotel price of $1.50. Yup, you heard right. The thing is, they're 85 cents on the street, so $1.50 is rather a steep markup!

This being my first trip to the Czech Republic (or to any former Eastern Bloc country for that matter) since 1974, there is a certain amount of adjustment to be made. First of all, unlike the rest of Europe, smoking cigarettes in public places is still a national sport, here and that, combined with the lack of anything resembling dry cleaning in my hotel may prove to be a problem. I also forgot my razor, but the Czechs do shave, so I assume at least that won't be a problem. Then there's the language. While I consider myself lingustically adept, I am finding this one rather difficult to learn, but then again, I've only been in country a little over 30 hours, much of that spent either asleep or in a jet-lag/beer induced stupor.

Now about the alcohol. Cheap beer abounds and does a peculiar spirit called Becherovka. It's akin to Jägermeister, in that it's made with oodles of herbs and packs a wallop, but is significantly less viscous and purports to aid in digestion. Considering the preponderance of meat on Czech menus, I might be making copious use of it. It is usually served cold as a shot or on the rocks, but you can also have it with tonic, in which case it's called a "beton," which oddly means "concrete" in Czech. It's actually pretty tasty. To the left is a pic of a wedge of lime seemingly hovering above the surface of BAM curator Florence Almozini's beton.

Planet Earth
Narrated by David Attenborough
Produced by Alastair Fothergill
I don't think there are enough superlatives in the English language to fully convey how mind-blowingly cool the BBC series Planet Earth is. I am only 4 episodes in and already I know that as far as nature docs go, this is the ne plus ultra of the genre. Even when viewing the standard resolution DVDs (as opposed to the HD DVD or Blu-Ray editions, also available) on a 27-inch TV, you are bombarded with such astonishing image and sound (Dolby 5.1 stereo) as to make it very difficult not to watch all 11 50-minute episodes, plus the 150-minute extra series all in one go. Of course, that would mean 700 minutes of continuous viewing. But hell, that's only just under 12 hours. Why not?

Wow. Talk about memories....

On our way to Cuba as part of the first group of Americans to fly direct to Cuba from New York City since the early 1960s, my friend Shelley Parker and I were apparently photographed by Agence France Presse. I confess, I don't remember that, but ok! I am planning on a return visit, this December.

That was indeed a fantastic trip. I think I need to digitize some pix. Also on the flight with us was filmmaker Laurie Collyer (SherryBaby, Nuyorican Dream) and in Cuba we hung out with the Sundance group, including Todd Haynes, Todd Solondz, Darren Aronofsky and Eric Watson. Good times, good times!

Oh, and I have video. I guess I need to digitize that, too!

So I had to take these pix. I was just kinda transfixed by the array of fish on offer at the KaDeWe's seafood department and these three were so very pissed off. I suppose I would be too, if I were....ugly as sin, dead and on ice in Berlin.
So...fish:

And the angriest of them all, the Monk Fish:

Yikes.

A dinner some friends and I had recently in what we like to call Das Fleischhaus:

It consists of: 4 Schnitzels, 4 small steaks, 4 pork cutlets and 4 small ground beef & pork links called Cevapcici, not to mention 2 kinds of rice and fries. Sheer heaven...so we ordered 8 of those on the side. My doctor would be so proud!

A snack food I got at my hotel in Amsterdam. I'm a little concerned as to what the ingredients might be....

New Nabisco Filipinos! Chocolaty goodness, a cookie crunch and stewed pork flavor!

I have, courtesy of a friend, recently discovered a feature on my camera that allows me to toy with the colors it captures by highlighting one color with the rest of the image in black & white. Not only that, but it automatically saves a full color version, like the following 2 pics. Pretty cool, hunh?

Here's another one:

6:15pm, February 5th, 2007, outside the hotel Estheréa, along The Singel in Amsterdam

In Praise of Calvin Trillin

I urge you all to read Calvin Trillin's Op-Ed piece in Friday's New York Times entitled "Park, He Said." At the very LEAST, it will give you a few minutes of laughter in a world disturbingly bereft of such (automatic meatloaf carver, anyone?). If, however, you're not familiar with Mr. Trillin's work, you'll be introduced to one of the shining lights of modern literature. A thoughtful, incisive and often laugh out loud funny chronicler of, well, things that suit his fancy. A satirist, as well as a top-notch food and travel writer and self-proclaimed doggerelist, "Bud," as he is known by friends (I name drop on behalf of my parents, not me) is a true original and should not be missed.

Airline Toilets and the General Public

Am I the only one who finds it disturbing that there's a sign in airplane lavatories that reads something like:

Disposing of anything other than toilet paper in the toilet can cause external leaks and poses a safety hazard.

Is it just me or does that read something like "If you try to flush a load of solid objects down this loo, you might just bring this plane down." Sounds like an invitation to a deranged (or simply determined) passenger. I don't know about you, but I'd prefer that the idea not even be hinted at. How about a little lie? Something like: "Using anything other than toilet paper in this lavatory risks damaging the toilet and causing the entire plane to smell like poo?" That would sure stop me from pouring a load of ball bearings down the bog and might not give some nutty nut bar any bad ideas.

Just a thought.

8 minutes to JFK-Final approach and landing.


Shot from inside a Sikorsky S76 dual engine helicopter as we arrive at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.