On Club Orange

October 13, 2016

I really believe that Club Orange from Ireland is the best widely available orange soda on the planet. The source of its divine deliciousness isn’t much of a mystery: it’s 11% orange fruit from concentrate. And it has real orange bits! … More On Club Orange

Midnight Express

October 10, 2016

Saturday, October 9-Sunday, October 10, 2016: London, England

6:30pm – I am flying out of London Stansted tomorrow at 7:55am. Stansted is far away. As I plan out the morning, my friend Rubén suggests that maybe I should just go to the airport tonight: To get to there on time, I need to catch the Stansted Express from Liverpool Street by around 5, and the Tube doesn’t get me from his place to Liverpool Street at that hour. He indicates that while it’s not the ideal last night in London, if I get to Stansted early enough I can find a plastic couch and use my bag as a pillow and maybe it won’t be so bad. It doesn’t sound so bad. We decide that this will be the course of action. … More Midnight Express

I Have Coffee

May 1, 2016

Tuesday, May 31, 2016: Loíza, Río Grande, and Fajardo, Puerto Rico

I started my first full day in Puerto Rico having coffee with a nice elderly couple on their porch, and finished it eating mofongo for the first time and kayaking through a bioluminescent bay. … More I Have Coffee

Who’s Paul?

April 17, 2016

Sunday, April 18, 2016: Casablanca, Morocco and Paris, France

3:00am – I wake up at an AirBnb apartment on a quiet street in Casablanca. All streets in Casablanca are quiet at 3:00am.

3:10am – I exit the shower. It is not as cleansing as a hammam shower and I am out of shampoo.

3:25am – My friends and I knock on the AirBnb host’s door, which is next door, as arranged. … More Who’s Paul?

El Atardecer en Málaga

April 7, 2016

Wednesday, April 6 and Thursday, April 7, 2016: Málaga, Spain

Málaga is a popular tourist destination on Spain’s Costa del Sol that has a fairly built up downtown right by the beach, ruins inside and outside the city, and a claim to fame as the birthplace of Picasso. It’s also well-situated for catching a bus to Tarifa, from which major ferries leave for Morocco and which does not itself have a major airport. I came to Málaga for transportation reasons, and after a relentlessly paced few days in Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Copenhagen, I needed little convincing from the Argentine engineer sharing my dorm room to spend the day lounging on the beach and watching the sunset from a ruined castle. As a result, the below outline is primarily a review of what I was told I definitely should have done if I wasn’t in such a rush to get out of there, interspersed with a few things I did have the opportunity to see and do for which I can vouch. … More El Atardecer en Málaga

On Dutch Fanta

April 2, 2016

I have been wanting to try Dutch Fanta for at least a decade, maybe longer. For a while, it was my Holy Grail of beverages. On Friday in Amsterdam, I finally had the chance to drink from the aluminium chalice of Holland’s version of the Coca-Cola company’s primary orange soda product. In ~21 hours in Amsterdam (not 24, thanks to the aforementioned delayed flight), I tried it maybe six or seven times. What follows is my review. … More On Dutch Fanta

Bored Women Texting

April 2, 2016

Friday, April 1, 2016: Amsterdam, Netherlands

I started a two and a half weekish springtime trip through Europe and Morocco with a day in Amsterdam. It was a manic and fast-paced day in a bustling and sometimes chaotic city. Amsterdam, a low slung town webbed extensively with canals, has a lot to see, and while you can’t see all of it in a day, you can get to a lot if you hustle. Below is what I experienced. … More Bored Women Texting