Stranger encounters of the Close kind

AAt the local Meet Market, they were making the single mingle. In a local pub somewhere north of St. Clair on Yonge @ 7PM, one Thursday evening.

And this is the story of how a Guy meets Girl at these speed dating events. First everybody gets name tags. They circulate. Chat. Wear their eyes out looking all around. Right after Girls are asked to sit at numbered tables. Guys are then told to rotate ten tables based on their alphabets. A goes to table 1, B to table 2. Five minutes with each person. And then clockwise to the next table. Until they reach the tenth and last woman in waiting ... Organizers watch the clock. And ring the bell for the next round.

This really happened. At my second table. In the pages of my unblemished past when I lived as an Urban Monk. Living in the world I had renounced. Celibate. and ready to share an opinion with a stranger for the chance of keeping my distance without leaving them behind ....

He "So tell me something about myself"
She "But I just met you"
He "Yes, and you were hoping for somebody else weren't you?"
She ... looks at me, looks away, laughs nervously
He ... waits
She "Okay, I get it ... you're here to meet people. So am I. is this your first time"
He "Doesn't matter. I know why you came here though"
She "Why?"
He "Because you were sure that you wouldn't know anybody else here"
She "What makes you say that?"
He "Speed dating is marketed at people who'd rather go shopping than hunting"
She "Hahaha that's funny. I do like shopping aisles ....
She ... but seriously it's a numbers game isn't it. In an hour you get to meet ten people ... "
He "But you're not getting ten choices are you? ...

She ... "Umm yes, You get to rate each person. They get to do the same. Yes it's only if we have a match we get a choice"

She smiles wryly ... "You're right"

She "So what are our chances then?
He "It all depends on what the other person remembers ... after this is all over ..."
She nods and smiles in agreement ... "How do we make sure the person we really want remembers us?"
He "Well if you package yourself right, the shopper will check out the merchandise ..."

He "But really selling relationships is not your thing is it ..."
She blushes ... but remembers to smile "Why do you say that?"
He "Because what a person is willing to talk about tells you the kind of risks they will take you know ..."
She "Really? What makes you think it's that easy?"

He "Bah forget all this philosophical theories ... let's do a test you and me, and see if I know what I'm talking about" ...
He "If I tell you which of the ten guys here is going to be your #1 choice, will you be willing to buy me a drink?"
She giggles ...
He "Okay write the name of the person down on your slip, and I'll write the name on my slip"
She nods looks at me sees me watching her unblinkingly ... breaks eye contact, nervously looks around ... writes
He looks at her ... when she's finished he writes on his paper ... they exchange papers.

She gasps "But how?"
He " ... but first the drink no?"
She "Okay now?"
He "No after, I'll go up to the bar, point at you, and you can nod yes ... that way you can continue to stay here"
She "Sure, okay tell me"

He "When a woman is attracted to a guy, she tries to make eye contact yes?"
She "I guess ...." He waits and then gives a knowing grin. She's nervous now "Yes"

She "Okay but I didn't try to make eye contact"

He "Well, the second thing a woman does when they're attracted is to figure out how to make the first move yes?"
She gasps ... "I don't know"
He "You know what's the first thing I did when they told us we'd be doing the rounds?" She "What?"
He "I figured out who'd be my first, second, third ... etc"
She "Why?"
He "That way I can give myself a minute to check the other person out before I make my way over"

She "And ..."
He "If I'm their first choice they'd be sure to make eye contact, because they automatically look around for the guy they were interested in the first place to see if they're next"

She "How can you be sure of that?"
He "Like I said ... eye contact" grins
She "That was it ... you looked at who I was looking at and you figured it out"
He "No, I couldn't see who you were looking for ... as people were milling around"
She "Then how"
He "my initial questions, they unsettled you ... you looked away ... you looked for him again"
She "No, I did not ..."
He "Not consciously but you couldn't resist seeing who he ended up with ...."
She shakes head kind of ruefully "Hey you seem to know a lot about women"
He "Not in general no, but if you had been interested in me I could have told you a lot about you" grins
She "I'm not so sure you are interested in me either ... but hey return the favor who are you interested in?"

He "Do you really want to buy me another drink?"

Top seven tips for

travel adventures

1. Get travel insurance. I used www.worldnomads.com and got for about just over 100$ medical (over a million dollars plus half a million for transportation back home), lost baggage coverage 2.5K, trip cancellation (1K), and about 10K in life insurance coverage. This is the most important thing to travel worry free.

2. Travel door to door. Use www.busabout.com for Europe, www.bazbus.com for South Africa (Note door to door option only works for backpackers and some hotels. Check first). For about 500$ (this was in 2007 so do check) you can go from Joburg to Cape Town via Drakensburg and then through the Garden route. Ditto for Europe. Go from Paris all the way around to Barcelona for about a 1000$ through 20 plus different cities in seven to eight different countries (about thirty days if you're in a hurry. Recommend six weeks though). However do note while it might be possible to do this cheaper, but it will take a lot more organizing and planning. Here it's just a pass you buy, and phone calls you make from your hostels to get picked up. No worries. No hassles. The other great thing is that as people hop on you get to make friends in the bus, and learn about places they've been to etc. Note there is a similar option for Australia, but distances are quite far and hence prices are not that cheap, and also some of the locations are remote so you'll have to pay your bus company to organize food/lodging. It will therefore cost about 2K to go clockwise around the country from Cairns to Alice Springs using say www.ozexperience.com. However it is possible to do this cheaper and better. Use http://www.premierms.com.au/newhome/home.asp for a less flexible option but it's also a lot lot cheaper only about 400$ from say Melbourne all the way up to Cairns. Greyhound has a by the kilometer option as well which can be useful ... Also do check out discount airlines and Western Australia passes by Qantas etc. They have some really good deals. Year before last I flew to Sydney and from there to Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and back to Toronto for about 2K Canadian. There's also some amazing fares from Perth/Sydney etc to Singapore/Bali/Thailand etc and vice versa.

3. Go local. Staying with locals can be exhilarating or weird depending upon YOUR attitudes and personality. Help with the dishes, pay for the groceries, use the bathrooms carefully, speak softly and pleasantly, be easy going, observe/ask cultural boundaries/house ruls and stay focused on your host(s) while staying. There are many ways to do this. I have a list of places to call and arrange this for countries such as Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy etc that I picked up during my travels and can email to those interested in using them. Use bar referrals, or check with local convents, monasteries etc to find your own places. Look for homestays, farmstays, teaching English options etc if you are planning on a bit of a long term stay. France esp. has a grape picking season where you can stay and get fed if you're willing to work really hard for a few days. It's worth trying once :) Goto http://www.pickingjobs.com/ to find a job and arrange your stay.

4. Wear a bag. Get Scott eVest pullovers, windbreakers, Shirt/Pant shorts. You'll never stop thanking me for this tip as it helps you wear your kindle/netbook, cameras, and a whole lot of other things while looking stylish and cool. Check out www.scottevest.com. Highly recommended

5. Get travel friendly clothes/gear. Tom Bihn Aeronaut + packing cubes, Quick dry underwears from Ex Officio (and also their Insect repellent/wrinkfle free/quick dry clothes, and a great travel hat), Quick dry socks from Tilley, a Steripen kit for water sterilisation, a silk sleep sack, a quick drying microfibre towel, a combination travel alarm clock/timer/flashlight/world time, dual voltage travel iron/steamer, electric adapters for the country you're visiting etc are a must have for the backpacker. Check out www.exofficio.com or www.travelessentials.com or www.travelsmith.oom etc for ideas and catalogs, but consider using amazon.com as they usually have better prices and shipping options.

6. Research ahead but stay flexible. Use Lonely Planet for doing the hard grind months ahead as they have the most detailed coverage. I tend to use Rough Guides for my initial read as they are more fascinating in their coverage of history/culture etc, and then follow it up with Lonely Planet for the more detailed planning as required (or if required). A related tip is get a Kindle if you're planning on doing a lot of travelling. It's easier to carry Lonely Planet guides in a Kindle than lugging ten pounds worth as you backpack from Japan through to Cambodia. Also don't get too hung up on plans/itineraries. That's why busabout etc are such a boon. You can always change plans last minute without having to worry about non refundable air tickets etc. And remember the most important thing to research are the local beers, the local festivals, the local day passes/discount cards, local bus/transit options, bicycle rent places etc.

7. Eat local. You'll save so much money and have so much fun doing this. Use your commonsense in picking places. Get a phrasebook and/or some practice on local phrases before you head out so you can ask around. Makes the trip sooooo much better if you can ask and get basic information from locals. Also really opens up a world of options if you have basic conversational skills. Okay now do pack your basic medicine kit/bag with anti-diorheaa pills etc just in case you're prone to stomach upsets etc ... Worst case scenario, you'll lose a couple of days :) I use www.chowhound.com and local websites to find places and/or exchange information with locals on their boards.

Also don't forget every place you visit will have local free rags that you can use to pick up events happening around. But the best place to find good local options is to go to the bar where the locals hang out and buy a few pints and chat them up. That's where a few local phrases help break the ice. Of course it helps if you're charismatic enough to have the locals come up and invite you over to their place :)

So the plan was ...

to spend a few weeks meandering from Amsterdam to Brussels via Haarlem then Maastricht to visit friends, and from there to Cologne via Aachen. Then head to Munich and from there to Vienna, on to Budapest and then end up in Prague. From there I was planning to fly back to London, and then to Paris, train down to Besancon again to catch up with friends. And in between I was hoping to visit Bordeaux where a friend's sister and her husband own a vineyard.

I ended up coming in to Brussels, then going to Ghent, from there to Brugge, and out to Maastricht. From Maastricht I took the train to Amsterdam and then onward to Haarlem, from where I got back to Schipol and flew back to Toronto cutting the trip short by about fifteen days. Not a bad trip but not enough to satisfy all those cravings for eurocentric cultural experiences ... y'know dancing on cobbled streets, playing hide and seek in catacombs, drinking beers made using a six hundred year old recipe (Remember the Stella Artois ad ... Time demands change - We politely refuse, since 1300), climbing turrets of castles that were old when Richard the Lionheart was leading crusades to the holy land, and drinking the kind of wine that warms the cockles of your heart and enjoying the sundrenched medittaranean vistas, and the unique ambience of a live your life to the full attitude that Europeans seem to have a corner on more than any other region on the planet. Plus let us not forget the bargain Armanis, the post modern swiss watches, the costly as hell but style to burn man purses that Germans toss off seemingly effortlessly and other shopping delights not possible anywhere else. Of course paying in Euros is a bit of a heartburn for my North American soul used as we are to cheap prices this side of the pond but something has to give and it's certainly not going to be my good taste heh.

Well, for the September trip I plan now to fly to London, go up north via Edinboro to Inverness to say hi to Nessy heh, and from there to Glasgow and from there via Stanfarer for the ferry to Belfast through to Galway, again ferry to Aran Islands and end up in Dublin.

From Dublin I might either go to Wales or go to Paris directly via one of those superbly low Ryan Air flights and then head south of France, via stopover in Bordeaux of course, and practice my winedrinking and french cussing skills all along the way until I cross the border over to Barcelona. From here I hope to catch a cheap flight out to Rome, go over to Bologna to visit a friend and then head out to Munich for the Oktoberfest which should start up around the 15'th to the 20'th of September. Yeah not sure why it's called the Oktoberfest myself :)

And that does mean that this time as well I give the old iron curtain side of Europe a miss, as I do the Scandinavian side of things as well as Portugal, but that's another trip waiting to happen next year, hopefully with things kicking off in Belgrade and then just going on an on until I end up in Riga or St. Petersburgh.

And now for my top ten tips:

a. Always carry tissue. You never know which toilets are out of paper.

b. If you plan to stay in hostels, invest in a good set of earplugs and eyeshades. Also padlocks (for lockers), flashlight (to navigate the dorms in the dark without waking up the sleepers), some plastic bags (for dirty laundry/slippers), towel, a bath soap (and a laundry soap if you want to do some hand laundry), a basic first aid kit, power adapters to recharge your mobile phones, a reliable pocket alarm clock (for those early morning flights just in case your mobile phone stops working etc). Pack light (my recipe for backpacking trips is 2 shirts, 3 t shirts, one swimming trunk that can double as a pair of shorts, one track pants that can double as sleepwear, six underwears one black pant, one windcheater + one scarf (if it's not summer) and one set of slippers. If it's cold one can always buy a sweater locally and just layer the T-Shirts inside.

c. Get a travelling partner. Really helps cut down costs as most deals are for twos.

d. Use overnight train journeys to go from point A to B. Saves a night's rent.

e. Keep euro coins and cash handy. Most places / machines are not geared towards North American plastic.

f. When using low cost airlines make sure to factor in the costs of getting from your hotel/friend's pad to the airport as well. Also remember to not pack more than 7Kgs, as there are significant overweight charges.

g. Get copies of Knopf Mapguides for the cities you plan to visit. Very handy, very lightweight, and the maps with sights/restaurants is very useful if you just want to randomly explore using buses/bicycles etc.

h. Get Lonely Planet Guides but use it for your research prior to your trip and make plans using it. Carrying it around is not advisable as it can get pretty heavy. In fact do what I do, get a Kindle and get the Kindle edition. Amazingly practical and well worth the money invested when you are lugging your bag around every day up and down places for a month and every extra bit starts to weigh you down.

i. Pack a light camera. Those fancy digital SLRs can take amazing pictures but the weight also kills you. I use a small Olympus XA film camera. Yeah it's a pain to pay so much money to process your shots (costs about 15$ for a set of prints and to scan a 36 exposure roll to a CD here plus another four to eight dollars to buy the actual roll so don't do this unless you know what you're doing in terms of metering your shots on film and can afford the risk of a shot not panning out as you expect). I plan to save money and buy a Leica M9 as I already have a few thousand invested in Leica lenses and this way I get a lightweight camera that can take superbly professional looking wideangle shots of landscapes as well as unforgettable portraits.

j. Plan alternative routes/food places/transportation means etc. Also be prepared to meet new friends and change itineraries on the drop of a hat. This can lead to all sorts of greet adventures, but you also need to know what you're doing if you don't want to blow your budget :) Spending time before you travel to lookup train routes, bus options, accomodation options, low cost airlines, Eurail passes, day/week passes for local transit, bicycle rent options etc can really pay off when you change plans midstream.

And if you have any other trips or suggestions on routes, festivals, places to eat and drink, or even if you just know somebody who wouldn't mind letting me crash in their place do tell ... I can always return these favors in spades :)

Living in the past

is a thing that Europe does better than anywhere else ... and nowhere else is this typified more than in Brugges one of my favorite places in Belgium.

Some notes from a recent trip there for anybody looking to go there ...

The Bottle Shop on 13 Wollestraat in Brugge looks like a tourist trap from the outside. But to not step inside would be a big mistake.

Belgium publishes a 1500+ page guide to their beers, about 900 of them. (it's called the bible locally). This store stocks about 850 of them, along with some nice beer glasses, jars of Genever, Geuzes and an astonishing selection of mineral waters.

It's just off the market and you can always head across to the Hobbit afterwards ...

Of course if you want a real pub it doesn't get any better than at Brugs Beertje on 5 Kemelstraat. Stocks about 300 beers. And then there's the Cranenburg which is set on the site of the house that Maximilian of Austria was held captive. Yellowed walls, elaborate stained glass, and wooden tables make you feel like you're back two hundred years and you're almost tempted to bang your tankard and shout for the wenches :)

And if you want to give the tourists a complete miss, there's the 'T Estaminet which is an old tavern facing Astrid Park, and it also has the distinction of one of the best jazz collections as reported by TimeOut. Try the heavenly Poperings Hommelbier here a golden wild honey flavored beer that goes down like silk.

Another authentic tavern is the De Garre at 1 De Garre, off BreidelStraat set in a 16'th century house with dark wooden beams. It also stocks some 130 beers and I will admit I couldn't get past the first twelve *sigh* Which is why I'll be going back one of these days.

Of course if you want to party there's no such thing as a real club in this town but there's a couple of places like the De Rupubliek which hosts a late night "Cactus Club" the main place for DJ's and live music and "The Top" which plays some decent dance sounds for a mixed crowd of young locals and tourists hunting experiences in the early hours.

For food, the Karmeliet on 16 Langestraat (very expensive with main courses starting from Euro 50 and up) is very hard to beat. The food is simply out of the world and the place itself was just down the street from where I was staying. Try the farm chicken with goose liver, or the rack of lamb with garlic morrels. The Chagall is a small cosy seafood restaurant and their scampi and north sea mussels are particularly good.

For Chocolates there's a lot of good places. I'd recommend that you go around checking out the free samples as there's a lot to like in each place and it's tough to say which one is the best. Dumon is the famous one, and next to it there's a couple more stores ... honestly all of them are really good.

The art of war

Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Been there ... done that?

Cooking or keeping a house clean can be a bit daunting ... esp. if you have had no experience or mentoring in the usual survival skills. Cook books have recipes but no tips on how to clean stains, remove odors, etc ... here's some stuff I've gathered over the years. And there's no such book as living the single life - how to survive the lonely years ...

but to begin at the beginning ... All this started because I wrote a recipe for a friend and in the process had to dig through my old books where I'd gathered a few tips ... I have a whole notebook full of home made remedies from a cold to cancer ... no I'm not kidding, mostly from email forwards. But the ones below are all from experience ... yeah been there and done them :)

First things first. Don't have a dishwasher? No worries. Use a sponge.

How do you clean a sponge? Put it in the microwave for a minute and a half. That should kill all the bacteria.

For my microfibre cleaning cloths, I regularly boil them with some vinegar and baking soda (watch out for the foaming). This keeps them clean and bacteria free and smelling fresh.

To wipe down your kitchen use a mixture of vinegar and water for countertops, rubbing alcohol for your frig/metal surfaces.

Eggs for breakfast? They taste so much nicer if you cooked them at room temperature.

How do you bring your eggs to room temperature? Simple. Leave them in lukewarm water for five minutes.

How do you know fresh eggs from stale? Put the egg in a glass of water. If it tips up or floats it's stale. The further down it sits the fresher it is.

Like green tea? How much tea for a cup? A Tea spoon ... see the word tea in front of spoon?

And don't grind your coffee until you're ready to brew it. The oils that give it the taste evaporate quickly and you lose that subtle flavors that make all the difference.

How do you clean your coffee/spice grinder? Put in some breadcrumbs. Turn it on and it should absorb all the leftover coffee grinds/spices and then wipe it out. Clean!

How do you remove nasty smells when cooking say fried food? Best thing is to burn a beeswax candle. But that's expensive. I mean you could burn the regular candles but those are environmentally unfriendly and bad for you ... Cheaper option is to use a small shallow bowl of vinegar right next to the cooking dish.

How to remove the fresh paint smell in a new apartment. Same thing. Use bowls of vinegar around the place and voila no smell a few hours later.

Guests just landed up? No beer in the fridge? How do you quickly chill a few bottles of beer? Easy. Put the beers in your icebox / bowl. Pour ice over the bottles. Pour some water over the ice. Sprinkle some salt all over. Wait three to five minutes and voila really chilled beers ready to serve.

To pour really fizzy beer, open the beer, put the glass on top of it. Invert the glass with the bottle in it and slowly pull the bottle up releasing the beer.

Want to soften butter in a hurry? Yeah microwaves suck at that ... just take the butter and beat it to death using a rolling pin. Scrape it back into you butter bowl and voila soft and easy to spread butter.

One really weird tip ... Was in Acapulco once staying at the Acapulco Princess and having lunch on an open but roofed porch at their resort next door ... however no flies. All around the porch hanging from the rafters were small plastic bags filled a quarter with plain water. No idea why this works but it sure kept all the flies away.

To remove stuck rice/pasta add some vinegar, water, dish washing soap and bring it all to a boil. Voila unstuck rice / pasta. All you need now is a wipe for that clean shine.

To remove stuck stuff in a cast iron pan, sprinkle salt and use it's abrasiveness to remove all the stuck bits. Clean out with water afterwards but don't forget to heat it right after to make sure the water doesn't rust it. To season the pan rub in some peanut oil or some lard and bake it in the oven for an hour every other week or so.

To peel ginger use a spoon. Easier to get around all the knobby edges.

To cut root vegetables. Slam a fork into the middle and peel away. No more cut knuckles :)

To cut onions without crying, chill your onions in the fridge before cutting them. Also get one of those small fans and have it blow away the fumes. Really works when you have a lot of cutting to do (Us Indians really need this tip).

To mellow raw onions ... chop them up, sprinkle them with salt, and wash it out with ice water. If you have more time ... leaving cut onions in ice water for an hour makes them taste amazing in salads.

Want soft tender meat? Use Dr. Pepper to braise it. Amazing as a tenderizer.

Love cooking with spices? Buy them whole and grate / grin them just before use. So much tastier.

Roasted eggplant is amazing especially in middle eastern dishes like baba ganoush. Easy way to do it. Slice them in half lengthwise and stick it under the broiler cut side down. The skin protects the eggplant and you can scoop out the flesh easy.

To remove the slightly bitter taste sprinkle salt on the cut side. Leave it for twenty mins or so, and was the salt off before you cook the eggplant. Rubbing the cut side with olive oil before roasting adds another dimension to it's flavor.

Diabetic? Or just prefer something healthier than sugar ... So am I ... use Agave nectar instead of sugar. Low glycemic yet tasty.

Want to remove the garlic, onion smells from your hands after you're done cutting them? Use salt or sugar with some baking soda to make a paste and rub it over your hands and rinse it off. Coffee grinds work real well too but then you're left with coffee smell which for some strange reason some women seem to find attractive ... in which case i recommend you go out and get Thierry Mugler's A-Men cologne as that makes that same women I was talking about go absolutely nuts. Remember to use it in small quantities.

If you want a really good air freshener go out and get some Lampe Berger. It's the best air freshener I've ever used.

To remove wine stains use a mixture of teaspoon of dish soap with hydrogen peroxide

To remove food stains use lemon juice with some salt. Always test on a corner first to make sure it won't remove the color. Baking soda works well too for a lot of old stains as well but it can also remove the color so careful there. I've removed blood stains (mine) with spit surprisingly. Oh for blood stains use cool water never warm or hot.

Only one toilet. And houseguests waiting in line? Phew it can get smelly in there ... Air fresheners just make it worse. That's why you need matches. Light one or two up and it burns off all those sulphury smells and voila fresh smelling bathroom in an instant. I got this tip off an autobiography by David Ogilvy the advertising genius.

Favorite Hindi songs

Not knowing hindi has not somehow kept me from falling in love with the following unashamedly kitschy songs ... ... by no coincidence most of them feature Raj Kapoor

In no particular order

Gum hai kisike pyaar mein
Babuji Dheere Chalna
Aaj Phir Jeene ke tamanna
Ajaa re ab mera dil pukara
Yeh raat bheegi bheegi
Har dil jo pyaar karega
Mere tootay howay dil se
Chittee na koi sandesh
Pyaar kiya tho dharna kiya
Bindiya chamkegi
Chup gaye sare nazaare
Ab raat guzarne wali hai

Adventures in travelling - 4. Tripping on the iPhone

iPhone ... Not my favorite gadget ... in fact there's more than a few things I don't like about it, but when it comes to being a travel companion it's Numero Uno for the moment or at least until the Android sheds it's baby teeth and can take a real bite of the app market.

1. This one's on fire, even if you're Dancing in the dark - Bruce Springsteen
Sometimes you need a flashlight to unlock something, or look in your bag, or just read something quickly. Times like that are a-plenty when you travel .. so go get the free flashlight from John Haney Software.

Price: *Free*

2. Money, money, money must be funny in a rich man's world - Abba
Quick how much is 4800 Baht in US Dollars? Or how much should you get for 800Euros in Laotian Kip or Cambodian Riel or Thai Baht, and how many Canadian dollars is that? When you need to juggle all of this you need Currency by Jeffery Grossman.

Price: *Free*

3. Look around you, ... come to me, you're there when I need you - Little River Band
AroundMe is wonderful. It uses GPS to locate you, and then tells you what's all around you ... ATMs, Restaurants, Bars (this alone saved my life every night), Movie theatres, Hospitals, Gas stations, Hotels ... you name it, it's got it. Accurate, relevant, and easy to use, with Maps, distance from current location everything you need and nothing else.

Price: *Free*

4. Picture yourself in a boat on the river ... with tangerine trees - Beatles
The iPhone camera can take some superb pictures, and I have the proof on my facebook journals. Okay it can't zoom, it cannot do bokeh, and it's hard to take night shots, and at 2 megs you're not going to be able to posterize it, but the lens is sharp, and somehow it has a knack of capturing the right tones and nuances, but it does take some practice.

Price: *Free*

5. On a dark desert highway ..., Welcome to the Hotel California - Eagles
The problem with backpacking and making up your itinerary as you go along is that you need to be able to get a place to crash in the evenings.
If you want to check in any time you like ... you need Hostel Hero. I used it throughout my trip to find and book hotels (there's a small booking fee) and most times the reviews and the pictures were spot on.

Price: *Free*

6. In my pocket a piece of paper ..., as I wander through the streets - Cat Empire
Personal Assistant may simply be the best app ever just in terms of how well it helps you keep track of your personal stuff ... Credit Cards, Bank Accounts, Frequent Flyer miles, Investments, Bill due dates, Expiration dates, ebay bids, even (where supported) cell phone usage, your Starbucks card (I know WoW heh) ... strictly speaking you don't need this for travelling but when you're on the road the ability to monitor all of this from a distance allows you to take that two month backpackers route you always wanted without having to lose a lot of sleep in the process.

Price: *Free*

7. I still haven't found what I'm looking for - U2
uPackingList is great to get organized for the trip, with various checklists for activities, things etc ... what makes it insanely great is the amount of thought that's gone into the listed items ... takes the headache out of trying to remember all of the lists. And the whole thing is fully customizable ... you can setup your own lists, add/delete items etc

Price : Both *Free* and paid versions (not sure what's in the paid version)

8. Wherever you go, whatever you do ... - Richard Marx
The Lonely Planet city guides - don't leave without it, but hey now you can get them in your iPod for quite a few cities and that means that much less weight to lug around. The indispensable and still the best written of all the guides out there imo. The depth and coverage they provide can go a long way to making sure that you can trip the light fantastic without falling down the wrong stairs.

Price : .99 for the Lonely Planet App and $15 for each city guide

Note : There is a free app called Quintessentially City Guides that provides a more abbreviated version for over 40 cities. It's pretty good in it's own right.

9. If I could save time in a bottle - Jim Croce
Trip Journal allows you to capture pictures, take notes with GPS info and assign them to waypoints that you can later track on a map. A set of waypoints can be collated into a trip. It certainly makes it easy to share your trip experiences, but the idea of typing notes using the &^%@# virtual keyboard on the iPhone is enough to give me the heebie Jeebies so wasn't all that great for me, but hey it is indeed useful but for just note taking I'd much prefer using iJot ($2.99) instead and that's what I ended up using a lot.

Price : $1.99 (the free version is seriously crippled with 3 waypoints only)

10. If you could read my mind love, what a tale if words could tell - Glen Campbell
iTranslate does a fantastic job of translating phrases from one language to the other, but if you don't know how to read scripted languages such as Thai or Arabic it's not going to be very useful without also buying the voices (which is not available for all the languages as yet). So yes it may not work everywhere but where it works such as English to German, or French to Italian etc it does the job.

Price : *free* (Each voice costs $1.99 extra - 16 languages are covered). Also comes with a $1.99 plus version (not sure what extras come in there)

Note : There's also a MyLanguage Pro that can transliterate plus does 20 language voices, not sure what else it provides ... costs $4.99

11. Keep on talking - Mobb Deep
Global.AQ Lite lets you send text messages for free (it's based on about 1 credit for messages to most credits and they give you seven credits per day). Incoming texts send to your Global.AQ Lite is free, so this is a great tool to use on wi-fi networks when you're travelling.

As an aside using go-sim or the national geographic international SIM card or anything similar allows you to get incoming calls for free in about 70 different countries, if you want to keep the same number through your various trips and get a better rate than your normal roaming charges. However it is always going to be cheaper to get a local sim in the places you go to, and this is usually my preferred option. I use Global.AQ and emails to send people my numbers as it changes ... Recently I went through seven different countries in two months and I could have used an international SIM card for that to save me the hassle of getting different SIMs in each place. The costs are getting cheaper and cheaper each year. Its anywhere between 50 cents to 2$ for outgoing calls, incoming is free in 70 countries and ranges between 35 cents to 1$ for others. So it's a good emergency option. Once somebody comes up with a decent dual SIM phone you can have both, a local SIM for cheap/outgoing incoming and an international SIM for folks to get in touch with you.

Also VoIP products like Skype/Truphone/iCall etc can be used to make/get calls as well, so that's always another option as well. Not sure if I like being tethered to a wireless net just to do this though as they all work off the wi-fi zone.

12. Rock the Casbah - Clash
All said and done what's the point to all this travelling if you're not painting the town red right?

:)

For starters check out ClubMonk, Eventful and Locly to find out clubs / see what's happening around you, get Google Latitude to locate the friends you made on your various soirees using their cell numbers (they need to have Google Latitude on their phone for this to work), and then finally use AirMe to share the pics of the event with your mates

Adventures in travelling - 3. Vive la Pareeee

Paris is the kind of place that you can't just visit once. It's a fascinating place ... I love taking my camera and wandering around ... it's so photogenic. I also love the place because you can live cheap and still dine like a king, or when you have some shekels to splurge you can really enjoy la dolce vita (sorry I'm not French enough to coin the right phrase for that one heh). And the people can be friendly, maddening, vivacious and cut you out sometimes all at the same time.


First things first. Getting around ... If you haven't been to Paris and used it's Velib system you haven't experienced it's fantastic rental bike system. You can rent it by the day, by the week or by the year for 1/5/30 euros. The first half hour is free (if you arrive at a full station you get an extra fifteen minutes), after that the price goes up on a sliding scale. The intent is to keep the bikes in circulation but with 1000's of stations, you can keep switching (you can have unlimited number of half hours). In any case if you need an hour it's one Euro. It's a great system and it means you can now get around the city without spending any more than 5 euros for the entire week you're there. I love this system, and it's one of the reasons I love going back to the city.


If you're there in the winter use the metro instead. Get a Navigo card (5 euros) and load a week worth of unlimited travel for about 16 euros. Single trips are usually one and a half euros. The card is reusable so don't throw it away.


Staying need not be expensive. If you don't mind renting a couch or an apartment check out Craigslist Paris, Paris Marais. or even the local backpacker hostels you could get a bed or a place from 20 Euros a night to an apartment for 250Euros a week. My personal favorite is Hotel des Arts Bastille which I've rented from 50 Euros to 60 Euros a night and is very nice round about the Bastille. Another good place is Hotel Du Commerce for 50 euros for doubles (shared bathrooms) if there's two of you on Rue De La Montagne Sainte fairly close to the Sorbonne and Notre Dame.


If you're lucky you can get the second floor of the bookstore Shakespheare and Company for a few hours of work a day. Not always easy to get and you need to speak french fluently so that kind of ruled it out for me, but my friend from London stayed there once and I liked it very much when I visited her there.


Next the most important thing. Drinking. Wines can be found fairly cheap everywhere but you have to know what you're doing. I'm the kind of guy who needs a few pints once it turns dark so I usually head to Chez Georges an old dive but with good food and cheap beer. It opens around 7PM on weekdays (it's closed on the weekends). It's a few blocks north and east to the Arc De Triomphe, at 1 Rue du Mail in the second arondissement. It might be wise to call for a table before you get there if you plan to have dinner. The food is excellent and in fact I also eat there most evenings because of how good the food is and how reasonable the price is. But the main draw are the beers, two euros for most selections.


The best museums in the world I think are in London, England and in Paris. And what's mind boggling is they are free. I've counted at least fifteen museums in Paris that are free and are absolutely superb. Even the ones you have to pay to get in like the Musee D'Orsay are cheap and again absolutely superb. Highly recommend the Louvre (you'll need at least three days and a GPS to make sure you don't get lost in there)


Check out the bakeries and the middle eastern places (they're everywhere in Paris these days) for low cost sandwiches, entrees and/or tasty snacks. Or if you prefer beverages to food go to Le Baron Rouge for nearly fifty wines that cost about or less than 3 Euros a glass. Or on Thursday nights go to the Galleries on Marais (they serve free wine and sometimes cheese)... Yeah go on call me a cheap bastard :) but the wines are delicious and so are the art in these galleries.


And there's lots of free tours. The walking tours by Sandeman are really good. (You give tips to the guides). There's another one by Fat Tire Bike tours that begins near the Seine which isn't bad either. The guides are volunteers (usually from North America or England) and I like that better because I made friends and was able to make their party scene in the night with them.


There's loads more to do there ... one of my favorite things to do is to find a Laduree's cafe (there's several) and get one of their coconut macaroons. Also the Buddha Bar (expensive) is a great place to have a drink and hors d'oeuvres, and as you probably know the lounge music is hauntingly good. Good enough to have made it to ten bloody expensive internationally best-selling CD collections.


Paris along with Cape Town, Rio, London, Buenos Aires, Sydney, Venice, Miami remain one of the most quintessentially fascinating cities you can ever hope to visit. I mean imagine going from an authentic Hammam (steam bath) experience (try Hammam de la Grande Mosquée though it is very crowded by the locals on weekends), to the treasures of the Louvre, followed by a trip to the cafes of Montmartre, or lose yourself in the vibrant Jazz scene amongst the traditional clubs on the left bank such as the Caveau De La Huchette a medieval cellar ... there's no end to the surprises you can find on the market trail on the local flea markets such as the sprawling Marché aux Puces de Clignancourt, the quiet, tree-lined Marché aux Puces de Vanves and the contemporary design market Les Puces du Design. One of the few remaining flea markets where you can uncover gems at bargain prices on bric-à-brac stalls is the Marché d'Aligre, although be warned if you don't have the french for it don't attempt it :) Or visit the new star on the block if art is your scene ... visit Centquatre 104 or catch a film at Le Cinemathaque Francaise ...


Life is an adventure. And nowhere so can you live it with the intensity you can in Paris. Go on. Just do it :)

Adventures in travelling - 2. Top ten things to do in Buenos Aires

May 25'th this year Buenos Aires will celebrate 200 years of independence. For those of you who make it out there here are some suggestions on what to do your first few days in town as you warm up for the party to end all parties in 2010 (and don't forget to check out Creamfields for some of the dreamiest trance you'll ever trip hop to ...)

Unlike other cities there's truly no end of things to do and see here ... so it's been a difficult set of choices to make the final ten ...

10. Try the Icy Bossa Nova (rum,brandy,galliano,passionfruit and honey) preferably at the Congo one of the most happening bars in town. It gets incredibly crowded round about midnight ...

9. Hit the underground Wednesday party Suzek (and the occasional SuperSuzek on Saturdays) at Niceto which is THE CLUB when it comes to trendsetting in BA.

8. Go hang out for some time at Caminito. Yeah it's full of grifters and shanties but they also have some of the most colorful tango dancers this side of town.

7. Go learn how to dance at Tango Cool one of the few beginner friendly places. The others involve intricate orchestration of eyebrow twitches and gestures before you can get a partner to ... well tango with you :)

6. Go shopping in Palermo Viejo in the funkiest boutiques you can hope to find south of the americas.

5. Visit the Malba, the best museum in this town and check out the modern masters. Plus the cafe is tres bonne and there's also a small cinema that offers art-house and cult classics.

4. Take one of the free guided tours offered by the Under Secretariat of tourism (details are available in the free guide to Buenos Aires offered online at http://www.bue.gov.ar/informacion/?menu_id=121&info=guias)

3. Take a moonlight tour (once a month when the moon is at it's fullest) in one of the best parks on the planet Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur (with four lakes, over 200 bird species, giant foxtail willows etc)

2. Get seriously drunk at one of the best bars I've ever visited the Grand Bar Danzo (Fridays they have DJs as well) and the food is awesome, and they're open to the wee hours of dawn (as all self respecting bars should be imo)

1. Rent a Telos by the hour (if you have to ask what this is about you don't wanna know) *grin* Seriously if you run into an amazing man/woman and want to er get to know them really well, the themed rooms and waterbeds really make it the most fun you can have with your clothes off :)

Adventures in travelling - 1. Secret Restaurants

Have you ever been to a secret/underground restaurant? These are not regular restaurants but more apartments that have invitation only events for five or six.

No? well next time you're going to Berlin you should try one. Go to theshychef.wordpress.com/ to make a reservation and find out more. There's also a great NYTimes article about this at travel.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/travel/14h...

There's a Srilankan restaurant on the 31'st floor of a Hell's Kitchen complex in NY, which you enter through a porn shop downstairs. While this doesn't qualify as a secret restaurant in that it is not unlicensed, unregulated, unadvertised, it does have the cachet of being a restaurant for only those in the know ...

In some cases, these hidden restaurants offer entertainment along with the food. One of the oldest “secret” spots still running, the eight-year-old Mamasan’s Bistro pays homage to its founder, a DJ/vocalist from Guam, by playing hip-hop beats during its dinner programs—located in the upstairs apartment of a woman known only as Lynette, somewhere in San Francisco’s Mission District ... but don't lynch me if you can't manage to find it. Remember a fight club is a fight club only as long as the hordes don't find out it exists ... ditto with supper clubs and underground restaurants :)

Splinters in the mind

by Stanley Kunitz

Summer is late, my heart.
Words plucked out of the air
so many many years ago
When I was wild with love
and torn almost in two
scatter like leaves this night
of whistling wind and rain.
It is my heart that's late,
it is my song that's flown.

- Touch me

by Simon Armitage

Anyone here had a go at themselves

for a laugh? Anyone opened their wrists

with a blade in the bath? Those in the dark

at the back, listen hard.

....................... Come clean, come good,

repeat with me the punch line ‘Just like blood’

when those at the back rush forward to say

how a little love goes a long long long way.

- I Say, I Say, I Say

by Tishani Desai

perhaps I can be her after all

....

who walks through moonless nights

with lotus skin and lotus feet

across forbidden boundaries.

I’ll be the kind who sallies out

to wait for love

with musk-kissed hair

and navel bared

in a thousand secret places –

past the cowsheds

and the balsam grove,

across the river,

to the garden of hibiscus.

And although the night be dark

and fierce enough to stir

the seven sleeping oceans,

I’ll deceive the forest

like a shadow,

slipping noiselessly past

evil eyes and serpent tongues

and the husband who lies inside

jealous of my devotion.

...

And later, while the husband sleeps,

I’ll make my way

to the town’s cremation grounds.

I’ll strip away my clothes

and dance among the mounds of ash

to command the churning of a storm.

For I have been with you

since you were born

and will stay with you

till you return

soaked with the lasting dawn.

- Another man's woman

by Carol Ann Duffy

Stop. Along this path, No Midas touch
has turned the wood to gold, late in the year

It is almost impossible to be here and yet
you kneel, no one's child, ..........., distantly
the evening bell reminding you, Home, Home,
Home, and the stone in your palm telling the time

- Plainsong

Suddenly the rain is hilarious

and the moon wobbles in the dusk

- Drunk

And at midnight, a candle next to the wine

slurs it's soft wax, flatters. Shadows

circle the table. The way all faces blur

to dreams of themselves held in the eyes.

The flare of another match. The way everything dies

- The Grammar of light