A Room with a View

It’s very often true that the best, most original ideas in blogging are blatantly ripped off from another blogger. In this spirit, I will blatantly rip off John Scalzi for the totally original idea of taking pictures out of my hotel window when travelling. To begin, I’ll give you 4 of the 5 hotel views from my recent trip to Romania (I missed the first hotel in Bucharest).


Here’s the view from my room that I had for only 1 night in Hotel Edinburgh in a city in southern Romania that shall remain nameless since I’m not supposed to talk about where I was working in Romania. I will say that this city is known in Romania as ‘The City of Stupids’ (not an exact translation I’m sure) due to such things as building a building around a crane and being forced to leave the crane inside the courtyard. It's very curious that this hotel has been re-done to look like a castle and is named after Edinburgh. This place is far off the tourist map and yet it seems to be going after a distinctly 'Western' clientele. Well, we kept it full for a while, so I guess the owners know what they are doing.


This view is from the Hotel Primavera where I spent 11 lovely nights in the same city as above. There was a nearby gyspy house (I was instructed to not walk in this neighborhood at night) and many, many roosters. Did I mention the roosters? What a wonderful way to experience dawn every morning. Did I mention it was every morning?


The view from the Ramada in Sibiu. I would have preferred a more ‘backdoor’ style hotel, but there are few options when arriving in one of Romania’s biggest tourist attractions on a Saturday night in August with no reservation and needing a parking space along with the room (and wanting to be within a short walk of the city center). It was a nice place, if a bit more expensive than I was looking for.


My final hotel in Bucharest – again a Ramada. I only stayed here for a few short hours as I had a 3:15 am wake-up call to get to the airport for my trip home. A wonderful view of the media building in Bucharest, constructed by the communists to let everyone know that Big Brother is always watching.

In Sibiu

Work ended yesterday so I immediately took off for someplace a bit nicer. After a few insane hours driving, I ended up in Sibiu in Transylvania. This is a very nice town to be in and I’ve enjoyed my time here. Tomorrow I fight the traffic back to Bucharest for my flight home on Tuesday (which is quite a bit earlier than originally planned). I’ll leave you with a few more thoughts/observations I’ve had while in Romania.

• I really have no idea how women can walk around in high heels in Europe – especially someplace like Romania where cobblestones tend to be even more uneven than usual. And the cobblestones are often better than the beat-up pavement and gravel you get elsewhere.

• Meek Romanian drivers are more aggressive than the most aggressive American drivers.

• There are no meek Romanian drivers.

• Driving in Romania is a really bad idea.

• Many of the best places to visit in Romania are much more easily accessed by driving.

• …?...

• Men’s fashion in Europe will never make sense to me.

• After spending so much time in Bucharest and the south of Romania, Transylvania is very pleasantly cool.

• With club names like Envy and such Romania sometimes feels like it is stuck in the ‘80s.

• I actually enjoy that a pop radio station cannot go more than 20 minutes without playing a Madonna song.

• Observing an awkward double date needs no translation.

• Never be in a hurry in Romania…trust me.

• Can anyone argue more passionately than Romanians?

• I will never get used to horse carts on the roads.

• I really wish I had gotten a picture of the complicated maneuver or one horse cart passing another.

• Driving through the Carpathian Mountains/Transylvanian Alps was awesome.

• My Lonely Planet guide to Romania feels incomplete. I really wish that Rick Steves had a travel guide to Romania.

• It’s strange just how often traditional Romanian food and traditional American food match up (especially Southern food).

• Travelling alone is both empowering and lonely.

• It’s absolutely criminal that nutella isn’t more popular in the US.

• Drinking at an outdoor café is one of life’s greatest pleasures (at least when the weather is nice).

• Arriving in Sibiu on a Saturday night in August without a hotel reservation (and needing a parking space) is not a good idea.

• More people should be visiting Romania (but not so many as to make it yet another generic European destination).

• Romanians really need to learn that smoking is bad for them…and the people around them…especially children.

• Some Romanian beer is quite nice. So why do so many Romanian cafés feature bad German/Austrian/Danish beer instead?

• Ice cream in Romania isn't as nice as it is in other part of Europe (especially Italy)

A Few Observations/Comments While in Bucharest

• Romanian men are so manly that it’s not uncommon for them to carry purses of their own.

• Many women carry around fans, though I doubt they still use them to speak another language like was done in places in the past (but I could be wrong since I don't speak fan). I used to think that fans were just for young girls in tourist shops.

• I watched a guy ask for salt to put in his beer. I’m not sure if this is a strange cultural thing, something to do with it being really, really hot, or if the guy was just weird. It bothered me.

• Adolescent courtship is the same everywhere – guys doing really stupid things and young women somehow pretending they don’t.

• I really like that women in Romania ‘check me out’, though it’s quite strange. This city is so safe that when passing a young woman on a street at 11:00 at night when no one else is around she looks at me, and not because I may be a threat. It’s probably the beard – it seems that in Romania only priests, Roma, and American tourists have beards.

• I went for a new experience tonight – I went to an ex-pat Irish bar. There were a bunch of old(er) guys at the bar and a few younger people on the patio. The most exciting thing was the cricket on TV. Engrossing, but not actually exciting. Tomorrow I think I’ll go back to Lipscani.

• I have now drank in Irish pubs in 8 different countries – none of which are Ireland.

• Brandon Sanderson writes books that are far too heavy to carry around. Shorter books are much better reading for the park.

• I thought rollerblades were something of the early-90s. This is not true in Romania.

• Subways everywhere smell the same – some are just stronger smelling than others. Romanian subways are actually not anywhere near the strongest smelling I’ve been around (I’m looking at you London).

• My feet hurt.

Bucharest

I’ve now been in Romania for about 24 hours and I’m loving it so far. The adventure begins at the airport – not quite what I was expecting from what is supposedly the premier airport in the country (but they seem to be working on that). Thankfully I waited to get money from the ATM outside of security and didn’t change with at the ‘official’ places (who have the worst rates). And I think I managed to not get too ripped off by the cab on my way to the hotel.

After cleaning up a bit I headed down to the old city center – Lipscani. This required using the metro, which is rather nice and convenient. Immediately the contrast of this city leaps out. I was in Prague less than 10 years after the fall of communism and it was far more ‘western’ at the time than Romania is over 20 years after the fall. And it makes for a great energy (or perhaps vibrancy is the better word?). The old and new are mixed together. This city is only now going through its facelift (lots of restoration is happening, but it still has a ways to go).

You have the monstrosity know as the Palace of the People (or Parliament) that was a communist debacle that destroyed about 1/6th of the city and bankrupted the nation (it’s the second largest building in the world). And then only a few hundred meters away, off the main street you find buildings in ruins or beautiful little churches and monasteries that somehow survived communist eradication. These are places of peace – where I had one man who shook my hand simply because he realized I was American (which was really quite odd, but rather uplifting as well).

And even though Rome ruled Romania for less than 200 years about 2000 years ago, the people here still hold on to that unmistakable Latin character – I can’t help but think of Italians with thick Slavic accents. This city comes alive at night – well, at least Friday nights as I haven’t seen any others. Oh I wish I were 10-15 years younger, single and with a group of friends. This city must be a single’s dream come true. Everyone is out parading around to be seen – the men openly eyeing the women and the women only being slightly more circumspect about eyeing the men. I honestly haven’t seen the like since I was in high school and college. I grew up in Austin going down to 6th street, I’ve experienced Bourbon Street both during and out of Mardi Gras, I’ve done Vegas, I’ve been to Soho on a Saturday night and none compares to the young energy I saw in Lipscani (of course it could just be that I’m old and out of touch – but I choose think it’s just that great here).

If only it weren’t so damn hot and humid. Nothing’s perfect I guess.

Anyway, I’m off to get a cool drink.

Ciao!

The SFF Literary Pub Crawl

Welcome to the (updated) SFF Literary Pub Crawl. It was almost 3 years ago that I started my Questions Five interview series, which has had 31 participants (and more to come). I’ve always used a blend of repeat questions with questions specific to the author I’m interviewing – and all have been an attempt at humor that gives authors a chance to have fun with questions they’ve likely never seen before and blatantly plug a project.

It didn’t take long for me to begin asking questions about food and alcohol, with a favorite question that essentially asks to recommend me a pub – probably owing to my fascination and love of the pub culture of Britain and Ireland.

So, I’ve decided that to embark on a related theme – the SFF Literary Pub Crawl. Below I’ve share the recommendations from those interviews mentioned above – I divide first by location and then by the author making the recommendation. Surprisingly enough, not every author is alcoholic with a list of favorite drinking establishments, so some have submitted coffee/tea houses as well. As with any decent pub crawl, an end simply isn’t in sight, so I’ll continue to ask the question when I feel like it and I encourage all authors, editors, publicists, bloggers, and generally anyone who bothers to read this to share their recommended put to include in the SFF Literary Pub Crawl. Try to limit recommendations to just one or two and be sure to tell us why it’s a favored pub/ drinking establishment and a link if possible.

On to the pubs/drinking establishments:

Austin, Texas, USA

Ari Marmell: This is a surprisingly tricky question for me, because I’m actually not a drinker. I’ve been to a few clubs in Austin for various shows, but never actually for the sake of just hanging around and having a few drinks. (I’m more of a coffee shop guy for that sort of thing.) So as far as a pub/club, I’d say Prague is the coolest one I’ve been to in Austin, if only because of the ambiance; it’s got a really nifty feel and aesthetic to the place.And if I may stretch the definition to include the aforementioned coffee shop, I’ve never found any better than It’s a Grind. It’s local to Austin, and it’s absolutely fantastic. Wonderful ambiance and people, and their blended mochas are what the gods drink when they want a special treat in place of their usual ambrosia.

Brighton, England

Jasper Kent: The Shakespeare’s Head. It has good beer (of the warm, brown variety), serves about a dozen different kinds of sausages (except Sundays – boo!) and it’s within spitting distance of me. It’s not to be confused with the other Shakespeare’s Head, on Spring Street, which is good but not as good.

Brussels, Belgium

Jeff VanderMeer: An unnamed 16th century pub in Brussels where Ann tells me I wound up singing with a Frenchman at the top of my lungs. I don’t remember any of it, except that it was glorious.

Capitola, California, USA (south of San Francisco)

Gail Carriger: Well, this is me, so you're getting tea houses instead. My favorite is Bloomsbury Tea Room, in Capitola. If you're ever out driving Hwy 1 up the California coast you should stop in. It's a wonderful fusion of fresh California style ingredients coupled with a cozy British high tea aesthetic.

Dublin, Ireland

Peadar Ó Guilín: Most of them are ridiculously bad: giant sports games on every wall and pop music loud enough to murder the conversation we used to be famous for. Our ancestors even had a god of eloquence, once upon a time, did you know that? I miss him.So, for the real experience, you need to find what we call an “old man's” pub. If you walk through the door and half the stools aren't occupied by lads with pitted red noses and beer mustaches, then you should take your custom elsewhere.

Edinburgh, Scotland

Brian Ruckley: This is my kind of interview. It’s obviously absurd to try to narrow Edinburgh’s titanic array of drinking establishments down to a single recommendation, but given how long I spent on the haggis question I should probably try.I think the best I can come up with for you is the Bow Bar. There are two reasons: one, it’s a small, friendly pub with a mix of locals and visitors (but mostly locals), good beer and a startling array of whiskies if you’re into that kind of thing; two, it’s just round the corner from Edinburgh’s sf/f bookshop, Transreal Fiction, so on a rainy afternoon (it rains a lot in Edinburgh, but don’t let that put you off visiting) you can potter around the bookshop, have a chat with the owner, buy a few books and then retire to the pub to settle into a corner with a drink and read. Lovely. Also, if you lose track of time and end up drunk, there’s a chip shop within staggering distance to supply you with haggis and chips: a perfect end to a perfect day.

Glasgow, Scotland

Hal Duncan: Easy one. It has to be Stravaigin, on Gibson Street, in the West End. Funny enough, they have the_second_best_ way to serve haggis, because they're basically a gastro pub with a restaurant in the basement, and haggis is one of the staples of their menu. They tend to do a sort of Scottish fusion cuisine -- lots of game and seafood but influenced by recipes from around the world. As pub food goes, you can't beat it -- top-quality grub but in a really informal atmosphere. Also their cocktails are to die for. And I mean proper cocktails -- Bloody Mary, White Russian, Dry Gin Martini, Mojito and suchlike. None of those crappy 80s cocktails with nudge-nudge wink-wink sexy names, mixed by the pitcher from a couple of random spirits, a splash of Cointreau and a half bottle of Bailley's. No, we're talking cocktails for the committed lush. Martinis so dry you know the vermouth pretty much just got _shown_ to the gin: look, gin! Meet Mr Vermouth. Oh, dear, looks like Mr Vermouth can't stay. Bye, Mr Vermouth.Also Stravaigin is within staggering distance of my house. And I'm a very good native guide, you know. I'll show you round _all_ the best seats in the pub, for payment in the form of booze.

Lisbon, Portugal

Jeff VanderMeer: The Chinese Room (sic) in Lisbon, Portugal, which our friend Luis Rodrigues introduced us to, because it has more amazing airplanes and bric-a-brac while remaining sophisticated of any place on Earth. [Possibly the Chinese Pavillion – Pavilhão Chinês]

London, England

Joe Abercrombie: You could try the Phoenix Artist’s Bar off Shaftsbury Avenue, where a glittering array of genre writers are often to be found arguing with their editors over that most eternal of literary questions – whose round it is. It has the added advantage of being right next to several of the UKs biggest bookstores. Once you are drunk enough, I therefore recommend you stumble outside and buy any and all copies of my books that you can find. The dizzy rush of excitement you’ll experience will be far superior to anything you can get in a pub. Honest.

Kate Griffin: Well, I kinda don't drink, owing to expense and taste and the fact that I never really had much fun doing it. But I do have fond memories of the Sherlock Holmes, which is to the north of Hungerford Bridge, and the Castle on Pentonville Road has a very nice roof terrace in the summer, which almost redeems the fact that it's on the Pentonville Road. If you're after drink + fun, may I heartily recommend Cafe Kick on Exmouth Market, which is a sports cafe. This essentially means a lot of football, many photos of men in bad shirts looking mud-splattered, much booze and, best of all, bar footie. Many, many hours have been happily whiled away playing bar footie in Cafe Kick.

Los Angeles, California, USA

Charlie Huston: [Note: Charlie used to support his writing habit by tending bar in New York City] I hate pubs – they are places people drink cocktails in stem glasses.My favorite bar at the moment is the Lost & Found in L.A. It’s in a strip mall with a cleaners and across from a grocery store. It has a pool table and popcorn machine – things I value in a bar.[Note: right after answering this question, Charlie caught a ride to a nearby dive bar – Tallyho Cocktail Lounge in Scottsdale, Arizona]

New York, New York, USA

Jeff VanderMeer: The Brandy Library in NYC that Gabriel Mesa introduced my wife and me to; because it is set up like a real library and the lighting is magnificent and the liquids contained therein are insanely amazing.

Nottingham, England

Mark Chadbourn: I would certainly recommend going to The Trip to Jerusalem in Nottingham - you not only get good beer and food and good company, you also get great atmosphere and an unforgettable history lesson. The Trip is the oldest pub in Britain. You can tell that the moment you stoop through the tiny medieval doors into a maze of small rooms where you could lose yourself for quite a while. The rear part of the pub is actually carved out of the rock and there is a tunnel leading to an underground labyrinth that links vast sandstone caves running beneath Nottingham. Right overhead, Nottingham Castle towers. The Trip was founded in 1189, when King Richard the Lionheart announced the crusade against the Saracens in the Holy Land - hence the pub name. If you're looking for ghosts, there are supposed to be several here. But watch out for the locals - they may try to entice you into one of the medieval pub games, particularly swinging a small hoop on a rope on to a horn fixed to the wall. It looks simple, but is fiendishly hard - and the locals ensure a constant supply of free beer betting against unwitting visitors. It's also one of the favourite watering holes of Britain's fantasy authors, and when the annual Fantasycon is in town (usually September) you can find many of them propping up the bar. You can find out more here: http://www.triptojerusalem.com/

Mark Charan Newton: An easy one! The Alley Cafe - www.alleycafe.co.uk - in Nottingham. I'm a vegetarian; this place serves vegetarian food, locally sourced, freshly prepared, and stunning. Not only that, but the bar is funky, and has a good mix of people and ages. It's tiny though, and you end up sitting close to other people, which really shakes us Brits out of our preference for personal space. So, good food, good people, decent DJ at the weekend - what more can you want? (Don't say meat.)

Palo Alto, California, USA (south of San Francisco)

Blake Charlton: Antonio’s Nut House in Palo Alto: closest thing you’re going to get to a dive bar anywhere near Stanford University. So…not very divvy, but still it makes a respectable attempt. The place is covered with pool tables, stools, knick-knacks, neon signs, and strange Americana. The jukebox alternately rocks out Jonny Cash and Dr. Dre. A Mexican restaurant shares one side of the bar and you can get good enchiladas until around 11pm. The floor’s covered with peanut shells because they’re free on the house. You just have to fish them out of a barrel that’s in a cage with a giant gorilla suite. The gorilla used to be automated to move when someone came near, but too many of the non-regulars would freak out and jump away from the gorilla and into a pool game. Best part is the crowd, which is about one third town locals, one third Stanford grad students, and one third bar hopping types (some bikers) from up and down the peninsula. Sometimes a glut of undergrads will take it over, and that’s kind of a drag (unless you are one, I suppose.) But normally conversation topics range from quantum physics to football to Desperate Housewives to beer. Actually, everyone’s always talking about beer. I like the high geek ratio and that everyone in the place is pretty different and that they mix with each other, especially around the pool tables and dart boards.

Pilsn, Czech Republic

Jeff VanderMeer: The Pub in Pilsen, Czech Republic, where you get a tap at your table and can pour your own fresh beer—no preservatives or additives—and they have electronic scoreboards for every table at every The Pub in the country…and after four or five pints you definitely want to be at the top of the scoreboard. We spent an amazing night there with our Finnish friends Jukka, Tero, and Juha, Hal “The Wonder” Duncan, Alistair Rennie, Ian MacLeod, and several others…at the end of which I pretended to be Czech to the family from Montana at the next table.

Sonoma, California, USA (north of San Francisco)

Gail Carriger: Then there's Fiorini's cafe off the square in Sonoma, wine country. Real, authentic Italian pastries, tea in a proper pot, and wonderful coffee if you bend in that direction.

An American Blogger in Canada

So my trip to British Columbia for work is done and now I’m happily back at home. Ironically, it was snowing here in Arizona this morning and officially colder here than it was in British Columbia (though the actual mine site may have been slightly colder). I really don’t have that much to say about it all since work dominated my time.

Kamloops was fairly unimpressive. The town itself was just a bit boring. It sounds like there are great things to do around the town, but I didn’t have the time to visit them and it was really the wrong season to enjoy them. Vancouver is a great city, and I wish had longer to explore both the city and the surrounding environments. It’s definitely a place I hope to visit again. I didn’t do much – hit the Canada Line from near my hotel and the airport and took it to the Waterfront. I walked around the city center a bit – Canada Place, Gaslights District, etc. The weather was perfect: clear and warm, the cherry blossoms were just past peak. Then I had a nice sushi dinner (it was odd to find Bible verses on the chop sticks wrapping) and a beer or two in the Gaslight District. Steamworks Brewery was fairly unimpressive – next time I will have to make it to Granville Island, whose beers I was far more impressed with when I was laid over at the airport.

Did a bit of reading – I finished up The Midnight Mayor by Kate Griffin (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) just before leaving and read Soulless by Gail Carriger (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) while on the trip. Now I’m reading King Maker by Maurice Broaddus (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound). Expect the reviews to start arriving early next week.

The SFF Literary Pub Crawl

It was about 2.5 years ago that I started my Questions Five interview series, which has had 27 participants (and more to come). I’ve always used a blend of repeat questions with questions specific to the author I’m interviewing – and all have been an attempt at humor that gives authors a chance to have fun with questions they’ve likely never seen before and blatantly plug a project.

It didn’t take long for me to begin asking questions about food and alcohol, with a favorite question that essentially asks to recommend me a pub. Probably owing to my fascination and love of the pub culture of Britain and Ireland, these questions are generally asked to authors from that part of the world – which amounts to 7 of those 27 interviews.

So, I’ve decided that it’s time to embark on a related theme – the SFF Literary Pub Crawl (this is an updated version from the original post). I’ll share the recommendations from those interviews above – I’ll divide first by location and then by the author making the recommendation. As with any decent pub crawl, an end simply isn’t in sight, so I’ll continue to ask the question when I feel like it and I encourage all authors, editors, publicists, bloggers, and generally anyone who bothers to read this to share their recommended put to include in the SFF Literary Pub Crawl. Try to limit recommendations to just one or two and be sure to tell us why it’s a favored pub/ drinking establishment and a link if possible.

On to the pubs:

London, England

Joe Abercrombie: You could try the Phoenix Artist’s Bar off Shaftsbury Avenue, where a glittering array of genre writers are often to be found arguing with their editors over that most eternal of literary questions – whose round it is. It has the added advantage of being right next to several of the UKs biggest bookstores. Once you are drunk enough, I therefore recommend you stumble outside and buy any and all copies of my books that you can find. The dizzy rush of excitement you’ll experience will be far superior to anything you can get in a pub. Honest.

Kate Griffin: Well, I kinda don't drink, owing to expense and taste and the fact that I never really had much fun doing it. But I do have fond memories of the Sherlock Holmes, which is to the north of Hungerford Bridge, and the Castle on Pentonville Road has a very nice roof terrace in the summer, which almost redeems the fact that it's on the Pentonville Road. If you're after drink + fun, may I heartily recommend Cafe Kick on Exmouth Market, which is a sports cafe. This essentially means a lot of football, many photos of men in bad shirts looking mud-splattered, much booze and, best of all, bar footie. Many, many hours have been happily whiled away playing bar footie in Cafe Kick.

Brighton, England

Jasper Kent: The Shakespeare’s Head. It has good beer (of the warm, brown variety), serves about a dozen different kinds of sausages (except Sundays – boo!) and it’s within spitting distance of me. It’s not to be confused with the other Shakespeare’s Head, on Spring Street, which is good but not as good.

Nottingham, England

Mark Chadbourn: I would certainly recommend going to The Trip to Jerusalem in Nottingham - you not only get good beer and food and good company, you also get great atmosphere and an unforgettable history lesson. The Trip is the oldest pub in Britain. You can tell that the moment you stoop through the tiny medieval doors into a maze of small rooms where you could lose yourself for quite a while. The rear part of the pub is actually carved out of the rock and there is a tunnel leading to an underground labyrinth that links vast sandstone caves running beneath Nottingham. Right overhead, Nottingham Castle towers. The Trip was founded in 1189, when King Richard the Lionheart announced the crusade against the Saracens in the Holy Land - hence the pub name. If you're looking for ghosts, there are supposed to be several here. But watch out for the locals - they may try to entice you into one of the medieval pub games, particularly swinging a small hoop on a rope on to a horn fixed to the wall. It looks simple, but is fiendishly hard - and the locals ensure a constant supply of free beer betting against unwitting visitors. It's also one of the favourite watering holes of Britain's fantasy authors, and when the annual Fantasycon is in town (usually September) you can find many of them propping up the bar. You can find out more here: http://www.triptojerusalem.com/

Mark Charan Newton: An easy one! The Alley Cafe - www.alleycafe.co.uk - in Nottingham. I'm a vegetarian; this place serves vegetarian food, locally sourced, freshly prepared, and stunning. Not only that, but the bar is funky, and has a good mix of people and ages. It's tiny though, and you end up sitting close to other people, which really shakes us Brits out of our preference for personal space. So, good food, good people, decent DJ at the weekend - what more can you want? (Don't say meat.)

Edinburgh, Scotland

Brian Ruckley: This is my kind of interview. It’s obviously absurd to try to narrow Edinburgh’s titanic array of drinking establishments down to a single recommendation, but given how long I spent on the haggis question I should probably try.I think the best I can come up with for you is the Bow Bar. There are two reasons: one, it’s a small, friendly pub with a mix of locals and visitors (but mostly locals), good beer and a startling array of whiskies if you’re into that kind of thing; two, it’s just round the corner from Edinburgh’s sf/f bookshop, Transreal Fiction, so on a rainy afternoon (it rains a lot in Edinburgh, but don’t let that put you off visiting) you can potter around the bookshop, have a chat with the owner, buy a few books and then retire to the pub to settle into a corner with a drink and read. Lovely. Also, if you lose track of time and end up drunk, there’s a chip shop within staggering distance to supply you with haggis and chips: a perfect end to a perfect day.

Glasgow, Scotland

Hal Duncan: Easy one. It has to be Stravaigin, on Gibson Street, in the West End. Funny enough, they have the_second_best_ way to serve haggis, because they're basically a gastro pub with a restaurant in the basement, and haggis is one of the staples of their menu. They tend to do a sort of Scottish fusion cuisine -- lots of game and seafood but influenced by recipes from around the world. As pub food goes, you can't beat it -- top-quality grub but in a really informal atmosphere. Also their cocktails are to die for. And I mean proper cocktails -- Bloody Mary, White Russian, Dry Gin Martini, Mojito and suchlike. None of those crappy 80s cocktails with nudge-nudge wink-wink sexy names, mixed by the pitcher from a couple of random spirits, a splash of Cointreau and a half bottle of Bailley's. No, we're talking cocktails for the committed lush. Martinis so dry you know the vermouth pretty much just got _shown_ to the gin: look, gin! Meet Mr Vermouth. Oh, dear, looks like Mr Vermouth can't stay. Bye, Mr Vermouth.Also Stravaigin is within staggering distance of my house. And I'm a very good native guide, you know. I'll show you round _all_ the best seats in the pub, for payment in the form of booze.

Dublin, Ireland

Peadar Ó Guilín: Most of them are ridiculously bad: giant sports games on every wall and pop music loud enough to murder the conversation we used to be famous for. Our ancestors even had a god of eloquence, once upon a time, did you know that? I miss him.So, for the real experience, you need to find what we call an “old man's” pub. If you walk through the door and half the stools aren't occupied by lads with pitted red noses and beer mustaches, then you should take your custom elsewhere.

New York, USA

Jeff VanderMeer: The Brandy Library in NYC that Gabriel Mesa introduced my wife and me to; because it is set up like a real library and the lighting is magnificent and the liquids contained therein are insanely amazing.

Lisbon, Portugal

Jeff VanderMeer: The Chinese Room (sic) in Lisbon, Portugal, which our friend Luis Rodrigues introduced us to, because it has more amazing airplanes and bric-a-brac while remaining sophisticated of any place on Earth. [Possibly the Chinese Pavillion – Pavilhão Chinês]

Brussels, Belgium

Jeff VanderMeer: An unnamed 16th century pub in Brussels where Ann tells me I wound up singing with a Frenchman at the top of my lungs. I don’t remember any of it, except that it was glorious.

Pilsn, Czech Republic

Jeff VanderMeer: The Pub in Pilsen, Czech Republic, where you get a tap at your table and can pour your own fresh beer—no preservatives or additives—and they have electronic scoreboards for every table at every The Pub in the country…and after four or five pints you definitely want to be at the top of the scoreboard. We spent an amazing night there with our Finnish friends Jukka, Tero, and Juha, Hal “The Wonder” Duncan, Alistair Rennie, Ian MacLeod, and several others…at the end of which I pretended to be Czech to the family from Montana at the next table.

Vacation!

I leave this weekend for a two-week vacation in Europe, so I won’t be posting here (or elsewhere) for a couple weeks. The trip last month was an unexpected work trip; this trip has been planned for many months and is pure fun for the wife and me.

We fly into London and head strait to Bath for a few days. Next we have a bit of time in the Cotswolds and the North Wales – we stay in Conwy. After Wales, we hit Scotland and will be in Edinburgh for several days before heading south to York. After York, we finish the trip in London.

I’ve not been to Britain before, so I’m looking forward to some time off and that wonderful European experience. This will be my wife’s first time in Europe and I know she’ll love it.

Anyway, I’ll not bother with the internet while I’m on vacation, so expect no posts or reviews. I haven’t decided yet what I’ll take to read, but they will be relatively light reading and paperbacks that won’t bother me when they get travel worn. Right now I’m thinking it’ll be some Tad Williams, Terry Pratchett, and Charles de Lint. I may just take the chance to finish the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series.

Cheers!

A Few Pictures From Recent Travels

Well, I've said that I'd post a few pictures from the travels, so here they are. These made the cut from the 200 hundred or so that were taken as a nice summary of the trip.


St. Goar along the Rhine in Germany from the Rheinfels castle.



The central square in Olomouc, Czech Republic. A very nice little city that is totally off the tourist map.



The Prague Castle.

The library at Strahov Monastary. A great visit - I wish I had a picture of the dodo. Oh well.

Homeward Bound!

Well, I’ve left the Czech Republic. Yesterday I flew from Prague to Frankfurt and I am there for a day before heading home on Wednesday. The work has been interesting and exhausting for me, but certainly good experience – another ‘war story’ and nice addition to the resume. However, the insane schedule left me almost no time to enjoy being in Europe – all told I will have been here for 4 weeks, and in that time I’ve had only 3 ½ days off.

Yesterday evening I walked through Frankfurt in search of the Irish pub I spent New Year’s Eve at 8 years ago. I think I found it, but it seems my memory is hazy for some reason. Anyway, I had a few beers and noted some oddities. First, the ‘house beer’ at this Irish pub was a local German pils – I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since the price is less, but it still seemed a bit wrong. And second – this one was really odd – I watched a local order a pitcher of Guinness and instead of a glass, he asked for a straw. Afterwards I had to ask the bartender if this was a common way of drinking it and he emphatically said no and then got a bit more derogatory about Germans not appreciating their beer properly.

I anticipate that I’ll finish The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco on the plane tomorrow. No promises on when I’ll get a review written and posted – probably next Monday. On a side-note, it looks like I’ll be doing an occasional review over at Fantasybookspot. Yes, in some ways, it’s little more than a blatant move on my part to get free books, sometimes before they are released. But, I’m happy to be on the team over there. I’ll mention any review I do for them here.

Highlights of the trip include:

- A boat ride up the Rhine
- Olomouc – a really pleasant Czech city
- Pivo!
- 2 days in Prague
- Visiting a monastic library and seeing a dried dodo bird
- Driving adventures in rural Czechia and Prague
- Pivo!
- Having lunch cooked for me by Satan over a campfire on the jobsite
- Oddities in a Frankfurt Irish pub

I’ll post some pictures sometime in the future.

Nothing Lasts Forever

Well, my ‘weekend’ break in Prague will be cut a bit shorter than initially planned (no surprise to me), so on Saturday it’s off to Olomouc again for a day. Then back across the country to another site on Sunday.

Prague has been wonderful. I spent yesterday walking around by the castle and in Hradčany then down across the bridge into the old town. The castle is so crowded that it’s hardly worth it – since I’ve been there before I didn’t stay long.

I visited the Strahov monastery and library – this just might be the best thing I’ve visited so far. It is incredible to see a library where 400 year old books are nothing of particular note since there are rooms full of books much, much older. This visit is all the more timely since I’m currently reading The Name of the Rose by Eco; I was inspired to read for an hour or so in a park shortly after the visit. At least as interesting (to me) as the books was the collection of dried/preserved animals. Have you ever seen a dried stingray? They look utterly alien – it was way cool. Even better than the stingrays was the dodo bird – yes, they have a dried dodo bird on display. Very weird looking.

In the evening I did a pub walk with one of the local tour groups. It was nice and good to interact with people. There’s just something about drinking in 600 hundred year old basements. As I said, it was great fun.

This will probably be the last entry for a week or so as I begin work again. Hopefully the next entry will be my review of The Name of the Rose and probably a few pictures from the trip.

Ahh…Prague

Well, work has continued to be very busy, but now I finally get a break – for the last 3 weeks, I’ve only had about 1 day off and the typical work day has been somewhere between 10 and 14 hours long. So, this is a much needed break.

After a week over in laid-back Olomouc, where it was hot; and a few days in a small, way more laid back village kind of near Plzeň called Mirošov, where it was pleasant (even cool); I’m now in crowded, hectic Prague. Don’t get me wrong, it is immediately clear why this is such a popular place, but it is a big change from the rest of the Czech Republic.

I’ve been to Prague before – about 8 years ago (back in the college days) some friends of mine and I traveled through for a few days in January. The city was relatively empty, very cheap, laid-back, and simply a wonderful time. Well, Prague in summer is crowded and expensive compared to what I recall. I had a nice meal this evening on the main square – yes, I expect it to be relatively expensive there, but the price still surprised me. I could have eaten very nice meals in Olomouc for a week for the price I paid at this café. Of course, the price was for the setting, not the product, and it’s very difficult to find a nicer setting.

So, for the next 3 days I get to hang out in Prague. It will be fun and a needed break, but a bit lonely. It’s nice to make the wife a bit envious, but her company here would make things much better.

On the spec-fic front, it’s also frustrating. It looks like I’ll miss Jeff VanderMeer’s appearances here in Prague by just a couple days. Any regular readers out there going to be in Prague this week? First round is on me.

Well, bare with me as I continue with the travel blog – reviews will come again, I promise. I just need some reading time. I’ll also post a few pics when I get back to the States and can download the photos from my camera.

Ciao!

Ahh...Olomouc

I'm staying in Olomouc in the eastern part of the Czech Republic. It is a very laid back little city. The center is quite nice - imagine a smaller, more laid back Prague that hasn't had a face-lift for every building in the center and has a tiny fraction of the crowds. The wonderful Czech beer is still very cheep here - about 70 cents U.S.

I'm working very long hours, so no reading and no time for playing at tourist. Only time for a few beers and dinner before the only-too-short night's sleep. Oh well, it could be worse (easy to say since I'm in a hotel with high-speed internet access and air conditions - an unexpected luxury).

On Sunday it's off to the western side of the country and unknown hotel accomodations. I doubt I'll have it as good as here in Olomouc.

Anyway, I'm not much farther in my reading as before, so it'll be a couple weeks before the next review is up.

Ciao!

What Day Is It Again?

Still fighting a bit of the jet lag, but hopefully I’m getting past that. The real kicker in Frankfurt is the heat – air conditioning people! I live in Arizona, and it’s very hot there – this time of hear highs around 110 or more. But when it’s that hot, you just don’t go outside much, you stay in and enjoy the air conditioning.

In Frankfurt, highs are in the mid to upper 90s. Yes, cooler than Phoenix, but it’s more humid and air conditioning is sparse. Yep, my company’s office has no AC, my hotel room – no AC. It cools down nicely at night, but the sun doesn’t go down until almost 10pm – it makes it tough for someone going to bed early to fight jet-lag to actually sleep in a west-facing room with no AC and no fan. So, I’m a bit cranky due to the lack of AC. I look forward to heading to Czechia where it should be a bit cooler, though I imagine there won’t be AC there either.

Goal for the day: Don’t get on the wrong train when going back to the hotel!

I started The Name of the Rose on the plane. I’m enjoying so far, but it is not going to be a fast read. It’ll probably be a week or more before I get another review up. So, please don’t abandon me :) - keep coming back for the nice travel experiences of this typical spoiled American traveling and working in Europe. And by typical I’m referring to my wonderful language skills of English – no other languages for me (my mostly forgotten, broken Spanish doesn’t get me far in Germany).

Travel

One of the many things I enjoy is travel. Sometimes it's for work, more often, for fun. Anyway, I've found that I enjoy blogging about it. It doesn't fit into the 'mission' of this blog, but I don't care, I can post what I want on this blog. So, below are the entries that lend more to travel tales.

Europe

• A Room With a View
• In Sibiu
• A Quick Note from The City of Stupids
• A Few Obersvations/Comments While in Bucharest
• Bucharest
• Ahh...Prague
• Ahh...Olomouc
• What Day Is It
• Homeward Bound
• A Few Pictures - Germany and Czechia
• Nothing Lasts Forever
• Neth International

Hawaii

• Aloha
• Ahh...That Was Nice