Category Archives: 4) DESTINATIONS — not in U.S.

September 12, 2023 · 5:35 am

Yes! We made our connecting flight in Dublin to Rome

Time to write something complimentary about Aer Lingus for a change. When we left rainy Chicago an hour late from Ohare, we were not likely to make our one hour connection in Dublin for Rome.

So we changed to a later flight that had us contemplating a quick trip to Dublin to help kill 7 hours wait time. But thanks to tail winds, we made it to Dublin close to the scheduled time, rushed to our original flight gate where a lovely gate agent got us back on this flight. Thank you Tara. I do intend to revisit Ireland sometime just not under today’s circumstances. Onward!

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April 17, 2023 · 12:44 pm

Much better Aer Lingus but mystified by the Dublin airport

What a difference a modern aircraft and entertainment system can make on a trans Atlantic flight. My outbound flight had a near-nonfunctional entertainment system. Today’s aircraft has touch screens! Oh joy.

In flight entertainment recommendation

I stumbled upon some surprisingly good viewing options. First up, a two part documentary picturing the Obamas (about the two dazzling Obama portraits) that had me teary at times. I remember going to see them at the National Portrait Gallery and spending most of my time watching people looking at them, taking photos of themselves beside them, crying. It was profoundly moving.

This doc followed the portraits as they went on tour in five cities (including my new home in Chicago). It was fascinating to see how the five different museums created educational , cultural and marketing efforts around the portraits visit, coming up with so many interesting ways to entice people who often don’t feel welcome in high art institutions to visit and better yet, to feel comfortable and connect with the place and its art. I particularly loved watching the kids look at the portraits.

There were also illuminating interviews with Amy sherod and Kehinde Wiley, the two portrait painters whose work I have sought out ever since seeing those portraits. And of course there were fond images and footage from the hope and change Obama years.

All I saw of Ireland this trip 😕

I also found a good Austin city lights type show, I guess the Irish version called Other Voices and watched one episode filmed in a tiny church in isolated dingle peninsula with St. Vincent doing acoustic and in Austin with Margo Price. Both excellent. Another episode had a very young amy winehouse in 2006 singing to maybe 30 people. Cannot imagine!Even the food was a step up from the previous flight. Not stellar but edible.

I was confused by the layover in the Dublin airport because it seemed like a completely different place from the airport I passed though on my outbound trip and in January when I connected thru Dublin en route to Paris and Madrid. This time I had 4 hours to kill. And we had to go though security twice (pulling out our toiletries and electronics again) when we arrived and when we left, which seemed odd. We’d already sent our stuff through the conveyor belt in Frankfurt. Why did we need to do it before entering the Dublin airport and before leaving it? I don’t remember that from our previous trip and considering how tight those connecting flights were we might have been in trouble making our next flight. I talked with the security guys at the second check point snd they said something about this being new and a trial run for two months. I don’t get the thinking.

I did understand this time, unlike the past trip, that we were going though u.s. immigration/customs in Dublin, which is fabulous because it means when we land in Chicago, no long lines. (And there was NO line in Dublin.) It’s like leaving the airport after a domestic flight. Apparently Ireland is one of the few airports with this (ore- clearance, I think it’s called) and I’m I curious how it came about.

Stocking up for next flight

During the layover, I also was in one of those shopping mall/food hall type spaces to wait which was completely different from the previous trips where we were in a relatively bare bones gate area with few amenities (shops, restaurants). So it was confusing. Not the airport I remembered from just 4 days ago, let alone two months ago.

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April 15, 2023 · 12:25 pm

Emmendingen…visiting the German Diary Archive

I came a long way for this visit and fortunately it proved completely worth the schlep. (schlep sounds like a German word. Yiddish. So close.) I did inadvertently make use of a German word I forgot I knew when a server at a restaurant sneezed. “Gesundheit” I said. She smiled. (I just learned how to spell Gesundheit…I was way off.)

Plaque on the old town hall

Anyway, I came to this small Black Forest town for a gathering of European diary archives hosted by the German diary archive which is located in a stately 1728 building known as the Rathaus/old town hall. There’s a small two -room museum with displays of interesting diaries, accompanied by an audio tour in various languages. There were people from diary archives in Germany, France, The Netherlands and Austria and very interesting presentations on how diaries are used by researchers (presenters were historians, a literary nonfiction writer and a musicologist) and on how A.I. coupled with HRT (handwriting recognition transcription) will revolutionize and democratize research. Combined they can be used to do super fast transcription of handwritten manuscripts…including diaries. Right now this is often done manually, so to speak, by very patient and skilled volunteers.

Old town hall, home of deutsches tagebucharchiv (German archive for diaries)

We had an excellent dinner at what I gather is the best place in town, Vielharmonie, where I had very good local fish (char?) and I stayed an odd hotel I wouldn’t recommend because it’s very understaffed. (Taome Feng Shui) although I was greeted by a pleasant former Texan, from Austin.

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April 13, 2023 · 9:32 am

Train FROM Frankfurt to Freiburg-im-Breisgau with a Swiss -Albanian comedian.

I love riding trains in Europe. You never know who you’ll meet. Today, I’m sitting across from an intense young man, about my son’s age (he’s 33) who pulled out a notebook to write. Turns out he’s a young Swiss /Albanian comedian from Basel (our train’s final destination) who said he bombed during his first standup performance in Frankfurt so he was writing down his notes/thoughts in a little notebook with German writing on the cover.

I’d seen the same one in the book shop at the train station (I always get to train stations way too early) and wondered what it said. He told me it was the old Oscar Wilde saying: Everything is going to be fine in the end. If it’s not fine, it’s not the end. He bought three so he gave me one as a gift. Wise words.

He said he doesn’t write post show if it goes well. Apparently the crowd was full of women and if you lose the women right away, you’re sunk, the men won’t go for you either. He had 8 minutes to grab them. his favorite comics: Dave Chappell (the greatest, he says) and Trevor Noah plus two English guys and a Finnish guy. he’s only been at this for about 5 weeks (and has other game full employment.) He was also a big fan of Eminem. And had some interesting geopolitical views. He was very current on the mass killings in the U.S. (17 to date this year, he mentioned) and saw this as one of several signs our top dog status is drawing to a close. He showed me a sign with his name lit up that he puts beside him when he does his standup so I took a photo since he promises he will be a famous comedian some day.

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April 12, 2023 · 6:29 pm

Frankfurt in the rain and sun. (Sun is best): quality market wurst stand, Romer reconstructed, Motel One Romer, Kaffeehaus Goldene Waage

Frankfurt looked gloomy when our plane landed. Grey and rainy. Didn’t help that we had to deplane down metal steps in the cold drizzle to catch a waiting shuttle bus. No matter. Lovely day in this interesting city. I hitched a ride on the subway into town with two American women who had bought a group tix that apparently covered 5 people. They were doing what a lot of people do in Frankfurt…a quick trip to check out downtown between international flights.

Romer area

The Motel One Romer turned out to be a gem. And a bargain at 99 euro a night. It’s a very modern, stylish place, with lovely lounges, bar and dining area. Best of all the very nice guys at the reception desk gave me a room almost 2 hours before official checkin which was very unexpected and appreciated after a long trip from Chicago.

I dragged myself through the city, with jet lag mounting. First stop the quality market/kleinmarkthall a huge enclosed market with all kinds of fresh fruit stalls, cheese and sausages counters, sushi, ethnic food stalls. Not as stellar perhaps as the food hall in Lyon that we visited in January but lots of good options and local character. I joined a line leading to a small window where two women worked very hard serving sausages (wurst) on buns with mustard.

A nice young traveler from Hong Kong was in line too and we struck up a conversation with a kind local (frankfurter) who offered to order for us and told us which of the four sausages was her favorite. (The one with the yellow casing, which didn’t look too appealing.)

Reconstructed Romer

She said she’s been going to this window for wurst since she was a kid. I later learned the woman behind the counter who was diligently boiling sausages of various colors and cutting and peeling off the casing before putting them in a to-go bun was Ilsa. A local luminary. The young woman from Hong Kong and I found a table at an outdoor cafe to eat our wurst, sitting under an umbrella in the rain.

Bombed out romer

Romer is a classic old German area downtown with elegant timbered and stone buildings. Except it’s been reconstructed after being obliterated by allied bombs during ww2. I had some apple Weiss (alcoholic apple cider) standing in the wide brick paved Romer plaza and later landed at lovely Kaffeehaus goldene waage) https://www.goldenewaage.com/coffeehouse golden way)some delicious pastries (merengues, florentines) and hot chocolate served in a glass.

I walked a little through the busy shopping plazas and along the pretty riverfront then finally succumbed to jet lag.

Koffeehaus Goldeneye Waage

I

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April 12, 2023 · 5:31 am

Weird Aer lingus

Yes, I have only myself to blame for flying this odd airline again, after a fiasco in January with lost luggage (for five days) plus long airport lines that almost caused us to miss our flights from Paris to Dublin to Chicago and led to the disappearance of my watch at the Paris security checkpoint. You get what you pay for I guess. But I arrived safely in Frankfurt (via Dublin).

Still it’s not reassuring when three flight attendants cannot figure out what appears to be an ancient entertainment system. After poking at the screen for who knows how long, I sought advice from an attendant who also had no luck with the touchscreen. Another attendant told me to use the remote hidden in the armrest, also from another era. None of the attendants could figure out how to use the thing, which is an ancient cell phone on one side and an ancient remote on the other. Neither work. I did find a barely functioning screen by switching seats. Terrible sound but at least I got a movie.

I get the impression from the attendants that this is an old plane that they don’t usually fly. Hopefully it’s just the entertainment system that’s out of date…and not working. I didn’t check my luggage.

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January 8, 2023 · 7:11 pm

Madrid, Escorial, and Segovia

Very nice of our old friends M & C to up and move from New York to Madrid, where they first met as young children living here with their respective families. Decades later, they are living for several months in the lovely Retiro neighborhood in a 1970’s-era apartment building on the 13th floor with superb views of the city.

Escorial, with dogs, mountains and rainbow

We had an uneventful trip here on Aer Lingus with a brief layover in Dublin, delayed slightly by fog that has hung over the city. Yesterday we had time to stroll along a ramblas, of sorts, a brick pedestrian strip lined with a street with cars on either side. Families, couples, singles, young, old people all strolling on a Saturday afternoon. Very civilized. m &C eat one big meal a day, a late lunch at around 3 p.m. Yesterday we went to a traditional local place, La Hoja (La Fueya) aka The Leaf that was packed with families. We shared big plates of sliced jamon, sliced cheese, grilled artichokes, and then entrees that were big plates of meat, game or fish (wild boar, pork) and then cider served through some ceramic contraption.

Segovia

Today we packed up the two white dogs (one who looks like our lab mix Millie ) and hit the road for a scenic drive to the lovely town of Escorial, famous for its 17th century monastery/palace, an imposing pile of stone at the edge of a wide plaza. IN the distance the fog rose from the mountains and the sun finally appeared, along with a rainbow lining the mountains like a dandy’s scarf. We strolled into the old city, with narrow lanes lined with lovely old buildings and small plazas, past whimsical Christmas decorations – large paper mache animals, including a cow giving birth and a donkey perched on a stone staircase , as if in mid step. We stopped at a little cafe for tapas – little plates of marinated anchovies, olives, cheese, sausage, an omelette/hash browns concoction.

Cider-serving contraption at La Hoya restaurant in Madrid, sucking cider out of the bottle and carbonizing it.

On to Segovia, a hilltop town with a spectacular Roman aqueduct, cathedral and castle. Isabella, the queen of Castille, was crowned in the cathedral in the 1400s. She dispatched Columbus on his expedition to the new world.) Lunch was at a famous old world place called mason de Candido, around since 1884, in a rambling old building with lots of carved wood, casement windows, painted murals and photos of local and world dignitaries. I didn’t realize until we finished lunch that I was sitting under a photo featuring Jimmy Carter. This seemed like the right place for sangria, grilled baby lamb (crispy on outside, succulent inside), potatoes.

Lunch in Madrid
Segovia

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November 5, 2019 · 6:39 pm

Amazing street food (and restaurant) recommendations for Vietnam and Cambodia

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Tuna tartar at Mie Cafe, Siem Reap, Cambodia

One of the smartest things we did during our recent Vietnam trip was to start our adventure in Hanoi with a street food tour from Australian expat expert Mark Lowerson, of Street Eats Hanoi. streetfoodtourshanoi.blogspot.com. We spent a great morning with Mark visiting vendors we never would have found on our own, eating great food and learning about Vietnam’s food, culture and customs. It was a very helpful introduction to the country. Beyond that, Mark gave us recommendations for where to eat during our next stops in Vietnam and in Siem Reap, Cambodia — and we ate at several of them. Not a dud in the bunch. Sharing them below (I’ve put in red the ones we ate at.)

Here’s Mark’s social media:
Instagram: stickyinhanoi
In HANOI:
Bun cha (grilled pork) – at 34 Hang Than, slightly north of the old quarter just beyond the old water tower. Get there for an early-ish lunch, at 12 but they’ll still be serving at 2.30ish: http://stickyrice.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/10/where-there-is-smoke-there-is-bun-cha.html
Pho Ga – 42 Quan Thanh St –  v good chicken pho, mornings and evenings, also just north of the old quarter, near the old water tower  – right near your hotel!
Pho Suong – Trung Yen Alley – beef noodle soup at the start of the alley – mornings and evenings 
Bun rieu (crab broth noodles) – 11 Hang Bac, 7am-2pm.
A great coffee shop where they do this amazing special, yoghurt coffee (and you can also buy beans/ground coffee) is called Cafe Duy Tri at 43 Pho Yen Phu – a tiny narrow building in West Lake District. They have a menu in English, too. Go in, order from the little yellow menu and then go sit upstairs somewhere – second or third floor. 
Egg Coffee at Cafe Định – 13 Dinh Tien Hoang St. through a little tiled passageway and up a set of dodgy steps to an iconic Hanoi coffee house 
You can buy really good coffee at Oriberry in Au Trieu St near St Joseph’s cathedral in the Old Quarter – in the street which runs along the right of the church.
SomeHanoiEveningOptions: 

Cha ca Thang Long – Hanoi’s grill your own fish dish

State Run Food Shop 37

Excellent French: La Badiane
Excellent pizza: Pizza 4Ps

Drinks with a view at The Summit, located at the Pan Pacific Hotel.

A cocktail bar – Unicorn Pub 2A, at 

The Pasteur Street Brewery at 1 Au Trieu behind the cathedral is a great Saigon outfit which just opened here…out on West Lake there is a great one called Turtle Tower, too – v nice setting on the water.Glass of wine: Tannin Wine Bar in Hàng Vai – great happy hour 4-7pm

In HUE, one VERY GOOD street food recommendation – go here: Bun thit nuong Huyen Anh (grilled pork with noodles and herbs – lunch only): Address: 52/1 Kim Long – a km or so out of town along the river – VERY worth the taxi ride! ❤️

Bà Đỏ restaurant – 8 Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm St
Nu Eatery, 10 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai is great!!!! (reservation required – don’t be late!)

Com ga (chicken rice) Ba Buoi 22 Phan Chau Trinh

Banh beo (Hue style rice flour cake w/pork/prawn) opposite1 Hoang Van Thu

Banh Mi Khanh (Vietnamese sandwich)

115 Tran Cao Van
Ms Ly Restaurant22 Nguyen Hue (warning: can be crowded with long waits)
A tailor in Hoi An – tell them Mark and Tu sent you:
Sunny  – 9 Tran Phu St
In SIEM REAP:
If you’d like a similar experience in Siem Reap, our friends Lina and Steven run food tours there. All the info is here:

Our favorite restaurants in Siem Reap: Chanrea Dom Makara, Cuisine Wat Damnak (v special  –  must make a reservation – very difficult to get in at short notice!) and Mie Cafe.

In SAIGON/HCM City:

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Grilled pork and clams at Quan Loan, HCM City

– Quan Loan – cooked to order local food, really delicious – Cnr Hai Ba Trung St and Ly Tu Trong St

– a couple of good local restaurants:
The Secret Garden – in a little lane at 158 Duong Pasteur – great home-style cooking in a very cool setting on the rooftop of an old apartment building. I love this place! ❤️

Secret Cottage – through a bag/basket shop and upstairs at 12 Nguyen Thiep St

Also great cafe/shop called L’usine – 1st fl 151 Dong Khoi – but hidden in the back through a painting shop.

Great speakeasy bars:
Drinking and Healing – 25 Ho Tung Mau St
Snuffbox – 14 Tom That Dam St
And don’t forget the great craft beer place Pasteur St Brewing Company

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October 30, 2019 · 7:27 pm

“Korean Traditional Culture Experience” at Incheon Airport — Seoul

Sadly, this Airport is the closest we will get to Korea this trip but we got a small taste of the culture, thanks to the airport’s concerted effort. Ultra modern and ultra spotless, the international transit center has a Korean Traditional Culture Experience Center with an otherworldly art installation, craft displays and hands on activities and a periodic floor show. We watched a man sing (well) opera in Korean and Italian (“O sole mio” in Seoul!) and a woman do expressive modern dance to Korean and American songs (including Sinatra’s “My way.”) If only we were not half awake. O’Hare and Healthrow, take note!!

We also ate some very good, albeit pricey (especially after Vietnam) Japanese/Hawaii food – chicken Katsu/udon noodles and poke salad — (bypassing the Quiznos option) and browsed in the higher quality than usual shops. I also enjoyed the Japanese style (or is it also Korean style?) spraying toilets. The art installation is a giant glass mosaic globe that you walk into and see yourself in many refracted glass pieces, sort of like being part of a kaleidoscope. The sound was odd in there too.

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October 29, 2019 · 11:38 pm

Cholon, Chinese restaurant, pagodas, facial, secret cottage – saigon

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Restaurant view

Playing some serious catch-up, blogging on the long slog plane trip home and trying to remember what we did in Vietnam two days ago before it all becomes a dream. We took two buses (which was an adventure – cost about 80 cents each) to Cholon, which is what’s left of Saigon’s Chinatown in District 5. First stop was the market, of course, which was overwhelming — so much commerce. People were refreshingly uninterested in selling to us, a nice change from the big tourist mark Ben Thánh, which we quickly dipped in and out of on our first day.

We wandered around the crowded streets and stumbled into another great meal, this one Chinese food ( we think, sliced char sui pork, bumbling tofu with sautéed ground pork that arrived in a very hot clay bowl, fresh off the fire at the entrance to the restaurant ) at  jam-packed Com Ga Dong Nguyen, which according to the waiters clothing and the menu has been around since 1943.

Sizzling tofu with spicy ground pork

Next stop two of several pagodas in the area (Phuoc An Hoi Quan; Thien Hau) and then the hunt for a functioning ATM. Vietnam is a cash society (unlike Scandinavia where we were last year), especially for purchases on the street. Upscale restaurants aren’t an issue. But we had trouble using Dirck’s ATM card in particular, which has a chip. That may be the issue. But sometimes the machine wasn’t in the right network or was out of cash.

I returned to my neighborhood spa for a facial and foot massage, technically, although I three women worked on my legs and arms and shoulders, as well, in a small dark room. Again, cheap…cost $14…and the women were so sweet. They insisted on taking photos with me including one where I had shocking red lips — thanks to an app called snow, I believe.

We made one final trip to District 1 and finally found another Hanoi Mark recommendation, The Secret Cottage, which we reached by walking through a long narrow basket/scarf shop and up two flights of scuffed up concrete steps. Suddenly we were in chic land, in a dining room with old plaster walls, cool wood furniture and contemporary art. The food was cool too – sort of groovy updates of traditional food like Bánh mi and Bun Thit. We finally got caught in a downpour but had our coats (which we’ve toted everywhere and rarely used. We got to talking with a guy from Utah as we waited out the rain under a shop awning. He is a supply chain developer who has been traveling more often to Vietnam rather than China, given the trade tariffs, working to switch manufacturing to VN.

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