I know that it’s be a long, long time since I’ve posted anything.  I haven’t stopped traveling, though.  For the last couple of years, I’ve been working on a different sort of journey.  I’ve been working on completing my PhD.  It’s finally finished, and I have time to have a bit of a life now. […]

Maybe we didn’t go as far as we could have, and maybe we aren’t as young as we used to be, but traveling with a couple of friends you’ve known for 20 years or more can be pretty damn fun. This spring I traveled with a couple of friends of mine to Central/Eastern Europe for […]

Everyone has their reasons for traveling to certain places. Take the beach, for example. Although it’s not something I can do for days on end, some people really seem to enjoy sitting  in the sun and watching the waves roll in. Some say it relaxes them, some go to get a tan, while still others […]

I’ve written before about my love affair with the city of Paris.  It’s beautiful, but there is something about the character of the city that is a unique mix of warmth and coolness, simultaneously.  It stimulates me and relaxes me to be there.  It matches my occasionally melancholic mood. A few weeks ago, I spent […]

It’s an interesting phenomena that your favorite “Bond” is probably the Bond that you first saw. As they say, you never do forget your first. For me, the first Bond film I watched all the way through on my own was A View To Kill. It isn’t the best Bond, and some say it’s one […]

A roommate once asked me, in a less than friendly tone, why I was so fixated on travel. He immediately followed with his own answer to his question. He informed that it was because I seemed to be trying to be “better than” my surroundings. He told me that I needed to accept what my […]

It’s that time of year again. No, I’m not talking about back to school time, or the start of autumn. It’s that time of year when average Joes decide to throw on their best superhero costumes and turn some of America’s great cities into the futuristic metro areas of comic book lore. Throughout the summer […]

If I could, I would open a restaurant.  I would open a restaurant that would have  a casual, yet hip atmosphere, and played great music.  My restaurant would incorporate aspects from the restaurants and cultures I’ve experienced all over the world. As with all dining establishments, location is paramount.  Mine would be found just on […]

A friend of mine has a theory that you can make pretty much anything sound gross/dirty/horrible simply by adding a Latin America place in front of it. Bolivian Lemon Drop Guatemalan toilet set. Tijuana Taco. Let your imagination run with it for a while and you’ll get the idea. Before this past June, I had […]

“My first day in Chicago, September 4, 1983. I set foot in this city, and just walking down the street, it was like roots, like the motherland. I knew I belonged here.” Oprah Winfrey I think you’d be hard pressed to find a city that’s better at making someone feel at home than Chicago. I […]