BootsnAll Travel Network



Tarheel Tripette

March 10th, 2007

Having vacation days you have to use can be a good thing. Ready to escape the cold and snowcovered Rockville area, I checked the weather forecast within a 600-mile radius and settled on Asheville, North Carolina as my primary destination, thinking it would at least be warmer than in Rockville. Technically, I was right, but I still did not avoid snow. More on that later.

Logistical delays put me on the road just before 11 am on Thursday, February 15th. It was sunny but very cold. It took me nearly an hour to get to Gainesville, Virginia. A too-early turn put me on a road that went through the middle of the Manassas Battlefield Park, which was very pretty covered in snow. By the time I made it to the Roanoke area, all the roadside snow was gone save a few tiny patches in the median. I was booking it fairly quickly, but still managed to make a few stops on back roads, such as in Hurt, Virginia. I pulled into Greensboro while it was still light out. My first stop was a motel I had seen a sign to, but it turned out to be quite creepy. I think there was a drug deal occurring in the room next to the one I asked to see and the lights didn’t turn on, so I clandestinely called Red Roof Inn and found out they were cheaper anyway, so I went there, stopping a couple times for price checks that were slightly more expensive anyway. I got a ground floor room and met one of the friendliest front desk clerks I’ve ever encountered.

I soon headed downtown, attempting to meet up with a Beer Advocate group scheduled to meet at a bar that I drove around for 25 minutes trying to find. I ended up at the Natty Greene Brewery, which was the endall destination anyway. The beer was good and the food was too, but neither were spectacular. I did some barhopping on a particularly dead Thursday night and called it a night around midnight. At one point I was the only patron in an “Irish” bar (quoted because there wasn’t much Irish about it other than the name and the standard beer taps). At least they did have some good beers on tap. I had a good conversation about travel with some guy from eastern NC who encouraged me to keep on traveling and write about it. Well, I guess I’m trying to do that.

The next morning I headed back downtown after checking out. I had seen the Green Bean coffeehouse the night before and made a note to check it out. They had wi-fi and for the first time I wanted to try out my computer’s wireless capabilities there. Perfect! Note that it’s almost a month later, but that’s beside the point. Anyway, I enjoyed my coffee and a pastry and hit the road. At the hotel lobby I found a brochure for an interesting home in Kernersville, so I thought I’d check it out.

Körner’s Folly is a structural wonder just off the city center of Kernersville, NC. The house was built by an eccentric designer as a horse stable and showcase for his architectural designs. When he got married, his wife wanted to live there but not with the horses, so began an endeavor to build a house layer by layer. There are about 22 rooms in the house, which is big but it does not appear to be big enough for that many rooms. Well, some of the rooms are small or hidden but the place was fascinating. Because it was not on my itinerary it made for a particularly fun discovery. The house had a huge ballroom with “kissing corners” for couples to have some privacy and a repertory theater in the attic that is still used occasionally. The family was well-off, but very community-minded and they had children come over where they learned languages, music and other literary and artistic subjects. The stories are really impressive, for example how the maid who raised Mr. Körner and his siblings ended up living in a house on the property and when she died and the Methodist church wouldn’t bury her in the cemetery because she was black, he bought land next to the cemetery and buried her there! He also wanted access to a large tree for the wood, so he bought the entire farm the tree was on just to get it. I bought a lot of stuff at the gift shop, including the booklet on the house.

My drive to Asheville then took on a longer journey than I had intended. I had lunch in Hickory at the Olde Hickory Brewery, which was fairly good. I even tried to stop at the Catawba Valley Brewery but it was a winery/antique barn with the actual brewing facilities in the lower level. They said a new brewpub will open up in Morganton soon, but I was glad I stopped in Glen Alpine for the wine. It turned out to be quite good and I’ll have to get Lake James wine again.

Asheville was a cool place. It’s very artsy and reminded me a lot of Boulder, CO. I stayed in the Sharky & Bon Paul’s Hostel in West Asheville, which was an old house actually. Lots of barhopping and breweryhopping, but I missed several of them because I couldn’t find them or they were closed.

Saturday was a long day but good. I had breakfast in Weaverville at a little diner/cafe. What prompted me to drive to Weaverville isn’t clear but I’m glad I did! It’s a cute tiny town, but my continuing drive in a loop up to Mars Hill and Marshall back to Asheville was a beautiful drive. The highlight…and exhaustion…for the day was the Biltmore Mansion. Despite being off-season, the lines were incredibly long. After waiting 30 minutes to get tickets, 20 minutes to drive to and park at the mansion, and another hour waiting outside in the cold, I finally made it inside the actual mansion. The pace was like a shuffling penguin and the place was huge, so it took about two hours to go through the whole mansion. It was quite amazing, with an entire floor for the servants, a room for the architectural model of the mansion and a basement bowling alley and swimming pool. The views, even in winter, from the courtyard next to the grape arbor were exquisite over the rolling hills of North Carolina. It had just started to snow, too, so it was peaceful and breathtaking.

Next on the Biltmore tour was the winery, so I drove 4 miles there (still all within the estate grounds) and waited for about 45 minutes to get into the wine tasting room, but it was neat. Apparently though they did not have a winery during the time Vanderbilts lived there. Oh well. I got to try 9 wines, which I thought was pretty generous considering. I bought three bottles and some other gifts and, famished, was on my way downtown for dinner. I ate at Boudreaux’s Cajun Cafe and had some excellent gumbo and a Cuban sandwich, with some local microbrews. My favorite spot was The Barley’s Taproom, the “Brickskeller” of Asheville, with probably 75 beers on tap. I tried some of the local area beers from breweries I couldn’t get to. That night it snowed about an inch, which made driving a little treacherous while it was actually snowing but not that bad.

On Sunday I had to drive back to Rockville, but not before a filling strawberry and pecan pancake breakfast downtown. The scenery driving north was beautiful and I stopped to take some pictures of the snow-covered landscape north of Asheville. I made a few stops on my way home. The first was downtown Johnson City, TN. It was very forlorn–a ghost town and the only thing open was the billard hall. So much for that place. Then I went to Kingsport where I discovered a bevy of antique malls. I stopped at Nooks & Crannies and found some blue glasses for Mark before heading off on the long drive back to Rockville. I ran into a snowstorm around Marion, VA and then a freak blizzard somewhere near Harrisonburg that really scared me. For a little bit, I couldn’t even see the snow itself but just a complete wall of white outside my windshield: no road, no taillights, nothing. Luckily it didn’t last too long and it was just as abrupt ending as it was beginning. The strangest part was that no more than 5 minutes later I looked up and saw a starry sky. The experience was pure adrenaline but at the same time I felt very cozy and safe in my car.

Although I wished I had taken another day off work to extend the vacation, I was very pleased with the choice and destination. Without the stops, it would be about an 8-hour drive so that’s doable on a 3-day weekend for sure but ideal for 4 or more. I hope to make it back to Asheville sometime soon.

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Maryland’s Eastern Shore

January 28th, 2007

Imagine one of the most perfect weather weekends possible. That’s what was in store for Mark and I as we embarked on a visit to the Eastern Shore of Maryland–a visit long overdue for me in my nearly six years of living in the Washington, DC. Despite a late start on Saturday morning, August 12th, we crawled through the Bay Bridge traffic congestion and at Route 662, detoured south at Wye Mills. While free of traffic, this little back road crisscrossed Route 50 three times, requiring us to wait for a break in the fast-moving traffic to get across. I’m not sure if it saved time, but eventually it lead us into the town of Easton. We took a minimal detour west of Easton towards Saint Michael’s and Tilghman Island, but stopped at Newcomb where a bridge crossed one of the many inlets of the Chesapeake. A side road piqued our curiosity, so we ventured past saltbox houses and long tree-lined driveways to bayside mansions. The path led us to a tiny hamlet called Royal Oak, just one mile from Newcomb yet both had post offices.

Without further ado, we returned to the main road and continued south towards Cambridge. We crossed a long bridge approaching the city. To our right was an unusual structure that looked like large sails of a ship suspended with steel poles. The Cambridge Visitor’s Center was complete with a little park, impressive playground equipment, a boardwalk of sorts, the sail structure and another monument and the actual tourist office packed with endless brochures of Maryland attractions. That day happened to be the annual Seafood Feast-I-Val, but because of the timing and cost, we didn’t attend. We did, however, drive through the city in an attempt to find the downtown. We ended up deep in residential neighborhoods that turned out to be quite far from the city center that was really right off the highway. We stopped in at the Cambridge Grill for a late breakfast, then browsed through the main street antique shops before continuing south. At this point we wanted to get to Crisfield and decided rather than going east to Salisbury and then back southwest, we would cut through back roads in a more direct southerly direction. At Hebron, we turned on Route 162 which took us to the pleasantly surprising hamlet of Whitehaven. As we drove around the corner at the entrance to the town, I glimpsed a sign that said something about a ferry. The road curved again and suddenly there was a stop sign followed immediately by the road leading directly into a large creek. To the left was a large bed and breakfast in one of the most romantic hideaways I’d seen in Maryland. I turned right at the stop sign along the waterfront street, although boats and outbuildings blocked the river view. On the other side, quaint houses lined the street in perfectly orderly fashion. There must have been about 10 houses in the whole town, and other than the inn there was a church with the steeple being repaired on the ground, and a community building/museum with a historical sign. When we rounded the single block of the town and reached the stop sign again, the ferry had arrived and we waited while the operator returned from his tiny stationhouse. The short crossing was free, and I took several photos of the little town and the other side, as a truck waited for us to cross so he could cross the other direction.

A few more crossroads and villages later, we arrived at the town of Princess Anne, county seat of Somerset County. A town I’d read about in a sociology course in college, it was an historical but tiny place with a few Victorian homes and historical buildings. As we stopped to take a few pictures, a woman in a van pulled up and asked for money. Another car pulled in behind her and I wasn’t sure if the driver wanted money also or just wanted to warn us about her (or curse her for beating him to us). Either way they left and so did we.

Starting in Princess Anne, I noticed a trend in this part of Maryland with funeral homes being located in the largest, most elaborate houses in town. Princess Anne’s funeral home was an unusual building with several levels and a roof that remembled bubbles, but with normal roofing. I observed this in at least two other towns, if not more.

We pulled into Crisfield just before 4 pm. It was somewhat anticlimactic, although I don’t know what I expected would await me there. The downtown, which was seemingly located on a spoke off the main entrance road, looked as if it had seen better days. The portion of the main road that ended at the water was more “active,” if that word could describe it. There were a few restaurants and businesses, and several high-rise condominiums were plunked at the end of the town and looked ridiculously out of place. The tide was slightly high, so water flooded the marina parking lot and part of the entrance to one of the condo’s parking garage entrances. We drove around the town, making a couple loops of the main road, and then discovered the tourist office on a side road, where we picked up even more brochures and made our decision to have dinner here since it was the place to have crab. By the time we finished browsing, it was 5 o’clock and we were hungry enough to have a meal, yet didn’t really feel like the 2-hour messy crab feast. We settled on crabcakes, sweet corn and hush puppies (and coleslaw and potato salad) and a couple Coronas.

Towards the conclusion of our meal, we pondered what to do next. We’d obviously missed the ferry to Smith Island and with the next day being Sunday it didn’t seem possible to include that in this weekend’s itinerary. We could have stayed in Crisfield, but it was pretty early and there wasn’t much left to do, so Mark suggested going to Rehoboth. Beach weekend. Summertime. Party atmosphere. I’d never experienced that, so it seemed like a good idea to me. I was concerned with our not having motel reservations, but we both thought that we would get there in about an hour and a half, find a room, maybe shower up and then be ready to go out. So we headed northeast through Pocomoke City and Snow Hill. I had a craving for an ice cream product, so we stopped in Berlin and promptly discovered an ice cream shop right in the center of town. The town was very picturesque and enticing for a return trip. Rayne’s Reef Luncheonette turned out to be the site of filming for portions of the movie Runaway Bride. Signed photographs of Julia Roberts and Richard Gere and other photos graced the walls, and a director’s chair sat in the corner. Our milkshakes arrived and tasted like the heaven that they were. A few sips later, we were back in the car heading north to Delaware as dusk was setting in.

We arrived at Rehoboth probably around 9, and discovered at the first hotel we stopped at that everything was sold out and we should head north. Just outside of town we pulled into a motel that turned out to be sold out from the couple who had just gotten there ahead of us. We continued north where there were no hotels at all until Milford, and the same thing happened: just sold out and so is all of Milford. Next we headed to Dover and the first hotel was sold out. We decided to head south on Route 13 and if we couldn’t find a place to stay by the time we got to Denton, MD that we would just head back to Rockville. Luckily a couple miles south of the city we found the Shamrock Inn and got one of the last rooms for $75. Since we were way too far from Rehoboth to venture back to it, we decided to experience what Dover had to offer.

It took awhile to get our bearing, as the road marking and map didn’t seem to correspond, but we eventually made it to the quiet downtown, where all was deserted except for the few bars. Our first stop was an Irish pub, discernible from the wail of a young woman attempting karaoke which was audible from at least two blocks away where we parked. Once inside, it was impossible to see the end of the bar with the clouds of smoke billowing about. A pool table crowded the entrance and as we dodged poolsticks and air force guys trying to buy beer, we noticed that the karaoke attendant and the current singer were wearing bathrobes. A glance around revealed a few others in bedroom attire and few woman had stuffed animals. Since there was no place to sit or really even stand, and the smoke was just too much, we exited with a stumbling drunk woman, who vehemently denied her inebriation to friends begging to call her a cab. The bar across the street was quiet and through the window we could see only a handful of people. A young buff man was at the door organizing some things and as we tried to enter he told us that a collared shirt was required to enter. Upon seeing our faces in disbelief, he reiterated “yeah, collared shirts” as if he also thought the notion was a little preposterous for a town the size of Dover. We begged to learn of another place we could spend a Saturday night, and he pointed us in the direction of Smithers and mentioned another bar. We entered the back of Smithers through an outdoor patio that resembled someone’s private house party. The bar, it turns out, is located in an old Victorian mansion that must daylight as a restaurant judging from the tables with place settings and flowery wallpaper. In one of the rooms a live cover band was belting out tunes as tipsy patrons sang along, cuddling their partners for the evening. The crowd included a lot of attractive men, several with buzz cuts, some with baseball or farm implement hats and some with long straggly hair, and a few unattractive overweight and/or stuck-up women.

The band turned out to be pretty good for a cover band and with the intimate quarters in the old house it was akin to a house party. So, all in all the detour to Dover was pretty cool.

The next day we stopped at Rehoboth for a bit, ending up in Ocean City at the Crab Shack, which was nestled in amongst several beach apartment buildings. The dining room was a picnic table on a patch of sand in front of the building, which was literally a shack. We had delicious seafood as the evening sun inched its way to its western slumber. After a dessert stop in Salisbury, we were back home by 11.

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Independence Day Weekend ’06, Part I: Pennsylvania

July 6th, 2006

Having had the freedom so cherished and celebrated at this time of year to have Friday afternoon off, I decided to make a roadtrip out of it. I had never been to the Johnstown/Altoona area and it had been awhile since my last venture to Pennsylvania, so that was my destination. The week leading up to this was a soggy week indeed, with flooding anywhere within a day’s drive of the DC metropolitan area, so I thought my afternoon sojourn might have been tabled. Luckily, though, the rain stopped on Thursday and it was mostly sunny on Friday and gorgeous, so in a gesture of irony I made my first destination Johnstown, the site of the devastating flood in 1889. Of course my agenda had beer written all over it, and to the JBC is where I was driving.

Luckily I was able to find the place, somewhat outside of town, up and over several hills and finally overlooking part of the city and a lovely green backdrop of rills and plains on a perfect Friday afternoon. I sampled their beers and had a very late lunch, watching the world passing by and reminiscing while I read Chasing the Sea, a journal-slash-history-slash-novel about Uzbekistan that in several cases mirrored my own experience and mentioned several landmarks that were thrillingly nostalgic. Anyway, this was “the life” as they say, but it was only 5 o’clock and still sunny when I was done, so being sober enough to hit the hilly highways again, I accelerated towards Altoona.

The name for this trip being the “Altoona trip” is somewhat of a misnomer as I really only spent about 30 minutes in the city. My motel and the beer establishments were all in points south, although my original plan had me heading back into town at night, but the length of the day and the beers (and the fact that my motel was less than a block from the nearest brewery) made it seem not worthwhile. Prior to the sun’s setting, I wandered around downtown Altoona where I happened upon a live music barbecue festival-sort of thing going on. Having just stuffed myself, I wasn’t in the mood for food, so I just wandered around and noticed a capsuled downtown, a bit forlorn but not as lonely as much of this-sized American cities. My efforts to explore downtown were short-lived, partly because I was not hungry, partly because there really wasn’t much to see, and partly because I really needed to use the restroom. All of this was an excuse to find a motel for the night too, so off I went towards Hollidaysburg.

After a roundabout sort of way getting there, I ended up in downtown Hollidaysburg. Having passed what seemed like a plausible place to stay the night and the road towards the brewery, I doubled back to check in at the Wye Motel, a ground-level rambler-style motel located apropos a the “Y” junction of Plank Road, US 22 and Patchway Road from the back. Since it was still light out and I wasn’t ready for dinner, after checking in and dropping off my bag I drove back to town and walked around the tiny square. I passed by a lively-sounding bar, but declined entry in favor of the U.S. Hotel down the road. I got back into my car and drove around a couple blocks and parked on a front street facing railroad tracks and in the distance another wall of rock and trees that Pennsylvania has in adundance. The wooden sign outside the bar portion of the historic hotel beckoned. Upon entry I discovered the typical milieu of a Friday night crowd although it was only about 8 o’clock. At least I got a seat at the bar and requested a food menu. I ordered a Speckled Hen on draught, which was actually my first. It had a cidery taste to it, but it was actually pleasant.

My dinner was a flamboyantly rich but bumpkinesquely named “Drunken Dip,” a take on the French dip sandwich but instead of the typical au jus, a thick and creamy marinated mushroom sauce accompanied. It must have been the thickest dip I’d ever encountered, but it was delicious. I was also so full after eating it, I winced at the realization that I hadn’t even been to the brewery that this entire trip was based on. I sat in a food-induced stupor as the evening’s cover band set up and began to play a rickety version of U2’s “One” followed by “Amie” by the Pure Prairie League. I failed to catch their name as the lead singer sheepishly announced it before a crowd of milquetoast imbibers, but after three or four songs I bid my seat adieu and onto my next destination.

It was probably the first time I’d ever parked my car at a motel and was able to walk down the road to a brewery. I know that the Stoudt’s Brewery, also in Pennsylvania, is a tourist complex in and of itself, with a hotel next door and absolutely nothing else around it. This was just an accident of proximate geography. I cut across the back parking lot of a mail facility in which postal workers were upending boxes of letters and parcels into larger bins and sorting machines. I mused to myself that there are actual humans working with the mail after 5:00. At the end of the driveway entrance past the lowly mailbox, gleamed the big red sign beckoning “Marzoni’s Brick Oven Pizza.” There may also have been “and brewery” in there, but it seemed that their focus was on the pizza, and after a sampler of all their beers on tap I concurred I was right. It’s not that their beer wasn’t good, but I wasn’t overly impressed except for the last two which weren’t on the regular rotation of the sampler menu, but a maibock and a special saison beer. But by then I was still full, exhausted from a very long day of work, driving and previous beer tasting, that despite the next-door convenience of this brewery, I was going to be content with just the samples and a one-way ticket to bed. Altoona’s nightlife would just have to be postponed.

For $45 I was impressed at the promised “squeaky clean” conditions of the motel. I’ve stayed in places much more spartan and paid more, but this was a good deal in a perfect location. I decided to try to catch breakfast on the road, so I hit 22 again this time to the glorious back roads of central Pennsylvania. Sunlight streaming through the trees, the cool air wafting through my cracked open windows, Death Cab For Cutie blaring through my portable CD player…this was a perfect day for driving! Spruce Creek, a sleepy hamlet nestled in the wrinkles of the highway burst in front of my eyes after a hairpin turn like the contents of a page from a pop-up book. I continued town after town, farm after farm, mountains jutting from the earth like moss-covered razors. My stomach beckoned me to stop, but nothing much was open or even available until I happened upon microscopic Aaronsburg and the little all you can eat buffet on the east side of town. Aaronsburg, it turns out, had been a Jewish settlement of sorts back in the day, but today they serve sausage patties, bacon and scrapple amongst other delicacies on the buffet, which just happened to be still open when I pulled in at 3 minutes to 11.

After stuffing myself with eggs, biscuits and gravy, and french toast, I hit the road again towards Selinsgrove. Horse-and-buggy traffic became more common, although not frequent. One small town seemed to have an overwhelming majority of Amish or Mennonite. One front yard sign read boldly, “Bush’s Lies Kill People,” the front yard manicured to perfection and the perfectly situated rocking chairs on the front porch implied a similarly tidy interior. Down the road in Hartleton, a sign proclaimed “old fashioned soda fountain,” and despite being full from brunch I couldn’t resist it. Upon entry to this general store, I was greeted with an array of homemade pasta, flour, spices, jellies and other Pennsylvania Dutch treats. The best part was they were dirt cheap. I bought a bag of cinnamon sticks for less than a dollar, a bag of natural cocoa powder for $1.50, pasta, some basmati rice for $1.93 and several large containers of spice for under a dollar each. It wasn’t until the checkout that I realized I had come in for a soda. “Oh, we don’t have that anymore, but the counter is still there.” Oh well, I was pleased with my purchases and ready for the final destination.

I arrived in downtown Selinsgrove with a rush of poignant reminiscence and undridled excitement. Would they be open? Would they have my favorite beer? Would I run into Meredith or her mother? Well, I lucked out in all cases, but had the third concern been a reality I would have said hello. I sampled several of their darker beers: stouts and porters, as well as a hefeweissen and a maibock. Finally, my favorite Scottish Ale was as quaffable as promised and I filled up my growler, took their last t-shirt from the display and along with four pint glasses emblazoned with their cool logo, I set sail for Rockville.

Route 11/15 is a straight shot from Selinsgrove to the western suburbs of Harrisburg. Along this route, I passed many familiar sights: a convenience store I once bought gas, the antique store in Liverpool where Meredith and I made several purchases, a place we once bought pumpkins from a farmer who was selling them from his pickup tailgate, the turnoff to her parents’ farm, Angie’s Restaurant where she used to work, and all the other buildings and houses we passed on our many trips up to the farm. It was therapeutic in a way, and I was actually able to look back on those memories as very pleasant. At least when we were traveling we were usually in good spirits. I continued along 11/15 past where we often had turned off to the east. I filled up at a gas station near Perdix where we would stop and get coffee at the cappucchino machines. I’d sworn to not get that type of coffee again because it is always so thick and sickeningly sweet that I felt my waist growing thicker with each sip. This time they had cherries jubilee flavor and my resistance was as low as my eyelids had become, so I succumbed to its inviting taste (I snuck a sample before filling my coffee thermos).

The rest of the drive went fairly quickly, as was not usually the case driving back. It didn’t dawn on me until I was in the midst of the traffic congestion of Gettysburg that the weekend before the 4th of July in a town that is quintessentially linked to our independence, would have been a place best avoided, but it didn’t take too long to get through the town and eventually on Route 15 to Frederick. It didn’t rain at all, and despite a significant number of hours on the road, I managed to see quite a bit and do a lot in just a 24-hour period. I made it home by 5, with plenty of time to have a nice evening and prepare for my next adventure on Sunday: New York City.

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Portuguese Surprise!

June 23rd, 2006

A stroke of luck for me resulted in a last minute trip to Lisbon, Portugal around Memorial Day 2006. I had to pack a suitcase in anticipation that I may or may not go, but because of scheduling issues with my co-worker, I was chosen to go in her place. For two days of work at the conference, I ended up getting a week of free time in Lisbon and environs. Aside from thoroughly investigating that city, I also saw Belem (technically a part of Lisbon), Sintra and Fatima.

About two days prior to the Memorial Day weekend in which I was planning to go to Brooklyn, my boss approached me asking if I would be available to travel to Lisbon for the European Conference in case the program manager wasn’t able to go. I was poised to leave work at 3 to head up to New York, so I had to pack a backpack for New York and a suitcase for Portgual just in case. At about 10 am Friday morning my boss called me into his office and informed me that he’d made the decision to send me to Lisbon. I then had to rush through getting my ticket, meeting with my colleague and boss and making other last-minute preparations in order to be prepared for the conference. Given the tight schedule, I knew there was no way I could leave at 3, especially considering I had a 2:30 meeting! I finally left around 5, taking my time getting north with rush hour in full force.

Fast forward to Monday, May 29th. After downing some beers at a Park Slope bar, my friend Mark and I headed to the Newark airport, stopping off in Staten Island at a pizza place Mark had discovered years ago. After finally finding the correct road to the airport, Mark dropped me off and I was headed for the international departures hall. For the most part, I had no problems getting through customs and all that, and the flight was fairly decent. I actually managed to fall asleep for a large part of it. By the time we approached Lisbon, it was probably 5:45 am local time. I looked out the window of the plane to see the Portugal coast and the terra cotta tiled roofs of Lisbon houses.

In an ever-so-slight disoriented state of mind, I wandered through the arrivals hall at the Lisbon airport. I queued up at the information booth to find out just how on earth I can get money, find a way to the hotel and locate a bathroom. Alas, my questions were answered although I later realized that the money exchange counter was a ripoff and the ATM machine would have been my best bet. It was quite disheartening to hand over $140 US and get only 97 euros back. For some reason I had mentally calculated the euro to be less than a dollar but obviously it was more, which I had heard but thought it might have changed. In any case, I was able to track down a city bus that stopped more or less across the street from the hotel. Getting across that street, which was mired in construction that blocked the median for nearly two blocks in either direction, became a coin toss and I decided to go towards the opposite direction of the Marques de Pombal circle. My suitcase wheels proved sturdy as I bumped along the blocky concrete tiles that lined the sidewalk, occasionally requiring me to shift into the road or lift the suitcase over a missing block of tile.

Despite the early morning hour (by then I believe it was 8 am local time), I was able to check into my room and take a much needed shower. It took me awhile to realize that the lights operated by inserting the room keycard into a slot by the door. The card had to remain in the slot in order for me to turn lights on and off, which was supposed to be energy-efficient I guessed. I flipped on the television and gathered my battered Lonely Planet Portugal book that I’d picked up at the Towson Library for 50 cents a couple years before. The lineup was a mixture of local and international stations, including BBC and MTV. I settled for a Portuguese channel that was showing a movie. The language sounded like an odd version of Arabic with a French accent. I was able to read several signs and words due to their proximity in spelling to Spanish, but understanding the pronunciation was a different story.

Once I got my bearings from the map, I decided to begin my overseas adventure with a quest for breakfast, or some sort of sustenance. Shortly through my journey down the cobbled sidewalks of Avenida da Liberdade, I realized wearing thongs just won’t do, so I returned to the hotel and changed into shoes and ventured back into the city with refreshed feet. In my food quest, I was also searching for post-conference lodging that would not break my budget. I was lucky to be able to stay at a nice hotel from Tuesday through Saturday nights, but on Sunday I was on my own. I stumbled across a quiet cafe on a parallel side street to the Avenida. The friendly bartender/waiter spoke some English and we agreed that I would have the sausage for my meal. Here I was in Lisbon, Portugal, hungry and open to adventure in trying the local cuisine. I’m not usually fond of sausage, but given the available translations it seemed the safest bet. To bide the time, I had my first taste of Sagres beer in its standard 0,20 liter glass. The time was irrelevant to me, and since I didn’t have a watch and didn’t bother to operate my cell phone, by then I lost all track of time. It felt like 1 to me, but I’m sure it was only 10 or 10:30. Finally my plate arrived: two fried sausages topped with a fried egg and surrounded by a bed of french fries. Get ready for grease! It turned out that the sausage was the best feature: a delicious treat with the consistency of mashed potatoes inside but with a lightly crunchy “shell.” I stopped myself from questioning how that was possible and just enjoyed the taste.

After a satisfying meal, my journey continued south along the Avenida towards the city center. I passed beautiful European architecture, blooming flowers in the large median and some of the most perfect summer weather I could have ever hoped for. The buildings were stately and of relatively normal height (approximately eight storeys). I eventually approached a curve in the road that revealed a large, beautiful square that I learned was dubbed Rossio. Flanked by outdoor cafes and even more stately, ornate buildings including the National Theatre, Rossio featured a central monument of Dom Pedro IV and two fountains on either end. The tiles revealed a wavy zebra-stripe pattern. People crisscrossed the square on their way to work, lunch or shopping.

I continued along whatever street the Avenida turned into by then and stopped at the Praca do Comercio, which was the end of the street before the large estuary of the Rio Tejo (Tagus River). Commerce Square is a large, rather empty square surrounded by arcaded government office buildings, a few cafes and a gateway arch to Rua Augusta, a major pedestrian shopping mall. This is also the location of many of the city’s bus, tram, trolley and tourist bus stops. This was once the premier entrance to the city from a mariner’s point of view.

At the moment I centered a stunning view of the plaza in the window of my digital camera, the memory card proclaimed it was full. “Not to panic, I am in the capital of a European country where they are sure to have memory cards,” I thought to myself. For a few moments I was beginning to wonder, but I looped back around to Rua Augusta after a detour through several interesting side streets and stopped in a few shops. One friendly shopkeeper informed me that he did not have memory cards, but walked with me outside his shop and pointed up the street where I coud find one. Sure enough, I was in luck! The women in the photo supply store not only sold me a very reasonably priced memory card (with a 550+ photo capacity!), but also made sure it loaded in my camera and worked. And thankfully they accepted my American plastic.

The shutterbug blood rushing in my veins, I returned to Praca do Comercio to shoot the picutre I hadn’t gotten, and continued back towards Rossio. There I detoured left and around a hairpin turn that lead to a road going uphill. On either side were several upscale-looking shops with decorative facades, in an area called Chiado. Somehow I meandered through twists and turns to the district known as Bairro Alto which was an extensive web of streets and alleyways where much of Lisbon’s nightlife occurred. By day, it was a peaceful stroll up steep cobbled streets that were barely wide enough for the compact cars that bumbled along at unimaginable speeds. Several buildings were lined with the traditional azulejos, or decorative ceramic tiles, in several patterns or designs. Most of them were blue, as the name suggests, but they also came in other colors and varieties. Another feature of Lisbon was the prevalence of jacaranda trees–beautiful lavendar-colored flowers in place of where most trees have green leaves. I came upon a courtyard in front of the ruins of a convent and church. To the side of this was a walkway to the top of the Elevador de Santa Justa. From here, magnificent views of Rossio Plaza, Castelo Sao Jorge and the rooftops of Lisbon were visible. The elevator itself was ornate, with intricate designs around the edges and a set of spiral staircases, one of which led to the top platform where to my surprise I discovered a rooftop cafe. With breathtaking views and a smiling bartender waiting for me to place an order for cerveja, I had no choice but to sit down with a cold beer and enjoy the scenery while I wrote postcards to home. I had to remind myself that I was actually here on business!

Luckily the bus pass I had purchased from the airport was valid on a number of public transportation features in the city (anything owned by Carris, the company), and I rode the elevator down to Baixa for free. The interior of the elevator was something to behold: carved wood, ornate mirrors and very spacious.

So much for my blog on Portugal. It’s been a long time since I’ve updated this, and never finished. The conference went well and I had a couple interesting experiences like an 8-course Portuguese dinner at a gay restaurant in the old part of town and the 10-km walk several of us ventured to have dinner at the docks under the bridge.

I also experienced what late-night Lisbon was all about when I stayed up as late as I could on Friday and wandered through the crowded streets of Bairro Alto. At 3 am it was as packed as sardines, with people ranging in age from 16 to 65 drinking their beer or cocktails in the labyrinthine pathways that formed the spiderweb this part of Lisbon was.

Belem is technically part of Lisbon, but is still about 6 kilometers from the downtown train station. It is an historical section containing a huge museum complex and an Imperial Palace as well as Geronimo’s Monastery (with Vasco da Gama’s tomb). For me the cool thing was being at the place where Vasco da Gama set sail for the New World, and not only him but many other explorers I’d never heard of. It was inspirational as I consider myself to be a modern-day explorer anyway. It was a very hot day but worth it to experience being there. The monument to him wasn’t very pretty but the museum was interesting and I enjoyed the vista from the top. I also visited Cascais that day, a little beach town about 30 minutes by train west of Belem.

Cascais, upon arrival, was touristy for sure, but it was nice to sit and relax under a beach-view terrace umbrella watching the world go by. The cobbled pedestrian streets were smooth as agate and omnipotent in Portugal. I walked through town to the ruins of a fort and a strip mall by the docks. The weather was hot and the air salty but for some reason I remember feeling comfortable walking through the town. There were plenty of shops but I didn’t see an expanse of beach worth venturing to, and I didn’t have a swimming suit anyway, so I went back to Lisbon. Besides, my plan was to head to Costa di Caparica for my sunbathing.

When you travel you always forget something. For me, it was a towel for the beach. Luckily though I found a nice beach towel at the Caparica market for only 10 euro. It was the sunscreen that set me back about 15 euro. I waited for the supposed beach train to take me to the end of the line, and sure enough it came along. It was the type of train you would expect to find at a zoo or park to transport little kids around through some sort of fairytale backdrop. But in this case most of the passengers were shirtless or bikini-clad folks with beers and beach towels. I wasn’t quite sure where the nude beach was but I took the train to the designated stop and walked a few yards in the opposite direction to finally find a few scattered pieces of flesh. I was disappointed, to be honest. I expected a find something a bit more vibrant and exclusive, but amidst mostly clothed straight couples were the 3-5 nude gay men, finally including myself. The water was cool but comfortable. The sun was gently warm and after a dip in the ocean, I felt comfortable on my new beach towel with appropriate layers of the expensive sunscreen on. After awhile I was worried I would get stranded, so I made my way back to the train stop and eventually to a bus stop. It took quite awhile actually, after realizing I was at the wrong stop. Finally, I found a deserted stop at the edge of town and waited for about 40 minutes for what I gathered was the last bus back into Lisbon. I think the taxi would have cost me much more than the measley 20 euros I had on hand. It was a nice day and I was going to go home with a nice Portuguese tan.

Sintra was by far the highlight of the trip. It is a hilly town with several sections, a “lower” town, “upper” town (downtown) and some further uphill sections. I walked to the top of the Castelo dos Mouros (Moorish Castle) and had the best views in all of Portugal. I could even see to the Atlantic Ocean, which is some 35 km away. The climb up was enough to test my physical strength but it was well worth the efforts. The climate was much cooler than the rest of the places I’d been to and it was a much-needed break to the humid summer air. Sintra also had a quaint downtown, in which I toured the National Palace, had a filling lunch at an interesting restaurant with a storage hole in the center of the floor. They said it had been used to store perishable goods, and they left it intact with a railing around it. The Palacio dos Regaleiros was equally enchanting. I think that may have been my second favorite moment of the trip.

I saved the most spiritual for last: Fatima. The town is quite tacky but the basilica is impressive and what struck me was the walkway through the olive garden where Lucia saw the first apparition. It was just me and God until a group of Spanish tourists arrived, but still the tranquility and peace was almost tangible. I really enjoyed the trip even though it wasn’t a typical destination for a short trip. In retrospect I wish I had taken a couple extra days off, but I was still quite lucky to go.

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Just a little behind schedule…

May 23rd, 2006

So much for getting back to this blog thing. Hey, I have had places to be and work to do. A brief catching up since last post: I have visited San Diego, Alpine, Los Angeles, Hollywood, Malibu, Santa Monica, Montebello and Laguna Beach (California) and Boulder and Denver (Colorado). Beer was consumed. Food was eaten. Little sleep was had. All was good. More in depth reporting will follow when I’m stuck inside on a rainy weekend day. I’m at work now, obviously not being very productive and just dreaming of my next trip…which happens to be Brooklyn this weekend.

Have a good Memorial Day weekend. Until we meet again… 

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First Entry

March 22nd, 2006

Well, the modern age has finally caught up with me and I’m creating my first blog. Unfortunately I’m sitting at home in sweatpants in Rockville, Maryland nursing my sick head back to wellness after a late winter cold nabbed me this weekend. I swear it wasn’t the countless pints I downed on St. Paddy’s Day. Anyhow, my forays into travel have been embarrassingly few and far between of late but hopefully next year things will change. In the meantime I can enjoy little trips here and there and share my quirky experiences with whoever might read this. I’m guessing that’s going to be me.

Next week I am going to San Diego for work, but after my corporate duties I shall be free as a bird to spend April Fool’s Day in the environs of San Diego. Having been there two times before, I don’t feel the need to explore the city, but as luck would have it my favorite band Alkaline Trio will be playing downtown that Saturday. Then when I roll myself out of my dorm bed at the Ocean Beach Hostel, I will manouver my rental car up the coast of California to visit my cousin in L.A. for a few days before flying back to DC for the rat race all over again. But I hope to have some fun adventures visiting area breweries, random coffee shops, strange neighborhoods and lost highways in my few days there. I’ll post it all when I return.

Happiest of Trails…or Trials, if that’s your lot.

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