There was no rain in Spain on my recent trip, just dry, cool days with intermittent sunshine and lots of personal warmth. I hung out in Madrid a few weekends ago with a good buddy of mine from Bogotá, Roberto, who was in the Spanish capital studying and performing in a stage play. My only […]
Madrid Madness -or- I Had Coke Read More
The first thing you notice about Switzerland’s largest city – Zurich – is that, by comparison, every other city in the world looks worn-down and raggedy. The whole place smacks of affluence, from the clean comfort of the airport to the understated high-end street fashion (even old people rocked dark denim and leather jackets by
In October, the air in Warsaw is cold. Broad concrete sidewalks and large, drab Soviet-era constructions refract that chill, always present in spite of waning autumn sunshine. But there is color that warms the streets in bursts: the golden, meaty glow of 24-hour Turkish doner kebab stands; the fluorescent charge of rooftop corporate logos that
Three years ago, shortly after dusk on a crisp July evening, I left the gym and walked with a friend down a cavernous back-street in Copacabana, the gritty, dense, intense, world-famous beachfront neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro. At that time, my Portuguese skills were nonexistent, and I conversed with my friend in an uneasy Portuñol
Reconciling with Rio Read More
Macau. Most people haven’t even heard of the place: a former Portuguese colony on the southern coast of China established as the first permanent European toehold in the Far East back in 1557 and the final foreign stop on my amended round-the-world trip (Seoul doesn’t count, as I was only transiting for eight hours; though
Photo Essay: The Magic of Macau Read More
Oh, Hong Kong! How the currents of history and culture have conspired to make you the entoxicating urban assemblage that you are. Poised at the foot of Victoria Peak and gracing both shores of a similarly-named harbor, Hong Kong has lost none of her shine after having changed hands from the British colonial power that
Hot and Kold, Hong Kong Read More
Dry and monstrously big, India’s capital city houses over twelve million people who, despite sprawling over 570 square miles at the apex of the Indo-Gangetic plain, still seem stacked on top of one another. The New Delhi train depot served as my introduction to the city and my most uncomfortable experience in India: thousands of
Steamy and sensual, a masala of disparate peoples, faiths, and tongues facing the Arabian Sea, Mumbai (still called Bombay by many of its residents) sprawls in languid grandeur like a vine-covered statue of Lakshmi in repose. At once chaotic and laid-back, the city dons the role of its most famous monument as the Gateway of
Mumbai’s da Bom, bay-bay! Read More
Cairo, in a word: golden. In many words: dusty, chaotic, crowded, teeming, wondrous, exhilarating, wild, urbane, sophisticated, whimsical, modern, historic, pious, hedonistic, tumultuous, sprawling, polluted, noisy, friendly, witty, serious, civilized, golden. The seat of one of earth’s oldest civilizations has survived into the modern era as the largest city in Africa and the Arab World.
With a romantically crumbling 19th-century air, the famous Egyptian port city of Alexandria (dubbed Alex by locals and Cairenes) basks in the Mediterranean sun along a narrow strip of land between the sea and the marshy Nile Delta. The wondrous lighthouse may no longer exist, but the renowned library of old lives on in the
The Truth About Alex Read More
