The food of New York City

Posted on by September 10, 2011

     I was surprised to discover that New York isn’t expensive—for food. Even in Manhattan it isn’t hard to find big pizza slices for a dollar, or dollar cups of coffee. Of course, you can easily pay through the roof, but you do have options.

     The photo for this Puerto Rican-style pastel above doesn’t do it justice. The closest thing to it is a tamale, but it’s not corn-based, rather, banana-based (more info here). I had a similar thing in southern Ecuador’s main banana growing region near Machala, but it was called “bollo” which is so similar to “pollo” (chicken) that I got tired of asking people where to find it since they always thought I was looking for chicken.



     Belgian french fries in New York! This is in the East Village/Lower East Side. I think in Belgium and Holland they would offer 4 or 5 sauces maximum, but in New York, that doesn’t cut it. How about Vietnamese pineapple mayo? Pomegranate teriyaki mayonaisse? Irish curry? Hello? Anyone?
     The fries were a little overcooked, which has to be an American thing as people would probably freak out otherwise. We sat in the back of the small shop and saw into the storage area where there were large cans of liquid shortening, whatever that is. All I know is that my arteries are pumping sludge. I wonder if I can do CPR on myself…

     A big slice of pizza for a dollar---and isn't bad pizza. There are lots of places like this all over town.


     Rocco's cannoli on Bleecker St in Greenwich Village. $3.75.

Watch me throw away $400

Posted on by September 4, 2011

     While waiting for my flight I heard the magic words in an announcement: “We are looking for volunteers to take a later flight as this flight has been oversold” or however they put it, as they no longer say the word “bumped”. The agent at the gate hadn’t even finished her statement when I made a beeline to her. I asked when the next flight to New York was. Eight hours later—and a red-eye at that. I asked what the compensation was. $400 in vouchers. I had just read an article about airlines trying to give you less for being bumped than what the new laws ensure, and I said no instead of negotiating. A woman behind me snapped it.
     The lesson? Even pros like me make rookie mistakes.

     I don't know what's funnier, the original sign or the 'correction'. No, it's the original sign, definitely.

     Did you know that if Brooklyn was a city by itself, it would be the fourth largest in the country? Me neither. It's a big mix of ethnicities. This supermarket in Bedford-Stuyvesant is representative of being all things to all people.


     If you so much as cough, I am doing 30 chest compressions on you and cracking your ribs.

Watch me throw away $170

Posted on by August 22, 2011

     On the Money, Credit Cards and Insurance page of my website (did you know I have a website? It’s pretty informative. Have a look!) a company wants to pay me $120 just to insert some of their text in the middle of my text.
     The second paragraph begins:

     “Approximating travel costs and formulating a budget isn’t hard to figure out. Hostel and transport websites show how much sleeping and buses/trains cost, or check a guidebook and factor in that prices have risen a bit. Don’t forget you’ll be spending on tours, boat trips, scuba dives or big tattoos of TheDromomaniac.com across your chest. The variable that might be hardest to pin down is drinking. If you’re a party animal, the money can fly no matter where you are, and then late nights beget taxis and so on.”

     and then the company proposes to add this text:

     “All those little expenses add up! You could be putting that money towards something more important, from airplane tickets to health or life insurance (INSURANCE COMPANY LINK INSERTED HERE). It is always intelligent to have some savings set aside too! Spend wisely.”

     Nobody needs $120 more than I do, trust me, and it’s just a few short sentences, so what’s the problem?
     One is an integrity issue. (Did you know I have integrity? Send me $50 and I will tell you all about it!) Mainly, my website suddenly isn’t my own words, and once that happens, it’s a slippery slope where people can’t trust that I believe what I say. Plus, I go on to say in the last section that I am anti-insurance.
     On the other hand, I wouldn’t object to a travel insurance ad in the right column as plenty of people think I am crazy for not having it and this is how lots of bloggers make decent money.
     Why wouldn’t a company prefer to have a flashy ad on the side instead of a link buried in some text? Because it sounds better if I am shilling it and I think Google looks at it more favorably for them in search results (and unfavorably for me.)
     Another company this week wrote to offer me 30 British pounds (US$50) for a similar arrangement. I’ve received a few of these emails. They don’t feel right. Maybe I am being hypocritical and need to be more flexible. $120 would buy a lot of watermelon juices. What do you think?

     I'm almost too big for this old t-shirt, but it kills me to part with it. You'll never eat alone, ya Scouser!

In California, waiting for my Somaliland money

Posted on by August 5, 2011

     One of these decades I am going to do a redesign of my unwieldy website and I will have a link on the main page for the Top 5 blog posts as voted on by The Academy. If you are relatively new to my website and want to get a feel for it, here they are:
     A Battle to the Death with the Syrian Bathroom Scale Men
     An Arabian Prison Escape with the Ethiopian Maids
     I Met Banksy
     On the Road Again without Anne Hathaway
     The Brutal Details—Hitchhiking from Germany to Hungary

     I still haven't received this. I mailed it home to myself almost three months ago. I am nothing without my Somaliland money in bulk.


     Not a lot I can say about this beast.

The State of the Road address—6 months gone

Posted on by July 7, 2011

     I left home six months ago today. And, somewhat ironically, I am announcing that I bought a ticket yesterday to fly to San Francisco tomorrow, so change your lives accordingly.
     (For you cheap-ticket geeks: I am using my United frequent flier miles: 30,000 one-way miles and $209 in fees—don’t get me started right now about fees—won out over $364 to Toronto or $430 to Chicago, mainly because I couldn’t figure a cheap way to get to California from there on short notice. It is summer.)
     What has been the common thread of this trip? Chickpeas. In Syria they mash and deep fry chickpeas to make falafel. In Ethiopia they stew goat meat with them to make a puree called bozena shiro. In India they are a common part of a vegetarian meal, not to mention the sublime channa masala. In Turkey they simply roast them with salt and spices to make a snack called leblebi. And now I am going to California, far and away the chickpea capital of America. I am a rabid, frothing-at-the-mouth, ultra-nationalist when it comes to my garbanzos.
     As an aside, I want to say that one thing that keeps me sane on the road in between copious chickpea consumption is Bill Simmons’ podcasts. I sometimes need a loooong time to download them from slow, shaky internet connections (Yes, Ethiopia, I’m talking to you) but on loooong bus rides, they are a godsend. He and Henry Rollins are the only two people whose blogs I follow. Are there others I should know about? Don’t be shy: tell me what’s out there that’s good.

     Lahmacun and bulgar and my feet with funny tan lines. My friend Cordula is an amazing cook.


Wait, this isn’t sounding presidential. Let me start again:
     Peoples,
     Six months traveling is a milestone, a time of reflection, a time to take stock of where you are in life, what you have done, where you are going, the Big Picture. Six months away is a very long time, and on the road it feels much longer. This is why travel can be so rewarding: it compresses your life and makes it more exciting. Not everyone wants compression and excitement (which has both positive and negative connotations), but if you figure you have a finite amount of time on earth, why not make the most of it?
     I’ve done twenty-five trips in the last twenty-five years like this and aside from a few lazy spells here and there, I’m a go-go-go traveler, more active than most young punks I see lazing away three hours in a cafe—not that there’s anything wrong with that. I am just stating that I like to hit the ground running, walk the streets, prowl the side streets, see what there is to see. I am always tired.

     By any measure this trip was a great success, but how do I measure success? That not once in my perpetually tired state did I mistake my toothpaste for bacterial ointment. And that I was crushingly sick only once, in Ethiopia.
     It’s a small miracle I am not ill more often. I don’t sleep well anywhere so my tiredness accumulates until my body shuts down and I become sick. My lifestyle doesn’t help. Imagine not knowing where you are going to sleep from night to night. Most of this trip I don’t know where I am going to be the next day. Every trip is like that. Imagine living like that for years on end. That’s what I do. Some people thrive that way, but only temporarily. Nobody sees themselves doing it their entire lives.
          (Sounds like a dramatic announcement is coming. I can just feel it!)
     It’s been many years since I met someone who travels as much as I do. I hear about them, and they all sound messed up in the head.
          (It’s coming!)
     This, the 25th anniversary of graduating from college and hitting the road—damn, I’m being called to dinner. It would be rude of me to be late. I really need to get some rest to endure this flight tomorrow, too. Ciao for now!
          (I knew it! I hate blogs!)

     This photo of this painting of Amelie in Amman, Jordan has nothing to do with anything.

It’s all happening when I hitchhike

Posted on by July 6, 2011

     Am I crazy---wait, let me finish---or are flea markets the best thing ever? I L-O-V-E flea markets


     You see everything in life when you stick your thumb out on the road, including things you don’t want to be a part of. The other day a Sri Lankan family picked me up. I noticed two kids in the back seat when I got in, but somehow didn’t notice the wife in between them, crying. I had obviously been given a ride in the middle of a family fight. It’s a smart move by the husband, really, but it was very uncomfortable, and made worse by us getting stuck in traffic. The husband made bad decisions to try and get around it, increasing the stifling tension in the car, and I decided I had to get out and walk the rest of the way. Fresh air never felt fresher.
     Yesterday I hitchhiked from the middle of Switzerland to north of Frankfurt, Germany. It was easy other than getting stuck outside of Basel, though the same guy who drove me into Basel the week before stopped to say hello. (How is that for a coincidence?) We had a quick chat and he told me that a German prisoner who looked like me had escaped from jail and was on the loose in the area last week. Great. No wonder it took so long to get a ride.
     Women, women, and more non-news-reading women stopped for me all day long, about twice as many as men. Even two fresh-faced, young, blonde, Swiss girls stopped to say they couldn’t give me a ride because they had no room, but wished me luck. Normally I passionately despise those people who stop to say they aren’t taking me, but I’ve decided from now on to judge on a case-by-case basis.
     Why would so many women be overcome with desire for me to accompany them? The only possible explanation I have is that the night before I shaved with a new five-blade razor that left me with an ultra-smooth face. I have to modestly say that I was irresistable. I need to pay more attention to my grooming habits.

     Red alert! Red alert! Something is cheap in Switzerland!


     Just over the border into Germany a gregarious Italian named Giorgio took me. Finally, someone was in a hurry. I don’t even hold my thumb out in Germany for trucks; they’re too slow. It’s the autobahn! We need to speed! Giorgio was happy to oblige, but I cringed as he passed on the right (a grave sin in Germany) and in construction zones where the maximum speed is supposed to be 80kmh, he was blowing through narrow lanes at 140km. He smiled and announced, “I am not the safest.” You don’t say.
     The last driver went out of his way to leave me in the little town I needed to go. I was so thankful about arriving that I wasn’t worried that he was screaming down the autobahn at over 160kmh (100mph), swerving into other lanes while trying to use his GPS. Does anyone know how to use their GPS? I can’t remember the last time I saw someone confidently use it, and the true miracle is I have never been in a GPS-related accident.

     One day last week I took my little daypack and hitchhiked on three or four different highways from north of Zurich for over 100km to Basel just to meet someone for lunch. It sounds absurd, but I did it very easily, to my own surprise. This above isn't quite my technique, but I was a little self-conscious showing it to all the truckers in the parking lot. People say hitchhiking is dangerous, but after I got to Basel I took a tram and it crashed into a delivery truck, nearly jolting me off my feet. Besides, I think it is more dangerous to eat in this restaurant below:


     OK, Basel might be uniquely situated on the borders of both Germany and France, but this restaurant is multi-culturalism out of control.


     People get in the Rhine River in Basel and float with their clothes in the quick current as huge barges (see under the bridge?) motor past. It's a pretty genius idea. Is this done anywhere else?

“Who cares in 20 years?”

Posted on by June 30, 2011

     Switzerland is the United Nations of hitchhiking. No two nationalities in a row pick me up, it feels. The drivers went from a Swiss to a American to a Lebanese guy who royally screwed me over by leaving me in a wretched spot outside of Bern, but I have to accept some responsibility for allowing it. My frustration mounted because of the 10-15 cars that did stop for me but weren’t going my way.
     I decided to hitchhike the other direction just to get to a better place to turn around, but the driver decided instead to take me out of his way, in traffic, to the other side of Bern. I kept telling him he didn’t have to do that, but he kept saying, “Who cares in 20 years?”
     Good point.

     The rides came quickly. A Peruvian woman and her very fetching daughter picked me up. The woman told me that they never took hitchhikers, and her daughter was against it. Instantly, any beauty I saw in her daughter had dissolved. Hey, that’s the cold, hard life of the road, baby! Then she got out of the car to sweetly say goodbye and I was molten butter again.
     Then it was an Albanian who, like every single foreigner I know and meet in Switzerland, tells me of a kind of Swiss apartheid. Switzerland is 25% foreigners, but the two don’t mix much and the foreigners are constantly complaining about Swiss ways. I may or may not expand on this later depending on how much people donate. HA! Just kidding—or so you think!
     Then the drama. It’s late in the day. I’m on the edge of Zurich, already running late, I had my huge GLATTFELDEN sign, but both literally and in the imaginations of locals, Glattfelden is the end of the known Swiss world right on the border with Germany. It might have taken some time to get there, but this Lotus pulled over, much to my disbelief:

     If this car stops for you, you go wherever it goes.


     He was driving only to the airport but, again, he went well out of his way to take me straight to my friends’ door. Incredible. He was very self-effacing. I was raving about how cool the car was, but he only allowed, “It’s an old model,” and “It drives.”

     When would I ever have a chance to ride in a car like this? The magic of hitchhiking!

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