Recently in Travel Category

It seems that every day, the news from Burma becomes more and more devastating. Today's New York Times reports that one of the boats carrying some of the first aid to survivors, hit a submerged tree in the river, and sank. The government continues to deny visas and entry to foreign workers and to confiscate the aid that does make it into the country.

I traveled in Burma last November, visiting a friend who was working with the medical non-profit Merlin. (Check out their Web site to learn more about the country, the disaster, and what people are doing to try to help.) I've posted a few pictures here from town on the banks of the Irrawaddy. Twante is largely known as home to a thriving pottery industry. More impressively, however as any local will proudly tell you, the bodhi tree inside Shwesandaw Paya blooms every year--a feat not even duplicated in the capital city's spectacular Schwedagon Paya. It is that spirit--of survival and of strength--that I try to keep in mind when reading the morning news.

To read about the country in the words of Aun San Suu Kyi, the democratically elected leader who has been held under house arrest, check out Letters from Burma.

There were tons of signs just like this all over the 14th Street station on Friday. All posted in exactly the same way. It's like they thought it would be a nice surprise when they finally faced them outwards: "Surpise! You're screwed!"

So I started my morning unpleasantly by mopping up the flood in our kitchen and "dining room" portion of the living room. Thankfully our apartment floor is uneven enough that these sort of things pool and don't spread everywhere. I then walked to Carroll Street where I was greeted by many, many unsmiling faces. After about 20 minutes of the humidity jungle, I left to walk to Jay Street and began to wish that I had chosen a skirt as the bottom portion of my outfit and not jeans. Luckily, at Jay Street things improved as an A running as a C arrived and I spent the next 40 minutes drying off in the relatively air conditioned car. Door to door from Carroll Gardens to west Chelsea: 1.5 hours.

How about the rest of you Brooklynites?

So our default beach when our friends lend us their car is Robert Moses State Park on Fire Island. The parking is plentiful and only $8; the sand is white; the waves are big; and if you don't mind walking away from the main pavilions, you can have a small chunk of sand to yourself. Does anybody else have a favorite beach? It's hard to stray from the beach you love for fear it won't live up to the ideal. I'd love to hear about other people's beach escapes.

I'm saving a big Barcelona post for this weekend when I have time to sit down and sift through everything we did while we were there, but here's a fun bit of graffiti we saw while in Grananda.

I would go back to San Sebastian in a heartbeat, if, that is, it weren't raining. Unfortunately for us, the rain followed us from Madrid all the way to the coast of San Sebastian. I was fine with this until my socks got wet. Something about wet socks that is very hard to get over. Still, the city is quite beguiling. Amazing tapas restaurants on every block, fun shopping, a beautiful beach and friendly people fond of drinking (but isn't that all of Spain?). A few of my favorite photos, the first from Bar/Restaurant Senra, a must for any foodie, especially for the hot tapas. The second, a shot of the water from atop the mountain behind the town. The third a shot of a glass ceiling in a local cafe.

So, we've uploaded most of the photos to Flickr. I'll be introducing a city a day--and today's Madrid--but you can peek ahead :)

We spent the first two nights in Madrid, where we stayed at Hotel Victoria 4. Our room was a very nice, top-floor room, which like many top floors hotel rooms was quite roomy but had slanted attic-like ceilings and the "marriage" bed was two twins pushed together. But for all that it was clean, quiet and had a huge bathroom with lots of hot water. It was just a couple of blocks off Plaza del La Puerta Del Sol. Because of the rain, our stay was museum heavy--the Prado for classic Spanish art and Reina Sofia (first photo below) for modern art. We did manage to snag an end-of-the-day tour of the church of San Francisco el Grande, snuck an outside peek at Palacio Royal (second photo below), plus did a ton of walking around old Madrid and Bourbon Madrid. We also caught El Retiro Park during a dry part of the day and did a tapas tour of Calle Cava Baja, stopping at Casa Lucas, Txakoli and a few more nearby.

We spent our last night of the whole trip in Madrid, as well, when we stayed at Roommate Laura, which was fabulous and only missing a hotel bar. That was actually one of  the hidden learnings of the trip. So often I wanted a hotel bar and none of the hotels we stayed at had one.

So many cool photos to share, but we'll start with this one, a photo of what was once the second-largest mosque in the world, according to Wikipedia. Not quite as amazing as the Alhambra, but still pretty cool. BTW, Cordoba is one of those one-horse towns. Once you've seen the mezquita, shopped for souvenirs and wandered along the at-times swampy river, it's time to move on.

No more travel. Back in Brooklyn. Will update soon with pictures.

Don't fret, D. and I are not leaving Brooklyn permanently, just for the next  couple of weeks. On the list: Madrid, San Sebastian, Barcelona, Granada, Cordova. Sorry we've been a little light on the posting for the past couple of weeks. Travel, work, combined with trip planning, has crushed our blogging spirits a bit, but we'll be back in the game when we return. It's possible that in our absence La Penguina and Beats Me will post something--stranger things have happened! We'll miss everyone (including Sebastian and Winston).  And maybe we'll even hit up an internet cafe for a little cross-Atlantic action.