SweetMojo

Passed many gaggles of girls dressed (or not) in various states of Jonas hyper-fandom…my...

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 18:11:48 -0400

Passed many gaggles of girls dressed (or not) in various states of Jonas hyper-fandom…my 15yo’s are *so* much cooler than that…

I have now listened to both Jonas Bros albums in their entirety…as if taking a carload of 15yo...

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 17:08:00 -0400

I have now listened to both Jonas Bros albums in their entirety…as if taking a carload of 15yo girls to a Jonas show wasn’t enough…

2 cars leaving, 1 bound for Dave Alvin/Franti/Crooked Still, and 1 bound for Jonas Bros…which...

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:18:42 -0400

2 cars leaving, 1 bound for Dave Alvin/Franti/Crooked Still, and 1 bound for Jonas Bros…which car am I in?

RIP Walter Cronkite. When I was growing up, there was a time...

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:35:00 -0400

RIP Walter Cronkite. When I was growing up, there was a time when my dad and I would take time out from whatever we were doing, and sit together and watch Walter Cronkite deliver the day’s news. Walter Cronkite *was* the news to me when I was growing up.

Amazon takes control of customers’ Kindles and secretly removes Orwell’s 1984…...

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:44:55 -0400

Amazon takes control of customers’ Kindles and secretly removes Orwell’s 1984… Could someone make this up? Wait… http://tr.im/sREi

Billy Bragg. One of my all-time favorite voices.

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:34:00 -0400

Billy Bragg. One of my all-time favorite voices.

Apple Love. OK, it’s now official. I am an Apple fanboy....

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:40:00 -0400

Apple Love.

OK, it’s now official. I am an Apple fanboy. So be it.

Just before we left the States Alison and I made the switch to iPhones. We had been waiting to make the move since the iPhone first came out. We needed it to be stable and fast with decent battery life. The new 3GS gave us that, so we dove in 2 days before we got on the plane. We also split the cost of iPod Touches for the kids with them. As you can see from Z in the photo above, it was love at first sight.

So why am I now such a fanboy? The iPhone is a nearly perfect travel device. During my first 3 weeks with the iPhone I pounded on it, used it continuously for tasks far and wide….

Google Maps w/GPS - it gave me an interactive map and pinpointed where I was at all times. I felt like an old hand getting around Madrid and Alicante.
Subway Maps - Great subway map apps for Paris and Madrid.
Language - Awesome translation and phrasebook applications at my fingertips. No menu or transaction or conversation was out of reach.
Weather - We always had the current weather forecast for where we were and where we were headed.
Tasks - I use Remember The Milk to track tasks. Alison and I share a couple of lists (Travel and Groceries). That way we were able to enter tasks to be done and mark ones completed on a single set of lists from each of our iPhones.
City Guide - Lonely Planet publishes a great guide to Madrid on the iPhone
Post Cards - an app called GoPostal will take any photo you took with your iPhone and create an actual postcard with it, add the text you enter and print, stamp, and send the actual postcard to anyone in your contact list. THIS IS RIDICULOUSLY FULL OF AWESOME.
Camera - worked great when I didn’t want to carry my “real” camera with me, the iPhone worked really well for both photos and a couple of videos.
Text Messaging - This is how we kept in touch with the kids when they went off on their own.
Phone - duh, but we actually didn’t use the phones much.
Journal - I kept my travel journal in Evernote
Travel Notes - When I would hear about a place to go, music to catch or whatever, I used Evernote to keep track of our plans.
Facebook/Twitter/Blog - I was able to update our blog and social sites with our travelogue from the iPhone
Kindle Reader - Before I left I bought the recent David Sedaris and a great travel book from Paul Theroux (Ghost Train) and read them on the trip. It was awesome to have two full books in my pocket at all times.
Red Sox - Strangely enough, I can’t watch Red Sox games in Amherst. But the MLB iPhone app broadcasts the games live to the iPhone. So many nights when we got home at 1am, I was able to watch a few innings in bed before falling asleep. The MLB app also lets you keep up on the box score of every game in the league and standings.
Movies & TV Shows - I had downloaded Season 4 of Weeds and a couple of movies (Gran Torino and Cadillac Records) before we left and was able to watch these on the plane and train. With a Y jack, you can then watch/listen to a movie with your seatmate!
Tunage - I had about 10G of music loaded, and was usually listening when reading and when I cruised around town on my own or on the beach.
Games - We all had downloaded a word game called wurdle and competed throughout the whole trip. I also played a bunch of Flight Control, Galaga, Sudoku, and Risk!
Web - Of course general surfing and research of places to go using mobile Safari.
email - I tried to ignore it as much as possible…but the good thing is that I’m not too underwater when I arrived home! Also email worked great to coordinate with our landlord in Madrid and friends Nina and Francis in Alicante.

Bottom line is that I can’t even imagine traveling without this thing. I have no need to bring a laptop along unless I’m coding or doing graphics work. I’ve had a handheld computer in my pocket since the first US Robotics Pilot, over the years moving through the Palm devices and then Windows’ PocketPCs until most recently Windows Mobile on a Motorola Q. And it wasn’t until now that the promise of the handheld has really been delivered. The iPhone is such a step up from Windows Mobile or Blackberry, I’m bummed it took so long to get the speed and battery life nailed. But I’m all in now.

There is still plenty left to do - AT&T’s network sucks ass in the US, which is why I loved Europe so much - Vodaphone in Spain rocked with awesome coverage everywhere. But even with a weak network (with the help of WiFi), the iPhone is such a huge step up over any device I’ve seen or used.

OK, so when is someone going find all of Dick Cheney’s Horcruxes?

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:53:24 -0400

OK, so when is someone going find all of Dick Cheney’s Horcruxes?

Pro Traveler Tip: Do not, repeat, do not open your fridge after being gone 3 weeks. Get one of the...

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:32:42 -0400

Pro Traveler Tip: Do not, repeat, do not open your fridge after being gone 3 weeks. Get one of the kids to do it as a science experiment…

I’m already missing the variable 2-speed power flush of European Toilets…

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:00:21 -0400

I’m already missing the variable 2-speed power flush of European Toilets…

At our traditional stop at Mt Kisco Diner for dinner…Alison picked up a Cappacino habit in...

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:30:00 -0400

At our traditional stop at Mt Kisco Diner for dinner…Alison picked up a Cappacino habit in Spain…

Our Last Day in Madrid 3 weeks just flew by. It seems that we...

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:11:00 -0400

Our Last Day in Madrid

3 weeks just flew by. It seems that we just landed at Barajas. I could stay in Madrid for another month and still not exhaust all I want to do. It really has started to feel like home as we meet folks and learn our way around….But tomorrow we hop on Air France back to JFK and onto Amherst. Here are some images of our last day:

Alison hitting the Potato Chip shop. Yes, fresh potato chips on demand, they are unbelievably delicious.
Zeke before as we drag him to his last museum (the Thyssen)
Zeke being consoled after his last museum experience (on this trip anyway). The Thyssen was great - a ridiculous wide range from 15th century Dutch to Roy Lichtenstein (girl in the tub). My fav museum in Madrid was the Reina Sofia, though.
Our last Tapas at our favorite Madrid restaurant, La Trucha. Chopitos (baby squid), Aubergine (eggplant), Manchego (cheese), green beans…
The Jamon Iberica (pig’s legs basically) hanging and curing at the market.
Plums at the market. The fruit and nuts in Spain have been amazing. It is possibly what I’ll miss the most.
Zeke cruising down Calle Barcelona, our favorite strip of tapas bars.
The chef serving up Croquettas and Salmon tapas
Our last dish in Spain: an amazing roasted Pimiento….really the best red pepper ever, it just melted in your mouth.
My final Tinto de Verano…

It was wonderful to get back to Madrid this week from Alicante. There is *no* humidity here, the weather was just beautiful…We will be back.

Back home in Madrid…

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:07:39 -0400

Back home in Madrid…

Castillo Santa Barbara. Built by the Moops in the 9th century,...

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:00:00 -0400

Castillo Santa Barbara.

Built by the Moops in the 9th century, the castle overlooks our beach. Most of the locals hit the beach around 10am and scoot at 1pm for lunch and siesta to avoid the heat, then head back around 5pm and chill until 8ish. Then they take a walk down the Paseo, while the old folks sit around in their chairs and bullshit each other. It’s our last day in Alicante, then we train back to Madrid for a few days and then back across the Atlantic.

◊ The Walk Home From Dinner ◊ Dinner is a serious activity in...

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 12:32:00 -0400

◊ The Walk Home From Dinner ◊

Dinner is a serious activity in Spain. Folks start heading out around 10pm or later and spend a good amount of time at the table, talking, laughing, bullshitting…Alison took these photos around midnite on the short walk back the other night from the restaurant Labradores (Laborers) where we had eaten. Most of the restaurants in Alicante have taken over the backstreets - most of these 600 year-old alleys are lined with tables and umbrellas serving up yummy tapas and tinto rojo. As we’ve found every night at midnite, the backstreets were alive.

One of the last shots is of Leyton’s Cerverceria, which we’ve adopted as a breakfast stop (meatballs, garlic potato salad, mmmm). It’s a tiny joint down the street from where we’re staying, no tables, just about 8 bar stools under a chrome tapas bar. But he’s got a full bar, cold beer tap (Mahou), when we show up at around 10am he’s got at least 10 different tapas out, and a full menu of about 100 items. One guy (Leyton). He’s open from early morning till about 3pm, then closes for siesta and reopens around 8pm. You can see in the photo that he puts a few stools outside in front at night for the overflow crowd…

The old men here are up and out at the cafés at 10am smoking cigars and drinking beers...

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 11:00:04 -0400

The old men here are up and out at the cafés at 10am smoking cigars and drinking beers (Mahou)…this bodes well as a retirement spot.

El Mercado Centrale There are no supermarkets in Alicante that...

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:23:00 -0400

El Mercado Centrale

There are no supermarkets in Alicante that I’ve come across. There is just El Mercado Centrale, a 100+ year-old building that houses hundreds of food stands. I counted 61 meat butchers. 48 Fish Stands. 42 Vegetable & Produce Stands. And some spice stands and a kitchen implement stand. Each was about 4 feet-wide and stuffed with yummy things to cook and old Alicanteros cutting, swearing, and selling.

This isn’t that big of a town. I mean really, 61 butchers? But they all seemed to be doing a brisk market day (Saturday) biz. It was local, mom & pop business at it’s best. It made shopping, *so* much more interesting, beats Whole Foods any day and twice on Sunday. I had a ball (and am eating a very yummy peach as I write this).

Alicante. Our old beach town is a great mixture of old Spanish...

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 06:06:48 -0400

Alicante.

Our old beach town is a great mixture of old Spanish town (also conquered/occupied by the Moops) and beach town. These are some photos of the beach that we’ve been handing on and the cafe where I’ve been reading my dear old Herald-Tribune and drinking afternoon tea. Even in this digital day and age, I realized now that I’m back in Europe how much I missed the Herald-Trib. It’s a great paper - with world-centric editorial view that is rare for an American paper. Every time I’ve lived and worked in Europe, I’ve said that once I’m back in the states, I’ll subscribe to the H-T, but never have. It’s a joy to read it again.

The last photo is chess tournament happening on the beach where a single Russian was playing 10 challengers at once!

Last night a gorgeous scooter passed, of course with stylish Spaniards on it, and it was a Ducati...

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:15:20 -0400

Last night a gorgeous scooter passed, of course with stylish Spaniards on it, and it was a *Ducati* scooter! Now that’s my kind of scooter!

Alison just forgot our zip code back home….an excellent sign of being on vacation!

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:13:11 -0400

Alison just forgot our zip code back home….an excellent sign of being on vacation!

SweetMojo

Passed many gaggles of girls dressed (or not) in various states of Jonas hyper-fandom…my...

I have now listened to both Jonas Bros albums in their entirety…as if taking a carload of 15yo...

2 cars leaving, 1 bound for Dave Alvin/Franti/Crooked Still, and 1 bound for Jonas Bros…which...

RIP Walter Cronkite. When I was growing up, there was a time...

Amazon takes control of customers’ Kindles and secretly removes Orwell’s 1984…...

Billy Bragg. One of my all-time favorite voices.

Apple Love. OK, it’s now official. I am an Apple fanboy....

OK, so when is someone going find all of Dick Cheney’s Horcruxes?

Pro Traveler Tip: Do not, repeat, do not open your fridge after being gone 3 weeks. Get one of the...

I’m already missing the variable 2-speed power flush of European Toilets…

At our traditional stop at Mt Kisco Diner for dinner…Alison picked up a Cappacino habit in...

Our Last Day in Madrid 3 weeks just flew by. It seems that we...

Back home in Madrid…

Castillo Santa Barbara. Built by the Moops in the 9th century,...

◊ The Walk Home From Dinner ◊ Dinner is a serious activity in...

The old men here are up and out at the cafés at 10am smoking cigars and drinking beers...

El Mercado Centrale There are no supermarkets in Alicante that...

Alicante. Our old beach town is a great mixture of old Spanish...

Last night a gorgeous scooter passed, of course with stylish Spaniards on it, and it was a *Ducati*...

Alison just forgot our zip code back home….an excellent sign of being on vacation!

Last night a gorgeous scooter passed, of course with stylish Spaniards on it, and it was a Ducati...