A Dash of sights to seePaprika

The retirement life in Ajijic, Mexico

October 27, 2016 |

The view from behind my parents’ house.

After bonding with my parents over an episode of “My 600 Pound Life,” I changed the channel to watch the Cubs and Dodgers battle it out in Game Five of the National League playoffs. During a commercial break I got an update on the Curling World Championships, and was reminded the National Hockey League season just started, and I could watch every game courtesy of the new app from Rogers.

This is just an average night in the retirement community of Ajijic, Mexico—my parents’ home since 2008. I’ve visited every year since, and figured it’s about time to tell you all what it’s like. read more

The Coney Island Mermaid Parade

June 29, 2016 |

Letting it all hang out at the Coney Island Mermaid Parade

Grab your pasties, slap on some glitter, and don’t worry if your bathing suit and skirt don’t match or fit. You know what? It’s better if they don’t. Your only requirement at the Coney Island Mermaid parade is to have some fun and let it all hang out.

I love parades, especially ones with character. The best parades are rooted in some deep tradition no one can really remember, but morph each year as new twists are added to keep the crowds coming back. Two parades had a big impression on me. read more

The Louis Armstrong Museum

October 20, 2015 |

Visiting New York City anytime soon? Are you looking for an Authentic New York Experience – a place that embodies the Big Apple Dream? You know, the dream where you overcome your modest roots to achieve wild success and travel the world, only to go on a real estate search for a starter home that would, due to the neighborhood’s charms, become your forever home with the love of your life?

Then take the 7 train to the 103^rd street stop in Corona, Queens and visit the Louis Armstrong Museum where Pops and his wife Lucille set up house and stayed put. It’s got the make-yourself-at-home feeling of Graceland with just the right amount of Liberace glam to remind you that, even though you’re in one of the most humble of celebrity homes, Pops and Lucille knew how to live large without going too over the top. read more

Provincetown in Winter

March 16, 2015 |

Welcome to Provincetown, MA

Picture this vacation: Four nights in a fabulous one-bedroom condo for less than $80 a night. No traffic in the streets, plenty of seats in the restaurants and coffee shops, free parking at any spot in town. And since I stayed in the center of town, all that free parking was at most a five-minute walk away.

It was early March, and I was in Provincetown, MA.

Yes, Provincetown. Over the years it’s gotten so pricey that it’s become an alternate version of New York City.

Race Point Beach right before sunset.

But the solitude, quiet, and outta sight light this tiny beach town offers are there year round, and I found them at bargain prices in the offseason. I’ve been to the Cape tons of times in the summer, and I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be at the beach when the crowds are gone and the weather was colder. I finally made it two weeks after the last blizzard and three weeks before the brutal winter of 2015 was officially over, and it could be one of the best trips I’ve ever done. read more

Three Days in Philadelphia

February 9, 2015 |

Love Park, Philadelphia

I love the City of Brotherly Love! I’ve had a couple of lease-signing stints there, so when a relative recently emailed me to recommend places to stay, it inspired this “36 Hours” rip-off post. My list has a half-assed geographical order to it, but you could easily skip or combine any of them into a manageable itinerary. Here’s what I would do if I were spending 3 days in the city.

City Hall, clean on top, a little grimy on the bottom.

The Basics: The entire city is enormous, but Center City (don’t call it downtown) isn’t. If you’re a walker, this is the city for you. If you aren’t, it’s well served by SEPTA’s buses and subway, as long as you have exact change (it’s $2.25 a ride), tokens, or a pass. Center City’s streets are laid out on a grid and the two main drags, Market and Broad, cross at City Hall—a big old granite building that, apart from being three different shades of white due to too-high cleaning costs and a statue of William Penn on top, would not look out of place in any European capital. read more

26 Minutes of Scientology

July 14, 2014 |

Three hours after I landed in LA, I hopped into a Zipcar to check out LA. Wherever I travel to big cities I try to take subways to get around but this was LA and I needed to drive a bit. I was jazzed to see that the concierge gave me a route that took me past a tiny section of Route 66 to Sunset Boulevard, where I’d eventually hit a main drag of Silver Lake.

At the corner of Sunset Boulevard and L. Ron Hubbard Way

I walked around and did some non-shopping for a bit. Since it was still too early to eat and I had plenty of time left on my rental I decided to keep driving down Sunset to see how far it would take me. After a few minutes I hit a red light and looked around. To my right was a non-descript Kaiser Permanente Hospital. To my left was a chain link fence partially wrapped in white canvas. I looked up at the street sign and gasped. read more

From the Pope to Pasolini

June 1, 2014 |

Sciopero!

No vacation in Italy is complete without a strike, and I got my fill on day 2. There was a public transportation strike on May 30, which meant that the buses and the metro weren’t running. Except for the lines that were. “Oh even when there’s a strike the Metro runs,” said the barista as he sold me my card. “They don’t even know if they’re going to strike or not.”

I love it here.

Get here before noon

Since the apartment I stayed in was a ten minute walk to the Metro Linea A line I decided to start at the Vatican and spend the rest of the day heading back to Termini so I could buy my ticket to Florence. Sure enough it was running in spite of the strike (so were more than a few buses), and in a few minutes I was getting off with the other faithful at the stop of all stops. read more

Neorealism Memory Lane in Pigneto

May 29, 2014 |

Time to light up this blog with some fun vacation posts! I used some airline miles to book a last-minute trip to Rome, Florence, and some Tuscan hill towns in between. It’s all working out so far and I’m at the end of day one, in the land between exhilaration and exhaustion, making good on a promise to flex some creative muscles and write about my travels more.

The trip was so last-minute that I didn’t even really have time to get excited about it or make any concrete plans. The only rule I made for myself was that I had to do something completely new in each city. This was a hard rule to follow for Rome. read more

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