Las Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián

Photo from moncheopr.typepad.com

The action this weekend is in Old San Juan as the annual Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián kick off Thursday and don't let up until Sunday night.

For some that means artesanos (craftmen) filling up the plazas during the day (and often into the night) with their beautiful crafts while live bands play. Restaurants and bars offering up special menus for lunch, dinner, and late night catering to the all-night party crowd (well, until 2 a.m. thanks to a decree by the highly esteemed cough mayor of San Juan, Jorge Santini, that forces the bars to call it a day around that hour… Yeah, sure) barhopping down narrow, cobblestone streets. Its a weekend where Old San Juan is filled to the brim with drunken revelers, occasionally broken up by percussion bands, theater troupes, and people wearing giant paper mache heads.

For others, las Fiestas, or simply San Sebastián as this once weeklong religious festival turned four-day party is referred to (I call it the craziness), means kilometric traffic jams to come in and out of the old city, parking miles away near the Capitol building (if you’re lucky enough to find parking that close), and being packed like sardines in massive crowds composed of the aforementioned drunken revelers in narrow, beer drenched streets. 

Excuses, excuses

I've been traveling, I've been writing for the paper, I've been watching Mad Men...

Here's is a recap of what I've had published this month.

Música 24/7: Cierran las calles. Empiezan con la famosa 6th Street, la calle de las barras, en Downtown. Poco a poco, durante la semana, el tránsito humano reemplaza el tráfico de carros por casi todo el sur de Austin, Texas. Y se desparrama la música. Baja por South Congress, cruza los puentes y se insinúa por South Lamar, la escuchas aunque no te lo propongas, aunque no estés viendo en el show.

Vibrante el East End de Londres:  Salir de la estación Aldgate East del Underground es ingresar al meollo de la acción y el bullicio. Decenas de personas de todas partes del mundo recorren con prisa, esquivando vendedores y promotores, las calles laberínticas del East End de Londres, donde se conectan los barrios de Whitechapel, Brick Lane y Spitalfields.

In One Cook's Hands: I grew up on carne mechada and fried plantains the way most American kids my age were raised on pot roast and mashed potatoes. My brother and I would get home from school and dart through the kitchen past Carmen, the woman who’s cooked and kept house for my grandmother since as far back as I can remember, as she flipped a fork-tender bistec (steak) as it sizzled or hovered over a pot of simmering beans that exhaled the smell of recao and garlic with the steam. Yet it never occurred to me to ask her how to make any of the soul-soothing comida criolla, or comfort food, she piled high on my plate. Puerto Rico is where I was born, where I grew up, and where I currently reside. But it’s not where I learned to cook.

Quiz Night at the Dial Arch

It’s amazing how quickly the brain sorts information, specially when lubricated with a room temperature ale at an English pub in Southeast London. The quizmaster—a thirtyish bartender with a microphone and a list of questions—made the rounds of the booths and tables, repeating the question, “What is the capital of Uruguay?”

My brain, a depository of useless information, ideal for activities such as this, went through the following process: map of South America, Uruguay is not Paraguay, Uruguay is across the river from Argentina, Buenos Aires is across the river from… “Montevideo!”

Five of us at the table, my friends looked up at me. “Are you sure?”

Homesick?

Feels like all I talk about lately is New York.

Its like that scene in Mean Girls when pre-cocaine Lindsay Lohan is talking to her friend about how much she hates Rachel McAdams and that's ALL she talks about. I guess its not entirely inaccurate to say New York is that hot girl in school that's also a bully and who is absolutely fascinating for some reason.

Below are the links for the respective articles. Two out of three are about food (surprise, surprise). And, not gonna lie, pretty excited to go visit the city in October on the heels of my London trip.

How to Fall in Love with a Place

The river split the city in two while ornate bridges worked like stitches connecting one half to the other. The spired Parliament building led the façade that eventually spread out into the tapestry of short, grey buildings that were Pest. Behind us on the Buda side, the red clay roofed houses suggested a fairy tale town that was more show than substance. I was sitting with Tünde, my Hungarian friend, at the top of Buda Castle, getting a run down on why Pest is infinitely cooler than Buda.

I tried to carefully observe all the miniscule structures that created the labyrinth that is Pest, the mix of architectures, the flowing river that reminded me of the Spree, the Seine, the Río Grande de Loiza— all while sitting on a Castle-Cathedral that was a distant cousin of the one I’d visited a few days earlier in Prague. That day my friend Nick had noted with frustration how impossible it is to see every beautiful thing, every detail, take in every element that together creates the whole that is immediately, but vaguely, beautiful.

Impressions of Amsterdam

“I watched the universe fall apart. Twice. When I went to Amsterdam,” was one of the first thing my now ex-boyfriend told me when we met. A concise, albeit dramatic, summary of what Amsterdam means to the uninitiated. Mushrooms are no longer legal in Holland, by the way.

Amsterdam is an idea, a threat really. When someone says, “I’m going to Amsterdam,” the first thing that pops into your head isn’t the Van Gogh Museum (for some it might be, some people have class), its brownies. Special brownies.

But if smoking weed is all Amsterdam is to you then the words of Wells Tower’s customer in a recent GQ article become unavoidably true: “For a visitor, there are two very happy days in Amsterdam—the day you get here and the day you leave.” Granted, I don’t like weed. But even I couldn’t avoid the fact that coming to Amsterdam meant making a certain type of commitment: the universe better f-ing collapse.

Drinking and Travel

Most nights started with a box of wine. They cost the equivalent of 50 cents down at the potraviny—the Czech version of a New York deli—and were the perfect pregame agents. My flatmates would cut a corner off the top and insert a straw, drinking it like a box of juice while they applied make up, swapped shoes, and tried on new dresses and shirts. When they eventually got to the club they would have a shot or six of becherovka or vodka, followed by several large pints of excellent beer. And this was their routine every night for four months.

5 Food Places I Wish I’d Taken Advantage of When I Lived in New York

I don’t miss living in New York. It’s a difficult, cold city if you’re not head over heels in love with it. But I also think back on all the missed opportunities—the places I now wish were only a $2.50 subway ride away from me, the flavors and atmospheres I missed and the ones I should’ve been devoted to instead of wasting my time on… other places I don’t currently miss or even remember.

While I won’t get that era of my life back, I know where to go when I visit. And I visit a lot.

Fuera del Centro

So a second one means this is actually happening, right?

Sweet.

Here's my latest article for my column Escapadas (in Spanish), published in beautiful ink and paper on the pages of the De Viaje section of El Nuevo Día.

Basically its about what to do in Madrid once you're done being a tourist-- specially if you're looking to not sleep.

Oh, and I don't pick the titles.


De juerga en Madrid.

** I feel this picture pretty aptly describes what most nights in Madrid turn into.

Nothern Bohemia: Part Two

Kladno

After searching Google using phrases like “coats shoes hanging from the ceiling” “mining town performance art czech republic” my efforts at finding exactly what it was Otto took us to in the Central Bohemian town of Kladno proved fruitless. I searched Kladno in the New York Times online which turned up stories from 1939 with headlines like “German policeman slain near Prague; Nazis punish area” and lots of news about the Kladno soccer team. I visited Kladno’s official website but they’re not exactly flouting the abandoned mining facility just outside town that gets taken over by experimental Eastern European performance artists once a year.

So for now I really only have a story and some cool pictures for you, which is really all I ever have for you.

Why I impulsively bought a ticket to London

Almost everyone I know who has traveled even a little bit has a I-was-in-a-party-in-London story. This is something that I want very badly.

OK, you're right, that doesn't quite answer for my 2am purchase of a ticket on Icelandic Air for a week in October doing God knows what in the capital of England .

Would the fact that its my birthday week help?

You're right, its my birthday every year and unless I happen to be in a foreign country-- like when I studied in Prague-- still not a good enough reason for why I would decided this year I want to celebrate it in London where I hope my ex's friends will invite me to a party to fulfill my desire for a good story.

Northern Bohemia: Part One

Mosquito Mountain

Northern Bohemia is a region north of Prague where fourteen NYU film students spent 48 hours they would have otherwise spent in clubs and bars. But when our professor Otto Urban—a Czech art historian and curator who is as cool as his name—told us he was taking us to Northern Bohemia, it didn’t set up much in terms of expectations. When we pressed him for details he said things like mosquito mountain, bone chapel, mining town performance art piece… In other words, we really just had to trust his judgment on this.

I has a column

Not that I don't love my blog but I have to plug the first issue of my new column Escapadas now in El Nuevo Día, the largest newspaper in Puerto Rico. The theme this week was The Caribbean so I wrote about one of the best vacations I ever had there: St. John in the US Virgin Islands. Its an awesome little island for camping, hiking, beach-going, and has a few decent pubs, as well as their own brewery.

I'm a little nervous about it obviously since its my first piece fully in Spanish and its my first piece so think of it as an early Simpsons episode: the animation is still a little weird, the characters aren't quite there yet, but hopefully it'll have a long run.

If you get the print edition of the newspaper check out the spread in the De Viaje section. Let me know how you like it and any improvements you'd like to see.

Cheers!

http://www.elnuevodia.com/comoperderseensaintjohn-739511.html

Middle of Nowhere Little Towns

Sprawling metropolis are always fun, as are days out in total wilderness, although small islands with perfect beaches probably head the list of desirable destinations. But few are the accounts of those little in-between towns, the one-road, semi-suburban dots that connect on the road to the big city or the big mountain. For road trippers and bored twenty-something year olds with a car, those middle of nowhere little towns are pure traveler anecdote gold. Here are some of my small town stops, what are some of yours?

Guánica, PR

The best beaches are the ones the pirates used to dock in.

Cruising down the southern highway of Puerto Rico you speed down a road flanked by empty green mountains and farmed valleys, as large vultures called Guaraguaos glide in slow circles overhead. Pass Yauco—a coffee town painted pink and orange against the mountain— and take exit 116 onto a narrow road that seems to go on forever. Walls of trees, cacti, and green brush create a tunnel around you until eventually you hit la Central de Guánica.

Cheat Sheet: the Caribbean

In honor of my new column, Escapadas, and the theme of the week in the De Viaje section of El Nuevo Día here's a cheat sheet on travel basics for the Caribbean. Simple enough to follow and they will make your travel experience that much more awesome.

Things Change

Things change, and one thing that seems to change consistently is the name of this blog. And I’m not going to apologize for that. Currently its taking on its third and probably most drastic transformation, which only makes sense since 2010 has so far, for its author, been a year of drastic transformations.

Cheat Sheet: Spanish Bakeries

Medianoche: pork, ham, swiss cheese with mustard and pickle on yellow egg bread. (Light)

Cubano: pork, leg ham (some places serve it with sweet ham, Altamira included), swiss cheese, mustard, pickles, sometimes shredded lettuce and sliced tomato on pan criollo (soft, baguette-like bread).

Choripan: Spanish chorizo, sweet ham, swiss cheese, on pan criollo.

Caldo Gallego: a Spanish stew consisting of shredded cabbage, diced ham, chorizo sausage, white beans, potatoes, and greens.

Mondongo: tripe soup.

Sancocho: a Puerto Rican stew with lots of root vegetables, shredded chicken, and ham.

Croquetas: Deep-fried, cylindrical pieces of heaven made with a seasoned flour batter and stuffed with either ham, chicken or fish.

Quesitos: Sweet puff pastry full of sweet cream cheese and glazes with sugar. [see picture]

Pastelillos de carne: Savory puff pastry stuffed with picadillo—seasoned ground beef.

Pan Sobao: a very soft, sweet white bread.

Pan de Agua: a soft, baguette-style bread

Café: generally means coffee with hot milk, if you want it black then ask for a Café Negro, if you want it with cold milk, then you’re in the wrong place.