Just this week, I had begun the preliminary planning for two weeks of volunteering this summer at an environment-focused work camp run by the NEGES Foundation in Léogâne, Haiti. Just yesterday, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake rocked the country, its epicenter only a few miles away from Léogâne, just west of the capital, Port-au-Prince. With communication […]
A few days ago, The New York Times published its list of the “31 Places to Go in 2010.” My former adopted country, Colombia, clocked in at number 26. Certainly, the country is worthy of inclusion on this list; the cultural and geographic diversity alone make it a stimulating visit, and it’s not any more
Cruising around Miami for New Years in a rental car with no iPod dock meant much radio time. Thankfully, 93.9 (in spite of random and agonizing bursts of “I Gotta Feeling,” “Dancing Queen,” “Single Ladies,” and “I Will Survive”) took it back to 1980s Dade County, when no ethnic community was a true majority, South
Global Juke Joint: Miami Sound Machines Read More
Yeah, there are rats, service disruptions, drunken old men, drunken young women, and the pungent odor of pee, but dammit, the New York City subway runs 24/7. And I mean the whole system, not just a couple of train lines here or there. In the city that never sleeps (an oft-quoted untruth), the 24-hour bars
From the AV Room: Late Night Underground Read More
NEW YORK— A couple months ago, after a week in London, I posted a comparison of the English capital with its New World offspring and giving the marginal victory to NYC. After last night’s Giant Step Records (free) holiday party at the Hudson Hotel, the Big Apple pulled much farther away from London, cementing its
One Nation Under a Groove Read More
Macau. Most people haven’t even heard of the place: a former Portuguese colony on the southern coast of China established as the first permanent European toehold in the Far East back in 1557 and the final foreign stop on my amended round-the-world trip (Seoul doesn’t count, as I was only transiting for eight hours; though
Photo Essay: The Magic of Macau Read More
Oh, Hong Kong! How the currents of history and culture have conspired to make you the entoxicating urban assemblage that you are. Poised at the foot of Victoria Peak and gracing both shores of a similarly-named harbor, Hong Kong has lost none of her shine after having changed hands from the British colonial power that
Hot and Kold, Hong Kong Read More
This year, the Hindu holy day of Diwali fell on October 17th. This year, my twelve-hour layover in Chennai, formerly Madras, fell on October 17th. As with most religious holidays such as Eid (end of Ramadan) or Hanukkah, Diwali—the Festival of Lights—is celebrated with family. And as I had no family to speak of in
A Diwali Story ~or~ Check the Local Calendar for Holidays Before Booking the Flight Read More
Dry and monstrously big, India’s capital city houses over twelve million people who, despite sprawling over 570 square miles at the apex of the Indo-Gangetic plain, still seem stacked on top of one another. The New Delhi train depot served as my introduction to the city and my most uncomfortable experience in India: thousands of
