Paris and Bloomington: Compare and Contrast

I've left the romance, lights and brasseries of Paris for the deep-fried goodness of gravy and process cheese of Bloomington, Illinois. Could two places possibly be more different? Probably, but only if Paris was inhabited by people with monkey heads who walked backwards and said, "goodbye" when they entered a room and "hello" when they left it.

My new laptop just showed up at home today thereby re-asserting my status as alpha-geek in almost any room I step into. Dual core, 2GB RAM, wide screen with a fingerprint scanner. Oh how the yokels in Kansas next week will revere and worship me! Like a god!

My travel schedule is now booked up into May. Being the eternal optimist that I am, I cancelled the US plan on my cell phone. A big mistake was that. Might have to switch that back. I want my free North American roaming and damn the phone bill!

As I stepped out of my Mustang convertible in front of my hotel with my Starbucks decaf Americano in hand (no sugar, black as the day is long), only one thought was going through my head: I am way too cool for Bloomington.

I'm kind of curious as to who is still reading this after my long hiatus. If you're reading, leave a comment! Just click on the "comments" link below.

Attack of the Killer Insects from Cartagena

I spent part of an evening sitting out by the pool last Wednesday when I was in Cartagena and got bitten quite badly by mosquitoes. I don't know if they have a different kind of mosquito in Colombia, but these ones are nasty. It's been over a week and my feet and elbows where I was bitten are still covered in giant red welts that itch like crazy. I'm not sure but I don't think that's normal as I don't usually react to mosquito bites at all. I even went so far as to double-check that this was not an early symptom of malaria. Maybe it wasn't mosquitoes at all and it was spiders biting me and laying eggs. Didn't that happen in that movie The Serpent and the Rainbow? I used to have nightmares about that. Wonderful thought.

Visa put a hold on my card this week. Fair enough as I forgot to call them before I left on this trip. When I called them to get it released, they did the usual verification of the purchases that led to the hold in the first place. The purchases in question were the ten euro I spent for Wifi access, and the 2.70 euro I spent on a train ticket to Paris on Sunday. Apparently, dropping well over a thousand dollars on hotels, meals, and drinks in Colombia wasn't an issue. The big-time thieves are after Wifi and public transportation. Lovely. Good job.

Lara made it to Paris yesterday. She was a bit dragged out from having flown all night and then walking around Paris all day yesterday. We ended up going to a good Moroccan place not far from the hotel in Noisy le Grand. Moroccan food is good. Tonight we'll go to the city before she heads back home in the morning.

A Week in Paris

I just realised today that I have now been in Paris for four days and haven't had a single glass of wine. How pathetic is that? The problem is that I've been too lazy (and too full from lunch) to bother going out for a proper dinner. I'm in the food capital of the world and all I've been eating is donair and turkish food.

Part of the problem is that I'm not actually in Paris itself. I'm staying out in a small town called Noisy le Grand which is where the class is being held. Although it would only take a half hour on the train to get into the centre of the city, I just don't have the energy to do it. By the time I get done class and get back to the hotel and get changed and then think about how much studying I have to do for class the next couple of days, I'm about as likely to go on the next lunar mission as I am to hop on the RER into town.

Lara is coming out tomorrow morning for a couple days (hooray for Aeroplan points!), so I'm sure that I'll be spending the next couple of nights in the city.

I went into the city on Sunday which was an incredible 18C and sunny; a near-perfect day. I spent the day mostly walking around Notre Dame, along the Seine to the Eiffel Tower and then back to the Musée d'Orsay. The Musée d'Orsay is a must see for me anytime I'm in Paris (haven't missed it on a visit yet). The third floor of impressionists and post-impressionists is one of my holy places. Seeing the thickly streaked globs of paint on a Van Gogh self-portrait, or the oranges, reds, and greens of a Cezanne can send shivers up my spine.

I got to class super-late on Monday morning. Who would have thought that any town in its right mind would have two streets with the same name and locate them about a mile apart. I walked for an hour before I found the location (which I found only through luck). I had no cell phone nor phone card so I had no way of getting in touch with anybody. It was surreal wandering through a French suburb with my laptop completely unable to do anything about my situation. Just a helpless man wandering lost and alone through underpasses and efficient yet soul-less 8-unit apartment buildings. How very postmodern.

Bogotá Airport Sucks

I just arrived in my hotel in Paris. Although I say I'm in Paris, I'm not really, at least not quite. I'm out in the suburbs east of the city. Although less than optimal, there is at least an RER station right behind my hotel that will get me into the heart of the city in less than 20 minutes.

Why does travelling half way around the world have to be so difficult? I started my trip by missing my flight from Cartagena to Bogotá. I can't help but feel at least partly responsible for this. I left leaving the hotel until the last minute (enjoying the weather too much), and then ran into almost everyone I knew there one after the other on the way to the front desk. I swear it was planned to be like a curtain call. I also left some shirts in my room and had to go back to get them.

Fortunately, there are a lot of flights to Bogotá and there was another one in an hour. That would leave my three hours in to check in with Air France and do whatever I need to do. That should be lots, right?

Flying international in South America is different than anywhere else in the world. First you have to stand in a line to get a piece of paper. This has something to do with the departure tax of $56 which you have to pay even though you got the piece of paper. Then you stand in the check-in line which is really long and really slow. In the middle of this line you pay your departure tax (I didn't know this the first time I came, and had to leave the big line and go find a bank machine). Then they weigh your bag, tell you it is 1kg overweight, don't let it slide, and you try to stuff approximately 1kg of dirty laundry into your laptop bag. Finally you get to the front of the line, and are told that they can not validate your ticket and that you need to go to the airline office.

Once at the airline office the woman points to the computer screen which indicates that your reservation has been cancelled since no ticket was issued. An argument ensues because a ticket has been issued and in fact the woman is holding it in her hand. After this things are alright again and you jump back to the front of the checkout line. A woman indicates that you should go behind the checkout desk (where the people are working) to talk to the woman that was initially trying to check you in. You confirm that this is really what you're supposed to be doing, and then proceed behind the desk with full expectations of being shot dead by airport security. You are quite promptly told to go back to the other side of the desk where customers typically belong. Finally you are checked in (to coach in a middle seat I might add) and you have a boarding pass.

Next: up the stairs and through emigration. No, that is not a typo. You have to clear emigration when you leave the country much like you have to clear immigration on the way in. Then it's through the usual security check. After that you go through the next line with the military looking people who speak to you using the familiar forms of all their verbs and they pat you down. Then it's to the gate where you have to show your boarding pass again to get into the boarding room. After that, you sit down, wait for 5 more minutes to board, and wonder where the hell your three hour layover went.

Another Day of Not Working

I love this. I come to Cartagena for what I think is going to be a 5-day course compressed into four days. I came two days early to try to melt the chill out of my bones. Then I find out that we don't start until 2pm on Monday. That's alright with me. We're compressing anyway, we'll just have to squeeze a bit more out, and I can spend the morning in bed or at the pool or whatever. So today, it turns out that I'm not going to actually start until tomorrow morning. Wicked. The only downside was that I had to keep showing up for work functions, and then I'd have a couple hours off in between to spend by the pool. Bathing suit - work clothes - bathing suit - work clothes. I changed my clothes today more than the bride at a Chinese wedding.

This is a large event where business partners from all across South America come to take some training. Since the courses I taught in South America last year were sort of the same thing but on a smaller scale, a lot of the people that I met are also here for this event. We had a cocktail meet-and-greet sort of deal this evening on the beach and I got to see some of the people that I know from Bogotá, Medellín, and Lima. I also met a few people from Ecuador who are going to be in my class if it ever starts. I'll be having dinner with them in the old part of Cartagena tomorrow night.

I went out with another instructor from Brazil last night. We went to the old city. Old Cartagena is absolutely beautiful; especially so at night. Lots of old Spanish architecture that's been well maintained and kept quite clean and (seemingly) safe. On the way back, we had the taxi driver take us on a little tour of the city. Lovely.

I'd have to say that Cartagena would be a very good place to come for a little vacation. Everything seems relatively cheap, and you don't get the same sense of getting ripped off that you do in so many places nowadays. There's lots to see and do in the old city, the beaches are lovely, and there are resorts (I'm staying the Hotel las Americas which is quite nice and has good food). If the place I ate last night is any indication there are good, upscale restaurants (Restuarante San Pedro, Centro plaza de San pedro - good food and pretty inexpensive).

I hope that all you winter-dwellers aren't jealous about any of this because it's not as great as it sounds. For example, I was getting sweaty because it was so hot. We all know how horrible that can be. Also I got water in my ear from spending too much time at the pool. Don't you hate that?

Winter Sucks, But Not Here

I woke up this morning to the sound of the tropical birds singing in the coconut tree outside of my balcony. Delicious. I’ve been luckily enough to get the chance to trade the dismal grays of Canadian winter for the tropical blues and greens of Cartagena, Colombia for the week. Sure I have to work, but not until Monday afternoon. Until then, I’ve got a little time to relax.

I didn’t get up until 8am this morning which is a departure from my usual 6 o-clock wake-up, but yesterday was a really long travel day; Cartagena is not the easiest place to get to. I left the house before 6am yesterday and didn’t get to my hotel here until nearly midnight. Part of that had to do with a five-hour layover in Fort Lauderdale.

The hotel (or should I say resort) where the course is taking place this week is located right on the Carribean ocean. In fact, if I turn my head and look past the palm trees and tennis courts, I can see the waves rolling in onto the white sandy beach. I wish more people would have the good sense to schedule courses in places like this.

I don’t mean to sound like I’m gloating… Wait a minute… Yes I do. A little bit anyway. Let’s face it; winter in Canada sucks. Cold sucks. Snow sucks. It really does – admit it. If snow and cold were that great, we’d have tourists coming up in January and February from the Dominican and from Cuba to trudge around our cities in six inches of brownish-gray slush, scraping ice off of their cars, and wishing they could feel their ears and the tips of their fingers and toes.

Wait… what’s that sound? I think it’s waves. Gotta go now – la playa me llama!

Observations on Dallas

I just got back from a short trip to Dallas. It’s been a while since I’ve been to Texas, and there were a few things that kind of jumped out at me.

The men are bigger than normal and I don’t just mean fat, although there is a lot of that. The women, when younger, tend more toward the pretty end of the spectrum, but when they get older, then compensate for their age with boob-jobs, tons of makeup and really big hair that would be the envy of any 80’s heavy metal band.

I probably made more U-turns in Dallas in four days than I will probably make in the rest of the year. Dallas is full of highways and all of them have access roads that run alongside. To navigate, you have to go past your destination in the other direction, get off on the access road and do a U-turn to get to where you want to go. If you undershoot your destination, it means you have to do three U-turns to get there. Similarly, if your destination is on the right-side of the road, you have to get off before it. If you overshoot you have to do two U-turns to get back to it.

People eat a lot of meat (not really a big surprise I suppose). I’m not sure that there’s such a thing as protein toxicity poisoning, but if there is, I suspect I came dangerously close to getting it.

Fogo de Chao is really good, but every time I eat there, I am guaranteed a night of indigestion and waking up every ten minutes as my stomach does another somersault.

Despite its southern location, Dallas is not that warm in the winter. It was hovering around freezing the entire time. That being said, it jumped up to 15C the day after I left. Bad timing.

Despite the fact that it would have been almost an hour drive in both directions, I should have gone to Angelo’s instead of settling for lesser barbecue.

Since I’m planning on doing away with my travel blog, I’m going to repost my Dallas entry here. See below.

Some Restaurants in Dallas

The following is a repost from my travel blog, February 22, 2006... How chincy is that?

I recently had a week in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and got to re-discover a lot of my old haunts. I used to go to Dallas all the time, but haven’t really spent a lot of time there over the last couple of years. I was staying near the airport, so I was relatively central to the area. Although I’ve never in all my years been to downtown Dallas, I did make it into downtown Fort Worth this trip (although very briefly).

When you have a week in Dallas, you have four dinners that you need to cover off. In my mind, four dinners in Dallas means the following (in no particular order): Texas barbecue, steak, Mexican, and Brazilian churrasco at Fogo de Chao. In keeping with tradition that’s exactly what I did. However, I wasn’t leaving Dallas until the Saturday morning, so I got a bonus dinner this trip. Sweet!

Esparza’s - 124 E Worth St., Grapevine, TX

For years, my business partner and I had been hearing rumours about a great Mexican place near the airport. Since we had never really been staying in that area, we didn’t look into it. After asking around, the general consensus was that Esparza’s is probably the place they meant. Esparza’s is a small Mexican restaurant in a little house in Grapevine, just kind of north and west of the airport. The margarita was great, but I’ve got to say that I wasn’t blown away by my dinner. I kind of “went outside the box” on this one and ordered seafood enchiladas (which is not what I would usually get at a Mexican joint). Maybe I should have stuck with one of the old standbys like pork with salsa verde, or carne asada. Don’t get me wrong; it was pretty good, but my expectations were pretty high. I’ll have to give them another chance next time I’m back in DFW.

Angelo’s Barbecue - 2533 White Settlement Rd., Fort Worth, TX

Until I came to Angelo’s, I had never had beef that was so tender I could cut it with a plastic fork. Unbelievable. I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that Angelo’s has displaced my old favourite barbecue place – Rudy’s in San Antonio. Although I still prefer the sauce at Rudy’s, the meats at Angelo’s are so tender, juicy and smoky, that the sauce barely comes into play anyhow. I still love Rudy’s, but I now dream of Angelo’s. Unfortunately, I am probably ruined for all other barbecue for the rest of my life. Oh ya – the beer comes in big frosty glasses, too. Chalk up one more point for Angelo’s.

The building looks exactly like a good barbecue place should; barn board and pickup trucks with a big stack of wood out back to keep the smokers going. The smell of the smoke hits you as soon as you get near the entrance.

The ambiance is pretty plain, and the décor includes melamine tables and dead animals on the walls (including alligators, turkeys, fish, boar, moose, various antelope-thingy’s, and deer). Probably not a good date spot, unless your date is into melamine, dead animals, or really great barbecue.

As a side note, I came within an inch of losing my wedding ring down the sink. Thanks goodness for all those years I spent training to be a ninja!

The Silver Fox - 1235 William D. Tate Ave., Grapevine, TX

The Silver Fox, also located in Grapevine, is a sister restaurant to Three Forks. The menu is the same, the locale is different. The food and service were all fantastic, but a little on the pricy side. That being said, I also didn’t cut any corners; cocktail, appetizer (the Three Forks Salad has apples and pecans and totally rocks), steak with Oscar sauce, glass of wine, and dessert brought me up to nearly 100 dollars with tip. Still, I’d go back in a second.

Fogo de Chao - 4300 Beltline Rd, Addison, TX

I love Fogo. If you haven’t had Brazilian churrasco before, you really should try it. The idea is this: You have a little card with red on one side and green on the other. If you turn the green side up, flocks of waiters (often wearing traditional Brazilian clothing) with large skewers of different meats flock to your table and offer you different cuts of beef, lamb, pork, sausage, chicken, and sundry other animals. When you turn the card over they leave you alone. On top of this, there’s usually a trip to a salad/vegetable bar and side dishes such as fried polenta and bananas, bread puff things and so on.

I would hazard to say that Fogo’s salad bar alone is worth the visit. It includes things like marinated vegetables, roasted peppers, prosciutto and salamis, and cheeses, as well as just regular old salad. If I ever turned vegetarian, I would go there just for the salad bar.

The big danger with Fogo is that it’s difficult to stop. Unlike a buffet where you have to make an effort to go and get one last plate, there are always skewers of meat wafting past, so it’s too easy to try just one more little bit. Know your limits or you’ll regret it (trust me on this).

Fogo is a little on the expensive side (one person can usually get out for around $70 with a glass of wine), but it’s something you should try at least once: especially if your dinner is being heavily subsidised with a meal limit.

Blue Goose Cantina - 14920 Midway Rd., Addison, TX

Ahhh… The Goose. Since I got a bonus meal this week, I decided to go back to the good old Blue Goose in Addison (right around the block from Fogo). I hadn’t been there in years and wondered how the food would compare to my memory of it. I’ve had a lot of good Mexican food over the years, and hadn’t really been back to The Goose since my early days of travelling. I was happy to see that it stacked up to everything I feel Tex-Mex food should be. The top-shelf margarita was the money and the tacos al carbon totally kicked it (they’re big enough that you definitely don’t need an appetizer with them).

The Blue Goose has made it back in as a permanent part of my four-day Dallas rotation.