Man, tomorrow I've got interviews all day at Google.  I hope they go well.  

It's actually kind of interesting to think that, here I am, posting on Blogger about interviewing with Google, and Blogger is owned by Google.  There's something sort of big brother-ish about that.  I wonder if they are watching. . . 

Wow, back in the saddle

Oh, sweet blog, I'm so sorry I've neglected you for so long. It's been a busy year and few months, but rather than bore you with mundane details, I'll just give you the big ones:

1) I'm job hunting. Not fun, but exciting. I'm curious to see where I end up.
2) I'm engaged. Also, not fun, but exciting. The good news is I'll know where I'll end up, and that's with my fiance. The wedding. . .now that's an undertaking.
3) I like to fly fish.
4) I still like playing guitars
5) I'm going to try to sing
6) I'm going to end this list.

So, there ya have it!

Jedno pivo prosim

I'm in Prague! Hooray! It's the last day of my travels! Damn!

Since I last checked in. . .

Italy won the world cup! Courtney and I were in Sorrento for the finale, watching a massive screen in the town square. As the world all knows by now, Italy won on penalty kicks, an incredibly anti-climactic finish. Zindane is a head-butting neanderthal!

The aftermath of the finale was insane. As in Rome for the semi-final, all of Sorrento took to the streets, honking horns, singing songs (a curious rendition of a Smashing Pumpkins song which I can't quite remember the name of), waving flags, lighting fire crackers, and experiencing a city-wide euphoria.

Courtney and I ducked into a wine bar for a little vino rosso and a break from the madness, where we were met with a nice bar tender and what seemed to be a bar regular. They both said the Italian team didn't play well at all and didn't deserve to win, and that Zidane showed his true colors, and that overall they were happy with the outcome.

An hour later we went back to our hotel which overlooked the main street in Sorrento. Two hours after the match there seemed to be zero noise abatement and therefore zero sleep for the American travelers. Thankfully I had some night-time cold medicine which knocked both me and Courtney right out (thanks for the supply Molly!).

The other highlight from our southern Italy adventure was Pompeii. The whole world knows the story of Pompeii, the city that was buried by a Volcanic explosion of nearby Mt. Vesuvius. But what I didn't know was how well preserved the city is. It feels like a ghost-town; a 2000 year-old ghost-town. The streets, frescos, art, buildings, brothels, theaters, villas and forums are so well in-tact that it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see what the place looked like. You don't get the smells and sounds of ancient Rome, but you definitely get the sights. Highly reccommended for anyone that likes to do things that are interesting and fun. If you don't like interesting and fun activities, I know a good psychologist named Adam that can help you out with this terrible state-of-mind.

Since Sorrento I went back to Rome, ate some pizza, bought some organic olive oil, and went to my present destination, Prague.

Prague is awesome. Land of 1000 spires, a crazy jewish cemetery (mom and dad, after the 100s of churches I've seen on this trip, I actually went to some synogogues. Not one but three! Don't worry, it wasn't for services but instead for sight-seeing), great beer, bread dumplings (which seems like a boiled cylindars of dough to me), and winding streets that have incredible buildings around every corner.

Of note so far:
1) There was the Bohemia Jazz Festival in the old town square. Pretty good music from folks I haven't heard of, and interesting stuff from guitarist Bill Frisell. Curiously, the festival ended with the "Punk Funk All-Stars" who were neither Punk nor Funk and really just shit. One of the worst bands I've ever seen headline a music festival.

2) After the Jazz Festival I went to a cool Jazz club in Old-Town Prague. A fantastic club, great band, great experience all around.

3) Much of the core tourist destinations are nice (Prague Castle, St. Nick's church, etc.) but pale in comparison to the overall city atmosphere.

4) My hosts Eva and Petr have been incredibly gracious. Thanks to them!

5) The beer. Oh my the beer. You get a ton of it for about $1. And the best part is you can go for another. Pilsner Urquell, the only Czech beer I had heard of before coming here is, surprisingly, the beer of choice for greater the Czech Republic. There are micro brews of course, but Pilsner Urquell gets a lot of respect here. And for good reason. It is delicious. In fact, I had two before sitting down to write this update. Which may explain my rambling. But anyway.

Tomorrow I will be flying back to the United States and jumping in a car for a cross country trip from New York to San Francisco (okay, really just Berkeley). If I can update the blog with some of these mis-adventures I will, but otherwise I will have a post-mortem, and then probably post-post-mortem within the next few weeks. But since this is the last "real" day of my travels, for those of you on my email update list, this will be the last blog post I will alert you to. If I can figure it out I may send out a link to a picture site (like ofoto or something) to show some of the finer points of our travels. But henceforth just check back to the ol' blog if you are curious if I've come up with more bull shit to put down here.

So, a quick little Harpers style list:

This trip saw
8 Train rides (not counting metros and air port shuttles)
9 Flights
30 Cities
49 Days
1 Car Accident (literally 5 minutes after Courtney drove out of the rental car lot)
Actually, this deserves its own story. . .

So Courtney and I rent a car in Florence to drive around Tuscany. For reasons unkown, Courtney was the only registered driver for the car, so I was (thankfully) relegated to navigator.

Five minutes after we pull out of the lot we merge into the wrong lane, try to go back into the correct lane and BAM! We smash into the side of a small Italian car. The Italian man inside did NOT look happy. It was definitely Courtney's--um, I mean our--fault, and while we had a little scratch on our rental, this guy had some damage to the length of his car.

He comes out of the car, looks at us, shakes his head and walks toward us. Courtney rolls down the window and the following exchange takes place:

Courtney: Mi scusi! Mi scusi! Sono Americano!
Italian Man: (says nothing, turns on his heel, runs back to his car and speeds away)

Courtney and her ethcial nature thought the guy wanted to handle this off of the busy street so she started following him. He clearly didn't want to be followed. So that was our car accident in Florence. We later buffed the scratch out at a gas station and the rental company didn't notice anything and has yet to say a word about it. So there you go. Now back to the list:

14 Tiramisus (a rough estimate)
30 Scoops of gelato (another rough estimate)
10 Pounds Gained (yet one more rough estimate)
3 Loads of laundry done
6 Languages Spoken (English, French, Catalan, Spanish, Italian, Czech)
641 Photos Taken (despite what you may see on this here blog)

Of course in addition to all of this there are countless memories and experiences that are impossible to list, which is why I went on the "holiday" to begin with. Now off to business school.

Fireworks on the Fourth of July!

Oh man, where to begin?! I've got some pictures, some new travels to relate, a great football (i.e. soccer) experience. . . I'm going to start with the football.

On the July 4th, Italy was matched against Germany in a semi-final match for the World Cup. The World Cup, as the whole world knows (yes even us oblivious Americans) is a very big deal. In Europe especially, the World Cup is bigger than the Olympics, the elections, the Economy, it's everything. And Italy is no exception to this. As Winston Churchill said, the Italians lose wars like football matches and football matches like wars.

Luckily, I found myself in Rome for this match. Rome takes its football very seriously. Courtney and I trekked down to the "Circo Massimo" the ancient chariot racing stadium, where the city had set up a giant screen. We were joined by thousands of Italians (10,000? 20,000? I have no idea the exact number) and I have never witnessed a sports spectacle quite like this.

Everyone stood for the entire game: men, women, children, old folks, were focused completely on the match. The collective groans and cheers shook the ground. Halftime was a demonstration of incredible pride, with flag waving, singing, and cheering throughout the fifteen minutes (I think it was a combination of real pride and showing off for the TV cameras). The thing was, nothing was really happening! Italy would try to score, then lose the ball, ditto with Germany, a few close calls, and poof, just like that 90 minutes of play went by and overtime was upon us. (As I have learned with football over the past few weeks is that there isn't a whole lot of scoring. Despite this, it is an incredibly exciting sport.)

The tension in the air was palpable. First 15 minute overtime: nothing. More tension. Second 15 minute overtime: GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL (this is how they say it in Europe). Not just one, but two! Italy won! Amazing.

Courtney and I were both thrilled. The crowd was giving mass hugs, high fives, shouts and songs. Of particular interest to my innate Americanism were the fireworks that went off shortly after the game ended: an American in Rome got fireworks on the fourth of July.

As we walked home from the game past the Colosseum, the celebration spilled onto the streets. Italian flags everywhere, car horns honking, and people running every which way. Here is a neat picture (that I got from Flickr. Like an idiot I didn't bring my camera.)


I have been trying to find pictures from the Circus Maximus but without luck. If anyone out there has seen any, forward them my way.

Aside from the World Cup, we've seen plenty of action on this trip. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so here are a few:

The view from our room in Cinque Terre:

On the hike in Cinque Terre:

The Ancient Roman Theatre (c. 10 B.C.) in Volterra (a quaint little hilltop town in Tuscany): Sunflowers on the side of the road in Tuscany:

Okay, quick narrative -- On our trip through Tuscany, Courtney and I stayed in two different farm houses. The first was run by Max and owned by Tony. Tony was a dentist who made wine on his farm and was pretty much a nice guy. Max is a lawyer who quit the practice to run this farm house. He loves jazz, latin, food, wine and people. Max was a great guy who hung out with us during breakfast and dinner, talking about the region and the aforementioned passions. He was awesome.

The next farm house we stayed in was owned and operated by The Valeris, an organic farmer, Stefano; his gourmet chef wife, Grazia; thier 19-year-old daughter, Chiara; and 23-year-old son Michele. We stayed in a guest house in their farm, had dinner with the family (an incredible meal, with fried zucchini flowers, ricotta wrapped in tuna, fried chicken and rabbit, roast steak, greens, home made wine, gelato, and finished with an incredibly delicious grappa), and was treated to a fine breakfast the morning of our departure. Yes, I'm brining a bottle of wine and grappa home with me.

As Courtney and I prepared ourselves to return our rental car in Florence, we asked if Grazia would call the rental car place to get good directions for us, since our italian wasn't any good. Chiara was her scribe. Here is a photo montage (pay particular attention to Chiara):
There was something about this exchange that felt so italian. I don't know why exactly, but it seemed authentic. And no, I'm not exactly sure how the cat got involved.

There are a ton more pictures, stories, and experiences to relate (Siena, Lucca, Firenze, Roma, and the rest of Tuscany), but I think they'll have to wait till I get home. Besides, they are better served by pictures anyway. As always, more to come.

Lots of stuff, no time, what is a blog to do?

As I expected, I have had no time to blog to the world about my latest misadventures in Europe. And really, I shouldn't be spending my time writing the perfect post. Rather, I should be meeting the locals, eating the food, drinking the wine, seeing the sights. But alas, in all of these hedonistic pursuits, the blog falls by the wayside.

So, for the sake of keeping up, here is the very fastest summary I can put together to keep this blog current.

When we last left our traveler. . .

I went to Bordeaux. The wine is tasty, and the vinyards are really pretty. A big thanks to Fred and her brother for hosting me and letting me borrow their car.

Then I went to Avila, Spain for one whole day. Great city walls from Medival times. Watch for the photos. They will be up one day!

After that I went to Zaragoza. More on that later.

Then I found myself in Barcelona, where my girlfriend (Courtney) met up with me. Gaudi was on some serious hard drugs. Had to be. But I, for one, think he should be sainted. Then again I'm Jewish and don't know a thing about saints. So there you have it. Barcelona also featured a puppet dancing flamenco, real flamenco dancers, great food, and yet again, another great host. Esther, you are the best, and the bunk beds suited me and Courtney just great.

After Barcelona Courtney and I went to Zaragoza to visit my cousins Matt and Ben, Ben's wife Alicia, and their new son Samuel. He is the cutest little guy. And, at only 2, has a better command of both English and Spanish than I do. Wait for the pictures on him, because he really is something.

After Zaragoza, we caught a flight to Bergamo, Italy. This random city landed on the itenerary because of the cheap flight from Zaragoza. We were lucky that it had a charming old city to explore. So that lasted about an hour.

We then went to Cinque Terra, five cities on the italian riviera. Paradisio. Again, wait for the pictures.

And now I am in Florence! Nice town, super expensive, especially if you don't get your bus ticket validated. But the food is good, the art is better, and the architecture is out of this world.

More to come. Tuscany, Rome, Pompeii, and Prague are all still to come. Woo hoo!

(PS If there are a lot if mispeelings, it is because the italian spell checker is virtually worthless to me.)

Fraternité

Quick disclaimer: I am currently using a french keyboard, which has all the letters in different places, so I may have a typo or ten. For example, to hit the "." key, I need to press the shift button first, and if I don't, I get a ";". I hope this isn't too disruptive, and if it is, well, just deal with it;

The last few days have been fun here in Nice. I took a quick train into Italy and went to the open air market. The real highlight of my little sample of Italy was (surprise) the lunch we had at this little divey restaraunt. Best fried calamari I've ever had. I had a day at the beach, which was, if I may use the expression, a real day at the beach.

On Friday I saw some jazz in a bar with some french people that my buddy Andrew introduced me to. First, they all spoke very good english, which was very helpful, and they all had a great time making fun of my American accent. The "r" in this country is quite impossible for me to say, but all the frenchies keep telling me that as long as I keep trying to pronounce it, I'll be okay (and the source of some humor for the people of France). After the concert I was taken to an apartment right in the old part of town (very cool!) and had a glass of homemade orange wine. It was good stuff, although a little sweet for my taste. Despite my difficulty with the local toungue, I had a great time and was really grateful for the hospitality that the french folks showed me. Fraternité indeed.

Yesterday was one of the highlights of the trip so far, as I moved from the apartment I was sharing with an American and two Russians, into a French couple's apartment. The French couple, Morgan and Severine, (randomly) stayed with me in my house in San Francisco three years ago, and we became fast friends because we are all musicians. When they heard I was visting Nice they were eager to return the favor for my visit in Nice. So yesterday they volunteered to drive me around Nice, show me Morgan's brand new recording studio, and take me to a party.

The first thing we did was drive to a great lookout spot on the top of a mountain. That's what this picture is from. That's Nice! On the way back to the car we saw a coule of guys playing patonk, the French national pastime. I was proud of the action photo I got. No, I am not a good photographer.
Then we drove to the other side of the mountain, and looked down upon the other side of the Nice shoreline. Like an idiot I forgot what the name of it is, but again it provided a pretty good photo op.
There was a neat castle up there also.
Then we drove to Eze, a small mountaintop village that had yet another castle. We drank pastis and had a sandwich. Yeah, I know, tough life. I only took one (rather poor) photo because it was the kind of place you had to see. Although if you've ever been to a thousand year old village perched on a mountain next to a sea, then you know exactly what this place looks like. Nonetheless, this is from the fancy hotel in the village.
After Eze we went to look at Morgan's studio. Nerd alert: this next paragraph may only be interesting to musicians and recording engineers. But hey, it's my blog.

If you've ever been an amateur musician, then you've heard of, and probably seen, the home "studio." Usually it is one, small, run-down room, with a half-assed collection of gear, and without any thought to accoustic balance. You can imagine my surprise when I saw this (that's Morgan on the couch and Severine scooting out of the way).
Pretty neat, eh?

So after the studio, we head back to the apqrtment, Severine made a great curry for dinner, Morgan's best friend Lorice came over and we prepared to go to the party run by some Italians. Severine and Morgan warned me about the party, they said that if you don't bring more women than men you don't get in the party. Their explanation, " what do you expect? They are Italian. They want to be Macho."

The four of us (three men, one woman) drive over to the party and, sure enough, the Italians wouldn't let us in. We had to wait outside the front door, and yeah, we started to get unhappy. Fraternité? Felt more like a fraternity

Then Lorice took over. This is Lorice.

Lorice is straight out of the movies. He is easy to talk to, very friendly, and just doesn't give a crap what people think (i.e. he's loud and hilarious). After 10 minutes of gibberish (to my ears anyway) we were finally let in the party. Lorice declared, "I should be a politician!!"

The party was great, if only because everything was new to me. Overall it wasn't realy my scene, actually felt very much like a fraternity party. But needless to say I had a great time. Lorice, Morgan, Severine, and the Gin and Tonic saw to that. Fraternité!!

In New York, after a party, usually people are hungry and go for the cheapest easiest greasiest food available: pizza. But in France, pizza is not the food of choice at 4AM. Nay, after the party we did what every self-respecting Frenchman does, we went for croissants.

The best part was that there was a line at the bakery! And the croissants were fresh. Ineed, the French know how to live.

On Monday night I will be taking a train to Bordeaux to stay with a friend of Morgan's. I will rent a car and see the wine country, so you can be sure I will have plenty of food and wine details to bore you with in the coming days (pending internet access of course).

Below are some Nice photos, just because I can.

Le Clock

Le Vieux de Apartment

Le Church

Le Beach

Le Sandwich

Chez Vin

A few things I forgot to mention in my previous post.

1) On the flight from Geneva to Nice I saw Mont Blanc out the plane window. The peak was poking through the clouds. Now that is a big friggin' mountain.

2) So far I have taken 6 flights, 6 trains, and 3 buse. No cars. Viva la transportacion public!

3) I learned how to say hello, goodbye, and kiss my ass in Irish Gaelic. These are all essential.

Okay, so now on to the highlight of my trip so far, my first meal in France. For lunch I went to Le Part des Anges, a little wine shop and bistro about a 10 minute walk from the "Old Town" Nice. I was pointed there by my buddy Andrew, who lived in Nice, so I knew it would be good. Needless to say I was excited.

The place is divided into two sections, the first was the wine store, and it looked, well, like a wine store. The second half of the room was the bistro, which was a simple arrangement of about 8 tables, a kitchen in the back, and more wine for sale lining the walls. The menu was a chalkboard on the wall with (thankfully) legible writing.

The waitress spoke english and translated the menu for me. I was surprised that I didn't need too much translated, I guess if I have a strong point in my french vocabulary it would be the food. I chose the Tartaine de Rillettes Canard to start (10 Euro), Linguini with ausperagus, pancetta and parmesean (13 Euro), and a 2002 Bandol from Chateaux St. Anne (not that I know what a 2002 Bandol is).

The Tartaine de Rillette (duck meat pate on toast) came with the toasted sliced bagguette still warm, two cornichone (little pickles), and some greens. The dish was perfect, the rillete was rich but not heavy and the toast was incredible. How do the french know how to bake such incredible bread?! I'm also a huge fan of cornichone with this kind of dish, so that was a most pleasing inclusion.

The linguini was also good but a little surprising. The panchetta was not italian pancetta (italian bacon), like I'm used to, but instead sliced meat served over a heap of noodles and asparagus. The pancetta was tasty although a little gamier than I would have liked, and the noodles were pretty ordinary (but hey, they are just noodles). From what I have been told, the real star of Nicoise cuisine is the vegetables. This dish certainly proved that to be true. The asparagus were absolutely amazing, with a bright but mellow flavor, if that's even possible.

The wine was also good. Tasted like red wine. Nothing really surprising there. I'm not a wine critic, so I'm not of much use here. But I certainly enjoyed it.