Globe Corner Blogs

Cartagena--photo by Harriet

We arrived in Cartageña to welcome sun and humidity. The 5-10 minute stroll along the harbor, from our hotel in the Getsemaní district to the entrance to the walled city, was glorious even during the mid-day heat. The walled city’s many plazas, varied retail districts, cobblestone streets, and beautifully maintained or restored buildings were breathtaking. It was reassuring to be in a historic port–a cultural travel destination that still somehow retains a sense of everyday life. We wandered down narrow streets, gazing at colorful buildings, pausing in plazas (many with fountains) to take in cafes, check our map, and plan our next route to a museum or church. Continue Reading »

Ciclovia Sign --photo by Pat

The highlight of a recent trip to Colombia was the opportunity to participate in Bogotá’s “Ciclovia.” Every Sunday, year-round, the city of Bogotá closes off over 120 kilometers of streets to traffic from 7 am to 2 pm. And, in a city of seven million, well over a million turn out to bike, roller-blade, jog, dog walk, or just promenade in their Sunday finest on the blessedly car-free streets.

What a transformation for a city that a decade ago warranted a chapter in Robert Pelton’s “World’s Most Dangerous Places.” Citizens have reclaimed the streets and civic life; Ciclovia is a joyous manifestation of the pride, good humor, and optimism of Bogotá’s residents. There’s a spring in folks’ step here that was unexpected (at least for me) — a confidence that the future is going to be better than the past.

We were staying in Usaquén on the northern fringe of Bogotá and our host

Ciclovia --photo by Pat

kindly provided bikes for a Sunday morning in late January. The beginning (or end, depending on your point of view) of one of the major routes of Ciclovia starts in Usaquén and runs into the central district of Bogotá on Carrera Séptima. Although flatlanders who haven’t acclimated to the 8600 foot elevation may feel the effects of the high altitude, the north/south routes in the city are essentially flat and make for very pleasant biking. Continue Reading »

Fodor's Chicago 2009

Proper congratulations and looks of awe are in order: I flew from Boston to Chicago and from Chicago to Boston with no delays, no cancellations, and no angry TSA officials–in February. Quite a feat in my book, given Boston’s recent proclivity to sudden snow storms and O’Hare’s almost constant state of behind-ness.

I was in the Windy City (which is rather windy, no matter where the nickname actually came from) for a writer’s conference. Despite seeing such amazing writers as Marilynne Robinson and Alexandar Hemon read, it’s needless to say that most exciting part of this conference, like any, happened outside the actual conference hotel. And consistent with my usual style of travel, it happened inside restaurants and bars.

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The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie -- by Malu Halasa & Rana Salam

It is sunny and almost warm outside, and I have decided that it is time to come out of winter hibernation mode.  I am also adjusting to a new pair of glasses and here all the far-sighted readers out there will feel for me, because the world became so wobbly and curvy that I feel like Alice in Wonderland. I cannot even read anything while my brain is learning to automatically turn curves into straight lines. But even this temporary impairment cannot dim my curiosity, so here I come with a list of hidden eye candy.

These are books that are not meant to be read, they are meant to be adored and looked through many times. I am writing about alternative, strange and very curious fashion photography book gems packed between our guides and maps. Tweaking a well-known expression, I would say that nothing tells you more about a country than it’s street food and street fashion.

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Hanoi Fashion -- photo by Nicole

Paris, London, Milan… Hanoi?  Vietnam is known for many things, but high fashion usually isn’t one of them.  I’d been in Southeast Asia for two months by the time I reached Vietnam, and I wasn’t really thinking about what the locals would be wearing.  The crowds in Asia had so far been a mix of t-shirts, jeans, saris, silk sarongs, and brightly colored traditional scarves and jackets.  These were my favorite, the black or navy wraps that tie at the sides with intricate, neon embroidery  along the borders; bells, coins, and seashells are sewn on for good measure.  The Traditional Arts & Ethnology Museum in Luang Prabang identified the design as Hmong, an ethnic tribe found in the mountains of north Vietnam and Laos.  The museum, and its very chic cafe, exhibited local textiles, explaining the designs and customs unique to each region and ethnicity.  Small children, I’d noticed, often wore square caps with pink and green fabric sewn onto the crown and dainty neon pom-poms and bells adorning four corners.  Besides being especially cute, it turns out that parents from animist tribes make these to disguise their children as dandelions, hoping to prevent evil forest spirits from stealing away with their adorable souls. Continue Reading »

The Lazarus Project -by Aleksandar Hemon

After enduring an extremely brutal reading list for a class on genocide, I declared January to be a “happy book only” month for me.  But now it is February, and I can start reading about pogroms, political oppression, and mass graves again. The first book I read after my self-imposed “depressing book ban” was The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon, and it became one of my favorites overnight.

Hemon intertwines two intriguing stories about Lazarus Averbuch, a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe who was shot by a Chicago Chief of Police in 1908, and a fictional, present-day Bosnian immigrant named Brik. Officially, Lazarus was declared an anarchist assassin, but Brik wants to discover what really happened. Continue Reading »

Travel Loot -- photo by Nicole

You’ve spent weeks, months, or even years planning your trip.  You’ve fantasized about lazy vacation days on a Caribbean beach, slathered in suntan oil instead of wrapped up in scarves.  You’ve spent long afternoons at work mulling over hotel deals and airfare to that remote South Pacific island where you can throw out your wool socks and throw on a sarong, all the while appearing, of course, to the eyes of prying bosses to be diligently at work.  Maybe you’ve elaborately mapped out a European museum spree, complete with pastry breaks and espresso stops.  Or perhaps you’ve spent your weekends training for a thrilling, perilous trek up a snow-capped Himalayan peak, interviewing sherpas and depriving yourself of oxygen.

But now you’re back.  You’ve taken several hundred pictures, sent off your postcards, lost your passport, gotten ripped off by taxi drivers and rickshaw wallahs, seen some pretty disgusting toilets, found your passport (hopefully not in the disgusting toilet), and managed to make it back home with several extra bags full of hard-earned, hopefully hard-bargained for, travel goodies.

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NFT New York City 2009

I think it’s safe to say that traveling to a new city is quite different than moving to one. Visiting a new city is pure excitement: in every direction new cuisines to try, parks to explore, streets to meander through and maybe even a new language to listen to. But when actually relocating, whether for two months or two decades, unadulterated excitement is accompanied by the mundane: coffee? laundry? groceries? bank? Enter Not For Tourists (NFT) Guides.

As a new resident of Brooklyn, or Crooklyn as Spike Lee called it in 1994 and as I now call it to amuse myself, I’ve come to appreciate the NFT guide. It has a great fold-out bus and subway map and has lots of general information about theaters, museums, and parks.

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The Ends of the Earth -by Elizabeth Kolbert

The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts currently has an exhibit entitled To The Ends Of the Earth, Painting and the Polar Landscape. It features over 50 paintings and photographs by artists who journeyed to the Arctic and Antarctica during the 19th and 20th centuries. I have always wanted to see the Aurora-Borealis, and even have traveled to Iceland five times in an attempt to see the phenomena. Unfortunately, I have never seen it due to adverse weather situations. After viewing the slide show on the Museum’s website, I figure that this will be a sure-fire way to finally see the Aurora-Borealis…or at least of painting of it! The exhibit is running through the first of March, so make sure to trek through the ice and snow to catch it before the warm spring months come and take it away.