Modern open-air for $120 per night, or transformed Victorian house for $10 a night. $10 a night will get you a place with little soap, yes, but soap does not cost $110 a bar, so you still come out ahead. Hostel pluses also include impromptu lessons in Portuguese and Spanish, and conversation in French andContinue reading “Hotel vs Hostel: the sequel”
Category Archives: Travel
Hilton vs Hostel
Shouldering my red backpack, worn from travel, and walking down to the lobby crowded with bellboys, suits, and small children, I could feel my senses engaging again. After having spent a few days attending a conference at the Disney Hilton, which rang in at the reasonable price of $199 per night, I was heading outContinue reading “Hilton vs Hostel”
France (Rouen)
Being in France, particularly Rouen, again was weird. C’etait chez moi et pas chez moi; j’etais la mais j’etais entre deux mondes. I walked the same streets and saw the same people… at least a few of them… and spoke French as was my wont, but it had to be short-lived because Scott was thereContinue reading “France (Rouen)”
Europe 2008
I became violently ill this trip to Europe, but I forced myself to get up at sunrise to take photos of Prague anyway. Then, in Berlin, I lay in a hotel room for several days until it was over.
Oregonians
I have always loved Oregon. It’s gray, but green; rainy, but mild, and I grew up here. When the sun comes out over the windy gravel backroads, lined with wild irises or blooming wild apple trees or dense blackberry thickets, it’s homey in a way that mountains and oceans can never be to me. EveryoneContinue reading “Oregonians”
of Montreal
Business tripping
Sunday: hotel in Spokane and not much further We get up at 5 a.m. to catch our flight, only, due to daylight saving’s time, it’s sort of 4 a.m. No mishaps there, though; we manage to get off in time. We leave Spokane at 6:10 and get to Chicago around noon local time (airlines, byContinue reading “Business tripping”
Belize highlights
1. exploring Actun Tunichil Muknal, the “Cave of the Stone Sepulcher,” or supposed entrance into the Mayan underworld, where the peoples of the Belizian jungles performed their sacred rituals, including human sacrifice, more than a thousand years ago. We paid a guide to take us through the winding passageways– some nearly entirely underwater– and upContinue reading “Belize highlights”
Traveling with directions
Michal sent me directions to her place in Portland today, hoping, she said, that they were less cryptic than the directions I had left her on a door in Paris once. I had almost forgotten about those directions. I had gotten to this apartment in Paris, rented out by my host brother, a self-proported would-have-beenContinue reading “Traveling with directions”
in the hills outside Dallas
Once upon a time, when I was visiting Berlin, a woman remarked upon the Oregon acreage I used to call home. She had also seen it, and she said that it reminded her “of East Germany before the wall came down.” People staying in the same spot and doing the same things with a sortContinue reading “in the hills outside Dallas”
Botkin Creative 