Cindy and I are spending a few days away from the hubbub of urban Italy hanging out in the resort town of Positano, on the Amalfi Coast. Called the most photographed fishing village in the world, Positano is dominated by steep cliffs on which 4,000-ish Positanesi have built these pastel-colored homes leaning out dramatically into…
Category: Travel
Ciao, Belli (Off to Italy)
I will be travelling in Italy for the next week with my girl Cindy. Cin is already there studying Italian in Florence, already near fluent I’m sure. Read her blog if you want to hear about skeevy Italian men and embarassing American students abroad. Don’t know how much internet access I will have. But I…
Vegas, Baby, Virtual Vegas!
I finally got a chance to visit the Second Life Las Vegas sim last night, launched not long ago. It’s a fun simulation of the real thing, at least in its current family-friendly incarnation. I.e. lots of opportunities for shopping, theme park rides, and photo ops rather than drinking, whoring and gambling. My first stop…
Real places in Second Life: the Seattle Space Needle
I visited today a tremendous recreation of the Seattle Space Needle in Second Life created by Mattias Faulkner. It’s clearly the result of a lot of work and planning on his part to get the design and scale just right. It’s a lovely structure in real life, and no less so in simulation. The difference…
A few pics from Barcelona
I just uploaded a few pictures I took in Barcelona in February 2006. Barcelona is officially one of my favorite cities in the world — beautiful architecture, warm people, amazing food and lots of culture. The buildings and interiors designed by Antoni Gaudi — from the unfunished cathedral the Sagrada Familia to Casa Milla and…
Touring Manhattan from my web browser
Just found out about the “Virtual NYC Tour” website, created with obvious love and attention by Taher Baderkhan. Using Google maps, a GPS and a digital camera, Taher has created a cool way of exploring the Greatest City on Earth via the web. A Jordanian who came to New York in 1999, Taher has painstakingly…
Cuba – Not for the Timid or the Teetotaler
It's around midnight somewhere in Havana. There's a pop! sound and our peso taxi lurches to a halt on the side of the freeway, listing from a rear flat tire. As the driver struggles to fix it, Cindy and two Cuban strangers riding with us start to dance in the dark to the salsa music…
Thoughts on Security
I am staying with my friends Cecilia and Peter in the outskirts of Geneva, where they have a lovely home they share with their two young children and Peter’s parents upstairs. I arrived yesterday afternoon somewhat surprised to find the front door completely ajar. I cautiously peeked in the house and announced my presence. No…
Where’s a Militsiya when you really need one?
Well I had hoped to be able to write something in my first entry from St. Petersburg about how wonderful it is here. On the positive side, it’s a lovely city full of cultural and artistic treasures like the Hermitage, numerous palaces and cathedrals, and a rich artistic tradition from Doestoevsky to Kandinsky. I was…