In El Salvador I did a Ruta de las Flores day trip. That’s “Route of the Flowers”, just in case your Spanish is completely non-existent. But let me first clear up something: the flowers only bloom seasonally. When I was there, I saw a grand total of zero flowers on the Route of the Flowers….
The Minnesota pyramid scheme sounded like a job interview at first. “I’m a good communicator because…” “I work well both alone and as a team…” “I graduated three years ago but I’ve demonstrated the 17 years of requisite experience by working 4 jobs and training myself to only need 8 minutes of sleep a day.”…
Wilmington, Delaware is a piece of East Coast suburbia that feels like a new utopia created for a post-apocalyptic future. I can describe it no better than by saying the trash cans on the street are never more than 30% full. Compare that to New York, the great American dirt-hole, where trashcans are 120% full…
Alaska has by far the biggest land mass of any US State. Its natural beauty is unparalleled anywhere in the world. Yet most people visiting Alaska stay on cruise ships and don’t even see the interior, which is like going to a zoo and only seeing the gift shop. You’re missing the good stuff! With…
To understand what happened on that bus at 8pm outside a cheap hotel in Toronto you first have to understand Wilson. Wilson was the guide on our bus tour to Niagara Falls and Toronto. It was a bilingual English-Chinese 3-day-tour leaving from New York City. Wilson wore dark pants and a wool sweater under a…
Astoria, Queens was named after John Jacob Astor, who was once the wealthiest man in America. You might imagine therefore that Mr. Astor was born in what was then known as Hallett’s Cove and the village renamed themselves in his honor. That would be understandable and frankly quite boring. In reality, Mr. Astor never set foot in the…
Later in December, I’m heading home to the UK. To be more specific, I leave New York on Christmas Eve and land at Heathrow at 7am on Christmas Day, where my beleaguered parents will be waiting, having woken up at 5am and driven an hour and a half from Cambridge to pick me up. I…
The Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro is one of the more incredible things to see in life. It’s up there with certain famous sculptures in the Dakotas. But the weirdest thing about the Christ the Redeemer statue is that there’s a freaking elevator that goes up to it. I’m a fit and…
Hiking is good exercise so one fine autumnal day we went hiking in Bear Mountain State Park. However, when you live in New York City, to go hiking you have to walk to the subway – passing a perfectly adequate gym on the way – then take the subway to the bus station, then sit…
This might be useful to some. Here’s how to get from Cap Haitien to Port-au-Prince by bus. For those who don’t know, those two places are in Haiti, one of the least visited countries in the world. So I’m not expecting a lot of people to find this post through Google Search. Google Maps told…