Take a walk around Siena and you will be amazed at every grocery store's
insistence on displaying prosciutto (jambon), wheels of cheese, and many
other buon di dio (as the senese say), meaning "everything good there is".
Naturally, you'll get all euphoric and hungry.
The next logical stop for you will be a restaurant. Unless you're accompanied
by someone who knows the town a little, however, I'd be very careful about where to go.
Of course, since you're in Siena, surrounded by Medieval Tuscan ambiance, everything will
taste good, and nothing particularly bad will happen to you if you choose to eat
any-old-where, but wouldn't you rather avoid the possibility of ending up unsatisfied,
torpid, and irritated with a uselessly inflated check to boot? Wouldn't
you rather have a good experience, leaving the restaurant well-fed and
invigorated? (I hope this is a hypothetical question for you.)
Read the rest of: "Where Not To Eat In Siena"»  We Russians just don't know when to stop. Most people would
consider this mental peculiarity a drawback. We, on the other hand,
are proud of it (that's because we don't know when to stop being proud either).
This sweeping generalization applies equally to alcohol consumption and building
skyscrapers. For proof, one needs to look no further than the "Moscow City" project that has been under development for the past decade. Many an architectural rendering has been discarded during this timespan - only to be replaced by drawings of towers that are bigger, better, badder. And more "Moscow". (Like Moscow actually needs vertical growth).
Last year, SiteBits wrote about the "Federation Complex" - two towers of 340 and 240 meters respectively. This year, this already feels too short.
We need another tower and we're talking at least 600 meters...
Read the rest of: "Moscow in Foster Care"»
This is the welcoming facade of the first all-palm airport I have ever seen. It is a private airport in Punta Cana, with many charter flights full of passengers arriving daily to stay at the many resorts in Punta Cana. With direct flights to many locations in North America as well as Europe it is certainly a busy place, especially on weekends!
Read the rest of: "Punta Cana Airport - Much Admiration and a Little Warning"»
Don't get me wrong - I love Spanish food. In fact, I adore it.
I can't get enough of all that cocido, jamón serrano,
chorizo and tortilla española, so whenever I am in
Madrid, I basically eat in advance.
Madrid is a city where I can go to a sketchy diner, sit on a bar stool at the counter pretending to be a visiting American, take out a French novel from my pocket... and still get friendly service along with a hearty, delicious meal - all for less than 10 euros!
But that doesn't help me solve the problem I encounter almost every morning.
My problem is breakfast...
Read the rest of: "VIPS: Breakfast in Madrid"» 
Did you know that every Friday night at the MoMA (New York, of course)
"Target" sponsors an event known as "Free Friday" from 4-8
p.m.? Yep, neither did I, when I showed up to explore the collection's new digs
in midtown Manhattan, and to visit my favorites in the painting/sculpture
galleries before heading out for a night on the town.
It seems as though le tout New York had the same idea, along with a few outsiders such as myself (and several thousand other tourists). As it turned out, this became more of a social visit than a serious conversation with the paintings, but it was an opportunity to see the new building in action -
not just housing art, but welcoming people (and as mentioned before, it was a LOT of people).
Read the rest of: "Free-for-all at the MoMA, New York"»  One of my favorite words to learn in any language is butterfly - or papillon, flutur, smetterling, farfalla, mariposa.....the onomatopoeic list goes on. The names are as pretty as the butterflies are, so I was intrigued when I heard that one of the greenhouses at the Botanical Gardens in Montreal becomes home for thousands of butterflies during the early spring.
Read the rest of: "The Butterflies Are Back!"»
The Museum of Arts and Design in New York is located directly across the
street from the Museum of Modern Art, and lives completely in its
shadow. You know it's a bad sign when the gift shop is more crowded than
the museum. I should have known better, but went blithely ahead into the
(3 count 'em 3) galleries. Red light number two was when the guard
responded, upon questioning, that it might take 30 minutes tops to see
everything.
Read the rest of: "Museum of Arts & Design: Beyond + Why?"» 
You know you're already too late to the game when New York Magazine
publishes an
article
(newyorkmetro.com) telling you that you should be living not in New
York, but in Buenos Aires, enjoying warmer temperatures, cheaper real
estate and "girls in bikinis".
Written by the
GoodAirs.com
guy, Ian, this article borders on advertorial in the way it unabashedly plugs the author's expat buddies with their
hobby-like business projects while simultaneously propagating this whole
myth of a warm, sunny, cheap New York (or Paris) on the other side of the
globe. If you're too lazy to follow the link and read it yourself, I'll
summarize it for you. The gist is that in Buenos Aires, even a "nobody"
from Manhattan can suddenly and effortlessly become somebody.
And, presumably, get to hang out with "girls in bikinis" as a result.
The secret behind this miraculous transformation?...
Read the rest of: "Buenos Aires Dreaming"» |
