From Alfanoose to Zabar's: Barry Campbell's New York City Rolodex: Hotels, Restaurants and Cultcha

Posted via web from enrevanche on posterous

Travel Connectivity

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Update, 1 Feb 2009: Carrie analyzes the map at See What I Mean: Information Visualization.

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The world is shrinking. Cheap flights, large scale commercial shipping and expanding road networks all mean that we are better connected to everywhere else than ever before. But global travel and international trade and just two of the forces that have reshaped our world. A new map of Travel Time to Major Cities - developed by the European Commission and the World Bank - captures this connectivity and the concentration of economic activity and also highlights that there is little wilderness left. The map shows how accessible some parts of the world have become whilst other regions have remained isolated. Accessibility - whether it is to markets, schools, hospitals or water - is a precondition for the satisfaction of almost any economic need. Furthermore, accessibility is relevant at all levels, from local development to global trade and this map fills an important gap in our understanding of the spatial patterns of economic, physical and social connectivity.

Travel time to major cities: A global map of Accessibility (European Commission - Global Environment Monitoring) -- via Thomas P.M. Barnett

One of the most astonishing things I learned is how little wilderness is really left - only about 10% of the planet's surface is more than 48 hours travel time from a major city.

Behaving badly on vacation

Speaking of travel:

“They scream, they sing, they fall down, they take their clothes off, they cross-dress, they vomit,” Malia’s mayor, Konstantinos Lagoudakis, said in an interview. “It is only the British people — not the Germans or the French.”

Some Britons Too Unruly for Resorts in Europe (New York Times, 26 August 2008)

A travel life list

Phil has posted his wanna-visit list at Archer Pelican, and asked around for others to share theirs.

Because I am an old married guy :-), elements of this list are on Carrie's life list and/or mine. If they're in italics, I've visited them at some point; bold italics, she and I have visited them together.

Major cities I think we'd enjoy hanging out in:

• Amsterdam
• Atlanta
• Bangkok
• Barcelona
• Beijing
• Berlin
• Boston
• Cairo
• Chicago
• Copenhagen
• Hong Kong
• London
• Madrid
• Manila
• Melbourne
• Mexico City
• Milan
• Montreal
• Mumbai
• Nairobi
• New Delhi
• Oslo
• Paris
• Rome
• San Francisco
• Shanghai
• Singapore
• Stockholm
• Sydney
• Tokyo
• Toronto
• Vancouver
• Vienna

Place my wife is determined to visit and beats the hell out of me why but I'm game and we're planning on doing this:

Antarctica

A rodent to give even Mister Gato pause

As dusk fell on the tropical wetland crawling with iguanas and small crocodilian caimans, José Ismael Jiménez pointed his harpoon at a rodent about the size of a Labrador retriever. With aim that comes from years of practice, he landed his spear on the back of its head.

But this hunt was not about ridding the country’s southern plains of varmints. It was about what’s for dinner.

The hunter’s only goal was the meat of the capybara, reputed to be the world’s largest rodent. Unlike other South American countries, including Argentina and Brazil, where capybaras are raised mainly for their hides, here the rodent’s meat is a sought-after delicacy, fetching prices almost double those for beef.

In Venezuela, Rodents Can Be A Delicacy (New York Times, March 21, 2007)

An explanation of my absence, with catblogging

Back in the RTP area; Mom's travails with ill health continue.

An Emergency Room admission on Wednesday night for dehydration after two days of stomach upset turned into an ICU admission for elevated blood pressure and arrhythmia, and now there are new elements in the mix... the trajectory now will hopefully be from ICU to regular hospital room this weekend, and from hospital room home sometime next week.

Blogging will either be extremely light or extremely heavy for the next several days, depending on the mood state I happen to be swinging through at any given moment. :-)

Here, have a cat picture from the Home Office in New York City (with two bonus dogs.)

The king, on his cardboard throne, with his royal guard.

Any question that Mister Gato is Lord of All He Surveys? Those Chows are guarding his regal little behind.

Be sure to check the Friday Ark at The Modulator for more quadruped goodness, and the Carnival of the Cats this Sunday at Scribblings.

P.S. The flight into RDU -- on Continental, thanks very much, though I was out of town on the first thing smoking when I got the phone call -- was character-building, involving a small plane (a 37-seat Embraer) and wind shear. A passenger on the plane--an adult, and thank God not me--apparently soiled themselves on the first landing attempt, which was aborted when the plane sort of plummeted, shuddered, and skittered sideways all at the same time...

"M" as in...

So Carrie is getting ready to take a short working vacation in Seattle, and will be visiting with an old friend we haven't seen in a while.

She already seems to be getting into the spirit of things. As she was giving her information to the car service driver who'll be delivering her to Islip Airport tomorrow, she gave her middle initial as "M... as in 'Madonna.'"

Fabulous.