Mapping Pintxos in San Sebastian

San Sebastian being in Basque country, there are two names for everything.  San Sebastian, for example, also goes by Donostia, and what I would normally call tapas are correctly referred to as pintxos. In our one day in San Sebastian/Donostia, Jeff and I managed to squeeze in not one, but two pintxos crawls.

Blue footed Booby
(photo by Scott Ableman)

This was the perfect excuse to break out Jeff's newly revamped Android app, SpotPad. SpotPad allows you to take notes tagged to your location, so you can later remember where that really cool store was, or where you finally spotted that rare blue-footed booby.  

Objectively speaking, SpotPad is awesome.

At every bar we stopped by, we grabbed a couple pintxos while I wrote an insta-review as a new SpotPad note.  When we got home, I sent myself an email with all my notes attached as an KML file (this is a one-step process within SpotPad).  I uploaded that KML file to a new Google map, and ta-daaa, my very own Donostia pintxos crawl map (see below).

I think we've already established that I am not technologically adept, particularly when it comes to smartphones, but this was pretty easy (I added the pictures later, when editing it on my computer).  I feel like I have a new toy - I'm going to start embedding Google maps in all my posts.  Consider yourself warned.

View Pintxos in Donostia (San Sebastian) in a larger map


ps - As this is a trial run for me, you might have to click through to the whole map in order to see the photos and descriptions.

Portland or Den Haag?

In recent months, Jeff has made no secret of his growing love affair with The Hague - a sentiment, it should be noted, that is so unusual amongst the expat set that it draws suspicion bordering on outright hostility.  This state of affairs has led me to adopt a line of argument that can be roughly paraphrased as "Portland-is-just-like-The-Hague-only-not-in-Europe."

There is actually quite a bit of truth to this argument.  Both are gray-weather cities full of white people who like to think they are more liberal than they actually are, where bicyclists have privileged status and pot smoking is (more or less) tolerated.  In the spirit of my Dutch vs. Danish musings (albeit without the fun alliteration), I present Round 2: Portland or Den Haag?

Best Day Ever, Solstice Edition

As I've said before, we should all have Best Days Ever at least once a month, ideally once a week.  My most recent: June 21 - also known as the longest day of the year (coincidence? I think not).
For example:

• I did not have to wait more than 2 minutes for any mode of public transit all day.
• My office mate shared her Leonidas chocolates with me.
• I did not get rained on.
• Jeff made me a fabulous Lebanese-inspired dinner.
• The Senate confirmed a mentor of mine as a federal judge.
• We celebrated by splitting a bottle of nice champagne with our friend/neighbor.
• I feel asleep easily and slept soundly (for the first time in a week).

See, it's not that hard - a Best Day Ever does not require being nominated for a Nobel Prize, getting married, or having a successful IPO for your start-up that enables you to retire 30 years early.  Because everyday life, by itself, can be sweet enough.

And for the record: sunrise 5:22 am; sunset 10:07 pm.

Antwerp's Heritage: Searching for the Right Words

On our recent jaunt to Antwerp, we dutifully hit all of its World Heritage sites.  But words fail me: there should be a way to describe the theme that connects these, but the best I can come up with is "self-determination."  I don't think that's quite right (besides being rather soporific), so I welcome any suggestions.

First there's the béguinage.  I love this concept.  Back in the late Middle Ages, single women who lived quietly religious lives but did not want to take vows built these enclosed communities within major Flemish cities.  They are like little towns, separated from the male-dominated world by high walls and approachable through only a single door that is locked at night.  Once inside, there's a small church and modest lodgings around a central courtyard.

I find it very meaningful that women were able to create a third way for themselves 800 years ago.  Faced with the choice of being subjected to a husband or to the Church, I too might have opted out, leading instead a simple life focused on service and prayer, one in which I could earn my own living with the help of female friends.  According to UNESCO, the communities were even democratically run, with an elected leader and often an elected council.  A much better solution to the problem of independent-minded women than burning them as witches, imho.

Daytrippin to Antwerpen

Antwerp made the New York Time's 41 Places to Go in 2011 for its "fashion buzz" and "destination-worthy concept stores" (see also this recent article); countless airline magazines I have thumbed through this year have agreed. Antwerp must have some good marketers.

I like Antwerp, but I would not build a travel itinerary around it. Rather, Antwerpen (as the Flemish/Dutch like to say) makes an excellent casual day trip from The Hague - or Rotterdam, Brugge, Brussels, perhaps even Amsterdam. Akin to Portland, it's a city with few major attractions other than a chill and arty vibe. There's some history, some cafes, some shopping, and some museums, enough to fill a quiet day of touring, but mostly it seems to be the sort of place you would want to live.

Waiting not-so-patiently

The old center, close to the river, is full of pedestrianized cobblestone streets lined with European chain stores. In other words, it's only quaint if you have not already visited a lot of other northern European cities. But the center encompasses at least one gem: Goossen's, an institution of a bakery, located in a tiny storefront that is easily identifiable by the line forming outside its door (Korte Gasthuisstraat 31). The soft danishes incorporate chunks of whole fruit, but the real treat is the sugar bread, a dry and delicate loaf with raisins and a marzipan center, topped with a thin crust dusted with granulated sugar. (They will slice the loaf for you into very thin pieces, perfect for tea or coffee. Not that a single slice of our loaf lasted our return to The Hague.)

Grote Markt and the Cathedral

From Goossen's, one could wander up to the Grote Markt, the city's main square, or a few blocks west to the river, where there's an abbreviated promenade and a partial view of Antwerp's massive port. The center is dominated by the somber town hall and the soaring belfry of the cathedral, which is visible from just about any location in the city. But the old center may be the least interesting part of Antwerp.

Even for the fashion unconscious (like us), it's worth strolling through the two main shopping streets of Antwerp, Nationalestraat and Kloosterstraat, which run roughly parallel to each other heading south from the center. Both are refreshingly unpretentious, with shops that seem welcoming to hipsters and plebeians alike.

Smartphone Face Off: Camera Edition

When we first arrived in Paris last month, my friend and I realized that neither of us had brought a camera, assuming that the other one would. This left us reliant entirely on the cameras in our smartphones - one a Motorola Android, the other an iPhone.

I was interested to see, when we compared pictures afterwards, that we had often taken pictures of the same thing - and that I could easily tell which phone took which version.

Here is just a sampling of our dueling pictures. After the jump, which phone is which (and some further musings on the Great War of Smartphones).

Smartphone A	Smartphone B

What To Do on Your Seventh Trip to Paris

On my fourth trip to Paris (back in college), I kind of hit a rut. I had seen all the main sites, I had visited all the famous museums. I had gone back to my favorite spots multiple times (though Sacre Couer never grows old). I had even taken the metro all the way out to La Défense and had an icecream cone under the towering monstrosity of an arch. I was - I hate to admit it - bored of Paris.

But then something wonderful happened: I dug another layer down and started rediscovering the city I thought I had so thoroughly "done." (I am indebted to my Irish aunts and the Rue Oberkampf for helping me over the hump back in January 2007.) Thus I can happily report that my seventh trip to Paris a few weeks ago was my best ever.

Of course the glorious spring weather didn't hurt. But since I'm a sucker for novelty, much of my pleasure was derived from seeing new sides of the same city. To wit: