We’re in the midst of the deep freeze, and this time we got snagged in the crossfire. I noticed it was a bit chilly, what with the minus four degrees outside, and when I went down to the cellar, I saw an ominous sign on the high-tech boiler’s screen. Heating Err. Oh boy. I just […]
My annual pilgrimage down to the Big Apple starts next Wednesday when I hit the Moxy Hotel on Times Square. I’ll get there late and probably order Chinese again from a wonderfully exotic joint where no one speaks English. That’s the best. Then on Thursday morning I’ll join about 300 other travel writers for IMM, […]
Every year, the Wall Street Journal’s airline columnist, Scott McCarthy, rates the Best and Worst Airlines for the year. This year’s winners were trumpeted in a slick video featuring the bow-tied journalist sitting in the traditional Middle Seat, giving out the awards. The categories covered the things that travelers all care about. First up was […]
Random observations after a week of traveling in Turkey. One of the things I heard from some people who I told I was visiting this country was fear. To date, I can’t see why, since this country gets 34 million tourists a year and is very well set up for tourists. I haven’t ever been […]
Turkey’s newest and largest ski area at Mount Erciyes outside of Kayseri. With a vertical drop just below 5000 feet, it’s almost as big as Snowmass in Aspen. And there are no trees anywhere. We met with the managers of the new slope, which has been under construction for five years, and they told us […]
I was pleased, tired and somewhat stunned when I checked my iPhone and saw that we had walked 8 miles, 18,107 steps, as we walked to all of the top attractions in the sprawling city of Istanbul from 8:30 until 4 pm. We toured the Topkapi Palace, home of the Sultans and their hundreds of […]
On Tuesday night, I’ll fly out of JFK all the way to Istanbul, Turkey, where I will join a group of travel writers for a press tour that will include the big city and the resort area of Kayseri. This is a large city, in fact, one of the fastest growing industrial centers in the […]
Another Collider is on its way, and that’s a good thing for anyone who loves dancing to highly energetic music from Africa, as two great bands are coming to Northampton’s Union Station on Friday night. BCUC , from South Africa, plays fast-paced Soweto stylings and what can be described as “afrobeat+afropunk+afropsychedelic music.” BCUC stands for “Bantu […]
I have kept a box of letters up in a drawer in my office closet for decades. The last time I put a personal letter in that box was when I got a nice note from a writer last year. Pretty much nobody has written personal letters, on stationery, in decades. I was thinking about […]
It’s time for my post-party wrap up and look back. I am very, very happy with how the Christmas Cocktails party worked out for everyone. I sweat and anguish over party details and so often I think that there isn’t enough food, or not enough booze. The crowd was just as big as I expected, […]
It’s a weirdly warm day, balmy and 51 degrees. It’s hardly the type of weather that makes you feel in the Christmas spirit, though it’s still barrelling down at us and will be upon us next Tuesday. I am excited that after so many years we are having a cocktail party, a Christmas cocktail party. […]
I’m breathing in a sigh of relief…I can just feel how much I am saving by switching supermarkets to Aldis! For the past seven years, I’ve been forced to shop at the most expensive store in the world–Whole Foods. And Trader Joe’s was the second store, but both are not cheap. Not compared to Aldi’s. […]
