Hostelgate Backpackers is an ideally located hostel right on what I think is the main street of the old city. Not far down this street is the Astoria Hotel and other top hotels are right there, too.
Clean, convenient, friendly. Various sized dorm rooms. Good kitchen. Comfy places to hang out. Supermarket right down the road too.
Just sharing some photos of the historic old city area of Vilnius Lithuania in case you enjoy the architecture and character of places as I do.
Dorota and I spent our days in Zakopane simply walking around and enjoying the sites, sounds, and foods — despite the rain. (Remember you can click an image to enlarge it.) One of the things you can’t miss is the local cheese. It’s sold in each of the main areas of Zakopane and comes in many sizes, shapes, and nuances. Notice it’s not refrigerated? It’s all quite salty and doesn’t need refrigeration. At least not until cut info or for some time. I brought some back to Warsaw as a gift to my host and hostess there. The Square Food stalls surrounded a local square (well circle). The potato pancake stand was irresistible as our lunch. They serve these hot crisp beauties covered in cream. I got to people-watch as we joined others sitting on a low stone curb to enjoy our casual snack or meal. The entertainment included this […]
Here’s the place that attracted our attention for a good sit-down meal for a late lunch or early dinner. The Pierogi caught my attention. I ordered the Spinach Pierogi for 12zl. When the waitress brought it, swimming in butter, I had one bite and was in heaven. I know I took photos of it, but don’t know what happened to those photos. So I can only share a photo of the restaurant and show you its menus. Arranging the night’s accommodations as we ate Dorota needed to get back to work so our mini holiday was ending soon. We were taking a bus back to Krakow by dark. Dorota was worried about me having a place to stay. I wasn’t. I had called Joanna, a woman with whom I’d stayed the first time I came through Krakow because she’d told me to call when I returned. Besides, I can always walk […]
In Kolorowa, a Zakopane tavern featuring live traditional area music, I discovered Raspberry flavored beer, created by adding a raspberry syrup to your beer. (Years ago, in France, I feel for Belgium beer made with raspberries too, but hadn’t thought of adding a syrup myself.)
I arrived in Zakopane, a popular mountain resort in Poland. My Polish friend was on the way by bus. I walked around, found a place for a sit-down lunch, then I listened to room-hawkers who approached me as I awaited my friend’s bus. It was a change for me to stay in a chalet rather that a hostel.
After the emotional time in Tarnow, I headed to Zakopane, a popular resort town. I invite you to enjoy some of the views from this bus ride between Tarnow and Zakopane. This is insight into the entire ride: scenery, businesses, roads, and road signs as well.
I started this day in Krakow, left my backpack behind and headed to Tarnow for a night.
Tarnow is not a tourist town. Finding a place to stay was part of my entire day’s adventure as I saw much of the city with my daypack and side bag on me. This post follows that very long day.
My Krakow friend Dorota had a work appointment the afternoon I arrived, so we walked together to the entrance to a park near the main square — a medieval square — and arranged to meet at the same spot later. This gave me the opportunity to wander by myself and get a feel for the area. As this was my first walk in Krakow, every storefront, ever vehicle, every sign, was new to me.
I’ve got some photos of this medieval square for you.
I awoke at 6am to the sound of Joanna cooking. I was in for another truly home cooked meal. Today was the day for me to move on to my second place in Poland. I was Krakow-bound and a friend was meeting me on the other end of the ride. I sat in a red high back seat on the upper level of my first Polish bus, PolskiBus. It was a very clean, new-seeming, beautiful double-decker. For approximately 5 hours I watched the scenery and did some writing. No friendly conversations with locals on this bus ride.
On this rainy Sunday, Michal and Joanna took me to the Warsaw Uprising Museum in the part of Warsaw called Wola. We drove as it was our only stop — and because it was raining, of course.
If you’re curious about some of the roads in Warsaw, here’s a slideshow of photos from our drive from his suburb to the museum. Then I’ve got a slideshow of some of the museum, of course. I can show you the photos, but can’t even begin to tell you about its impact.
Michal and Joanna took me out to see and know more of Warsaw each day. Today we went by bus rather than dealing with parking as they had a few locations planned for me. The day was warm and beautiful. A perfect day for a bus and a lot of walking to get to know a city.
I was on my way out of the USA again. Destination: Poland and Eastern Europe. Countries and places to visit to be determined, as always. I knew only that I would go to the birthplaces of at least two of my grandparents.
As I traveled to Warsaw for the first time, I felt like a VIP knowing my host, Michal, would be waiting for me at the airport — holding a white sign with my name on it. As he drove me home, he told me of his girlfriend Joanna (Yanna) and that she was making me a traditional Polish meal of Pierogi (but with berries)l for my arrival. Wow.
My first outing in a new country is always exciting. Even if it’s just walking to a food market. But in this case, being taken around by a life-long resident of Warsaw was particularly nice.
One of the nicest things you can do for yourself when you travel is to experience local theater. Whether it’s a small local theater group, a small traveling repertory group, a small drama theater, or a full-blown Broadway cast on tour — you can’t go wrong getting a taste of the local high culture.
In Los Angeles, California, I never miss an opportunity to see a show at the Center Theatre Group’s Ahmanson Theater or its smaller Mark Taper Forum, both at the Music Center downtown LA. There are inexpensive tickets available. Buses go right to it and trains get you very close.
I don’t think there’s a bad seat in either house — and I’ve never been disappointed by a performance.
You never know where your travels will take you — or what you’ll learn on the way. I still think it’s odd that as part of traveling the world, I landed up living in Austin for a few months. Yep, Austin – Texas – USA. Not some remote place like Austin like when I was in Australia and got to waterski under the Brooklyn Bridge. As it happened, WordCamp Austin 2014 is taking place during my stay. And since I started getting into WordPress heavily as I traveled — due both to starting this blog and being robbed of my Mac and thus, my license to use Dreamweaver and Photoshop — I was thrilled by the timing! So my very first WordPress volunteering is here in Austin. I manned the camera and helped the speakers in the Themes & Design track all day today, and return for more tomorrow. The stuff in […]
It’s been a while since I’ve sailed. My last sailing venture was at Roatan, one of the Bay Islands off of Honduras, and that didn’t actually include much sailing because their appeal for crew was really just an appeal for a wallet. But today I got to sail in the Beer Can Races at the Austin Yacht Club, on Lake Travis in Austin, Texas, USA. “Sailing in Austin?”— some people have asked, surprised. Yep! Austin, Texas doesn’t have ocean, but it does have Lake Travis. And, in summer the lake is warm and inviting for swimming too. (Unfortunately, it’s about 53′ less of a lake now than “normal” due to dry spells and water use — but those boats still able to launch still get to enjoy it.) So today promised to be the first of a lot of sailing for me for the next month while I get to call […]
Day 1 in Prescott, Arizona — February 18, 2014: I arrived in Prescott to clean up and repair a MacBook Air, having already saved it from daily Kernel Panics via phone. How did I end up in Prescott? A client from Beverly Hills has moved here. Day 9 in Prescott, Arizona — February 26, 2014: The woman who’s Mac I just resurrected told Apple techs that her Macintosh was about to be “the most expensive frisbee ever made” because she was ready to throw it against the wall. She’s had an ongoing love-hate relationship with all things Mac (and she’s had 5 of them) and now she’s l-o-v-i-n-g her Mac again! She has give me the title of “Residential Macintosh Intervention Maven.” After I dealt with the software-caused issues and ran diagnostics to assure her that her hardware was not the issue, I embarked on a massive file clean up. As […]
This is one of my favorite sculptures in Los Angeles. As you can see, it’s film themed. No surprise. It’s actually in Culver City. It’s at the Veterans Memorial Complex. The parking structure you may glimpse through the first shot is parking for Sony Studios. Look closely and you can see a Culver City Green Bus. In the 2nd shot you can glimpse the US flag and the California flag below it. I love looking at the sunlight on it and the reflections in the water. There’s no grass or comfy seats around it though so I just stand and appreciate it when I come to meetings in the center here. Culver City has been home to The Culver Studios since 1918. You’ve likely seen some of the famous movies that have been filmed there.
Some years ago, on what I now call my Three-year Trip, I was in Ko Samui, Thailand planning to go out for the afternoon on motorcycles with some newly met friends. But, as a couple of the guys finished their meal under the wall-less thatched roof that was our accommodation’s restaurant, a VDO started. The guys were hooked. One of the girls and I went to get them as on the TV in front of them we watched something called a Terminator seek out Sarah Conner and kill her. It was the wrong Sarah Conner, so the VDO continued and we were hooked too, eventually needing to sit down. (So much for motorcycles that day.) Flash forward some years until I’m back from what I now call my Central America Trip and may someday call my One-year Trip. Rather than get an apartment in LA for my in-between travels time, I’m house-sitting. […]
I’m still in Los Angeles, a break between travels, as I write this. But I’ve been thinking about the places I’d like to head to next. A writer acquaintance living in Minorca, got me thinking about heading there, to the Balearic Islands of which Minorca’s a part. I don’t normally do much research into a place before I go. I like to discover as I go. But this time I’m using more “social media” and see what kind of relationships I can form before I go anywhere. In this post, I shall share all good or interesting information that I find on Twitter. Why? Because I’m curious as to what can be found using Twitter as a research tool. Using TweetDeck as my Twitter client, I created several columns, each its own hashtag search. One is a search for #Mallorca as it’s the largest island in this group of islands. Mostly there […]
iOS7 — the iPhone and iPad operating system is just a week or so away from release. iOS6 has been out for around a year by now. The other night, I finally updated my iPhone 3GS — yes, you read 3GS correctly and yes, it’s old — to iOS 6. This is the story of why and of how it went.
Richard, who selected me to be the line handler in December 2012, making it possible for me to transit the Panama Canal, published this about me: I put a post on CS to look for extra crew for our Panama Canal transit. Of the people who responded I thought Deborah sounded the most interesting so she joined us for the day. I must have made the right choice because she proved to be very good company and an asset to our crew.
Let’s see if, wherever you go in the world, you ever come across vegetable displays as great as these.
This is the work of a man named Victor. Victor’s proud fellow RALPHS workers call him The Produce Artist.
This week my travels have been to Northern California’s foothills. I am in Auburn, a town that started when gold was found nearby on May 16, 1848, by Claude Chana.
