Dinner in Goreme, Turkey
Dinner on our last night in Turkey really captured a lot of what I loved about the country. It was in an exotic setting, we climbed a tall stairway to get into this cave house, and on the walls there were many square cut-outs that were once used for pigeons. […]
February, 2019 Begins A New Era
It’s officially February, and the Superbowl has come and gone with a familiar result. The Pats win it….again, for the sixth time! Anyway, now that football is gone from my life for the next eight months, I see life unfolding differently than it has in the past. I am determined […]
January Fun When the Furnace Runs Out of Oil
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 […]
New York is the Center of the Travel Universe Next Week
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 […]
Delta Scores Big in the WSJ’s Best Airline Awards
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 […]
Some Random Thoughts about Traveling in Turkey
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 […]
Skiing in Turkey
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 […]
Istanbul: I Got Lost and I Liked It
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 […]
Flying to Istanbul and Skiing in Turkey
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 […]
Get Ready to Dance to African Music at Union Station Friday Night
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 […]
Letters that Helped Make Me a Man
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 […]
Christmas Cocktail Party a Super Success
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 […]
A Touching Memory of Christmas Past
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 […]
Aldi’s Brings Sanity to the Grocery Aisle
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 […]
A Christmas Party? Oh Yes!
I’m listening to Vince Guaraldi play his signature piano music that goes with the Charlie Brown television specials….old familiar songs played simply on piano with a bass and drum. Nice and spare, and each song languishes just long enough to feel supple and supine at once. We’re planning a Christmas […]
Thanksgiving 2018: At Home with Love
Thanksgiving a day of traditions This year was different than any year I can recall back to 2006. That’s because we made Thanksgiving dinner and hosted a few family members here with Rachael and her kids. I had ceded control of the cooking feasting holiday for so many years I […]
I Miss My Truck
Snow is coming. These days forecasts have gotten so good that when they say 100 percent, yep, we WILL get snow. So it’s now the week before Thanksgiving, and the radio says we’ll see 4-6 inches, starting around six pm. My snowblower is securely stowed down at Bill’s farm, wrapped […]
Wallow Takes You to the Farm then to the Sea
We had a rendezvous scheduled with a few dozen Oxford Sandy and Black pigs and piglets who live in small Quonset huts on a hillside overlooking the ocean. Their master is a pair of Guernsey siblings, Nicola Terry and her brother, who together have begun to offer a combination farm […]