Posts tagged travel

Up, up, and away

New York Governor David Patterson on planed airline cuts:

I implore American Airlines, as well as the other carriers considering various cost-saving scenarios, to take into account more than profit when they evaluate routes.

Good luck with that.

I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face: we need to work on improving other means of long-distance travel. As James Kunstler says, we have a train system that Bulgarians would be ashamed of.

Failing that, we should all just get used to living closer to that which is most important to us, and traveling less to those places that are far away.

June 28 2008 · Link

Bad business

Downtown, the cage is up around Market Square, which can only mean one thing: St. Patrick’s Day. The masses are smartly gathering at the end of our street, waiting for a bus to take them to the “fun.” There’s one problem, though: there’s no bus.

I’ve watched the crowd grow from 5 to 20 to probably 50. With each passing bus, the mumur of drunken discontent grows louder. Some Most are abandoning the wait, choosing, probably unwisely, to walk back to their cars and make the trip by other means.

The buses run at a frequency unchanged from their normal weekend schedule, and the ones that do go by fail to stop. I don’t know if the riders are being passed by because the buses are full, or because the drivers don’t want to deal with a bunch of happy drunks in Abercrombie & Fitch.

Either way, it’s a loss for the Port Authority, and for its regular riders. Failing to be flexible and accommodating to the special needs of the day is just fuel for the fire of those who posit the growing irrelevance of our transit system. I can imagine 50 different conversations once the revelers arrive downtown, all going something like this:

“Dude, what took you so long? I’m already smashed!”

“It’s the fuckin’ bus, man. I waited an hour for it and watched three go by without stopping.”

“Dude, the bus sucks.”

“I know.”

March 15 2008 · Link

Prague, Days 9-11

Our final days in Prague were spent at a slower pace. Satisfied with all we had seen thus far, we took time to visit some of the city libraries, hit a beer garden overlooking the city, visit some of the obligatory tourist spots that we had thus far skipped, and burn some crowns at the many souvenir shops.

Two personal highlights for me were my runs on Sunday and Monday. On Sunday, I set out in a new direction and ended up running to the base of my beloved Žižkov television tower. It was an unexpected journey, but once I turned a corner and saw it in the distance, I couldn’t help myself.

Before we left on Monday, I went for a short run with the camera and captured (photo, movie) my favorite running trail. Of all the trails I found around Rob’s place, I will remember this one the most. Running across it in the crisp morning air, golden sunlight all around, is a feeling I hope I never forget.

September 25 2007 · Link

Prague, Day 8

We took another train ride out of town, this time to the village of Karlštejn and its scenic castle. The train ride out was awesome, as we got to ride on one of the newest trains Czech Railways has to offer. The ride was so smooth that at times it was possible to forget that we were moving.

The scenic walk from the train station to the castle took about 20 minutes and wound its way through the quaint, but tourist shop-heavy village. We didn’t go into the castle, but the views from the courtyard were good enough for us.

Back in the village, we had ourselves a very European picnic of cheese, bread, and apples. We took a quick nap under a tree then headed back to the train station.

The ride back was a marked difference from our journey out. The train that pulled up was probably 30 years old, and was akin to riding a wooden roller coaster for 20 miles. However, it got us back on time and, all told, the entire trip cost us only about 170 CZK – less than nine dollars. Have I mentioned how much I love the trains here?

September 22 2007 · Link

Prague, Day 7

We allowed ourselves a relative day of ease, opting to not leave the apartment until nearly 2:00 in the afternoon. We crammed a lot of sights into the last several days, and a vacation from the vacation was in order.

When we finally did muster the will to leave, we headed over to Vyšehrad Castle, which sits on high ground along the river. The views were great, as was the church located inside the castle walls. The weather was perfect, and we sat and watched the kids run through the park under the somewhat-watchful eye of their mothers.

We left the castle and sought out a vegetarian Indian restaurant that we had found while researching for the trip. Unbeknownst to us, the restaurant had closed at 5:00 p.m. for the day. Strange. But we did come across another place, just down the street, that served good food and some decorative drinks (for future reference, here are some more vegetarian restaurants in Prague).

And what trip to a foreign country would be complete without a visit to a mall? We took the subway there, which was cool, but a mall is a mall. The pet store, though, did contain a couple of these things, which could be had for about 3500 CZK (approximately $175). I’m sure you can’t get these things in America.

Also in the mall was an 8-screen theater, so in the interest of research (and to satisfy our cravings for M&M’s and popcorn), we took in a show (given the available remaining shows, it was the best we could do). I don’t know if this is common in other theaters, but when we bought our tickets, we were allowed to pick our seats beforehand. Not particularly useful when there are only about 10 people watching the movie, but fun nonetheless.

September 21 2007 · Link