a blog about a lot of things

Copenhagen is an easy city to love. Maybe it’s the fact that I went in June when the temperature approached 27°C and the sun shone so brightly that several of my colleagues were the colour of London buses by lunchtime on the first day. But as I’ve never heard anyone who’s visited the city say they dislike it, no matter when they’ve gone, I’d be inclined to city it really is just a lovely city. London is a hard city to love, even if you live there. In fact, it’s hard to love especially if you live there. Paris is either loved or hated by everyone that has visited it. These cities bring about strong emotions in people. But Copenhagen, when I was there, brought a general feeling of calmness and comfort. The pace of the city was very slow which probably had a lot to do with the weather but also the lack of crowds in the city. We stayed less than 10 minutes from the central station and there was none of rushing and general busy attitude one would expect from such a central ...

Constanta lies around two hours east of Bucharest, on the Black Sea. With a foundation date of 800 B.C., it is the oldest continuously inhabited city in Romania. Formerly one of the largest ports in Europe, the container traffic has reduced since its heyday in the 1990s but it remains the largest port on the Black Sea. Conversations with locals have confirmed the suspicion that the population of the city varies greatly with the season. In the spring and summer the population of Constanta swells significantly, especially on the weekends, by people flocking to the beaches and boardwalks. When I visited in March, the presence of tourists was not immediately obvious. The rail station lies about 2 km from the waterfront (about 7 lei by taxi) and has the feel of a building that has seen no changes at all for several years. This is a building which doesn’t feel neglected or unkempt in any way but one that’s static. The largest building on the boardwalk of Constan...

Rome is a cliché. Usually that isn’t a good thing but when the cliché is that a city is cool, full of life and gorgeous, the clichés can stay. Rome is possibly the only European capital that can claim to rival Paris in the popular imagination in terms of having an expectation around it. Even Paris is now succumbing to parallel narratives due to the sheer size of the city (much like London), with the immigrant experience less of an unknown story (to non-immigrants anyway. Immigrants always knew it wasn’t cities paved with gold they’d find). Some combination of smaller population, less immigration and the weight of centuries of civilization being still visible across the city has allowed Rome to actually deserve the tag of “The Eternal City”.   My idea of Rome comes to me primarily from Italian films of the 1960s. Rome is black and white in my mind just as it is on Fellini’s film reel. I had low expectations. Months in London had allowed cynicism to set in...

Food is usually linked to memory. This isn’t an original idea and to many people the food that I’ve chosen is barely memorable, just as most people won’t really be able to speak of great cheese sandwiches or fried eggs and not mean a specific meal instead of the entire selection of eggs or sandwiches. Dosa is a simple meal which can be ready in a matter of minutes. I usually explain it as a savoury crepe made of rice and lentil flour. It is served with sambar (a lentil and tamarind stew) and coconut chutney. The best dosa I’ve ever had is at Dosa Mahal in Toronto. It was the first time I’d had dosa in almost two years and that was probably why it remained in my mind as a representation of the best. It’s impossible to untangle the experience of food from the taste only. The taste is linked to history. It’s a common enough trope that even children’s movies like Ratatouille can use the idea that a simple dish which evokes memories of childhood will have deeper and almost spiritua...

Travel Writings – Zurich Cuisine Rösti is considered to be the national dish of Switzerland. It’s a dish which has a lot of similarities with hash browns; as it consists of grated potato fried in a frying pan. It is thought to be highly representative of Swiss German culture in particular (which isn’t really surprising as it consists of potatoes). From my experience with German cuisine thus far, I hadn’t had high hopes for this dish. Traditional German cuisine seems to regard vegetables as an accompaniment to the meat and an accompaniment which needs little attention other than being boiled. I’ve been informed the quality of the meat more than makes up for it, but as I’m vegetarian that’s not really much use to me. It’s rare that I find a national dish that isn’t comprised of meat or fish, so even with little expectation of it being good, it was still a great opportunity. Luckily I was entirely wrong about the link of Swiss German and German cuisine being a liking for tast...

I had been intending to visit Suriname for several years before I finally managed to go there, ostensibly for my cousin’s wedding, but really I was more excited about finally going to a place I’d been hearing about all of my life from my family. Almost every Trinidadian I know that visited the country has said it reminds them of how Trinidad used to be. I was curious to find out if my impression of the place would be the same. Despite having been hearing about Suriname sporadically for much of my life, only when I was actually on the flight did I realize how little I knew about the place. I knew that Suriname is the smallest country on the South American continent and the only independent Dutch speaking nation in the Western Hemisphere.  With a population of only 600,000; more Surinamese live outside the country than in it. These facts led me to believe that the country would have more of a smaller, even island-like, culture. They are, after all, part of Caricom. My assum...

So I'm really a big fan of repeats, i.e. I don't care to go the save places more than once. But obviously there are exceptions. So I'm making a list of places I wouldn't mind going to again. This list is, unusually, a definitive one. It's in order and set. Hopefully I'll never go to anywhere I've ever been already for a vacation unless it's on this list. 10. New York City Why: Really? it's New York City. It isn't a go-once place. There's a lot still to see. Concert in Central Park. Poetry Slams. Eat at Le Bernadin. New Year's at Times Square. Catch a Broadway show (not a musical). Go check out the Met. Play some street basketball (and probably get owned). The list goes on and on. First Thing to do: Get down to the Brooklyn bridge and have pizza at Grimaldi's. 9. Tobago Why: Bit of a cheat because it's not a city. Technically still the same country but who says you can't have a vacation without needing a passport (if you live ...