Category Archives: Around the world
Barbacoa
The real deal: barbacoa from La Costilla.
Alcatraz
Ever since I saw David Copperfield escape from Alcatraz I’ve been wanting to visit. About three weeks ago this became a reality. And I escaped and lived to post photos about it. It just took me a while to upload them.
Mexican cafeteria food
I was recently in Mexico visiting two universities on a recruiting trip. Man, I forgot how spoiled people are in Mexico food-wise. Even school cafeterias have awesome food. And it’s cheap. Any Mexican readers who think I’m out of my mind will be treated to lunch at a local office cafeteria.
Festival Bella Vía
I was in Monterrey, Mexico all of last week. On Sunday, October 17th, the Nuevo León government held the Festival Bella Vía (website not updated for 2010) in the Macroplaza.
According to the brochure, a tradition started in the Lazio region back in the XVI century in which artists painted on the ground their works of art. So this is what was going on here: artists were copying very well known works of art on the ground using chalk. Very neat. Check out the photos below (click on the thumbnail for the full size picture). See if you can recognize any of them…
Bicentenario
Photo: El Zócalo el día del Bicentenario by Ana Eversbusch.
Today is Mexico’s 200th anniversary. I get to experience it while living abroad… not quite the same.
¡Viva México!
Fredericksburg
We went to the beautiful Fredericksburg, TX over the Labor day weekend. It’s a small town founded by German immigrants in 1846, so most of the population is of German descent and they’ve kept many traditions. 12.48% of the population actually speaks Texas German which is, I think, a form of German with the suffix “Y’All” added after every phrase. It’s less than two hours away from Austin.
While the town is no Las Vegas or Paris, I was happily surprised by its charm. Great for a weekend or so! Here are some trip highligts that you can use as recommendations for your upcoming visit to lovely Fredericksburg, Texas:
Stay at a charming Bed and Breakfast
South Africa thoughts (part 2)
This is part 2 of my two-part collection of random thoughts from South Africa. Part 1 is here. Click on Read more for part 2.
South Africa thoughts (part 1)
I wrote a bunch of random and mostly disorganized thoughts about my trip to the World Cup. I will break them up in a two posts in order to avoid boring my readers too much. Hopefully someone finds them interesting. Click on read more to check it out.
World Cup photos!
It took a lot longer than I had hoped for due to unforseen technical difficulties, but I am finally done going through the ~1500 photos we took in the last couple of weeks, selecting and post-processing, and have posted them to The MKX® Photo Central.
I am really happy with how the photos came out. We used an Olympus E-PL1 Micro Four Thirds camera on the trip instead of the usual crummy pocket camera, which we occasionally paired with a Panasonic 45-200mm telephoto lens, which allowed for some cool closeups at the stadiums and in the safari. The main album is broken up by day:
- To the World Cup!
Carrying a sombrero across the world is not fun. - Egypt
A 12 hour layover in Cairo. Let’s make the best of it. - South Africa VS Mexico
Opening match in Soccer City, Johannesburg. - Argentina VS Nigeria
Messi and Maradona, in front of me. - Lory Park
Awesome VIP tour in this beautiful animal sanctuary, courtesy of Sharon Salomon. Also, an encounter with former world champion Oscar Ruggeri. - Holland VS Denmark
At Ellis Park. Not the best match, but look at that crowd! - Brazil VS N. Korea
The jogo bonito. Also, Apartheid Museum, SAB World of Beer. - Pilansberg Safari
Extreme closeups of wild animals, and also of my flat tire. - Mexico VS France
If we are going to beat France, we should do it in style, flying private and hanging out with Figo and Zidane. - England VS Argelia
In Cape Town. Zague said hello. - Cape Town
Enjoying the waterfront. - Simon’s Town
Table Mountain, then drive to Simon’s town to see the penguins. - Portugal VS N. Korea
Jewish Museum, then see Ronaldo and friends kill the Koreans. - Uruguay VS Mexico
Not much luck in Rustenburg. - Return to reality
Another loooong trip through Egypt, where Mexico is famous for the wrong reasons.
