Spendthrift Shoestring

Twitter: @textorian

I'm now in Twitter's evil grasp. I've bent to the pressure. I promise nothing.

Budget Travel Online: London Hotel Tips

Check out my tips for nabbing cheap hotel rooms in London on Budget Travel online, posted yesterday.

New York: Searching for Alexa Chung

There's nothing like hosting a guest for recharging one's impressions of New York. Richard flew in on the red-eye on Thursday morning and stayed through this afternoon. On Thursday, we spent the entire afternoon at the unbelievably wonderful New York Spa Castle, which went from being completely off my radar to making me want nothing more than to become a full-time connoisseur of Korean spas. ($35 for hours of soaking in tubs and sweating in saunas on weekdays? Amazing! There's even a free shuttle from the Flushing Main Street station on the 7 subway line.)

We did a fair amount of wandering during R's visit. We took in Grand Sichuan, Baoguette, the Whitney, the Hudson's Library Bar, La Floridita, Taverna Kyclades, various Balkan markets in Astoria, and, today, Williamsburg—which brings me to Alexa Chung, the British television presenter/model who lives in the neighborhood and who is, quite likely, about to become extremely famous here following the debut of her MTV show.

Chung was one of the tabloid staples I came across last spring and summer in London. I did not warm to her at the time. I recall one feature consisting mostly of a list of her favorite things, which I found to be quite unimaginative. I've done some research since, however, and I realize that I like her writing—see her column in the Independent—quite a bit. She finds New York alternately enthralling and mystifying, and comes to the sorts of conclusions that fascinated new arrivals do. I hope she retains this excitement and resists the ennui that descends upon too many New Yorkers after a while.

Incidentally, I hadn't visited Williamsburg in over a year. The mish-mash of hipster, Hasidic, Polish, Puerto Rican, and Dominican struck me as more interesting than ever. Richard snapped a ton of photos, which I can't wait to view. Throughout our stroll, we looked for Chung. She was nowhere to be found. 

In an aside, Richard also characterized me as a sporadic blogger. I was startled but quickly realized that in fact I've been awfully sporadic with this blog lately; in addition, many of the posts I've managed to slap up have been short and Twitter-like. Apologies.

June Monocle

I've often sung the praises of Monocle here, so I'm especially excited to see my first piece in the magazine. I did a Q&A with St. Maarten's Leader of Government and Constitutional Affairs Commissioner Sarah Wescot-Williams for the June issue of Monocle, which is already on newsstands. Pick it up.

Norway, Eurovision, and the Power of the Jury

I didn't see it coming. I was taken aback by Norway's win at Eurovision on Saturday. In between the recently robust practices of diasporic and bloc voting at Eurovision, it seemed inconceivable to me that Norway's entry could win. Yet it did, and quite handily.

Across the board in this year's Eurovision results, it's clear that the re-introduction of juries into the voting calculus has forced a leveling off of the power of bloc and diaspora voting. Those trends are still present in the results, but they appear to have had vastly reduced significance this year. (I do realize that this conclusion may be complicated by the fact that only two countries from the former Yugoslavia made it through to the final while all five Nordic countries did so. It will take time to analyze more thoroughly.)

I watched the final at a spirited screening party at Hibernia Irish Bar and Grill in midtown Manhattan. A boisterous contigent of Norwegians arrived early and took up a great deal of space. Among their numbers, it so turns out, was Hanne Krogh, one half of Bobbysocks, the act that won Eurovision in 1985 for Norway. It was so cool in the nerdiest Eurovision fan way to stand a few feet from Krogh at the close of the transmission while she lipsynched to "La det swinge" in front of an ecstatic audience.

Thanks to Anthony Cowlam for organizing the delightful screening party at Hibernia.

Azerbaijan 12 Points

It's Eurovision time again. I've been completely remiss in my standard event build-up blogging activities. I realized months ago that I wouldn't make it to Moscow this year and consequently haven't been obsessively following every last detail. I am excited to see how the new voting system will change things, and I'm looking forward to screening the final tomorrow at Hibernia Irish Bar & Grill in Midtown.

I'm hoping that Azerbaijan will emerge victorious with AySel and Arash's "Always," as I'd love to travel to Baku next May. I've been following the perfect pop of Arash—the Azeri-Swedish fellow who is one half of the duo representing Azerbaijan this year—for a while, and I'd love to see what might happen if he were to build a following across Europe.

My other favorites in the bunch include the entries from Albania, Finland, Greece, Sweden, and Turkey. And as for the Norwegian song that leads the betting odds? Somehow I just can't imagine that it's going to win. I wouldn't mind being proven wrong, though I do worry how the Oslo cost index might trouble the budgets of journalists and fans.

Cheap SAS Newark-Stockholm Fares

SAS is peddling some incredibly cheap roundtrip summer fares between Newark and Stockholm right now. How cheap? $521, that's how cheap. In July. Insane. The fare is guaranteed through tonight.

South Carolina, Pimento Burgers, and Waffle House

This past weekend I went to Augusta, Georgia to a family wedding. The weekend was quite wonderful. I ate, among other things, grits and catfish and a tomato stew that somebody called pudding. And an amazing chicken pot pie. And fried pickle chips.

But that wasn't all. On the way down to Augusta from Columbia my sister and I followed John T. Edge's advice and stopped off very briefly at Kingsman Restaurant in Cayce for pimento burgers. Gorgeous. Now I only have 99 of his recommendations to go.

No trip to the South is complete without a pit stop at a Waffle House. I fell in love with Waffle House in 1990 on my first trip to the South. I love the simple diner aesthetic, the laminated menus, and the black-on-yellow signage. The grub is intense. At the right moments, it can hit the spot. Marisa and I found a nearly empty Waffle House yesterday afternoon near the Columbia airport full of friendly and talkative staff. It was an appropriate place to bid adieu to the region for the time being.

(Parting question: How popular would a single Waffle House in New York City be, on a sort of flagship abroad model? You'd have to wade through hipsters and Southern transplants to get in.)

Bilbao: Pintxos & Calatrava

And some other things, too. Check out my post on Bilbao on the EuroCheapo blog today.

Santander: Estación Marítima

After feeling completely satisfied by Bilbao's impressive contemporary architectural riches, I wasn't expecting to come across modern architectural treasures in Santander. And yet it was Santander's maritime terminal that appealed to me most on our daytrip to the Cantabrian capital. The estación appears to be both a ferry terminal and a performance space. I love its use of both concrete and brick, as well as its soaring windows.

Terminal exterior. 

Window from the interior.

Waiting room.