June 8, 2010…After the last final exam has been completed, students in Stockholm throw a roving celebration like none other. The alcohol-fuel party is like Spring Break on wheels.

Bogotá is famous for its Sunday Ciclovía, when bicycles take over 70 miles of pedestrian-friendly streets. The best part of the weekly ritual is the people-watching: I saw dads teaching their kids to ride tricycles; a man transporting his children (and pooch!) in a cart attached to his bike; and I met a few guys cruising around on custom-built chopper-style bicycles. I even had a chance to try out one of these souped up bikes myself and let’s just say it takes practice to sit back and peddle.

Death by chocolate

Feliz Dia de los Muertos. Today is the day when Mexicans remember the dead. They wear wooden skull masks and eat sugar skulls engraved with the name of their loved ones. It’s a great way to deal with losing someone you love. While in Mexico City, I met a young woman whose 20-something-year-old brother had recently died. She told me that the Mexican view of death helped her come to terms with his demise. She didn’t see it as an end but as the continuation of something else. It also made her appreciate her time on this planet a little more.

New York magazine’s travel issue is finally out. Here are some of my contributions to the bargain hunter’s winter-travel handbook.” The photos are from my personal collection.



Bogotá, Colombia
Steamed snook and other delicacies, for a fraction of Paris prices.
The scary, cartel-dominated years of the eighties and nineties are clearly over for Bogotá, which has recently rolled out a much-admired public-transportation system, a network of hilltop parks and museums, and now a world-class restaurant scene that’s considerably cheaper than other dining capitals. The most evolved cooking is happening in La Macarena, where Cartagena transplant Leonor Espinosa invents dishes like the fish-egg tartare ($14) at Bar de Leo (571-334-3085), and steamed snook gift-wrapped in a plantain leaf ($21) at Leo Cocina y Cava (571-286-0050). Chefs in the northern part of the city are hyphenating like crazy; at the Franco-Colombian Criterion, the European-trained Rausch brothers prepare a nightly five-course surf-and-turf tasting menu ($50). Spend the night at 104 Art Suites (from $150; 104artsuites.com), which has twenty rooms, each featuring the work of a different Colombian artist.

Extras
• 5 p.m. hot-chocolate santafereño at La Puerta Falsa $2.50
• Pre-Columbian artifacts exhibit at the Museo del Oro $3.50
• Bicycle for cruising the Sunday Ciclovia from Bogotá Bike Tours $14

Valparaíso, Chile
An underrated cultural epicenter with favorable currency rates.
Like a Latin American version of San Francisco, artsy, freewheeling Valparaíso teeters on 45 precipitous slopes overlooking the Pacific. Always a good bargain given Chile’s out-of-the-way location and weak currency, the city expects its creative juices to be overflowing in January, when it hosts an international triennial called the Universal Forum of Cultures (fundacioforum.org). Pay 50 cents to ride an antique funicular up to Cerro Alegre, where the Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes (56-32-225-2332) will soon open to the public. From your cliff-top perch, compare historic paintings of Valparaíso to the real thing out the windows. On top of another hill, Cerro Cárcel, is the ex-Cárcel (parqueculturalexcarcel.blogspot.com), a onetime penitentiary that’s now an informal cultural center. Replenish with a chorillana (fries, eggs, grilled onions, and sautéed steak piled high) at rowdy café Casino Social J Cruz (56-32-221-1225), then head out to the disco pub El Huevo (www.elhuevo.cl). Stay at the meticulously designed Cirilo Armstrong Hotel (from $73; ciriloarmstrong.com), whose owners will organize tours to their artist friends’ ateliers.

Extras
• Tour of poet Pablo Neruda’s nautical-themed house, La Sebastiana$4.50
• Pisco sour and live bolero at the city’s oldest bar, El Cinzano $3.50
• Metro ride to neighboring seaside resort Viña del Mar $3.50

Glasgow, Scotland
Chockablock with galleries, starving artists, and the pubs they drink in.
The Glasgow School of Art used to be a feeder school for the big-league art galleries in London. Now its graduates are sticking around to take advantage of Glasgow’s cheap rents, prodigious pubs, and burgeoning art market. If you can, time your trip to hit the Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Visual Art in April 2010, when hundreds of young artists will be jockeying for their big art biennial moment (glasgowinternational.org). Duck away to the still-grungy West End (reminiscent of a pre-condo Dumbo) to visit former New Yorker Kendall Koppe’s Washington Garcia (washingtongarciagallery.com) below a series of disused railway arches. In the same art ghetto sits SWG3 (swg3.tv), a crumbling warehouse commandeered by a rotating group of artists, musicians, designers, and dancers, who often throw circus-themed parties. The finer points of screen-printing and woodcutting are debated in Merchant City at the vegan eatery (and microbrewery, concert venue, and record shop) Mono (monocafebar.com). If you overdo it on heather ale, the Brunswick Hotel (from $80; brunswickhotel.co.uk) and its compact minimalist rooms are a five-minute walk away.

Extras
• A dozen local oysters at just-opened Crabshakk $22.40
• The Malt of the Month at the Ben Nevis whiskey bar $2
• Indie show at the music venue of the moment, Captain’s Rest $10

The November issue of Latina is currently on stands and celebrates “the culture, people and beauty” of Mexico. Having just visited El DF, I, too, may have a tiny Mexico obsession (I’m already devising a plan to return!). The country has been getting such a bad rap lately that it makes sense to highlight its many positive sides—and there are a lot.

For the issue, I interviewed Mexia and Raul Antonio Hernández, sons of Tigres Del Norte (think Mexico’s version of the Rolling Stones) band member Hernán Hernández, who are charting their own course in the music industry. One of the highlights was talking to the guys’ dad and hearing about how he left home as a child to provide for his family. I also profiled four female Mexican rappers breaking barriers in the hip-hop world, which is a huge feat considering Mexico is still a machista culture. And I contributed to a larger piece about all the great things Mexico has given us.

The magazine is loaded with other cool pieces, including a pictorial about an amazing crew of female parkour practitioners and a great list of must-see Mexican movies (I’ve seen six out of 25; better get cracking). You have to check out the magazine.

I have only Jonathan Rhys Meyer to blame. Yesterday, I attended a jousting festival at Eltham Palace to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII’s accession to the throne. It was one of many events in and around London centered on the notorious monarch. As a fan of The Tudors, I expected to be transported to a sexy (Showtime-worthy) version of 15th century England. What I found was a kid-friendly medieval fair. There was a bit of jousting and plenty of merriment in the form of courtly music, archery demonstrations and beheadings.

Yes, heads did roll. Decapitations (see photo) of big-headed dolls were performed for the benefit of the kiddies, who gleefully yelled, “off with her head,” when prompted. The naughty tykes even said “burn her” a few times. It was all a bit strange but I suppose it was done in the spirit of the day. Thankfully, no doll-sized nooses were on sale at the gift shop.

My story on Atlantic City is (finally) out. I think I talked to everyone in the gambling town while writing this one and am now an A.C. expert myself. Seriously, ask me anything you’d like to know! I did gain a special appreciation for the former (and usually maligned) “Queen of the Coast” and look forward to heading there again this summer on the Aces train. In the meantime, here are some more places to keep on your radar: Read the rest of this entry »

Just got back from the ‘Burgh, where I got most of my church imbibing out of the way before Easter. Whew! I had a great couple of beers with the kind of names—Celestial Gold, Pious Monk Dunkel, Pipe Organ Pale Ale—you’d expect from blessed brewery like Church Brews Works in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh. But despite the obvious gimmickry, this place is definitely worth a visit. Devout drinkers will be pleased to know that the building has the original pews, wooden floors and stained glass windows that were installed in 1902 when the building was christened St. John the Baptist Church. Back then, of course, only wine was served.

It has been said that Norwich has a different pub for every day of the year and a different church for every week of the year. So if you’re visiting this Norfolk city, go drink and be merry for tomorrow you can repent.

Order an Adnams at the Adam and Eve. Not only is it this the oldest alehouse around (it was built in 1249 to serve workmen building the cathedral), but it’s also believed to be haunted by the ghost of one Lord Sheffield, who was hacked to death in 1548. Sit under the low ceiling in the small front bar and you’ll soon enough start to hear footsteps up above.

The next day, you can visit Norwich Cathedral, which was commissioned in 1096 by Herbert de Losinga, the city’s first Bishop, and has the largest monastic cloister in England. The stone structure also has more than 1,000 roof bosses (carved medieval structures) along the length of the nave, which tell bible stories that range from creation to doomsday. If the dissolution of the world gets you down, you can always hit another pub.

AC, baby! OK, it doesn’t exactly have the same ring as “Vegas, baby!” but the tourism board for New Jersey’s gambling mecca is working on it. Hoteliers and restauranteurs are also in on the plan to revitalize the onetime “Queen of Resorts” and draw New Yorkers looking for a quick getaway. And since we’re such a finicky bunch, they’re luring us over with funky non-gaming hotels, like The Chelsea and The Water Club; celeb-backed eateries by Bobby Flay, Wolfgang Puck and Michael Mina; and spas, spas, spas. The new Aces train will even take visitors from Manhattan to Jersey in two and a half hours.

I was recently in Atlantic City and didn’t play a single game — not even a penny slot. So it is possible to fill up a weekend down there without ever touching felt or pulling a lever. But in case you’re tempted to play, Harrah’s, Trump Taj Majal, Tropicana and a few others have just renovated their casino floors.

Good luck!