Category Architecture
Work and waffles in Brussels
I’m in Brussels for a quick work trip. Took the Eurostar over this afternoon and of course the first thing I did upon arriving was get a gauffre in the gare. Because that’s what you do. Then work work work till late, and then (drumroll) a walk down into centre ville for a pita . […]
Who needs a place to stay in Seattle?
It’s official: Seattle’s hottest AirBnB property has just gone live and is open for business. I mean, if I’m not going to stay there, why shouldn’t you? You just have to promise you’ll let me back in when I move back from London. Here’s the listing. It’s perfect for weekend get-aways, longer-term corporate arrangements, and […]
The Tempest at the Barbican
There are posters all over town advertising the Royal Shakespeare Company’s current production of The Tempest. I would see them in the subway or on the sides of buses and think, “Oh, I should see that” only to forget all about it when I was back at my computer and able to do something about […]
Lunch in Oxford
In 2003 I went to the opera in Rennes, France, and during intermission met an English guy roughly my age named Ian. He had studied literature at Cambridge and had come to France to visit a professor and see the opera. He offered a the floor of his flat if I ever came to London, […]
Country house opera
So the English have this thing called “country house opera”, which involves traipsing out to an ancient English country house in tuxedos and evening gowns to see an opera and picnic in the formal gardens during the intermissions. Seriously people, how is this the first time I’m hearing of this? I went with a group […]
Walking the London Wall
My apartment is on the edge of what they call “The City”, which is short for The City of London. Nowadays it’s the financial center of London, full of shiny modern skyscrapers (which may or may not look like pickles and/or walkie talkies), but back in the day this was it — THE city of […]
The walk to work
I went in to the office this afternoon to try and make some headway on the 300+ emails that had piled up over the past few days. It was fun to pass this on the way: And even more fun to see this immediately next door: I love that juxtaposition of era.
Saturday in London
Compared to the difficulties I had trying to get to Brussels, it was a cinch getting to London. The small commuter plane left the tiny Luxembourg airport bright and early, touching down in the London City airport an hour later (though with the time zone change, we only lost about 10 minutes). I checked into […]
Puerto Rico – Exploring Old San Juan
Our morning food tour was only the beginning of our day-long ramble through Old San Juan. When Kathy released us back into the wild, we paused for a moment with our map to note the places we had passed that were worth revisiting, and to identify the landmarks we hadn’t yet crossed off our list. […]
Amsterdam
After finishing meetings in Berlin on Wednesday, my colleague and I flew to Amsterdam for another series of meetings there. These meetings could not have been more different! The Berlin meetings were formal (in a conference room), highly contentious and underscored by deep distrust between the two parties, but the Amsterdam meetings were casual (in […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 