All posts in Uncategorized

I expected to be cheated in Argentina. Transparency International ranks the land of Menem and Maradona even lower on its 2014 Corruptions Perceptions Index than such exemplars of civic virtue as Mexico and Bolivia. Travel guides warned me that porteños applaud successful tricksters, celebrate a cynical, every-man-for-himself philosophy of viveza criolla. (“Made the law, made…

I log my Muni rides. Or have. In June I launched ‘muni log’ in a humble subdirectory of its own, and resolved that this imaginatively-titled file would collect my experiences aboard the city fleet in the months that followed. No longer would I gripe ignorantly about hordes of fare cheats slipping onto jammed buses. I…

Amsterdammers are likelier to ride bikes to work than they are to drive, walk or take public transport. The city possesses more than three bikes for every car. More than half of traffic movement in the central city is by bicycle. I was vaguely aware of these impressive stats when I touched down at Schiphol…

(♦)  Expect occasional squinting through a haze of Other Guy’s cigarette smoke while waiting for rides in both Zurich and Copenhagen.  (And perhaps in Stockholm and Moscow, too.  Your scribe took inadequate notes.) ‘Smoking europe’ in the omnibox pulled up this. (♦)  Also expect to see much more graffiti in both Zurich and Copenhagen than…

Copenhagen and Zurich have to be two of the world’s best cities for life without a car.  I write ‘have to be’ because my visit to each was brief; I acknowledge that a longer look-around might dilute my enthusiasm.  But I can’t believe I’d see anything to dilute it very much. I hope I sound…