Bucharest: First Impressions

Traffic. Fifth worst urban traffic on Planet Earth, according to the TomTom global traffic index. Visit and you’ll learn why. Picture Venice Boulevard in L.A., or maybe Wilshire. Grant yourself godlike powers. Add a couple of lanes, dirty it up, kill most of the median landscaping. Plug in guaranteed-to-gridlock traffic circles, antiquated signaling. Hoist this…

More than a Year with Linux

I write in the wake of the WannaCry ransomware attack, which has infected nearly a quarter of a million Windows PCs worldwide. Many victims must now be casting wistful eyes at alternative computer operating systems: Apple’s macOS, or the non-proprietary, lesser-known GNU/Linux. I haven’t used macOS since the 1980s, can’t plug or pan. I post…

Spain Expat Odds and Ends

Or, a round-up of heretofore unmentioned tips for expats and expats-to-be: MAIL AND DELIVERIES Almost everything I once ordered through amazon.com stateside is available through amazon.es in Spain. I use the same account and log-in, have received deliveries without incident. An amazon.es CSR called to verify bonafides for my first order. I missed a couple…

I introduce Madrid Cercanías commuter rail

Zurich, Berlin, Copenhagen and Munich have their S-trains. Parisians ride the RER; Long Islanders, the LIRR. Torontonians brave snowdrifts on the GO, perhaps while grunting ‘Eh?’ at one another after maple syrup-sogged moose chases. (I haven’t visited Canada in awhile.) Commuter rail is the inadequate and often misleading moniker for transit services of this type. Bigger…