Assorted movie recommendations from the last couple of weeks:
Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Andersen, 2009). An original cartoon with great pace and good sense of humor by the director of the excellent “The Royal Tenenbaums“.
Tetro by one of cinema’s all-times masters Francis Ford Coppola (2009) is a solid movie, which falls far behind Coppola’s best works, yet is a worthwhile watch. Good actors, great cinematography and a descent story (did I already mention that I am in love with actress Maribel Verdú ever since Y tu mamá también?)
Puerto Rico is one of the best hidden gems the US has to offer. A quick 4-hour flight from NY and less than $300 for a roundtrip ticket and you are swimming in the crystal clear water of the Caribbean.
Here are a few tips for a great Puerto Rico experience.
Miscellaneous
1. Puerto Rico is a small island. You can reach every point in the island in less than an hour and a half of driving from its capital, San Juan. If you are short on time, make San Juan your base and explore the island from there.
2. It’s the Caribbean, baby! Flip flops and shorts rule. I would bring one pair of Jeans and nice shoes for looking descent when exploring San Juan’s nightlife. Otherwise, dress casualmente.
3. It’s a driving island as public transport will get you nowhere. Enterprise had the best prices I could find. Roads are good and driving is fun, albeit a bit chaotic (for example, after midnight, it is supposedly legal to ignore traffic lights as long as the road is clear.)
Note (for US citizens): I recently discovered that my Continental Chase credit card covers the CDW portion of the car rental insurance, as long as I rented the car using the card. It saves you about $18 a day.
4. Lodging is not as cheap as I expected it to be. Unless you are renting a place for a week or more (vrbo.com has a good collection of vacation rentals), expect to pay ~$100 for a descent hotel. Hotwire got us the San Juan Sheraton for $100 and Priceline got us a cool beach front hotel in Isla Verde for $80.
5. Guidebooks: I am a big Lonely Planet fan, and It’s Puerto Rico guidebook served me well (although it’s wouldn’t hurt to refresh a bit its restaurant data). Most businesses in Puerto Rico have simple websites with their phone listed, and I would recommend calling whenever in doubt.
6. Puerto Rico is part of the US Commonwealth, which practically means it’s part of the US (no passport needed for American travelers).
San Juan Area
1. Old San Juan is one of the most beautiful colonial cities I have seen, with a lively atmosphere and a great vibe. It’s relatively small – 4-5 hours of casual walking will cover most of it’s attractions, but it’s a magical little place with great restaurants and cozy bars. San Juan beaches (Isla Verda, Ocean Park or Candado) are only a 15 minutes drive away, so even if you stay in that area – you’ll find yourself returning to the old city for lazy afternoon strolls and nice dinners.
In general, if you plan to stay a couple of days in the San Juan area and enjoy its beaches, I would recommend staying close to the beach (in Isla Verde or Ocean Park), and driving to the old city for daily/night excursions.
Whenever I am stuck working on something difficult (in this case, a spec of a new project), I tend to waste my time around the web (You know what I’m talking about – why otherwise would you be reading this blog post instead of the more important things you have to do?)
So today morning, I ended up playing a bit with Google Insights. It’s a great tool to research trending topics and sort through fascinating data on the collective interests of people around the world.
I was curious to see how current pop stars are faring compared to the queen of pop. The graph below is like a popularity horse-race: Madonna is experiencing a 50% decline in interest over the last 6 years, Justin Bieber’s popularity is sky rocketing, and Lady Gaga is stumbling a bit in recent months.
Gaga’s serious debut started June 2008, and Bieber jumped on the international fame train exactly one year later. I encourage you also to waste valuable work time and play with Google Insights. You will find more interesting and ultra useful hair-saloon-discussions facts (for example, Lady Gaga is a superstar in Mongolia, Bieber is a huge hit in the Philippines and Madonna won’t cry at all in Argentina)
While all is well on the celebrity front, everything changes when you add the real king of pop. It’s amazing what the death of one person can do to popularity charts. Boom!
Flatline for all the wanna-bees.
Ok, I promised myself that after this quick nonsense blog post I’ll be back to work. Well… maybe I’ll just go downstairs to grab a cup of coffee and then for sure I’ll be back to work. Soon after I go over my inbox and answer emails, return a few phone calls, clean the apartment a bit and go for a quick run in central park.
A mashup or blend (also mash up and mash-up) is a song or composition created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the instrumental track of another. To the extent that such works are ‘transformative‘ of original content, they may find protection from copyright claims under the “fair use” doctrine of copyright law.
I am not sure why it took me so long to get there, but I finally had a chance to spend a week in Berlin. Wow, what an amazing city! Superb night life, funky atmosphere, interesting encounters, bizarre people, bustling street-life, excellent dining and impressive architecture made the visit an unforgettable experience.
It landed straight in the first spot of my ‘top cities of world’ list (other cities on my list are New York, Tel-Aviv and Barcelona).
As I assume guidebooks cover all the standard recommendations, so here are some specific night-life ones:
Berghain is probably the most famous club in Germany, and rightly deserves its reputation. Party at this 4-story-high abandoned factory starts at midnight and ends at 8pm the following day. You can find yourself standing in line to get in for more than an hour, only to be denied an entrance by the formidable selectors. Yet if you are lucky enough to get in, you’ll enjoy quite a remarkable experience.
Bar 25 is another great nightlife spot in Berlin. Magical vibe, excellent music and hundreds of young people create a dazzling atmosphere.
Zu Mir Oder Zu Mir is a great little bar that feels like a part of movie set from seventies.
Cafe Zapata is a small anarchists heaven in the middle of a beautiful neighborhood. Rastafari rolling joints, drunk tourists, street artists and live bands make this place another must-stop for the curious.
Monsieur Vuong is an excellent and super-popular Vietnamese restaurant in the city center.
It has been exactly ten years since my last visit to Barcelona, and fortunately, the spontaneous trip came in a perfect timing for the worldcup weekend.
Despite all the political issues between Catalonia and the rest of Spain, the City of Barcelona had setup a large screen in Plaza Espana, and the atmosphere was amazing.
(I am not sure why the song “Born in the USA” was being played; as far as I remember the first White American was Spanish, not the other way around…)
We started prepping for the game at noon with a bottle of wine, then a late lunch with more wine, and what-do-you-know, they were selling alcohol at the Plaza. Driving back home at 2:30am on the scooter was, how should I put it, a bit irresponsible.
It’s been hot in Barcelona in the last few days, and not only because of the Mondial. Nonetheless, between the endless glasses of white wine, I managed to take some nice photos. Here are a few of the steady ones.
