I’m overdue in writing about Switzerland. It’s been three weeks since beer cost $6 and chocolate was so omnipresent it was actually nauseating, and maybe that means I get some perspective on my recent exploits in the Helvetic Confederation. Doubtful as since then, I have been in: Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville, Indianapolis, Orlando, Cleveland, and of course, that foray into Texas, known as Houston. But all these places offer a jarring contrast to the whims and ways of Zurich and the mountain towns surrounding the financial hub. Zurich is not the party of Amsterdam nor is it loaded with touristy sites like Paris. It’s a banking town, a secretive banking town, the kind of place that Jason Bourne loses his crap in before hitching a ride from a flighty girl in the US Embassy. 

Names like Credit Suisse and UBS are bit more ubiquitous, okay, sleazy to Americans today, but I suspect most freedom-huggers and Wall Street types get a big kick out of the way Zurich has made money downright pornographic. Still, for those who look, this city has gems, but I’m an eater, so I’ll start with food.

If I rolled out of bed into a restaurant, (don’t think too long on that one), I’d roll into Hiltl. It’s the neighborhood restaurant-meets-smorgasbord I’d almost never get sick of, or at least not of talking about. I’d take friends there and they’d marvel over the huge buffet of everything from tandoori to deviled eggs—and then, we’d come back in the evening when the place turns in to a chic club. (The first time I walked in the music act was setting up: direct from Nashville and Philadelphia). All the while, I’d gladly pick up the tab—looking ever so gentlemanly in the process, knowing full well that the proprietors of Hiltl have not gotten the memo about Swiss inflation. Ah, Hiltl. Seriously one of my favorite ‘spots’ in all my travels for the way it does so many things right: it’s at once a great coffee spot/cafe, a self-serve by-the-pound buffet with the best Indian food I’ve ever eaten off a bar, a white tablecloth full service restaurant, and a nightclub. I don’t think Hiltl is by any stretch a secret anymore (mornings could be sleepy, but brunch time was a veritable mob scene), but just steps off the Paradenplatz and the Bahnhofstrasse, Hiltl is a prime spot to eat and relax in the midst of it all.

Wow, I love the Kunsthaus. It knows it’s a big deal and it doesn’t let you down. I spent a little while fixated on watching crew take down an exhibit—and then trapsed through an extensive collection that is seriously committed to fun. That statement makes little sense until you remember, this is Zurich, an austere, monied town, and everything is done with a Lexus style relentless pursuit of perfection. The Monet, Cezanne, and Van Gogh exhibit was up: comprehensive, but I’m not losing my sleep over any of these guys. Ears and ponds aint doing it for me in 2010. There is a sharp precision to the architecture, itself a kind of 1970’s Rem Koolhaus with a 90-degree angle addiction. Okay, that sounds less appealing now that I said it. But, it lets you focus on what you’re there for: less Haus, more Kunst. 

As you may already know, I wrote a research paper that was (somehow) selected for presentation at the European meeting of the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management—wonky, nerdy, economic-data driving researchers who love ‘p-values’. The conference happened to be centered on migration as a study of analysis, and well, despite my lacking said math, I happen to have a bit to say about asylum adjudication.

So the conference is in idyllic college town of Maastricht, Netherlands. And you’re asking, where is Maastricht? It’s about equidistant to Brussels and Koln, a city of 100,000 or so in the Limburg region in the south of the Netherlands. And, fittingly, the city is split down the middle by a river, the Maas—see how that works?—and, more to the point of my being there, is home to the many faculties of Maastricht University (UM).

Maastricht is not the kind of city you’re likely to visit on your Perillo Tour, but it’s brimming with the European charm (read: cobblestone streets, drinking beer from cans on the street, BMWs for taxis) you likely went to Europe for in the first place. Because the UM is mainly English-speaking, the town is friendly and easy to negotiate. Because it plays host to university kids, it’s also a bit easier on the wallet than much of Europe. The University brings a certain amount of traffic and culture—art museums, regular train service, 24-hour food carts—but still prides itself on not being Amsterdam (xenophobia, weed as cultural tourism, prostitutes). Two hours by train away, Maastricht is decidedly more austere and inward than its’ big sister to the North, but the result is a clean, safe, education and culture driven community that runs on a heap of coffee and books. Travelers that meander to Utrecht, Holland’s arts university hub, will find similarities between Utrecht and Maastricht, but where Utrecht paints and sings and creates, Maastricht types and leafs through Kant.

My presentation itself went well, despite my worries. I did stay up the night before at my hostel (totally a swanky and full-featured hostel, I must say) and tore apart my entire powerpoint to build it back up again. I awoke disheveled, noticeably addled, the combination of reading American law decisions searched for on Norwegian Google and prosecco from our conference social the night before. A rockstar professor confided in me, at the peak of my anxiety to present, that the objective was trying not to put people to sleep or be the worst. I’m fairly animated so the sleeping wasn’t a concern but objectively offering up a lousy talk was still a possibility.

In the end, people liked it. I presented in front of professors and graduate students from all over the world—and managed to hold my own. I celebrated by tearing open a pack of stroopwafel and people watching along the pedestrian bridge over the River Maas. A deep, contemplative, sigh. This is the life.

Portland is a foodie’s paradise. No secret here. And with a prime location close to the coast, wine country, and mountains, localvores can rejoice at a bevy of tasty local treats, even in the dead of winter. After all, we need something to eat with all that coffee.

Lovejoy Bakers: In the heart of Northwest (and all the yuppifying condo construction that’s been going on), a new bakery cafe has sprouted up. Service was a touch frosty, but is quickly forgiven—this is a place that takes bread seriously. The stuff on the bread has to match up. The Lovejoy Deluxe is a light and fluffy ciabatta roll packed with blue cheese, bacon, egg, frisee lettuce, and a touch of balsamic vinegar. It’s a somewhat off kilter taste: at once decidely sloppy breakfast (eggs, bacon), and a crunchy lunchtime treat (blue cheese, balsamic vinegar, lettuce). It’s wonderfully filling, the kind of sandwich that you keep eating as much to feed your appetite as because it piques your interest. As you munch, enjoy contemplating a snack (or two) from the playful wall of samples. 939 NW 10th Avenue lovejoybakers.com

The Lovejoy Deluxe is a sandwich to be reckoned with.

Samples! On Spoons! Betcha can’t eat just one.

Por que no: Up in Northeast Mississippi, in a tiny storefront, is a quaint cave of Mexican grub. It meets all my criteria for dining: it’s cheap, it’s tasty, it’s made of real food. Por que no is a bit off the beaten path, but folks from all over the city were pressed in to the 20 seat eatery when my friend Jennie and I stopped in. Unfussy, quirky, if not unpretentious, the low ceilings feel ready to fall down with all the bric-a-brac they’ve stuffed on to the walls. Sure, living in Chicago, I’ve had more authentically Mexican food—and one could argue that with Akon blaring on the speakers and fruity drinks on offer, this is Mexican for white people. More aptly, it’s accessible, fresh, and tasty, and for that I left stuffed, happy, and my wallet, only $7 lighter. 3524 N. Mississippi. porquenotacos.com

Serious fixin’s: Plenty of ways to deck out your taco.

Voodoo Doughnuts: Nevermind the fact they spell ‘donut’ funny. Everything about Voodoo is a bit theatre of the absurd, bit college humor, and a heavy dose of irony in the form of ugly looking donuts. There, I said it. These aren’t donuts that you look at and go, “Damn, I really want a cake donut covered in Fruit Loops” or “Shucks, that Bacon-wrapped Maple Log is going to spoil dinner!” But, likely, I, and the 30 minute line we were slogging through hadn’t heard of Voodoo because of Fruit Loops. No, their fame was more likely assured upon creating the cock ‘n balls doughnut. Yes, you heard me. (Allison Weiss and Lauren Zettler made a video devouring the dessert dong during their Pacific Northwest tour last Spring). A few observations, having now consumed my first chocolate-frosted phallus:

1. Who said this was life size? Cue the penis envy.
2. The white Boston Creme filling is both a wonderful counterbalance to the fried dough, however disgustingly dirty you feel slopping it off your bottom lip.
3. The balls are tastier than the, eh, um, shaft.

After waiting in line for twenty minutes, my friend and I smelled like donut. And if the stink of fried dough on your sweater isn’t enough to make you queasy, the folks at Voodoo will sell you a bucket, a heaping bucket, of day old doughnuts for $5. I’m thinking this would be great for parties and entertaining, but the folks rifling through buckets in the shop didn’t seem quite as socially inclined. It’s fun, but there’s a huge kitsch-tourism element here. Something to cross off my list? Two locations, but less crowded at 1501 NE Davis. voodoodoughnut.com

A Bucket of Day Olds, $5. The fat ass that follows is included at no additional cost.

Some of the offerings: Yes the donut penis does say “EAT MEAT”.

Tomorrow, the day the media boasts as the ‘busiest travel day’ of the year, I’ll be heading South and visiting family in Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday. I’m cautious with the word ‘home’, as it’s not my home: I never lived in this house, and I’ve spent more time in Chicago, for example, than in Florida at any point. I can’t be possessive of it as a place that has bore witness to me or my growth. There is no fort in the backyard with moss growing up it’s sides, chalk dust remnants from a summer spent decorating my fort, castle, or airplane—depending, really, on my mood and obsession of the moment. (As you might suspect, the airplane one has been harder to shake loose.) I won’t be heading down the street to play kickball on the concrete patch with green shoots lurching from the cracks. This is not where I oogled at crushes from afar, not where I watched fireworks with my parents on the 4th of July.

This is incredibly sore for me. I am without a place to call home, whatever that truly means. Florida is both a home for my parents, and an elixir, a space seemingly so contrasted with where we had come from that it was the antidote they needed to trudge ahead. And, I’ve come back, enjoyed my time with family in the scorch of a Florida afternoon, but never felt at ease at this place I first met in the awkwardness of pubescence. It was utility as described through the signs we saw on the road boasting “great schools!” and “great amenities!”. I did have a great school and undoubtedly, most states would be hard pressed to talk as casually about such luxurious living. Never before had I come to expect golf and tennis would be standard elements of the housing compounds my classmates and I lived in.

At the baggage claim in Fort Myers, Florida, my parents will be there, likely with the dog they purchased when I went away to college. My mother and I are reading a book together now, which is my feeble attempt to find slowness in our drifting lives that seem otherwise to never intersect. Home will be trapped not in place—for an individual who spends so much time thinking about the where—but in the people. From LaGuardia to Heathrow to O’Hare to Southwest Florida Regional, the baggage claim, I am coming to learn, is all the same.

Berlin, 2005

Look at that kid. He is so happy. All he wanted to do was smile for me, a paunchy, goofy-looking, American with a backpack that could hold the rations of a small army. Especially those dehydrated curry bags they give the British soldiers. It was Sunday, my last day in Berlin and he was doublefisting paper airplanes. There was an idealism even a cynical college student could reach out and grab.

After a childhood with a German grandmother and a Jewish mother, I was in college with enough fascination over the elder’s accent that seemed to command unflagging reverence. And guilt. Shitloads of Jewish guilt. Admittedly, the best way to reconcile your pangs of guilt is not to, in a stupor over studying for finals in the library, bandy about the Lufthansa website. Despite however appealing those German flight attendants are, we can appreciate good decisions don’t tend to happen in the haze of a Chicago winter at 1:30 in the morning on the internet. Somehow, after three hours of scouring, there it was: an open-jaw ticket. I would spend 10 days in Germany, starting in Munich, heading back to the States from Berlin. There were winding train rides—including a foray into Utrecht, Netherlands, where I, self-conscious of my snoring, hid in a private sleeper car to avoid scrutiny. (Did Europeans not snore? I didn’t know, but I was not about to be the subject of ridicule or the standard bearer for the United States.)

Finally, I ended up in Berlin, because I wanted to and because Lufthansa said I had to. And I would only obliquely acknowledge the touristy crap you’re supposed to see and I would eat doner kebab both in my obsessive desire to crack into the urban underbelly and because I really was just that broke. Frankly, I hung out in shady places where the German sounded less like I remembered from Schindler’s List and more like some noisy mix I’d imagine hearing in New York—there was a mix of Spanish, Russian, Afrikaans swirling around me. Despite an expectation for cultural tourism, St. Pauli girls and schnitzel were not on this part of the S-Bahn. In exchange for the tchotchkes I didn’t buy and glossy veneer of Berlin life I then bypassed, I amassed—in four days, mind you—a ragtag collection of tour guides, all who gushed with excitement to show me ‘their’ Berlin. And so, there was bocce ball outside a theatre, beers in the East, beers in the West, poker in the breakroom at the Westin, and hookah (admittedly not a very easily transportable contraption) on some guy named Jurgen’s deck overlooking the train station. (I remember, despite the deliciousness of a peach hookah and a bitterly cold March evening, feeling like seven people might be too many for his wood suspension deck. Paranoia that I would fall, through and on to a train going to the Black Forest consumed my thought process.)

I’ve attempted to reconstruct my time in Germany by keeping in touch with this pack of kindred spirits and through my obsessive cataloging of photographs. Both have proven futile. And as the news crews head to Berlin, attempting to teach those who weren’t there or weren’t alive, what happened 20 years ago—it becomes a sludge of headlines and mirage of old news reels. The obsequious use of CAPITAL LETTERS TO TELL US THINGS ARE REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT. And scrolling. And flashing. And breaking. So, when Tom Brokaw stood at the Brandenburg Gate yesterday and offered up images of 20 years past, I could only think, well, you just had to be there.

Greetings from St. Louis, Missouri. I’m in a hotel room that is some respects criminally luxurious. Perhaps I should explain: I’m cozied up by a fireplace in a two-bedroom, two bathroom suite overlooking the city’s Forest Park. It is the kind of hotel room that in fact does not encourage the kind of exploration I am if not prone to, then at the least, find myself ultimately yearning for.

Still, I’m not one to swat away a nice hotel room, and when you’re in town, I’d encourage you to find a fireplace at the Chase Park Plaza to snuggle up by. The movie theatre but a few floors down has allowed for an ever so slight scent of popcorn oil to waft up through the air vents. Films and food: I’m hooked.

Just like the smell of popcorn triggers a memory, rekindles fiery emotions left to otherwise char in ignorance—so too do many smells and tastes for me. Food and in fact the travel associated with food is about people and about place, the core, elemental values of (my) memory.

I have just returned from an adventure to, unbelievably given the frigid rain outside, Ted Drewes Frozen Custard. It’s a custard stand, and I wouldn’t be the first to sing its praises. But, perhaps more importantly—it is fervently anchored in its surroundings. Ted’s sweet, milky custard whipped up to a stiff mix called a ‘concrete’ is a taste that defines this place. Surely, one could get a custard in many places, but that Ted Drewes taste seems to anchor itself to this city, and the city to Ted.

City loyalists abound sing the praises of their local treats: Skyline Chili (3-ways) and of course, the meat and oats mix of goetta in Cincinnati, the boiled Sabrett hot dogs of New York, Al’s Italian Beef in Chicago. Indeed, one taste of any of these foods is not simply sustenance, nor is it about fine dining in the least—its about celebrating the local and the unchanged in spite of or in light of tremendous urban turbulence around us.

On this cold night, scarfing down a concrete in the company of friends, we are undeniably in St. Louis. We didn’t really need ice cream, and I’m the first to admit my sweet tooth has probably lost its nerve endings. But, for a guy on the road, a foodie on the road, a taste like this reminds us all of where we’ve been and allows us to pause before picking up a napkin and considering where we’re headed.

It has been four oddly robust days every way you measure it—hours asleep (less than 6 a night), miles walked, and balloon hats made (more on that later).

Somewhere between Louisville and Tokyo, there is Baltimore—a city who by all accounts, is big enough to keep you busy, small enough to allow you to easily enjoy it. The taste of Old Bay is still in my mouth and I have confidently explored much of this quirky locale’s offerings. I stayed in town centrally located within a half mile walk of the Inner Harbor (yuck), the cultural institutions of the Westside (Walters Art Museum, the Pratt, and the Cathedral), sports (walked on the Camden Yards field!) and the artsy happenings further North—with Baltimore School of the Arts, MICA, and the Symphony. So, I walked a lot, mostly because the MTA ticket machines don’t take credit cards, but still, I walked all over this city, and the architecture, the food, and all the heaploads of culture here leaves me with a soft spot for the Charm City.

As the cab driver back to BWI said, “2 hours to everywhere, but why would you want to leave?” Well said, cabbie.

I’m on the road again, a mere three days since my last trip. And, sitting again, for the third time in Philadelphia International’s F concourse in a week, it is strikingly clear why I picked up this ‘life in transit’ theme for a blog in the first place. It’s early morning—7:50 to be exact—and somehow, magically, Sbarro and the entire food court already smell like stale pizza, the same pallid display of bread and grease, it appears from three nights ago.

Today is a work trip, but I’ve given in and given up on work clothing. When I packed up for summer, I put some of them in my luggage and others, most actually, went in to a storage unit. My one attempt to look at said storage unit has resulted in me opening the door, taking note of the 70 or so boxes, a couch, bed, nightstands, desks, tables, and a Knoll chair (can’t forget that—my favorite! Ask me, sometime about how I used to stare at this thing in the windows outside the Merchandise Mart and how I miserly saved to splurge on this mid-century velvet chair, even when I had no room to walk around it.) I stare at my contents—I fought and saved for this stuff—and I am but powerless and utterly confused. I walked out of my storage unit with two mahogany hangers from Nordstrom and a personal steamer. Somewhere, it that very well assembled game of Jenga-Possessions was all the clean clothes I could want. But given the prospects of rifling through these boxes, I’d rather not want.

I’m not alone—The New York Times recently ran a story in the Sunday Magazine chronicling the storage industry. Not surprisingly, Americans have and hold on to, a lot of crap. While that’s dipped ever so slightly since the financial apocalypse last fall, there is still, a heavily entrenched sense of wealth measured in America by the amount of stuff we hoard. (I wonder if I really need a dinner service for 20 after all.) Given my short stint of a couple months of living with less—no waffle makers, no sandwich presses, and a vastly smaller selection of haberdashery—I am inspired to trim the fat and get rid of all that extra junk weighing me down.

It is the kind of change I’m finally ready to make. The big, meaningful changes that help us appreciate there is a difference between wealth and happiness. And that holding on to play and child-like imagination does not demand a childish sense of materialism. I make no pretenses that purging will be easy—it won’t be, and I can cleverly craft a narrative for each julep cup, each keyboard, and every vase in there. I was that consumer who was hopeful each piece said something about me—as if my personal ethos could be commoditized in the aggregation of junk.

So, one of these days when the travel cools (if only for a moment), we’ll head to the bin. Look out for me as I wax nostalgic and get ready to say goodbye to that Family Ties board game and every boarding pass from 2006. Now, 2007—well, that’s another story…

Such a title already suggests the kind of culture-blur that happens when one leaves the comforts of one space and moves in to another altogether different one. The weather was decidedly cooler Saturday, a crisp, clear autumnal (or pre-autumnal, yes?) night that produced wispy clouds and a breathtaking sunset. While I’ve done my best to attempt to capture the beauty of sun falling in to the horizon line of the North Sea, you may just have to take my word for it. Standing on top of the Oprean—a building of glass and limestone that is part ballet hall, part opera house, 100% urban park—I looked out, to one side, on the capitalists transforming Oslo’s modest skyline, while on the side, the chilly coastal waters still rippled from the passage of yet another cruise ship.

This morning, the Operaen had been taken over by the Norwegian Bokklubben—a book fair/sale of epic proportion. Now, as the sun was falling behind it’s elusive angles, the roof played host to a film screening. In a literary twist, this film, Swedish as you’ve by now surmised, was based on book two in a three part series by Steig Larsson. Larsson achieved something of a cult popularity in Scandinavia when his trilogy hit bookshelves only after the writer himself had suddenly (and quite sadly) passed away. The ensuing year has been a chance to eulogize the man who became the voice of Northern Europe, whose commercial and critical success has been loud, proud, significant—but all sadly, long after his early demise. Few have taken up the practice of truly using the setting of chilly winters in Stockholm, or a dock in Oslo, with as much nuance and skill—in doing so, he earned the affection of plenty in these parts.

I was at the movie, oddly enough, with one guy I had met at cafe from Spain, and a girl who worked at said cafe, herself from Boise, Idaho. He was a graduate student in Salamanca; she was working through a visa program similar to one I had once used in the UK—learning Norwegian (she was already convincingly local with her six foot stature and blond hair). And together, we, a rather motley crew, enjoyed the cool air, the camaraderie, and a rarity in Norway: a freebie. The film, and, as it turns out, a bagful of hot muscat rolls (boller). We made no pretense about this night being fleeting and beautiful—no pretending to take down numbers and emails and promising to “facebook you later”. It was organically derived connections between three people—in a moment, in a place—and when it was over, we’d all have a great night under the Oslo stars.