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Before my last stint traveling around Europe last summer, I got a lot of "Gee, that must be nice." or "Nice life you've got there." This was of course all said with a bit of a sarcastic tone.       I only had one real goal when heading there, which was to research the wines of the Dalmatian region in Croatia. What ultimately got tossed on top of that just before leaving was writing for two companies during the travels. So, inadvertently, what started out as just a hobby project with no direction, ended up being full time travel writing that paid for most all of the trip. Contrary to what people think, this was a lot of work. The days were long and went far in to the night to get stories out in a timely fashion while still traveling.       Of course, once I got back and got the same response from people, I tried to clarify the misconception of how "great" this kind of work was. Yes, I definitely do like it, but it isn't relaxing. You don't sip on a drink in a hammock, write for 30 minutes, and then send it out to collect a fat paycheck. No, we had to stick to a pretty tight budget (we didn't get paid until we returned) and we had to run around a lot.       To people who like wine, visiting 6-12 wineries in a day might sound like a dream, but it's damned hard work, especially when you're working to speak a second language, it's hot, you have to either spit out the wine or get groggy and irritable from it, and you're navigating another country's roads that you're never been on before. All that drinking under the sun has the harsh reality that you crash hard at night, having spent another day of what everyone thinks is just a fun holiday, being a receptacle of information that you then need to process and write. Out of four months along the Mediterranean, I think there were all of six or seven days of that spent at the beach. I know people who double that amount when they take their annual (and pathetically short) two week holiday in the US.       Still, there are those who doubt as to the fact that this is really work. So to that, I present this article which is an interview with a Lonely Planet writer. From my experience, I agree completely with what he wrote, but instead of trying to figure out some way to describe the exact same chain hotel floral bedsheets, I had to discover how to uniquely describe my 15th tasting of Blatina and Žilavka wines in Herzegovina, because that's almost all they grow there.       Yes, this may all sound like I'm whining and asking for sympathy while others punch a time clock in a cubicle somewhere. But in reality, this "dream job" is just that. Between the time you spend researching and writing, plus all the time you put in for free (like this blog and others) you end up spending many more hours working than just 40 hours a week. It may seem like an exciting adventure, but it's rough and you can burn out if you do it for too long, which is why most professional travel writers will bounce between writing, photography, editing, tour guiding, professional speaking, being a hermit in a mountain cave, and then trying the writing again.       If you still don't believe me, then here. That's a list of 50+ publications that are looking for writers. Come up with an idea or two, set off on an adventure and see how much time you have for mai tais in a hammock while you try to meet your deadline on a tight budget.

I really don't get it. Who exactly is the, Fodor's Hawaii for?       I asked this question repeatedly as this thing let us down repeatedly in Hawaii. Usually I stick to the Rough Guides as they are full of the history of a place and slightly snarky in tone due to their "British edge". But, I thought, hey, let's branch out and try a different one, which ended up being Fodor's.       Most guidebooks tend to have a focus audience. Rough Guides are good for Europeans and the slightly adventurous type. Lonely Planet are all around good, but I tend to not prefer them as they don't travel the way I like. Moon used to be for the hippies, although I don't know their true focus anymore. Let's Go are strictly for students and those on a budget who want to party wherever they go. Bradt are just awesome for those that want to adventure and see the unseen. I mean, who else has a Kosovo (a contested region), Democratic Republic of Congo (a conflict region), and Iraq (a flat-out war zone) guide? Bradt, that's who.       So, I didn't really know where Fodor's fit in. I thought it was something like Lonely Planet with a definite angle about catering to Americans. I was wrong, but I wasn't completely wrong. In fact, I don't know where I sit and I have no idea who Fodor's is for.       If you're an adventurer, it is crap. We had to find a good number of things on out own and it never points out hole in the wall places to eat that can be great and cheap. Also, we had to find most of our own accommodations online because they seem to like to show the midrange places and up.       If you're a beachgoer, it sucks. We found that the best, cleanest and most enjoyable beaches were in Kauai, which were hardly covered. They seemed to like to pick the dirty, crowded beaches. Maybe some people like these as they feel safe and at home on them? I don't know.       If you're a Lazy Fat Pale Scared American (LFPSA) the book is bad as well. While parts of it seemed to cater to the LFPSA crowd, they would flippantly mention things like the Haleakala Crater hike as an outing and not point out that LFPSA's would die doing that hike. It also doesn't really give very good layouts of itineraries because LFPSA's need to have everything planned for them, although maybe they do this through package deals to the islands. Again, I don't know.       Lastly, it's inaccurate. The pass you get for Haleakala National Park is not good for a week as they say in the book, but three days, making it rather hard to reuse for Oheo Gulch and the Crater. Also, the beach at Polihale is correctly labeled as one of their choice beaches in the guide, the information about the are is dead wrong. For one, that beach is officially closed. Two, the road is not just rough on a car, it's damned near impassable. Spots really require a vehicle with a solid eight to ten inches of clearance to make. You can do it in a rental car, but it's very, very rough. Lastly, there are no facilities out there due to a broekn water pump. All the bathrooms and showers are closed. This information has been known online since mid last year, yet they went to press with it like this.       In general, I got the feeling that the guide was lazy and places hadn't been visited for awhile. This is sad, seeing as how Hawaii isn't Croatia. Things aren't changing from year to year. It's the US and it's been a continuous tourist destination for decades.       So, from know on, I'm sticking to my Rough Guides and Bradt books. One alternative that is good for this region about the books from Wizard. Despite the cheesy name, their Maui Revealed and Kauai Revealed guides are extremely in depth and detailed. A friend loaned them to me and they were good resources to balance out the craptacularness of the Fodor's. Dog Eared Books, a very unused Fodor's is soon coming your way!

Our ridiculous Fodor's guide seriously downplayed the buses in Hawaii. Repeatedly it stated that you really needed a car to get around. Sure, cars make life a lot easier in Hawaii, but driving everywhere sucks. It wasn't until we got to Oahu and took the bus that I really felt like I was on a vacation how I like to vacation. I mean, driving is fun and all, but losing the responsibility, cost, and worry of the car is fantastic, which is one of the reasons I like Europe so much: no car needed. Then of course there is the environmental factor as well. When 30 people are on a bus, you're simply not polluting as much as if you were 30 cars. So, for folks who are more eco-minded out there, I present a bit about the buses in Hawaii, since it appears no guidebook wants to go there. I just hope that more people will use them and the system will develop more.              OAHU       Probably the most developed and extensive of all of them and there is a Ferry system that ties in to it as well. At $2 a ride, it's not the cheapest bus out there, but you can do things like get from the airport to Waikiki without using a $15 a person shuttle. Officially, you're not supposed to bring large luggage on the bus, but we did and it worked out. We were the only ones doing it unfortunately which goes to show that too many idiots overspend while on holiday and get sucked in to using a taxi from the vultures who constantly ask you if you want a ride.              MAUI       Not as extensive as Oahu and it serves mostly the west and central parts of the island. So, you're not going to get up to the Haleakala Crater or to Hana on it, which is a shame since those roads get very congested. For a quick view of where it goes, check out the system map              KAUAI       We saw a good deal of this bus and it appeared to have a pretty regular schedule that ran the whole gamut of the civilized part of the island. The Waimea Canyon can't be reached with it, but most everything else worthwhile can and it's only a $1.50 to go anywhere on the route, which is a really long route from one end to the other. The Kalalau Trail is stopped just short of as the end of the line is in Hanalei, but the adventurous can walk the distance and we saw folks doing this. But what I'd really recommend is to rent a bicycle while there and use the bus. They have a space for bikes on the front of the bus and everything short of Waimea can be reached from any of the stops.              HAWAII BIG ISLAND       They have one of the worst websites I've ever seen for a bus route, but it is apparently free. We didn't make it to the Big Island on this trip, so I can't speak as to any firsthand knowledge. Also, the site doesn't appear to have a system map, which is a bummer as it appears they have a good many routes and service seems good. It's something to look in to more if interested and hopefully anyone with more advice might leave a comment? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink...

It's a pretty well-known fact that the main costs in traveling are transportation, lodging, and food. In reality, these are the main costs of life in general, but they become ever more apparent when one is traipsing around carelessly. Transportation can be tough to save on, while food can be much easier. When it comes to lodging, savings can be had if one is willing to battle any number of elements, including crappy websites, minor shams, and taking chances.       We went through all of these problems as we looked for cheap places to stay when visiting Maui, Kauai, and Oahu. Given that I make no money off this blog (well, $20 or so a year in AdWords I guess), I felt that I might as well share what I found in the hopes it helps others out there in either saving money or avoiding rough places. So, here we go...              MAUI       Joe's Place - This is one of the (if not the) only places to stay in Hana on the east end of Maui for less than $100 a night. It's on the $55 a night cost of a double that I assume the place stayed in business. It's not luxurious. It's barely even basic. It is a place to stay if you want to stay in Hana and not pay a lot. For one night or maybe even two, it can be tolerable. We stayed for three and it was a bit much. Not only is there not a lot to do in Hana, but our room had a funk to it that can really only be described as "warm heaving fart". I do need to add that apparently our room was shampooed just before arrival and it seems the shampoo man did something nasty in there as the other rooms didn't smell like this.       While it is a cheap place, you do get stuck with other cheap guests and in the morning, these cheap guests are a serious pain in the communal kitchen area. If you can tolerate this and move on to greener pastures after two days, then enjoy. If not, get ready to pay $150+ a night for something like the Hana Hale Inn which was right across the street from Joe's and looked like a very nice place to stay. Hana Hale is also off the road a bit, and I gotta tell ya, this road sucks. It's incredibly busy despite how small Hana is.       Peace of Maui - This family-run affair is quite nice, situated up near the small town of Makawao. It's pretty convenient to the airport, Haleakala Crater, and most anywhere you need to go. Tammy is a super host and keeps the rooms very clean. She opens up her wifi free of charge and even has a communal computer for folks to use, although, she can't guarantee that these items will always work (I managed to get us two free t-shirts gratis for fixing the communal computer while we were there).       At $55 a night, you really can't beat the place and it's no wonder it always gets recommendations in every guide there is on Hawaii. The only downside are the often aggressively outgoing guests who don't leave you alone to relax and have loud conversations in the communal kitchen in the wee hours of the morning. Hit a quiet group and you're golden. Hit a noisy group and they're worse than chickens on Kauai.              KAUAI       Kauai Palms Hotel - Nothing mind blowing about it. It's pretty clean and a decent place. The rooms are small, but the beds are big. They have cable TV there for when boredom hits after the sun goes down and it's a convenient place to the airport, which also means you can hear the few planes that take off out of Lihue.       It costs about $65 a night, which isn't terrible, but also isn't the cheapest deal on Kauai.       One bright side to the place is this cheeky cat with a lot of personality who waited outside our room for three hours just so that it could play with something. Another bright side to the place is that it's a two minute walk around the corner from the super cheap Hamura Saimin which has some of the most kickass food on the island.       Aloha Estates at Kalaheo Plantation - The long title is undoubtedly to avoid saying that it's a "hotel" so it can stay under the radar with the license issues. But, this is a very nice place in Kalaheo, which is in the middle of the south side of Kauai. The place has been nicely remodeled and each room has a pleasant theme to it.       That being said, the owner is a bit of an ass. The website says, $45 a night for the Bamboo Suite where we stayed, but the owner slipped through charging $55 a night for it. This was cheeky by itself, but the room also has a massive funk to it that makes it smell like a locker room. The other rooms might smell better as they don't have bamboo coverings on the wall, but we wouldn't know as we didn't stay in them. There is also the issue of the damned roosters in the back yards of neighbors, which will inevitably wake you up.       It's all quite a shame, as the place seems to have a lot of charm and I might recommend staying in one of the other rooms or suites as long as the owner doesn't mess with the price and you bring some earplugs.              OAHU       Waikiki Hostel - Yes, that's right, we stayed in a youth hostel. Only being in Honolulu for one night made this the cheapest and most sensible option and overall, it's not all that bad. For $60 a night, you get a very basic, yet clean bed in a small room with a private bath and shower that you don't get the creeps about using.       We feared that there would be constant noise of party goers in the area, yet despite being the center of Waikiki, it's surprisingly quiet. It may have had to do with it being a Sunday night, but we saw plenty of nyuk-nyuks heading out to the bars as we were heading home to sleep, so the night was definitely alive.       As weird as it is, this was probably the most quiet night and restful night we spent in all of the three islands we visited.

I present you a riddle. The top picture in the montage below is:       - A local fisherman taking a midnight cruise throw eel infested waters       - A duck       - A couple of goofballs in their rented Mustang convertible.       Obviously, the correct choice is number two.       It says right at the start of the car rental section in the tour guide that we got that, "While that convertible Mustang may seem really tempting at the rental office, they are a sure sign of a tourist and will undoubtedly be broken in to while parked."       I see why they too the time to mention that. For some reason, I am seeing one after another of these damned things and yes, if I wanted to steal stuff from tourists, I would head straight for these vehicles. "Oooh, the top is up, can't steal nuthin' there. Oh wait, here's my knife."       The most popular color by far and away is red. It's like they've tagged and released you as a tourist in to the wild if you rent one of these things. I mean really, people are free to rent whatever they want, but I just found it really funny. Be free my little tourist, be free!       For our wheels, we picked up some kind of Chevy thing that's pretty weak and feels like someone tried to go offroading with it at some point, but it gets us around, has no pop-top for easy access to our belongings, and most importantly, is pretty cheap, although the gas mileage is typical of any tin box made by GM. By this, I mean that what I'm saving in the cost of the rental is being eaten up a the pump with the nearly $4 a gallon cost for gas here.

In Part 1 of this series, I talked about all the problems that have come about as tourism has exponentially grown in Croatia. Now, it's time to get in to what I feel should be done to solve some of these problems. Keep in mind that I'm not expert or elected official. I'm just a guy with a blog who has traveled a great deal in Croatia and likes to write.       Croatian tourism is an economy that could easily be a good economy, as opposed to the rather malignant one that it is now. There are a number of changes that would need to come about to make this happen though. The first big one is in dealing with the infrastructure. Take the new A-1 auto cesta that I talked about in Part 1. This was built to be the Tourist Express. It is true that a good connection was needed from the interior out to the coast, but was this entire road needed? There already was a train connection, which I might was also worked on to speed up transport for passengers.       When thinking about this, one needs to keep in mind that the A1 is not finished. There is a stretch that is being worked on from Split to Dubrovnik that is coming at a great expense due to a bridge needing to be built to skirt the strip of Bosnia Herzegovina left over from the Karlowitz Treaty. Let's assume that the road from Zagreb to Rijeka and Zagreb to Split was needed. The old connection to the coast, was a small, meandering road that was difficult to traverse. The new one makes things a lot better. But, the extension that is being worked on from Split to Dubrovnik is unnecessary. The road that connects these two areas is a good road. It's small, but it's good. So, why build it? Simple, to get tourists to an already overcrowded Dubrovnik faster. This is the simple answer, but at the core, I think that there is a bigger problem.       Most people don't realize this, but there is no Ministry of Tourism in Croatia. Well, there is, but it isn't by itself. The official name is the Ministry of the Sea, Tourism, Transport and Development or MMTPR. You see, tourism has been intertwined with several other departments that I believe create a conflict of interest. Tourism projects would naturally get in line first for development over say a hospital, which is under a different ministry. The solution? Strip out the Ministry of Tourism in to it's own separate department and make it have to put out its hand for an equal share of the pie. It's an undermining practice to be putting too much money in to projects to promote tourism that take money away from other projects that could promote a better standard of life for the Croatian people is bad. The Germans and Hungarians that will eventually be zipping down to Dubrovnik will love it, but the Croats getting to endure being #43 in health care for the world won't see the benefit.       The next big step that needs to happen is to stop promoting Beach Tourism. At the very least, promote Beach Tourism in the off season as well, so that people can go enjoy the "fresh sea air" and the people in the coastal communities can have an economy based upon a regular as opposed to a seasonal source of income. But, the best course of action, is to scrap the beach bit altogether. People know it. People are coming. Enough. Start promoting the interior. Croatia has lovely, wonderful spots that, while not near the sea are great to visit. The Zagorje is a nice place full of rolling hills and fresh springs (this is where Jana water is bottled.) Medvednica and the Međimurje are also lovely places with serene villages, good white wines, and castles for those interested. Spas are popping up in these areas for those who really want to relax. You're not going to relax at the beach in high season, but up there, you can. It's peaceful.       There are also towns that could be promoted more. Dubrovnik and Split get the majority of the press as they're coastal towns. But, Zagreb is a town that I've been to four times now and really love. The buildings are all from the days of the Austrian Crown and there are a great number of parks and about 10 museums worth visiting. Varaždin, Samobor, and Karlovac are also nice towns to visit. While a one or two day stay would be plenty in them, they offer that Central European feel, but far cheaper and more relaxed.       There are even decent skiing slopes in northern Croatia, but based upon the promotional materials now, you wouldn't think that the country had any snow anywhere. There are also many parks, but with the exception of Plitvice, they get little mention, because most of them are on the beach. It's true that the park of Mljet is surrounded by water as it's on an island, but again, it's a spot that is over hyped because it sits on the Adriatic.       Then there is Istria. This little peninsula is a microcosm of everything that is wrong and everything that is right about tourism in Croatia. I covered all the things that were wrong about it in Part 1, which center around the Beach Tourists who flood there. But, in Istria's case, I think that it's more for reason of proximity than for promotion of the beaches there that the tourists have come. It's literally a 20 minute drive to Istria from Italy. It's maybe three or four hours at most from Austria. It's just really close and so, the Beach Tourists flock there with little that can be done except to try and accommodate them. But there are things happening in Istria that are very interesting. For one, there is wine, lots of wine. It's very good wine and it gives more of a reason to visit than warm waters. It also creates a sustainable economy for the area. From this, other things have risen up like Agritourism. People have found that staying in the middle of bucolic hills, surrounded by wine vines can be a pleasant way to spend a holiday. This is something I might add, that can be done year round and is thusly not a big seasonal "kaboom" and then nothing except hoping that the next season is the same.       Then there is Grožnjan. I don't know who is in charge of this little town, but they're doing good things in showing how to properly run a tourism economy. They have arts and crafts being sold in cute little stores of the old town. They have a Jazz festival that is an outgrowth of the International Cultural Centre of Young Musicians. They have truffles, wine, and good restaurants as well. All of this is in a town with maybe 100 homes, in the center of Istria, and a good half hour drive drive from the almighty sea. But the people who go there, don't go for the beach. They go for the charm of the little town and the fact that out of all of Istria, it was the one place I could actually find listed rooms to rent. There is much to be learned from this town for all of the rest of the coastal towns.       And that's what it comes down. There is much for Croatia at large to learn in how it handles its tourism. I would most likely be slapped for saying it, but they could learn a lot from their neighbors of Slovenia and Bosnia Herzegovina. The difficulties these two countries have in that they are nearly beach-less is what makes their tourism industries stronger than in Croatia. They have had to develop places and destinations for tourists and in doing so, they inevitably develop places that are going to have sustainable tourism simply because they are not flippant Beach Tourists.       Croatia will level out in the end. It has to. This will either be a smooth road, paved with long-term thinking and an overall plan for tourism development to co-exist with the people in the country, or it will be a bumpy road with localized recessions and depressions that will ultimately bring the whole country down if too many things are built on the premise that the Beach Tourist is forever. Only time will tell and it, as well as neighboring Montenegro and Albania will be interesting countries to watch over the next decade.

I have enjoyed the last fours years of travel, visiting Croatia. I love the country and while my meager claim to being Croatian is small, I feel a good deal of kinship to it. It is after all a beautiful country with snowy, wooded mountains at one end and crystal clear waters of the Adriatic Sea at the other end. It's hard to not want to travel there and until recently it was rather undiscovered by a great many tourists, including Americans. This however, has changed.       With these changes a blight has emerged in Croatia as it seems that a vast chunk of the country and nearly the entire swath of the coast is centered on one single economy: tourism. To this I might add that they are focused on Beach Tourism. Yes, the rude, soak up the sun, get drunk at night, spend as little as possible, clog the highways kind of people are flocking to Croatia. But, why are they flocking to Croatia? The simple answer to this is that it's cheap. Actually the simple answer to this is that it was cheap.       This is where the problems start to rise for Croatia. When I first went looking for a guidebook in 2003, there was one by Rough Guides and one just about to come out from Lonely Planet. They touted the affordable life that travelers could have if they hopped off to this strange place most people thought a war was still being fought (it officially ended in 1995 with the Dayton Accords by the way.) Fast forward four years and there are something like six solid guides for the country and several ones about specific regions or cities like Dubrovnik. Instead of hearing from friends and family, "Croatia? Why the hell do you want to go there?", I'm getting, "Hey, where is the cheapest place to stay in __________?" Undiscovered, Croatia is no more.       Despite all of this, Croatia found itself in a tough spot at the start of the 21st century. Unemployment was extremely high and still is, at a bit over 9% (the US is just below 5% and people are currently worried about a recession here to give you gauge for this.) So, instead of letting tourism develop in a natural manner, the government took the rash approach of pumping the hell out their coastline to attract Beach Tourists. It wasn't necessarily the worst plan and their official tourism slogan of, "The Mediterranean as it Once Was", was catchy if not a bit pedantic. They already had a good deal of the infrastructure in place to handle Beach Tourists, since the coast had been developed from the 1950's onward by the then Yugoslavian government. They also had a long history of Beach Tourism, which you can seen in places like Opatija in the northern part of the coast where holiday mansions and retreats were built in the 19th century. So, in theory, people + beach + Croatia, should = kuna.       The problem with this approach was that they didn't know when to let up on it. As far as I know, ads are still playing on BBC TV promoting this aspect of Croatia. The net effect has been incredible successful in getting people to the coast of Croatia in the summer, but it has ultimately proved to be massively detrimental. I can sum it all up in one conversation I had with two Irish girls that were staying at the pension we were at in Jelsa, Hvar. They realized that we had traveled the area a bit and then had the gall to ask, "So, you wouldn't happen to know where the sandy beaches are, would you?" Needless to say, I didn't know as I like the pebble beaches and without this information as well as their inability to know that the Prošek (a delicious sweet wine) the couple served was incredible good, they moved on the next day. They were cheap girls who couldn't even spend money on a guidebook and just wanted to drink. They were the epitome of the people who come to the Croatian coast.       Ultimately, the government should have realized there is no need to attract the Beach Tourist. They come of their own accord, migrating according to the winds of cheapness. These are people who only want to sit in the sun and they don't give a damn how nice the water is, as long as their can go back north with a cruel chocolate-strawberry hue to their abused skin. I've witnessed firsthand how these people have been treating Croatia. In Dubrovnik, that town is full. Don't go. Stay away. You literally will not get in. In Hvar City, people party to all odd hours of the night, vomit and piss on the streets, go lay in the sun and then repeat this all the next night. In Istria, every single spot it crowded, from the most pristine rocks to the lowliest mud hole on the Adriatic (sun is sun to the beach tourist.) Korčula City sees throngs of idiots roaming that small town drunk and trying to pick up the local girls. The roads are clogged, including the brand new auto cesta that runs out to the coast and was built basically to pump tourists out there. The congestion isn't because of the roads being small, but because there are just too many cars going to the coast during the summer and the result is the same as if you tried to push a pig through a garden hose.       But, beyond all these problems which could be seen as merely annoyances, there is the issue that tourism is smashing the local economies of the coastal towns in to being solely sustained by tourist money. This creates the first main problem of a group of people who work for three or four months and then have no income for the rest of the year. But, even more so, things like bars, nightclubs, strip joints, and whatever else start popping up just to cater to the tourists, thusly obliterating any sense of local culture from the people in the area. And once all this gets built up, you end up having an economy for the area that has its market driven by a single service. We all know that's bad and that the main thing any investor will tell you is that you need to diversify. The Croats who have focused on tourism for their main source of revenue are feeling the pinch of this already. Inflation is out of control on the coast and goods are very expensive for the locals to buy now. But the other fact is that the price of hotels, apartments, and rooms has gone up massively as well. In 2004, I paid 35 Euros a night for an entire apartment flat in Dubrovnik. The same flat is now about 100 Euros a night four years later.       This is all very bad for attracting the Beach Tourist. They want cheap and this is not cheap anymore. In fact, it's nearing or is the same price as places like Spain and Italy. So, there is now a glut of housing in the area and people are having a hard time filling all their rooms. By no means does this mean that Croatia will become a bargain again, but more the fact that hard times are ahead for a great chunk of the country that has heavily invested in the Beach Tourist.       This is all very negative of course and it's easy to complain about all the problems of an area. This is why there is a 'Part 1' in the title. In Part 2, I cover what I feel needs to be done to avert these problems. While these are personal observations of mine, they are from someone who knows the country well and has seen it from one end to the other. Okay, I admit that I haven't been to Slavonia yet, but I had to save something for a future trip!

To all those visiting Spain, I have a message for you: The Sombrero is Not Spanish. Yeah, I know, you can get them in tourists shops and they seem like they're everywhere, but come on, those guys sell a caganer of anything that makes money. So, is it no surprise that they'd sell something that is much more Mexican than Spanish? No, no it isn't.       Oh yeah, for those who don't know it, 'sombrero' actually just means 'hat' in Spanish. We English speakers just went and incorrectly stole that up from Mexican Spanish (as well as the delicious word, 'quesadilla') even though it just means 'hat' in Mexican Spanish as well. We did something as dumb with 'salsa' which just means 'sauce', but we think it's a Mexican sauce.       But, feel free to get one when you're in Spain because it's funny in a truly stupid tourist kind of way. You'll find others like you. Lost. Clueless. Asking for a hat like them Mexicans wear when you're in Spain because Spain is just like Mexico, right? No, no it is not. But I know you can't hear me now as you're screaming olé as you run down out on Las Ramblas with your new found glory in your new found Mexican hat. Actually, while you're at it, get out of here and head on down to Mexico and get a proper sombrero. You and I will be much happier.

The first thing you need to know about Venice is that you need a map. The second you need to know about Venice is that you need a map. But, even if you obey these first and second things, you're probably still going to get lost. The city is a twisty maze of canals, dead end streets and most importantly, lackluster street signing. Yes, there are a good many signs around, but they fade over the years and you might quickly find that map quite useless when trying to get around because your point of reference is completely gone.       Thankfully, the locals got sick of being asked where large monuments were and took matters in to their own hands. No, they didn't make those signs that say, "Per San Marco", but much simpler ones that are spray painted with an arrow pointing in the right direction. A fine example of this appears below. Other examples include a piece of paper with "Peggy Guggenhiem" and an pointing to that museum, or a piece of paper with several languages telling which direction to take to Saint Mark's Square in a small paper spot, or my favorite which was a large graffiti with a guy point to the left and the quote (in French), "Pardon me, but which way to the Academy?"       I don't remember this from my 2005 visit and I suppose that the city government either paints over these or the tourists have grown increasingly incompetent at navigation. Whatever the case, I hope they stay around, because while I generally find my way quite well, they helped me avoid pulling out the map a great number of times.

For anyone who has been to Venice, there are a well known facets to the heavily touristic streets of the city and those are the purse sellers. There they are with their knockoff Guccis, Fendis, D and Gs, and others, waiting to sell these imitations to anyone willing to pay. Sure, they're a lot cheaper than the real ones and to my eyes, they look pretty much the same. Of course, anyone would be nuts to buy one, since the return policy is less than favorable for the customer and the prices that I overheard being said are not that attractive ($100 for a knockoff?!!)       Probably the crappiest thing in all of this is that the practice is most definitely illegal and the guys hocking the wares bear the brunt of this. I saw what happens when the cops move in to bust these guys while I was there. They quickly scoop up everything and then run like mad. They ran by me very fast the first time and then congregated back in front on a second pass once they found the coast to be clear. After sitting for a bit to catch their breaths, the main pimp came up to check in on them. To be more obvious that he was in charge of it all would have been hard, wearing a Louis Vuitton cap with matching man bag and a very shiny new cellphone.       Beyond these street hustlers there is a darker underground group making all of this possible. Ring leaders run these rackets and most of the guys selling are illegal immigrants or so new to the country that it's one of the very few forms of work they can get their hands on. So naturally, any haggling that you do with them cuts in to the money that they're making. So, if you're going to buy from them, pay the asking rate, seeing as how it's already cheaper than store. Otherwise, go pay the store price and continue to support the sweatshops that make these big name accessories. Or, as untenable a thought as it may be, just don't buy them at all.