Tweet in review

I will run out of trips to recap at some point, so new feature!  Since I’m on Twitter like it’s my job (which it sort of, kind of is), I read tons of interesting links and posts each week.  So here’s a look at the tweets of the week from http://www.twitter.com/thenotoriousmeg:

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A trip to Byzantium/New Rome/Constantinople/Istanbul

As alluded to, we spent the last week of 2008 trompsing around Istanbul.  Why Turkey?  We had one more SWU to use on American and wanted to go as far as possible on it to soak up all the business class goodness but Asia was way expensive and Western Europe not far enough.  Istanbul was a good compromise, straddling two continents and with a favorable exchange rate (though see my previous post).  I’ll recap in detail but here are some general notes:

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A return to long-form blogging

After nearly a year’s absence, I thought I’d blow the dust off this puppy.  I’ve been all about the “microblogging” recently, keeping up with Facebook updates and Twitter (follow me @thenotoriousmeg), but haven’t had the attention span to write anything substantive.   But given the state of the economy, who knows how much longer I’ll be able to travel, so I might as well document it.

2008 was a banner year for my passport, ringing in the New Year in Nicaragua, closely followed by an all too brief trip to Paris (my first), two work trips to Italy in spring and summer, an epic trip to Portugal for which the Husband stayed on an extra two weeks alone, Labor Day week in Barbados for a gonga deal (no real photos from this trip), and ending the year in Istanbul (photos and commentary to come).  Wow.  I feel fortunate as hell.  I wish I could go back and write about each place (and perhaps I will at some point), but a few things I realized in the course of all these travels.

Beat the Doldrums in the Dolomites

As previously alluded to, I had the pleasure of spending a weekend and change in the magical Italian Alps a few weeks ago, courtesy of a work trip to visit Hotel & Spa Rosa Alpina.  Doing PR for them and spending many hours writing pithy pitches and fun press releases (this post’s title was one of H’s suggestions for a press release) gave me a good idea of what to expect, but actually visiting the property was a real experience.  I went with one of my colleagues, arriving on Saturday morning and staying through Tuesday morning, which is definitely way too short of a trip, but we still managed to each gain several pounds over the course of those days.

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I am now the Official Corn Island Cheerleader

A little shameless self-promotion: last month I had my first legit article published, on Daily Candy about Corn Islands!  Even though I’ve read DailyCandy.com for years and have written a lot here about the Corn Islands, I still sweated writing this.  Hard to make everything clever and cute while being somewhat informative, all in 400 words.  Hope it came out well!  No byline, as that’s not the DC style, but it’s titled “The Caribbean’s Last Frontier.”

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How Not to Deal Drugs (and other assorted felonies)

I’ve been absent as I’ve just finished a two week stint as a grand juror in Brooklyn, the second busiest court after Detroit, as it happens.  After living in New York for ten years, they finally nabbed me, but it was a pretty good experience: we had 1.5 hour lunches every day, could sit around reading the paper by the hour, and can now yell at the TV screen while watching Law & Order to point out the inaccuracies.  Of the thirty or so cases we heard, most of them were drug-possession, with a large medley of robbery/assault and a soupcon of sex crimes and menacing (not to be confused with harassment, which implies less of an immediate threat).  Here are a few things I learned from the mishaps of Brooklyn’s underbelly:

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From the Bal’more desk

Couple excellent Crime Scene items recently:

Robbery: Hartwait Street, 6500 block, January 26, 10am
Someone broke the window of a truck and took $5,000 worth of donuts and Tasty-Kakes.

This begs a few questions: how many donuts constitute $5,000, and is there some sort of black market for Tasty Kakes?

And a slower week this week:

Robbery: Brown Avenue, 6300 block, January 27, 6:16pm:
A woman
got into an argument with a man who would not give her money for
Pampers.  He struck her buttocks and took her cell phone.  His friend
gave the cell phone back and both men fled.

Burglary: S. Conkling Street, 800 block, February 3, 10:00am:
Someone kicked in the front door of a house and punched a hole in the bathroom sink.  Nothing was taken.

Larceny from Auto: S. Chester Street, 400 block, February 2, 11:25am:
Someone broke into a car and took two 12-packs of Mountain Dew and Dr.
Pepper, a bag of Doritos, and a bag filled with miscellaneous property
including a Jerry Springer CD, Life Savers and a bottle of Advil as
well as a box of cat box liners and two cat collars, one blue and one
pink.  The bag and all its contents were found a short time later;
apparently the suspect forgot it as he fled.  The Doritos and soda,
however, were not recovered.

Speaking of Baltimore, I’ve suddenly gotten really into The Wire.  I’ve always watched it, but this season has really grabbed me.  The whole serial killer storyline?  Oh, no, he di’nt!  So I offer a few Wire links for those inclined:

What real thugs think of The Wire, featuring such tidbits as ““When you see a cop losing his head like that — drinking, acting crazy
— you go after it. That’s like m—er f—ing Christmas in the ‘hood!” in reference to McNulty, and “Meanwhile, none of them showed any interest in the affairs of the Baltimore Sun.”

Speaking of my TV boyfriend ex-husband McNulty, here he is at his finest, from season two.  And some good, old-fashioned (NSFW) crime solving from season 1.  Excellent.

Diving, dogs, and dining on Little Corn

Our second day on LCI, we awoke early and finished the paper part of our PADI Scuba Course and learned all about the joys of BCDs and wet suits.  We then finally got into the water with all of the gear, where I unfortunately freaked out.  It was all so alien and weird, I’ve never even snorkeled and I tend to be a massive wuss anyway, so I sat the rest of the course out.  To my credit, I later got back in the water and did some basic exercises, but never had the chance to really dive.  H completed the course over the next two days and is now a certified Open Water diver.  But I highly recommend the great peeps at Dolphin Dive, for being so patient with my sniveling, scaredy cat self.

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La Islita

Finally inspired to finish writing about Little Corn Island, though my tan is only a memory now.  Lessee, I talked about the not-fun panga ride and our stay at the Hotel Los Delfines.  On our first morning, we spent some time wandering the island, past the ever-popular summer camp for grownups Casa Igauna and other backpacker favorite places to stay.  That side of Little Corn has some lovely beaches and a neat-o abandoned resort that was perfect for escaping the sun.

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More Crime Scene news

While I’m still organizing my photos and thoughts from my almost back-to-back trips to Nicaragua and Paris, here’s another installment of Crime Scene notes from Baltimore:

Aggravated Assault:
Brown Avenue, 6300 block, January 10, 4am:
A man and woman were having an argument.  The man struck the woman withan alarm clock and then fled the area.  Police were called and the manwas arrested later, and was found to smell strongly of alcohol.

Bank Street, 6900 block, January 11, 8:22pm:
An intoxicated man threw soda on the floor of his house and began threatening family members with a shotgun.  He kept repeating the words “Lock and load” as he did so.  Police arrested him and confiscated the shotgun as well as a number of other firearms and ammunition.

Larceny from Auto:
E. Pratt Street, 2100 block, January 10, 10:05am:
Someone opened the door of a car and took a down jacket, two pairs of baby shoes, a cutting board, four bags of snacks and a box of fondue.