Matador Network's Blog, page 2195

The 11 best Airbnbs in Amsterdam

One of the premier destinations in Europe is the great capital Amsterdam. While most of the stories you hear about it tend to focus on the legal pot and prostitution, the city’s far more than that: brilliant, centuries-old architecture, canals cutting through the medieval center, and world-class art and history museums.



It’s hard to get a feel for the city when you’re in a generic hotel or hostel room. It’s much better to spend your time in an actual Dutch domicile. A ton of the Amsterdam homes available on Airbnb are located in the tops of buildings with terraces overlooking the old city, or on houseboats down in the canals.

Here are some of the best we were able to find.




1

Just around the corner from Rembrandt Square in central Amsterdam, this sun-filled rental is $163 a night. It’s a short walk to the flower market, the popular shopping street Kalverstraat, and the Royal Palace of Amsterdam.
(View the listing)

2

A quirk of Amsterdam, a lot of its Airbnb lodgings are houseboats on the canals. This one's particularly pretty. The cost is $133 a night. It’s close to the airport, about 25 minutes away from Amsterdam’s city center—but they provide free bikes to their guests.
(View the listing)

3

From the terrace of this guesthouse by the Raamgracht Canal there's a view of the Zuiderkerk tower. It’s around $122 a night. The neighborhood's right next to the city’s infamous De Wallen—the red-light district.
(View the listing)

Intermission





12 of the best Airbnbs in Rome, Italy
by Joe Batruny



1
10 of the best Airbnbs in Tokyo
by Matt Hershberger




12 of the best Airbnbs in New York City
by Joe Batruny
















4

This spot in the De Pijp neighborhood is right by the old Heineken brewery, the Albert Cuyp Market, and the Rijksmuseum. Its obvious highlight is the outdoor terrace. It’s about $111 per night (depending on the exchange rate).

(View the listing)

5

This penthouse is right in the center of Amsterdam along the Keizersgracht Canal and near Rembrandt Square. It’s got a patio (complete with a grill for barbecuing) and free-to-use bicycles, courtesy of the hosts. It’s a rare smoker-friendly loft that rents for about $155 a night.

(View the listing)

6

This rooftop apartment in the dead center of Amsterdam overlooks Waterlooplein, the site of a daily flea market. There's a broad terrace with an outside fireplace and shower. It’s about $340 per night and is within walking distance of basically everything you’d want to see in the city center.
(View the listing)

7

This loft, in a building dating back to the 17th century, is directly above a cafe in Amsterdam’s heart. It’s around $679 a night.
(View the listing)

8

This 23-meter-long houseboat is on the Prinsengracht Canal right by the Noordermarkt in the Jordaan district. It used to be a cargo ship but has been renovated into a home with a lounge and central heating. It’s around $200 a night.
(View the listing)

9

This spot near Jordaan features a terrace with a swinging chair and a picnic table, for anyone who wants to grill out. It's $129 a night and requires a five-night minimum stay.
(View the listing)

10

Docked in Jordaan, a historic part of Amsterdam, this ship-become-houseboat is appointed with a fire pit, kitchen, and skylights that let in a lot of sun. It’s $265 a night. Because it's near the central station, everything in the city is accessible.
(View the listing)

11

This loft in the De Pijp neighborhood is part of a former monastery, about a 10-minute walk from the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum. It costs around $400 a night and accommodates six.
(View the listing)

Mammut lights up the Matterhorn

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TO CELEBRATE 150 YEARS since the first ascent of the Matterhorn, Mammut Key Visual created this interesting behind-the-scenes film depicting the process it took to light up this iconic mountain. The lights along the Hoernli ridge represent the original trail undertaken by Edward Whymper, Lord Francis Douglas, Charles Hudson, Douglas Hadow, Michel Croz, and their two Zermatt guides. I can’t believe that the original climbers got through it without any modern-day equipment. The team at Mammut did an awesome job to recognize this amazing feat, and the results are simply stunning. The 250th anniversary commemoration is sure to be something extraordinary.

4 steps to overcome a fear of sharks

Photo: SF Brit

I love to swim. I love to paddle. I’m a superstar boogie boarder. I’m usually game to try pretty much any water sport, but only if it’s within a few yards of shore and in shallow / fresh enough water that I will remain at the top of the food chain throughout the extent of the activity.

I do love the ocean but I’m not exactly an ocean person. My fears overwhelm my interests when it comes to diving deep into the unknown. And by “fears” I mean “completely irrational phobia of sharks that has been known to keep me out of lakes at times.” I know I’m not alone in picturing the 1975 VHS cover of Jaws every time I step in a puddle. Which is why I’ve never understood that overwhelming, uncompromising draw to the deep sea that so many people have. That force instilled in ocean lovers, so powerful they risk lives and limbs just to satisfy it.

When I heard about the Shark Shield — the device that can apparently make a shark feel like it just got slammed by an imaginary Muhammed Ali — I was interested. I didn’t think shark attacks were that common. If they were, wouldn’t people stop going in the water? Wrong. People will go in the water no matter what.

Some backstory on sharks: They have an Achilles heal. They’re extremely sensitive to electromagnetic fields. Every shark has electrical receptors in its snout, extravagantly called the ampullae of Lorenzini. When these receptors are bombarded by electromagnetic waves, it causes the shark to go into spasms. The spasms don’t do the shark any harm, but they’re unpleasant enough to make it change direction. When some washed-up, salty surfer tells you that you can survive any attack by punching the shark in the nose Leo DiCaprio-style, it’s these sensitive receptors he’s referring to.

The Shark Shield is that punch in the nose. It’s a device that surrounds a swimmer in a three-dimensional electromagnetic field, an invisible wall that a charging shark could maybe go through, but probably doesn’t want to.

When I heard about this thing, I just had to read the testimonials. There are five pages jam-packed with firsthand experiences from divers, spear fishers, surfers, and other ocean-loving people, most of whom have seen and dealt with sharks in the wild. One guy even said that as a commercial spear fishing guide, he was used to pushing at least five sharks away on a daily basis.

Although it’s a pretty neat device, the most interesting thing about these testimonials isn’t the Shark Shield itself. It’s the overwhelming passion for the unknown that all of these people share. Some of these all-star reviews are absolutely mind-boggling. According to the sample group on this website, people see sharks all the time and they still go in the water.

One guy was charged head-on by a great white, realized it was repelled by the shield, so he FOLLOWED IT because he “wanted a closer look.” There are stories about kids, there are stories about couples, there’s a story about a guy yanking on a great white’s tail in order to get it away from someone else. This testimonial section has everything you could possibly want, if what you wanted was to never go in the water again.

The thought of a shark is enough to make me get out of the bathtub. But after reading these testimonials, I’ve realized that’s my own misfortune. These people are diving, surfing, whatever, day after day — even without this device — and seeing a world the landlubber is too afraid to see.

So what do all these ocean people have in common? How are they able to overcome that human-natured fear of being a little lower down on the food chain?

1. They’ve taken the time to research sharks.

Bianca McCartt has been scuba diving for several years, but like a lot of us, she used to be afraid of sharks.

“I admit that when I first saw Jaws, I thought sharks were terrifying. My view of them didn’t really change until I became a scuba diver and began to learn more about them. The truth about sharks is that they pose very little danger to humans. They do not hunt humans and being bitten by a shark is extraordinarily rare,” she says.

Most ocean lovers and researchers say people are afraid of sharks because they don’t know anything about them. Bianca’s right. Sharks rarely attack people — the odds are 1 in 11.5 million — but when they do, it’s all over the news. Sharks are easy to sensationalize because the vast majority of the world is already scared of them.

Jaws caused us to imagine a man-eating monster from below, so blood-thirsty that he returned for four sequels. The Discovery Channel’s Shark Week had 42 million viewers last year. Honestly, even Sharknado had a little bit of an effect on me. But we must remember these programs are aimed to entertain, not to tell us the truth.

The reality is, they don’t really care about us.

“Although I’ve only been a diver for a few years, I’ve now seen over 100 sharks in the water. These were not cage dives — there was nothing separating people from sharks in these situations. Most of the sharks I’ve seen were Caribbean reef or gray reef sharks, with a few sand tigers (aka, grey nurse), common nurse sharks, and one wobbegong,” says Bianca. “In all cases, they did not exhibit any sort of threatening behavior to the humans who were in their domain.”

2. They have respect for sharks.

There are approximately 500 different species of sharks, and only about a dozen of them are considered potentially dangerous to humans. As top predators, each species plays a key role in the ocean’s ecosystem. They hunt weak and aging prey, keeping populations under control and allowing strong and competitive genes to be passed on.

The fact that sharks play a crucial role in the ocean is not debatable. And yet up to 273 million sharks are killed each year by commercial fishing and “finning” — a practice that involves slicing a shark’s fins off at sea and dumping its body overboard, often when the animal is still alive. The fins are the most profitable part of a shark, used in shark fin soup and traditional medicines.

“We need to take an active role in preventing the extinction of an alarming number of vulnerable shark species, and the first step is to realize we have nothing to fear,” says Bianca.

It’s important to remember that sharks are more often victims of humans than they are hunters of them. Conservation efforts and attempts to provide protection — like the Shark Shield — are focused on educating us that culling the species is more detrimental than just learning to live with and respect them.

3. They use common sense.

Avid surfers, paddlers, swimmers, and divers know to avoid water that is murky or dark. They use caution around sandbars or steep drop-offs, where sharks are more likely to be hunting. They don’t go in the ocean at night, and they know it’s safer to be near a group, as sharks are more likely to attack solitary individuals.

4. They don’t let risk stop them from doing what they love.

There are hundreds of thousands of car accidents every year, yet we still get into our cars every day to drive to the things we consider necessary. People who love the ocean feel that same compelling necessity. They can’t keep themselves away, even if there’s a slight risk. They know that most grizzly images of sharks are created in their own minds. Having an imagination is what brings them to love the ocean in the first place, and they’re not going to allow it to destroy that passion.

“Being in the water with them is a wonderful experience because they are truly beautiful and fascinating creatures. I look forward to seeing sharks while diving more than any other marine life…I highly recommend that people put aside their fears and experience the true nature of sharks.”

7 things you bring home from Nepal

Photo: Scottish Dream Photography

1. Prayer flags

Probably the most festive paraphernalia across all religions. Like deep and meaningful bunting. The movement of prayer flags with the wind at iconic temples and religious spaces across Asia plays a strong part in many recollections of the region. It just may not look quite as good hanging between your bedpost and curtain rail.

2. Those super comfortable parachute pants you wear for no longer than a week when you get home

You know the ones. They bulge towards your ankles and look a little like you crapped your pants. You ducked in and out of bars and restaurants in Thamel wearing them, you slept in them, you may have a burn mark from a shisha or cigarette / joint in them, and now you’re home and after a week or two of cruising the streets like a deflated hot-air balloon they’ve been relegated to the highest shelf in your closet, next to the incense.

3. The incense

Your senses may suffer from depression after being somewhere as stimulating as Nepal. In steps the incense sticks and cones; they form the skirting of a temporary shrine of souvenirs remembering the good times on Freak Street.

4. The Buddha

The jovial, bronze chubby fellah probably spent some time at the helm of your shrine to Nepali life. Beaming with inner peace. Now he rolls around in your desk drawer like a lonely cue ball in the gutter of a pool table.

5. A musical instrument

The singing bowl or the tablas, which one was it? I never mastered either so escaped having an ornamental pair in my bedroom. Maybe you’ve had a razz on them once or twice since but it’s probably time to think about passing them on to your musical friend.

6. Khukuri and Surya Lights

For all the smokers out there, and those with a penchant for cheap liquor.

7. Prayer beads

I was tempted to sacrilegiously buy a loop of prayer beads — the thought of it doubling as a necklace may have crossed your mind. Like a snake shedding its skin, you’ve probably relinquished this to the depths of your room. If you still bear a fondness for it, maybe it dangles from the top corner of your mirror like a beaded ninja rope.

We know you secretly hate bars

Photo: Andy Pixel

The word “bar” can refer to a variety of places — a handy rule is, the cooler the bar, the more horrible the life experience it will provide. And on a weekend night, the quintessential cool, super-popular, loud, dark city bar becomes a place of genuine hardship.

The problem begins because you have this idea in your head that a cool bar is a fun place to be. You think to yourself, “It’s time for a big weekend. Excited to hit the bars!” without what should be the follow-up thought, “Oh wait no, I remember now that weekend bars are terrible places to go to.”

After years of accidental suffering by billions of people, it’s about time we took a long, hard look at this voluntary practice and examine just what a night out at a popular bar entails.

Let’s start at the beginning:

It’s a Friday night, and you’re excited. You get yourself all ready — you look how you’re supposed to look, your friends look how they’re supposed to look, and you all head out to go where you’re supposed to go: the bar.

As you arrive, you come up to a familiar scene:

Let’s take a moment to discuss what’s actually going on here.

If you want to understand how a cool bar thinks, just take the way every other business thinks — ”please the customer and they’ll come back” — and do the opposite.

I call it the You’re A Little Bitch strategy. Being forced to stand in line like a tamed snail — often when it’s cold and even sometimes when the bar is empty — is your first taste of the You’re a Little Bitch strategy.

While you wait, you’ll watch several all-girl groups walk to the front of the line without waiting, where the bouncer opens the rope and lets them in. Ahead of you. Because you’re a little bitch.

When you finally get to the front, you’ll notice there’s no sign with the bar’s name anywhere, because the bar likes to watch its little bitch customers go through extra trouble to find them.

You’re then asked for your ID by someone who may not have been the biggest dick in your high school — but he was the biggest dick in someone’s high school.

He then shuffles your little bitch ass along to the next stage, where they show everyone how desperately you want to be their customer by charging you $10 just to come in. They cap things off by stamping their logo on your undignified hand, just because they can.

An uninformed observer would only assume, after seeing everything you just went through, that the place you were about to enter would be some coveted utopia of pleasures.

Um, no.

From the moment you walk into a popular bar, the scene elicits a distinct mix of dread and hopelessness. It’s an unbearably loud, dark, crowded cauldron of hell, and nothing fun can possibly occur here.

I’m not sure when it happened or why it happened, but at some point along the line we decided that the heinous combination of loud-dark-crowded was the optimal nightlife atmosphere. Maybe it started because clubs were trying to imitate the vibe at concerts, and then bars started imitating clubs to seem hipper — I’m not sure. But where it’s all left us is a place that disregards the concept of a human being, and there you are in the middle of it.

Anyway, now that you’re in — what’s next? Let’s take a look at the various activities you’ll take part in during your time at the bar:

Activity 1: Getting a drink

After wedging your coat into a nook in the wall and saying goodbye to it for the last time, it’s time to go get your first drink. You were the first one of your friends to walk in the door, so you’re in the lead as your group works its way through the crowd, which means you’re the one who’s gonna drop the worst $54 a human can spend on a round of drinks no one will remember. But that’s the end goal — first, you need to figure out how to get through the three layers of people also desperately trying to order drinks.

It’s a sickening undertaking. And depending on your level of aggressiveness and luck, making the worst purchase of your life could take anywhere from 3 to 20 stressful minutes. I’ve spent at least a cumulative week protruding my face forward, vigorously locking my eyes on the bartender’s face and still not being able to make eye contact.

You finally get back to your friends with drinks, just in time to start the primary bar activity:

Activity 2: Standing there talking to no one

Standing there talking to no one is a centerpiece of any night at the bar. If you don’t look carefully, loud-dark-crowded will give you the impression that everyone in the bar is having fun and being social. But next time you’re at one, take a good look around the room, and you’ll see a surprising percentage of the people who are standing there not talking to anyone.

But, luckily, the real fun is about to begin:

Activity 3: Holding something

Almost as ubiquitous as Activity 2, holding something — usually a cold drink — is popular in bars around the world. The thing we all ignore is that holding a cold drink is shitty. A) Holding anything up for an extended period of time is shitty, B) A cold, wet drink is especially unpleasant to hold, and C) because bars are insanely crowded and people are constantly moving, your elbow will be bumped about once every 30 seconds, continuously spilling the drink on your hand and wrist. If you were in a restaurant and someone told you you had to hold your drink a few inches off the table while you sat there, you’d leave.

Unfortunately, putting it down isn’t really an option, because holding nothing at a bar frees up your hands, which has the side-effect of making you suddenly aware that you’re just standing there talking to no one, and you might panic. The solution is to quickly hold something else, usually your phone, which whisks you back into hiding.

Activity 4: Yelling out randomly to let people know you’re having a good time

Desperate to maintain the “This is fun!” narrative we’ve all been sworn to, you’ll sometimes hear a person yell out to no one in particular. They won’t yell an actual word — just something un-endearing like “Woooh!” or “Ohhhh!” Relative to other activities, this is one of the most fun moments you’ll have in the bar.

Activity 5: Screaming words toward a person’s head

At some point you’ll decide to try to interact with your friends, since you’re in theory having a night out together. There’s no chance of presenting information in a nuanced way, so the conversation stays crude and basic — I’d estimate that 20 minutes of bar conversation accomplishes what roughly one minute of restaurant conversation does.

You might even get ambitious and decide to start accosting strangers. This tends to be an upsetting experience for both sides of the interaction, and almost never leads to anything fruitful. The irony of all this is that the loud-dark-crowded cauldron of hell vibe is there in the first place for single people who want to meet single people, and bars don’t even do a good job with their prime purpose. Bars are a terrible place to meet someone if you’re single. You can barely see what people look like, let alone any subtle facial expressions that convey personality. And because it’s so crowded and hard to hear anything, mingling doesn’t really happen, which leaves aggressive conversation-starting (i.e. accosting strangers) as the only real way to get things off the ground.

Once you’re in a conversation with someone new, you’ll spend 6 minutes getting through the first nine lines of small talk and still have no idea if the stranger has a sense of humor — not a good environment to build chemistry.

Activity 6: Dancing

Activity 7: Crying

A lot of people cry in bars.

Activity 8: Bathing in old-fashioned gender stereotypes

From girls skipping the line or the cover charge to guys buying drinks for girls they met eight seconds ago, bars provide a modern arena for decades-old gender stereotypes, casual discrimination, and whimsical misogyny to flourish and thrive. Sexism and gender inequality are hot topics right now, and yet everyone seems fine reverting to 1953 when they enter a bar.

Activity 9: Taking shots to dull the suffering

Shots don’t taste good. And anyone who says otherwise is lying.

Activity 10: Engaging with filth

Bars are a great place to really soak up the collective sludge of humanity. From the sticky floors to the vomit to the strangers making out to everyone breathing on everyone else to the bartender handling money and then shoving a lime into your drink, it’s a quality of living only drunk people could create and only drunk people could endure. The most disgusting exhibit is the men’s bathroom, where 120 drunk men have each sloppily peed 1/4th on the floor—which makes it a similar place to a bathroom where 30 men have peed only on the floor, and a place you’ll have to visit at least twice.

* * *

As this cesspool of bad human qualities rounds itself out with a fistfight between two fragile-egoed drunk dudes venting their sexual frustration onto each other, it’s time to wrap things up.

Suddenly remembering that food exists, you’re re-energized and work your way to the exit through the closing-time crowd of ultra-horny guys making furious last-second attempts at meeting someone. You’re pleasantly surprised to actually find your coat and then you head out the door, making sure to forget your credit card behind the bar.

And you’re done. Almost…

There’s one more critical step — the moment that propagates the bar species onto the next night: You need to convince yourself that the night was super fun.

Of course, loud-dark-crowded bars are not fun. But drunk usually is fun — no matter where it is. Go to the grocery store drunk with a bunch of friends, and you’ll have fun. Go ride the bus around town — if you’re drunk, you’ll probably have fun. If you had a good time at the bar, what actually happened is you were drunk and the bar was not quite able to ruin it for you. If something is truly fun, it should still be at least a little fun sober, and bars are not even a little fun sober.

Some people aren’t even conscious of the fact that they hate these bars and for them, the self-convincing is an automated process that takes place all through the night. For others, the delusion is a bit more forced and takes a week or two to take hold. A few people won’t ever twist the memory, but enough of their friends will that they’ll need bars for another purpose — avoiding FOMO — and they’ll be back before long.

We have a problem here, with no foreseeable solution. Until something changes, the weekend streets will be lined with little bitches, patiently waiting.

This post originally appeared on Wait But Why and is republished here with permission.

Flying cars totally exist, and were engineered by Slovaks

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PISS OFF, ŠKODA — for the past twenty years, Slovakia’s Štefan Klein has been engineering an actual flying car. It’s not what I had originally imagined growing up, but this car is seriously badass. The Aeromobil 2.5 prototype was last presented during the SAE Aerotech Congress & Exhibition in Montreal, Canada, and was very successful in takeoff and landing. Unlike other flying car prototypes, Klein’s mechanical baby fits nicely in a normal parking spot, and can safely land in virtually any airstrip or grassy field available. According to an article in The New York Times, once in the air the vehicle has a “ceiling of about 6,000 feet, a range of 430 miles and a top speed over 100 m.p.h.”

I am super pumped that this vehicle may be something I use in my lifetime, but also that it was patented in Slovakia. Slovaks are already awesome, and this flying car is going to put their country on the map, giving people more to talk about than that ridiculous scene from Euro Trip.

10 signs it's your first Mexico trip

Photo: regan76

1. You’re pretty certain the drug lords are just waiting in the bushes to rob/rape/kidnap/kill you.

Get over yourself. They aren’t. Yes, that sort of horrific violence still exists in very few, very particular parts of Mexico, none of which your tourist ass is probably going within hundreds of miles of. After visiting Mexico, you realize that it is an overall safe country to visit, filled with warm and friendly people who will go out of their way to make you feel welcome.

2. You think everyone is going to be sitting around eating tacos.

Tacos are a thing in Mexico, don’t get me wrong. But so are about a zillion other mouth-watering dishes. Mexico is nothing if not full of diverse flavor, each distinct from one region to the next. Try mole poblano, sopes, chicharrón, elote, even toasted grasshoppers for those feeling adventurous. And the best food Mexico has to offer is never found in a restaurant listed in a guidebook. It’s in private homes or sold by street vendors.

3. You think it couldn’t possibly get any better than Cancun.

Seriously, you are so much more creative than this. Unless you’re trying to relive your high school spring break or really have a thing for large, nondescript chain hotels, open your mind to an endless array of mind-blowingly cool possibilities that Mexico has to offer.

Go waterfall jumping in the surreally gorgeous San Luis Potosí. On a coffee tour in Chiapas. Board the Tequila Train in Guadalajara. Surf massive waves in Oaxaca. Explore Copper Canyon in Chihuahua — even larger and deeper than the Grand Canyon.

4. You only packed flip flops and a bathing suit.

News flash: Mexico is huge. Diverse. And not all tropical and beachy. There are mountains, deserts, canyons, and forests. Some places are at very high altitude (Pico de Orizaba tops out at 18,491 feet, and Mexico has 25 summits that reach almost 10,000 feet). Do your homework before you go and pack appropriately.

5. You assume everyone parties on Cinco de Mayo as much as people from the US do.

Most parts of Mexico don’t even celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Traditionally, it’s a local celebration in the city of Puebla, where in 1862 the Mexican army temporarily deterred French invaders. In the US many of us look for any excuse to drink Coronas and eat Mexican food and wear a sombrero…Mexicans don’t. They get to rock that vibe all year long.

6. You think because it’s in pesos that everything will be cheap.

Mexico is not all inexpensive. While there are definitely deals to be had, in places all throughout the country luxury accommodations, high-end shopping, and gourmet restaurants can break the bank.

7. You expect everyone to speak English to you.

Get this: they speak Spanish. Or one of over 68 government recognized indigenous languages. Outside of big cities or well-run tourist establishments, good luck with the English.

8. You assume most all Mexicans are clamoring at the border desperately trying to get to the US.

Many Mexicans are very proud, and have a lot of love for, and loyalty to, their country. There is no other place in the world that they would want to be.

9. You drink the tap water.

Ever hear of Montezuma’s Revenge? The water in Mexico is purified at the source, but the distribution system may allow the water to be contaminated en route to the tap. A lot of locals buy water in five gallon jugs called garrafones which are delivered to their homes (and recycled). Do as most Mexicans do, and stick to purified water.

The water and ice in tourist resorts and hotels should be fine to drink (it’s not in their best interest to have a bunch of sick tourists on their hands), and any ice that you see in the form of a cylinder with a hole in the center is purchased from a purified ice factory and is safe. When brushing your teeth with tap water or when showering, just be careful not to swallow the water.

10. You think you can road trip Mexico in a week.

Mexico isn’t Belize or El Salvador — it’s roughly the same size of Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany all put together, or three times the size of Texas. Mexico is vast and diverse — to see even a small portion of the country and feel like you actually experienced it takes time.

17 lessons from your first road trip

Photo: Phil King

1. You can’t see the country on six lanes of highway.

Driving the backroads have added hours to your route, but at least you’re in motion. Anything’s better than feeling your bare thighs melt on a velveteen seat while you inch through an unexpected traffic jam in Florida.

2. The random kindness of strangers is real.

When your 1982 Volvo 240 breaks down in rural MacDonald, Kansas at midnight in a rainstorm, you only have to wait an hour before an elderly man pulls over and offers to take you to the closest motel. The next morning he comes to check on you and gives you a lift to his mechanic’s house, where all three of you spend the next four days tracking down parts from all over the country.

3. Local beer and liquor laws make zero sense.

When you finally reach the Blue Ridge Parkway at sundown, after driving 500 miles straight from western Tennessee, you realize after your fourth gas station that it’s Sunday in North Carolina. You spend 15 minutes arguing with your partner (“I told you we should have stopped in Dollyland!”) before deciding to backtrack an hour to the closest county that sells beer. You can’t process the thought of lying down in the open bed of your truck and trying to sleep without a buzz on.

4. Airbnb is the easiest way to meet locals.

You thought you were just going to get a key from your host and then go your separate way. Instead he offers you a Bud Lite and shows you a music video his son made. You learn he’s a retired bus driver from Hoboken, New Jersey — here in Nashville because he loves the music and wants to be closer to his son. You go downtown together and meet that son, and his wife, and all of their friends.

5. The best roadside attractions are almost completely incomprehensible.

The World’s Tallest Easel. The World’s Largest Can of Spinach. You can’t help it, you drive out of your way to see the World’s Largest Brick.

6. After you’re on the road long enough, any place is a good place to shower.

Even if it’s a 2×2 stall in a New Orleans basement, with a rusted drain and walls painted with the hair clumps of three of your friends.

7. Any excuse to go on a road trip is good enough.

Even if it involves quitting your job at the start of the recession and driving to Minneapolis to reunite with your ex. It takes you a month to remember why you split. You leave in a record snowstorm with everything you brought except your prized possession — a Taylor that you had to sell to a kid on craigslist for gas money. It sucks, but at least you’ve seen Minneapolis in winter. On to the next thing.

8. Don’t believe the receptionist at the $30 motel in Georgia when she says: “Ya’ll are gonna love our free breakfast!”

You spend approximately 45 seconds trying to choke down some oatmeal that you suspect came out of a can. You leave at 8:03 without any coffee — it tasted like watery tar — and almost T-bone a Honda Civic in the parking lot.

9. Most people don’t want to hurt you.

You’re a little nervous when that jacked-up black GMC in Utah passes you going 80, then stops short, does a 180, and starts gunning back to your pulled over car.

A guy in a cowboy hat rolls down his tinted window and yells: “Broke down?!”

You can proudly say no, you’re just taking a break.

“Ya’ll want some vegetables?!”

He throws some squash and cucumbers out to you in a paper bag and spins out.

10. Always prepare to be cold.

You brought four pairs of shorts but only one pair of pants. You’re quick to realize that there’s a chance of hail in every state, including Asheville, North Carolina in May.

11. Never trust the motel marquee.

You splurged 50 bucks on a room at the Super 8 in Montgomery because you read that it had a pool. You didn’t read that the pool hadn’t been filled since 1993.

12. Incredible music is everywhere.

You wouldn’t consider yourself a rockabilly fan but you go to the Continental Club in Austin anyway. You can’t stop admiring the foot-high bottle red beehive of the base player and her chirping, girly falsetto. You spend the whole night wanting to be her and download all of her albums the next morning.

13. The best food is in the crummiest looking places.

You pull over on Route 231 near Pickard, Alabama, to hit a BBQ joint called Webb’s. The building looks like an abandoned gas station. It has broken pumps out front, a lone rusty Pontiac in the parking lot, and collapsed stairs leading up to the door. You’re a little unsure — you don’t even know if they’re open or have been open in the past decade — but you’re starving. And they’re neon sign is on.

By the time you’ve finished off two of the best smoky pulled pork sandwiches you’ve ever had, a line has formed outside and they’ve sold out of meat.

14. Always listen to truckers.

The trucker at that Alabama diner has just one piece of cardinal advice for you: Go to the welcome centers. There are hotel coupons and free coffee at the welcome centers.

15. Never carry a joint in the car with you.

When you get pulled over by a local cop in Mississippi — and you have to wait on the side of the road for an hour while he taps your spare tire and listens to it — you’re thankful you finished that joint back in Louisiana.

16. Some places will make you homesick.

You try to take a nap at a public park in Austin but the grass is dry and prickly and smells like souring cat piss.

17. You’ll never have enough money.

At the end of a six-month journey, you find yourself calling a friend back in New England from a French Quarter pay phone at 6am, asking her to wire you $500 just to get home.

11 signs your boyfriend is English

Photo: Bob Prosser

1. You can chat for several minutes and realize you don’t have a clue what’s he talking about.

“We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.” — Oscar Wilde

Bob’s your uncle. I have an Uncle Bob. A lot of people do. A total cock up. Sounds like a porno. The dog’s bollocks. Dog balls are a good thing? Don’t tell that to mine. He’s chopped.

Then there are the words that sound like you’re conversing with a toddler, but they’re actually coming out of the mouth of your grown-arse boyfriend: wellies, yonks, totty, ta, tickety-boo, squiffy, squidgy, rumpy-pumpy, scrummy, scrumping, diddle, dickey, bugger, bung.

Aside from his penchant for childlike vernacular, your boyfriend also possesses an impressive vocabulary of words that actually do exist. (Although, most Americans will not be aware of their existence or proper pronunciation.) While the Brit will opt for the most erudite word possible, the American will go look up ‘erudite’ in the dictionary. Your boyfriend does this because…

2. He can sometimes be a tad pretentious.

Whether your boyfriend fits the floppy-haired, bumbling Four Weddings and A Funeral Hugh Grant or the charismatic, bastardly Bridget Jones’s Diary Hugh Grant, he’s going to have an air of arrogance to him. I think this has something to do with those years when Britain was the largest empire in the world. This former glory has been drilled into their upbringing. They can all regale you with tales of how the sun never set on the British Empire blah blah blah. Of course, these days your boyfriend has probably never seen the sun which brings me to…

3. He doesn’t understand the sun.

That damp, rainy rock he calls home rarely sees the sun. In California, he’s shocked to discover that after only nine hours of direct sun exposure, his beautiful, spotted, pasty pallor has deepened into a burning crimson red. These are his only two colors.

4. He doesn’t understand weather in general.

It’s a sunny 60F and your boyfriend wants to have an outdoor BBQ or ride around in a convertible. This is boot weather in SoCal. You’ll wear a scarf and sip a pumpkin spice latte while your Brit will don a t-shirt and start sweating. He has no clue what 60F means. That’s why you now have a measurement converting app on your smartphone for all the measurement converting needs that come with a British boyfriend: distance, currency, weight, shoe size, etc.

5. He doesn’t understand tipping.

He’s either going to tip nothing and smile, oblivious to the enemy he’s just made of the bartender and the next beer he will never get. Or he’s going to massively overtip everyone out of embarrassment/ignorance/a desire to be accepted. Like when he tips the homeless man or the Starbucks barista 20 bucks for a cuppa. Who orders tea at Starbucks? Your boyfriend.

6. He drinks tea, duh.

I think of tea as a sick-person beverage. Or something you buy — and never drink — after reading an article in Health magazine about how good green tea is for you. Go ahead and try to give him some. He’ll look at it with contempt. He drinks some fancy English Breakfast type. Pots of it. From dawn till bedtime. Basically, it’s just black tea, but don’t offer him Lipton. He’ll think you’re intellectually inferior. If you want to have some real fun, watch his head explode when you tell him you don’t own a kettle, and he’ll have to use the microwave.

7. He’s overly polite.

He thanks the officer for his parking ticket, apologizes for not smoking when someone asks for a light, and tells his stylist he likes his new haircut even though he doesn’t. He calls this being civilized. You call it something else, and ask him to look over this article. He suggests you write ‘Signs you’re a solipsistic, egomaniacal American strumpet and how that affects your foreign friends and lovers’ instead.

8. He’s a brilliant drinking buddy.

His idea of Sunday breakfast is a pint. Gin and Pimm’s have been added to your liquor cabinet. Lazing in the back garden on a sunny summer afternoon with one or the other is the perfect way to wind down your day. He loves his Pimm’s. You’re still wondering what all the fuss is about. The gin, though, that you can get behind.

9. You now eat weird sounding things.

Toad in a hole, spotted dick, bubble and squeak, roly poly. I know, right? Then there’s the food that is totally not what it sounds like it should be. Why does your boyfriend insist the Yorkshire pudding be ready in time for dinner? Surely, you eat pudding for dessert. Oh, that’s right… it’s not fucking pudding at all. It’s more like a biscuit. And, no, I don’t mean in the ‘cookie’ sense. Most of the time, though, your boyfriend will just pour a can of Heinz baked beans over some toast and declare it a work of culinary genius. At least you can now pronounce Worcestershire sauce correctly.

10. You’ll never wear a fanny pack again.

Not that you’d ever wear a fanny pack anyway, but now you’ll not wear it for entirely different reasons.

11. You’ve traded in football, baseball, and basketball for football, rugby, and cricket.

But are things really all that different? Maybe you didn’t know the exact rules for American football, baseball, and basketball. Well, now you get to not know the exact rules for what everyone else calls football, rugby, and cricket. Instead of wearing that Cowboys jersey your American ex got you for your birthday, you get to wear the Arsenal jersey your British boyfriend got you for your birthday. Instead of Sam Adams, you’ll have an Old Speckled Hen.

Then there’s all that new offensive profanity you’ll be subjected to. You’ll become desensitized to the “C word” after hearing it used so many times to berate coaches, refs, and players of the Premier League, whatever that is. Not from your loving boyfriend, of course, but from his hooligan mates. You may even accidentally use it once amongst friends while talking about some a-hole at the office. This will be met with shocked silence. They’re not British.

Tourists vs. locals in Barcelona

Photo: Gene Krasko

1. Tourists drink Sangria. Locals: Tinto de verano.

Tinto de verano, a summer red wine with a sweet kick, is more refreshing than the signature sangria and generally preferred by locals.

2. Tourists wander La Rambla. Locals: Montjuïc.

Escape the hecklers selling knick-knacks and overpriced paella on La Rambla and seek refuge in one of the reclusive gardens scattered across the hill of Montjuïc.

3. Tourists drink at Chupitos. Locals: Xampaneria.

While plenty of tourist groups can be found crowding the narrow cava bar on any given sweltering afternoon, you’ll find locals in the back, catching up in Catalan over a bottle of brut and plate of croquettes.

4. Tourists go to La Sagrada Família for a tour. Locals: Mass.

You don’t have to be religious to appreciate the artistic sanctity or the incredible acoustics during Mass at Gaudí’s famed church.

5. Tourists drink beer at the beach. Locals: plazas.

Cheap cerveza is a staple at Barcelona’s crowded beaches. However, local youths take to the numerous plazas scattered across the city to socialize, participating in botellón, a Spanish term referring to drinking together in public.

6. Tourists eat bocadillos at Bo de B. Locals: Mendizabal.

Located on an offshoot street behind La Boquería, Mendizibal is a modest open-air bar offering delicious sandwiches and beer at a good price. Fair warning though, stay away if you’re allergic to cats: there’s a bizarre enclosed cat “playground” nearby.

7. Tourists associate September with Ibiza. Locals: La Mercé.

A foreigner traveling to Barcelona in late September would be wise to ignore the lure of Ibiza’s late-summer club scene and partake in the native celebrations — parades, musical acts, sardana dancing, firework show — of the annual festival of La Mercé.