Travel

I love Anthony Bourdain. I love everything about him. He’s a rude, crude, heavy drinking, food loving, old punk writer and chef. I live for his show on the Travel channel. Most travel shows don’t really appeal to me. I’m not into the touristy thing. I don’t wear fanny packs, wear tourist t-shirts (like my dad’s “Bahstun” shirt he bought in front of the old North Church and immediately changed into in the men’s room at the visitor’s center), or have an albatross of a digital camera hanging around my neck. When I travel I like to stay with friends and honestly experience the town I’m visiting. To me Boston isn’t about the North End and and visiting Harvard for me. It’s about karaoke bars near Faneuil Hall, watching the St. Patrick’s Day parade from a living room along the parade route in Southie, and lots of beer. Baltimore is not the inner harbor, it’s corned beef, crab-feeds, and old Jewish people. Seattle isn’t Starbucks and the spaceneedle, it’s a vegetarian restaurant near Capitol Hill and hole in the wall punk shows. This is how Anthony travels. He doesn’t go to the hot new hotel, bar, or restaurant. He hits up the dive bars and eats lunch in somebody’s kitchen. He drinks champagne out of a jelly jar in the back woods of South Carolina, stands under a waterfall in a tiny spiritual village in Japan, eats at taco stands on the Mexican border, and is brave enough to sample the drink of choice in a small amazon village, a beverage made when the women in the village chew the meat of a local root vegetable and spit into a jug allowing the saliva and root juice to ferment, yum. Some of the exotic locales he favors don’t really appeal to me. For instance, I’ve never been interested in visiting Asia, or New York oddly enough. But watching him running around Japan, Thailand, and Singapore having a ball, I’m slowly changing my tune. I’m not sure what I’m doing for my next vacation, maybe Israel this summer. All I know is I want to travel like Bourdain. Give me a dive bar, cheap and delicious local food, and great conversation with real people and I’m good.