The Need To Vacate

Stop drooling all over other people's travel posts and pics! And go out and see the world for yourself !  

You've got your reasons for not going on vacation - of course you do. And many of those reasons are flimsy valid. But you look like sh*t. Yup most of you look like you need a vacation so bad that it makes your breath stink.  And it must be torturous living vicariously through the adventures of others?

So I'm getting ready to hit the airport it's been months and I've got the travel junkie itch. Eurasia is looking good, so I'm fleeing the country again bishes!

Strutting outside of the truck in Nairobi National park.
 Not a good idea if you've read Afrika 101  Meals On Wheels

Did you know that statistics show the average American works 5-10 more hours a week compared to many other developed first-world countries?

And it's my opinion that Europeans & Asians (living in their respective countries) travel the most. I mean the Japanese get around more than a hunts point hooker (in a travel sense that is) Europeans also seem to account for the largest number of expatriates living abroad.

Been to the caribbean lately? The Germans have been there so long that they speak patios. And I'm guessing it has something to do with the four week holidays they get as opposed to America's general policy of two weeks which is just dispicable.

Harass The Giraffe
Curious to know how all those documentaries on National Geographic are made?  Easy! Just tell safari goers (like myself for example) that they can go into a national park unsupervised in their own vehicles and they will chase down the animals. 

The source of my biased? Well the Travel Channel series House Hunters International for one. However statistically, the USA is ranked No.2 of the top international travel destinations in the world. And let's face it  people don't come from France, Italy, and Sweden to visit Nutbush Tennesee USA. 

New York is the No.1 destination.  But just because I live here doesn't mean that I have no aspiration to get the fugg outta this bish.

 Trying to have a Meryl Streep "Out of Africa" moment while overlooking
the Eastern the Great Rift Valley in Naivasha, Kenya.
Yeah it was pretty-frigging amazing

Seriously, at what point do you say "F*ck it - the rent just won't get paid this month...I'm going to Abu Dhabi Sohn!" Trinidadians do this regularly at Carnival time. Mainly because a ticket to Trinidad and the costume to "play mas"can easily consume a paycheck. But that doesn't seem to to stop the feather and sequin costumes from flowing in Port of Spain.

Market in Tanzania
Make friends with locals and they will show you the town!

By now, most of you have probably blown your tax returns on swanky new summer wardrobes. But some of you just dusted off last season's threads and bought a ticket to Machupichu, or Florida or El Segundo, Or West Bumbaf*ck for all I care. But if you did that - then you did the right thing.

Budget travel 12/2011
Roaming through Rome.

For those of you who effed up your tax return again - get ready to watch your friends and coworkers frolic off into vacation bliss- while your dumb azz crunches numbers in your cubicle - again. Life is short and paychecks are even shorter. Get with the program vacations are for vacating.

Travel, becauase you never know who you are going to meet

Food Porn in New York

Taste Of Times Square food festival brought appetites of every ethnicity and walk of life together
 as one greedy mob!

Did someone say food?

Aww yea  - festivals like this trigger the fat girl in me. Taste Of Times Square New York is a foodie’s dream come true!   To be surrounded by a smorgasbord of more than 50 of Midtown’s best restaurants offering food samples for $2 certainly encompasses many of my food porn fantasies. And from the looks of the crowd clearly I'm not the only one. 

Mmm steak frite in a sushi roll.

Asiago baguette filled with grilled pork and white Cavelli beans and fresh coleslaw.
Restaurant Barbetta's take on "Pork & Beans"

So I grabbed a couple of co-workers and headed to 46th & Broadway were the food fest kicked off.

@ $1 per ticket I promptly scooped up around $25 worth plus the bonus tickets I got using my Times Square Alliance card - which is free when you sign up @ the Time Square visitor’s center. Clutching my tix with a death grip and panting like a lap dog I shamelessly pilfered through numerous food stations featuring eats from some of the best restaurants in and around Times Square.

Mmm I recognize those tasty morsels 
Those ribs & shrimp are from Ca Va Brasserie another 2011 favorite and a 2012 fave as far as I'm concerned

There was alligator, beef cheek, steak frite, sushi rolls, blue berry and pineapple cheesecake, ribs, sliders, parfaits, empanada’s, paella, cheese steaks made of filet mignon, crab cakes, smoked salmon, pasta, dumplings and gobs of gorgeous gook-de-gobble. Yes a fair is a veritable smorgasbord-orgasbord 

Caviar and cream in a pancake...For 2tix  I'm trying everythang!

Throughout the fair there were musical acts like the Ebony Hillbillies, and all black, blue-grass country music group (didn't know those existed) And later when I could barely walk, I sat for a spell, not realizing I was being roped into a free drumming lesson with about forty other fest goers sponsored by Drum Cafe. And I've concluded that I am a drumming prodigy.

Chicken-pot-pies and crab cakes @ O'Lunney's
One of Taste of Times Square 2011 favorites (at least that's what the pamphlet said) 

 Alas when the food stands (and my tix) finally ran out. A fellow drummer & I stumbled away in a food coma. But not before we spotted what appeared to be Snoop Dog slinking through the crowd nearly unnoticed & chomping on some local fare? Sorry folks I can't verify it so we'll just say "a rapper of sorts". Yours truly  was too comatose to whip out the camera. Plus he was dodging fans like the plague.  I guess everybody enjoys a lil food porn.

  

Finally I know some of you may be thinking, "But how tha hell are you gonna  talk about global issues and injustices on one blog, then go all food porn, binge eating on another?  My answer to that....I'm a product of my environment.
   
Now look at the damn pics! and click here for a list of all the participating restaurants.

It's never too soon to start breaking them in!  

Listen, I too ate the Duck lettuce wrap and can totally understand this situation!

Her: Mmm this alligator meat is delectable!
Him: Ooo look they got beef cheek @ the next station



 She wasn't better than me... but she was for darn sure the cutest drummer of them all!

Him: I told you to get your own didn't I - didn't I?!
Her: C'mon I just want a taste