THE NETHERLANDS: Who Moved my Space Cake?

Admit it. At some point in time, you’ve wondered about being a drug dealer. Let’s be honest, it seems like a great gig. Dealers work their own hours, make decent coin and are always out mingling. While the illicit dispensing of narcotics run contrary to my ethics as an officer of the court and against something we call the “laws of the land”, we can all submit that a drug dealer gig can’t be beat. Plus dealers are smooth and cool, right? Wrong.

One night in the streets of Amsterdam, a slight misunderstanding with an enterprising individual from this particular trade almost resulted in my friends and I knifed like pigs prepped for a town feast. How did we end up in this sticky situation given that hallucinogens are wonderfully legal in this part of the world?

The series of unfortunate events began one crisp and grey autumn afternoon as Wall Street dude and I merrily disembark out of a choo-choo train from Brussels. To get to our lodgings, we hauled our luggage and boarded one of the trams that run on lines like arteries throughout the city. Amsterdam is much like Coruscant, that busy city from Star Wars. But instead of space ships darting through sky lanes, the city has boats, BMWs and bikes zooming all over, with its riders pedal-pushing around with reckless abandon. It seemed like the Dutch’s favorite hobby was running over hapless tourists with their silver Schwinns.

We checked in to our hotel late but it wasn’t long until I adjusted to the gothic hedonism of the city. Given that consumption of the happy-time biologics is a city-wide obsession, our first stop, quite naturally, was one of the city’s heralded coffee shops. Behold the "Rokerya." Inside, the customers were welcomed by the usual giggling babble and blank stares of fellow patrons. Multi-colored Christmas lights and Tibetan tapestries are flung about. Amidst the dim light, patches of aromatic clouds filled the bohemian sanctuary. We stared at the laminated menu where offerings such as “New York Cheese”, “Hawaiian Haze” and “Afghan” stared us back. We ordered some hash, picked out some complimentary rolling paper and laughed at our pathetic selves as we bumble the sacred act of rolling the magic dust. Fatty preparation was definitely not one of our competitive advantages.

After partaking some of the city’s finest gigglies and a side of a perfectly legal hallucinogenic helping of space cake, an uncanny feeling started to set in. I felt like planet earth was moving in slow motion and that we were descending into a Einstein-Rosen wormhole.

Need. To. Eat. 

It started to drizzle. We were back in Amsterdam's dank alleys, like zombie predators in search of the night’s forage. We were surrounded by the scintillating odor of varied options of grubbery and eventually decided to park our wobbly bodies at the next restaurant that crossed our path. A Mexican diner joint was calling us in: "venir aqui". We floated in, ordered and subsequently wolfed down our burrito combos, paid our bill and made a b-line back to the hotel to rest our spinning weary heads. 

It was 10 pm. The 2 hour nap marginally diffused our general hazy disposition. Suddenly, our hotel room wasn’t spinning as wildly as 120 minutes prior. We staggered into the alley, rode a tram that took us directly to the erotic core of the city: the Red Light District. 

Walking through the streets of the Red Light District, I cannot help but be reminded of that pivotal window washing scene in Deuce Bigalow 2: European Gigolo.  But in this city, you will find less man-whores than, err…whores. This place was interesting to say the least. It’s like stepping into the Barbie aisle in Toys R Us, but instead of 12-inch plastic dolls from Mattel, you are surrounded by a cavalcade of life-size beauties, showing off their shining skin and porn-star quality wares behind glass windows. Blondes, brunettes, black, white, asian…it was a buffet of flesh that would make our biblical friends Sodom and Gomorrah proud. Many girls were dancing in the windows of soft red light, enticing the men for a fairly inexpensive rendezvous. According to some local rumor, there’s an 80-year old granny behind one of these windows, and that there’s a waiting list to avail of said GILF’s services. Hey, whatever floats your boat, cabron.

I know everyone likes to watch themselves in the mirror making boom-boom and also enjoys the occasional hardcore digital offerings of realcamsex.com. So why not recreate the high you feel from these activities and watch a real live sex show? Yes, a live sex show in Amsterdam is a surreal piece of entertainment. The Red Light District has 3 major live sex shows theaters and in the name of market research, trooped into 66.6% of them.

One of the theaters, the popular, tourist-friendly, Casa de Rosso, was a dark theatre that somehow reminded me of the lecture hall we had at my grade school but with plush, velvet-covered, cushioned seating, cupholders for Heinekens, and equally stinky floors. The show lasted around 2 hours. The spectacle of flesh was divided into 5 mini-segments of erotic adventures, which included but was not limited to: a pretty blonde couple doing the do on a revolving stage, a leathered Lolita having her way with a banana, a black dude and his mamba pummeling his lady-friend. I’ve seen “torohan” before in the dingy back-alleys of Cubao in my early years but this was prettier (I think the lack of the stench of jeepney fumes from fellow patrons was a bit refreshing). Also, I was surprised how “mechanical” the whole production was. We actually caught the later show (as they had 3 shows per night), and it was the same sexual thespians performing exactly the same moves, pumps, contortions, licks, lifts, from the earlier episode. Who knew they had standard operating procedures for sex shows? This is Dutch precision at its finest.

By the way, cameras or other forms of photography are not allowed in these lovely live sex establishments. When one hapless tourist douche from California tried to snap a shot using his Nokia, the aforementioned performing Black Mamba called him out in front of the whole audience, shouting “no cameras!”, while ferociously pumping like a Rottweiler in heat.  

Dawn broke over Amsterdam. Wall Street Dude and I resolved to inject some form of culture into the proceedings and do a free walking tour of the inner areas of Amsterdam. We walked pass cobbled streets, the Dam Square, old city houses, churches and museums. The Van Gogh Museum was underwhelming. Trudging further, we stepped inside Anne Frank’s house. If you didn't get even a little choked up emphatic at Anne Frank’s house, then my friend, you have no soul. 

After the perfunctory boat cruise along the canals, the afternoon called for Heinekens. Naturally, some amount of drinking followed. It was happy hour in this glorious city and we kick-started the festivities by drinking at some neighborhood bar with some fair-haired cougars who just got off work. The bar was blasting 80’s music. It was 5 pm and the locals were gyrating, ass-grabbing, and dry-humping like they were in Seaside Heights. And who knew the Dutch appreciated the magical rocking riffs of Journey? 

Thereafter, slightly crunk, Wall Street Dude and I decided to crash a random bar crawl organized by the same folks doing the free walking tours. But we soon realized that almost all the participants of said bar crawl were tweens. Chilling with a horde of Miley Cyrus-listening 17-year olds who were drinking like fishes was not a good hang. To support our growing love for A'dam, we decided to just support one of the local coffee house businesses by partaking more baked goodies and then launched into our final full frontal assault into the Red Light District.   

We met with two other friends who were seemingly as semi-baked. We wandered the streets a while, as we try to lure our brains out of some hazy doldrums. The numbability factor had slowly increased over the past hours rendering us misfits almost unintelligible and immobile. With our eyes half open and heads bobbing around, we tried our best to fight the midnight hour. We wandered around with no direction. Each turn of a dark corner amazes slightly more than the last. And then...there was nothing, no one in sight. It appeared we had taken a wrong turn. The street was completely devoid of people. The fog, which I thought was imaginary, had surfaced everywhere and inspired the iron street lamps to exude a delicate glow, producing a smoky dream-like state. 

Within minutes, a random character in a leather jacket showed up like a figure out of John Carpenter’s “The Fog”. He looked like one of those bearded Armenian cab drivers in NYC. He offered cocaine..(or coke...or Charlie). He was a dealer. And he wasn’t kidding. One of our crew, “Dreadlocks” signaled to this enterprising broker of hallucinogens that he was interested in his merchandise (Dreadlocks was an idiot...he was just pretty much playing and pretty much broke). “Here...try”, our dealer friend offered. Dreadlocks snorted a helping and half-heartedly complimented the flavor of shady Armenian’s magic white powder. 

“Now pay me”, Mr. Dealer whispered.

We staggered slightly back and collectively expressed our thanks and disinterest over his powdery wares. “Pay me now”. He then reached for his pocket and exposed a 12-inch slicer. Shit. Suddenly time stopped. Remember that part of the X-Men movie when Professor Xavier, using his heightened senses, stopped time in a noisy museum so he can teach a couple of kids a lesson? It was almost like the same scene here. Time stopped (my own mutant powers are unleashed when I come close to deathly sticky situations). At that point, I could see everything frozen in space-time: the glowing streetlamp, the vague graffiti, the shine on the dealer's blade and how he was menacingly pointing the knife towards our direction. Then I thought. Fuck. This. Shit. I turn my head to Wall Street Dude and signal “Let’s run”. World turned to fast-forward as we high-tailed out of there. We ran as fast as we can through the streets of Amsterdam. We sought sweet refuge in a bar nine blocks down. 

“Two Heinekens please”.  

Hours of drinking, walking, smoking and partying around Amsterdam, plus that incident that almost cut short our young, virile lives, produced this happy fatigue in both our bodies and minds. I hold up my green bottle of brew to Wall Street dude and just chuckle. 

We lurch back at our bar stools, pull out our digital cameras, and relive the memories of this most awesome of all awesome Eurotrips, with memories that I will never forget, but barely remember.   

BELGIUM: Mussels from Brussels

I googled “famous Belgians”, and true enough, the top search result was none other than the roundhouse-kicking, leg-splitting star of “Maximum Risk”, Jean Claude Van-Damme. When a city’s biggest contribution to the zeitgeist is a street fighter who faced Bolo from Enter the Dragon at Kumite in a cheese-filled 90’s movie, one may second guess their planned trip to Brussels. But before you cancel your airline ticket and your second order of stroopwafel, I can passionately declare that there is more to Brussels than the brawn from “Bloodsport.” This is Belgium, where the beer is allegedly better than in Bavaria. After spending a couple of days in this unassuming city, I realized that Brussels is one of the most underrated cities in Western Europe.

The Eurostar train ride from Frankfurt was a bit of a doozy so we were aching to check into our stellar accommodations which turned out to be no larger than a walk-in closet. My Mapquest printout shows us that the hotel was a 20 minute walk from the train station. Brilliant, Wall Street Dude and I could not wait to roll out of that depressing train station. The place was a steel bastion of gloom littered with vagrants and shady mendicants, where back alleys seem to be ideal meeting spots for your run-off-the-mill coke deals.   

After a one-two combo of a power nap and hot bath, we headed straight to Brussels' central square, the Grand Place, apparently the city’s top tourist trap attraction.  This square, surrounded by baroque guildhalls, museums and hotels is hidden at the core of old town and can only be reached through narrow side alleys. As a result, the Place’s glory is discretely revealed to your human eyes as you enter from one of these streets. This adds much to the charm of this gothic Disneyland. I was impressed. As the adage goes, if it’s baroque, do not fix it.

We tried out the local grub in one of the surrounding cellar restaurants, walked through cobble-stoned side streets and stopped at cafes to devour buckets of mussels. The highlight of the evening was a visit to Delirium, one of the famous bars in Brussels, with over 2000 beers and ales in their liquid arsenal at your fine liver’s disposal. The bar was massive, overflowing with tourists, young-uns, NATO types and clouds of cigarette smoke. In the great debate of Belgian vs. German Beer, this bar holds the fort and raises the flag. As evidenced by this fine establishment, Belgian beer simply has more variety (abbey, trappist) where Germany simply trophies its lager. No doubt, the complexity and multitude of the Belgian strain outclasses the Bavarian. 

The night was generally a low-key affair (Brussels isn’t really a party town and you rarely see Contiki brats roaming its cobble-stoned paths). On the way home from the old square, we paid homage to that famous statue of an e-trade baby taking a leak, had conversations with a chocolatier from a random Godiva store (Belgians are quite a nice lot) and downed a couple more glasses of Belgian brew in a jazzy bar across the hotel, hanging out with the locals. No sighting of the elusive Timecop though.

The Grand Place takes on varying auras depending on the time of day so after breakfast, I found myself back the next morning milling about, simply gazing up and absorbing its overwhelming guilded beauty. Overall, Brussels was a laid back and pleasant experience. So I strongly urge you to open your eyes, spread your legs and be a travel prostitute, and give this unassuming city even a short amount of your time.

GERMANY: Deutschbag in Deutschland

The gods of alcohol often entertain themselves at my expense (e.g. that horrid night I blew chunks in Times Square) but sometimes they throw me a bone. Waking up out of a massive alcoholic stupor usually requires a bucket of ice water but I successfully rise out of bed from all the Oktoberfest mayhem. Still tired and hungry though, I race to the hotel’s substandard buffet table, devour breakfast ala Kristie Alley and pack up for a walking tour of Munich. This city is the heart and soul of Bavaria and I dare not depart without at least checking out some of the sights of this charming beer quaffing and sausage eating epicenter.

We haul our collective asses out of our hotel which was right smack in the Olympic village (across from the BMW headquarters), race to Munich’s Central train station, conveniently drop our bags into station lockers and prepare to do a walking tour around Munich.

The Marienplatz or main square was the usual starting point. The group was aided by a San Diegan guide, who like most of young Yankee tour guides, voluntarily transplanted into Europe to “find himself” and exudes all the makings of a "trust fund douche." These hapless dolts do these tour gigs to earn an extra buck.

Dominating the main square is the neo-Gothic New Town Hall and the Cubao COD-inspired Glockenspiel (amusing moving figurines displayed atop the town hall). The next stop was the imposing landmark church of Frauenkirche, which incidentally was the current Pope’s former spiritual stomping ground. (Yes, that German pope who bears a startling resemblance to Emperor Palpatine).

During the 2 hour tour, we marvel at old and new town halls, visit churches, markets and Hitler’s favorite theatre. If you get past the fact that Munich was the site of Kristallnacht Jewish massacres and a vicious Nazi stronghold, it’s a charming town, really.

After grabbing a late, insipid and expensive lunch at the Kaufingerstrasse shopping street, we head back to Central Station for the afternoon train to Austria where more Euro shenanigans await.

GERMANY: Prost to Bavar-Yeah!

"There must be EU legislation against debauchery of this magnitude."

I had a dream once. I saw a vision of a vast, open field, with massive wooden tents sprawled across the grounds, sprouting like giant smurf housing. Inside these gigantic pavilions, amber liquid flowed without end, served in giant jugs by women with well, giant jugs. There was loud, melodic music and grown men dressed as tanless oompah loompahs danced the afternoon away on a drunken stupor.

I woke up from this dream, sweaty, famished and blighted with a terrible headache. Then, I realized my vision wasn’t any sort reverie.

It was last evening’s Oktoberfest festivities.

Let’s set the scene to last evening’s shenanigans. It was a half an hour wait outside the massive Schottenhamel tent. Getting in the famous beer tents on the last Saturday evening of the festival was akin to typical, infuriating wait outside the pretentious clubs of Chelsea – the velvet rope human guard dogs where just as annoying, and if you didn’t have cleavage, you will be out of the mix. And I left NYC for this? Fortunately, Wall Street dude and I banded with a group of yanks who were traveling from Spain. As there was strength in numbers, and a table befitting our number opened up, the Bavarian Cerberus let us in. We troop to the tent and order our respective liters.

Here in Oktoberfest, everyone from anywhere are friends. Let me introduce you to some of the cast of characters we had the distinct pleasure of toasting to some Bavarian brew.

Colonel Greybeard: A 50-year old military hardware specialist from Tulsa. He was escaping from an insufferable marriage with a fat Midwestern wife, and was in Munich doing a bit of business with a German ammunitions conglomerate. Surprisingly, there’s a lot like him in these hallowed Oktoberfest tents – middle-aged Americans escaping the drudgery of middle-class living and from their loud, obese wives. Here in Oktoberfest, you can drink beer, meet a bevy of Bavarian beauties and just hang loose.

Franz the Tortured: He’s a young professional from Frankfurt. The problem with Oktoberfest is after about 3 liters of beers, your innermost demons rear their heads. Franz was no exception. Teary-eyed, he spilled the sad fact that during his formative years, he was assaulted by his Uncle, a certified butt pirate. We all give him a hug and tell him that with beer and some friends, everything’s going to be alright.

The Brazilian Predatress: The tents close at 11 pm. On the subway back home, we met Leila, a Brazilian post-grad working lass based in Munich. She doesn’t look like your typical Brazilian bombshell Girl from Ipanema, but she was wildly appealing with her curly hair, dark eyes and tan skin. It was probably the Bavarian ale affecting our discernment that easily convinced us to end up at her little adorable pad in the middle of Munich. After almost an hour of “hanging out”, drinking beers and downing some shots, I fiddled with her living room CD player, and turned on some electic-sounding German house music. After a quick trip to the bathroom, Leila comes out and stared at our tired eyes and undressed, leaving her FM boots on. She grabbed my gel-laden hair and led me to the queen-sized bed, the centerpiece of her studio apartment. Wall street dude followed along and what happened was seemingly one of the more interesting encounters of this Europe trip.

It's 2:40 a.m. We were all sweaty and Leila suggested "Let’s go to a club”. We whizzed to the street and as she stopped in a corner to smoke, tired, we quickly hail a cab and sped out of there, escaping from the vile clutches of the Predatress.

3 am. We head back to our hotel and lo and behold the hotel bar was open. We ended up downing beers and cocktails with the hotel’s lovely German receptionists. Set by reasonable standards, it seemed like it was a good first day in Europe.

There’s a wonderful solace when one is unhurriedly drinking golden Paulaner at 10 am in a Sunday morning surrounded by smiling locals dressed in their finest lederhosen. This to me, is what Oktoberfest is all about – immersing with locals, drinking Bavarian golden amber while listening to the soothing horns of an ace German umpah band (the ones made popular by Jimmy Kimmel’s “Man Show”). This was the refreshing, non-douchified experience at the traditional Paulaner tent.

The Lowenbrau tent, is another story.

The entrance to the Lowenbrau temple of beer was decorated by a massive 4.5 meter wooden lion that would make Panthro and the rest of the Thundercats meow with pride. The energy at the lion’s tent was uncontrollable and fever-pitched. The Lowenbrau was a massive alcohol haven filled with drunkards from all over the globe (well, mostly Australia). It was an afternoon of dancing on tables, vomiting on garbage bins, and rocking to umpahfied Abba tunes. In this exuberant tent, I met them all: the illegal immigrant George Lopez look-alike from Peru who annoyingly badgered strangers for free brew; the noisy, sex-crazed, inebriated Australian couple who was craving for a threesome in the urine-soaked restroom; the sweet, loving, World War 2 Adrennes Offensive - surviving, geriatric German sweethearts drinking from a singular stein, and an inebriated mother who was escorted out of the tent for being way too smashed.

The sun over Bavaria was setting and we decided to complete the Oktoberfest experience with the infamous Munich Beer Challenge. This so-called Bavarian Beer Challenge was a 4-hour pub crawl experience where one visits famous beer halls around Munich, free from open container laws, with stops that include the most prominent beer chamber in the world, the grandiose Hofbrauhaus.

Our final stop was naturally, a triumphant return to the hallowed Oktoberfest grounds.

Sometime between the late night bratwurst and a liter of Hefeweizen, the hilarious Beer Challenge pub crawlers strangely got separated and I ended up in the Hofbrau tent with the lovely blonde Canadian beer guzzler Gina. We danced. We drank. We sang to the resident band’s rendition of the classic closer Hey Jude, and kissed while holding up a lighter with one hand and a stein on the other.

The Munich Oktoberfest is a 16-day festival that ends all festivals. There must be EU legislation against debauchery of this magnitude. For eons, I’ve always wanted to do this and I pity those who didn’t go through this drunken rite of passage - before getting hitched, before raising exasperating children and before realizing that one is much too old to down liters of beer, hang loose, sing, dance and get royally destroyed in the fields of Bavaria.

PUERTO RICO: Misadeventures of the 6th Menudo

In this era’s Great Recession, it has now been customary to cut the New Yorker’s indulgences: sushi dinners in SoHo, impulse purchases in Fifth Avenue, cocktails at the Gansevoort and summer jaunts out of the city. While overpriced makis and Midtown pretension can easily be eliminated, traveling out of the big city in the summer has always been an extreme necessity. One could only take so much of wide-eyed touring Euro-baggadouches and their fanny packs sitting on unsightly lawn chairs in the middle of Times Square. An island escape is called for.

To welcome this year’s summer season, the opening salvo of choice goes to that purportedly enchanting island of Puerto Rico.

A week before the Carib outing, I was sitting in a Starbucks with my laptop and a crew of neighbors, trading stories on how the workweek was riding the usual suckage train. “Hey”, Wall Street Dude quipped, “Let’s go to Puerto Rico.” Film Girl and I instantly concurred, desperately in need of a fleeting hiatus from occupational drudgery. No further discussion was necessary. I whip out my laptop, navigate to reliable expedia.com and peruse the online deals. The site listed a reasonably priced package tour with roundtrip flights and a couple of nights at the top luxury resort on the island: the Ritz-Carlton. “Great Success!” With no further discussions, we select the package, whip out our plastic, and just like that, we were on our way.

After four hours of flying on JetBlue (Even More Legroom!) and equal rounds of inflight brewskies, we arrive early afternoon in sun-drenched San Juan. We hail a cab and check in the Ritz-Carlton, a 5-star luxury resort right smack in the superb beach town of Isla Verde, just outside the city center. After quickly grabbing an authentic Puerto Rican lunch at the nearby famous Metropol restaurant, we head straight to the hotel pool and navigate into a glass doorway which leads us straight to the playa.

I switch into vacation mode, order three rounds of overpriced, in-house pina coladas and snooze on the beach fronting the resort, overlooking the Caribbean waters, aqua blue, clear and warm as baby piss.

Three hours of lying on the beach go by and Old San Juan beckoned. We suit up, hail a hotel cab and speed into the old city. We explore the outer walls of the great El Morro Fort, a massive citadel which defended the island from marauding Jack Sparrows. The Caribbean sun goes down and we proceed to a roadhouse-type bar named No-no’s where we order a cold round of the local cerveza, Medalla, rock to hair band music and mingle with the local Latin cougars.

The impromptu bar crawl continued as we wander into Cristo Street and stumble upon a hole-in-the-wall called El Batey, a tavern which seemed like an old Spanish grotto devoted to alcohol worship. Here we meet a burly local tattooed bartender named Christian who treats us to a few shots of tequila with hot sauce. We chat about the local bar scene and discuss the intricate variances between Puerto Rican ladies and the rest of Latinlandia.

We bid "hasta luego!" to Christian, trudge along cobblestoned Cristo Street and enter the nearby wine bar El Buren, where we seize a healthy platter of camarones and a pitcher of sangria. The gang chats it up with the hip bartender and the charming receptionist and we talk about how this tiny island seemed to be truly “La Isla del Encanto”. After very little prodding, we haul the bartender and receptionist to the local salsa bar, Rhumba along the trendy San Sebastian Street where we meet up with more locals and do the obligatory rounds of mojitos.

The tenets of self-incrimination dictate that the next portion of the alcohol-induced nocturnal activities, cannot be described in this narrative. Let’s just say it involved a local cemetery, cigar skins, a bottle of premium Bacardi and a fedora.

We ended up at 4:30 in the morning at the top chi-chi club in San Juan – Brava, Coronas in hand, watching the inebriated and spaced-out local pretty people gyrate to a strange, inter-galactic mashup of techno and reggaeton.

Three hours passed by. The Caribbean sun rose like an angry meatball. Next on the program was the perfunctory tourist trap: a catamaran sailing trip around the surrounding islands of Icacos. Given last night’s blockbuster shenanigans, most of the day-long outing involved slumbering on the large net behind the catamaran and occasionally getting up to down glasses of the charter’s unlimited supply of watered down rum punch.

The sails folded up, the catamaran docked and we headed back to charming Old San Juan for a taste of the authentic Puerto Rican delicacy, mofongos at Café Puerto Rico, a remarkable restaurant near the old city’s bustling town square. Cruise ships come into Old San Juan about three times a week and the city gets busier with all the pina colada drinking vacationers in their Hawaiian shirts and obnoxious frat boys spending mommy’s dollar at kitschy Senor Frog’s. The night was young. Energized, the rum raiders proceeded to the Nuyorican salsa café, a trendy live music venue where we watch a great salsa band tear the place up. After upsetting attempts at salsa, the group, worn-out, retired to the hotel jacuzzi.

Our final day on the island was devoted to trekking the El Yunque National Rainforest. After a filling brunch in the middle of this seemingly limitless tropical jungle, we hiked the trail to the famous La Mina Falls. Frankly, I was unimpressed. Aware that our return flight was just four hours away, we hiked back to the parking lot and raced to San Juan on our rented sedan. We capped the trip off by spending the lazy Sunday afternoon at the seaside Condado district.

This narrative serves as a bonafide endorsement to explore beyond the shore and trace the footsteps of the home of Charlie Masso and the rest of Menudo. Puerto Rico, the gateway to the Caribbean, is no less than a paradise of rum and reggaeton, a unique island of the old and the new, and the perfect place to flush away that hard-earned disposable income.

BRAZIL: The Flying Carioca

The Douchebags’ latin shenanigans continue out of Iguazu and into a brief layover in Sao Paolo. Most companies in Brazil are centered in this enormous metropolis, which appears to offer nada attractions to tourists. So we skip hurtling into the city and simply head off to Rio de Janeiro, the Fiesta State, where people like to eat, drink, dance, play football and make boom-boom.

The flight into Rio arrived in the early evening. As we leave the Antonio Carlos Jobim airport into Ipanema, we begin to sodomize the Portuguese language in unison as we vainly attempt to give the taxi driver directions to our beachfront hotel.

Driving along the highways, you get a sense of the dramatic contrast between the city’s gorgeous landscape and the favelas’ devastating poverty. I, like others have had some misgivings over traveling to Rio de Janeiro. Anyone who has watched “City Of God” knows the harsh realities that lie beyond the favela walls: poverty, gangs and drug lords. But all that imagined anxiety absconded as we arrive in a gorgeous beachfront property on the edge of Ipanema, surrounded by its trendy attractions and the most genetically gifted females on Planet Earth. We’re in Rio. It’s Carnaval week. Let the festivities commence.

The first stop, naturally, was the towering Cristo Redentor on top of Corcovado Mountain. It was a perfectly clear day and no hint of haze obscured the majestic view of the city. But to our misfortune, the area was jampacked with tourists from all over the globe, taking sunny pictures of themselves with the perennially douchey “arms apart” photo cliché (which ranks number 3 in the list of all-time photo clichés. Number 1 being “Hey, I’m holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa” and number 2: the miserable

“Look, I’m jumping!” act.)

After driving into Rio’s Centro, our taxi driver, the pudgy Antonio drove us up to the famed Sugarloaf Mountain. Its name is said to refer to its resemblance to the traditional shape of concentrated refined loaf sugar. The 20 dollar fee to ride the cable cars, I thought, was a total rip-off. While inside the cars however, passengers were treated to a raunchy public lip-lock by a couple of semi-hot Brazilian lesbians, who struck poses for their audience that connect with primal instincts that cannot be described in terms without using phrases such as “self-generated moisturizer.” The trip to the Sugarloaf’s single, intentional note hits perfectly here. And then returns to its regularly scheduled suck.

The rest of the scorching afternoon was spent analyzing the merits of the micro bikini around the Rio beaches and drinking the Brazilian cocktail of choice: caipirinhas, at the penthouse pool, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Rio - 1, New York - 0.

I dare not miss a chance to tick Item no. 26 off the so-called bucket list. Hang gliding. Over Rio. May the wind gods find me worthy.

It was mid-morning in Rio as our guide drove us up a tall granite mountain on the edge of the city. After reviewing the salient provisions of my travel insurance and signing a 2-page waiver, which can be described as no less than a “contract of adhesion,” my pilot and I begin a 6-minute training session. Is that the reserve parachute? Good.

The time has come. With bollocks of steel, we ran like mad off the edge of the granite ridge, and drop a few feet until the sail filled with enough air to support our tandem flight. We flew over a swanky residential neighborhood, the Park Tijuca Forest and over Rio’s stunning beaches. I looked down at the beachgoers crammed along the shore like ants. From the distance, you can see the Cristo Redentor with arms outstretched as if the way cooler JC was saying “What were you thinking?” The 12-minute flight was serene and extremely zen-like. Suddenly, I was one with the sky, and thoughts of my slumping 401K and anxieties over the shit sandwich known as the U.S. economy simply sublimated into the summer breeze.

We land in Sao Conrado beach without incident, then hang out at Poste Nueve (the trendy beach zone in Ipanema), watch some cariocas do some capoeira, and grab a late dinner with my Brazilian friend, Zeca at a boteco in Leblon which can only be described as beyond the outer fringes of the nebula of awesome.There we take shots of cashatsas to set us up for the grandest street festival on the planet: Rio Carnaval.

Take everything you think you know about the Rio Carnaval and set it aside. Take it out of your skull, put it in some of that Tupperware® you keep in the kitchen drawer and bury it in the back of your fridge never to be seen again. Because that’s exactly what the Rio Carnaval was like. This is Mardi Gras times 100,000. This is the MMFF Festival Parade with the majesty of all the Enteng Kabesote floats through the years combined. This is the U.P. Lantern Parade on steroids, cutting and replacing the Diliman fuglies with hundreds of topless supermodels. The thundering samba drums. The frenetic crowd. The cheap beer. It was so magnificent that it defies every expectation. In other words, it is one of the greatest things I have ever seen.

IGUAZU: Bare Falls Witnessed

The mammoth falls of Iguazu cascade in a deafening roar at a bend in the Iguazu River where the borders of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil meet. A dense, moist tropical jungle surrounds the waterfalls, short-listed as one of the new seven wonders of the world. Other short-listed candidates include Adriana Lima’s perfect behind and Bar Rafaeli’s insanely gorgeous body. But sadly no commercial tours have been set up for these natural wonders yet.

We based ourselves in the small and sleepy Argentinean town of Puerto Iguazu. It made sense to stay in the Argentinean side over the Brazilian section as the hotels and restaurants are better, the area is safer, the prices are lower and the gambling is perfectly legal.

The first day in Iguazu was spent on the Brazilian side, which offered an astounding panoramic view of the cataratas. After crossing the Argentinean-Brazilian border and navigating a two hour trek along a jungle trail, we were treated to nature at both its angriest and finest. Upon seeing the monstrous Iguazu falls, U.S. first lady Eleanor Roosevelt reportedly exclaimed “Poor Niagara!” Upon seeing it, we crowed “Poor Pagsanjan!” With all its raw power, the falls were mind numbingly magnificent. And so was the twelve dollar buffet lunch at the restaurant.

After sunset, we ventured into the Brazilian city of Foz do Iguacu to check out the local carnaval. In this city, the carnaval party was centered in a wide open avenue as music blared from parade-style floats and hundreds of people samba’d their genetically gifted Brazilian asses off in the streets.

The next morning, we wandered into the Argentinean side of the cataratas, which offered better close-up views, more eco-activities and accessible walkways. The 100 peso adventure tour (also known as the “Ripoff Grande Package Tour”) included an anti-climactic truck ride through the forest, where the highlight was seeing a lone tocano perched on a branch. The cool portion of the proceedings however was a speed raft ride across the rapids and right into the furious waterfalls known to many as the Salto Tres Mosqueteros, where our collective asses were handed to us by the soaking rage of Mother Nature.

Sena was served at a local Puerto Iguazu institution, the El Quincho del Tio Querido restaurant, recommended by our ace driver, David. I wholeheartedly suggest the restaurant’s signature dish, the river fish. It will rock your world.

The night’s merriment continued at the local hip club, “Jackie Brown” which to my surprise, played excellent house and Euro-douche music. Kids were bumping their chests in this local gem. Cigarette smoke filled the club and we decided to get some fresh air. We finally ended up at the Casino Iguazu where we miserably and collectively failed at this fine institution’s offerings of legalized games of chance.

ARGENTINA: Douchebag Tango

What do you do in a middle of a global recession and when the US economy is on the verge of total collapse? You say – “Eff this!”. You pack your bags, forget about your tanking stocks, dismiss thoughts of hyperinflation and head over to party at the world’s sexiest continent.

The samba stars were aligned as it seemed like the perfect time to fly south. The US northeast was suffering a bitter winter. Beneath the equator, summer was at its glorious peak. Above all, it was the season for the grandest spectacle on the planet: the Rio Carnaval (not to be confused with Fiesta Carnival in Cubao, that other grand spectacle of the 80’s).

After very little debating, I and a couple of New York-based friends (I, Pañero and The Murse, or we three, hereinafter collectively known as “pinoy douchebags”) hopped on a red-eye 10 hour flight from JFK to our first destination: Argentina. Rather than wasting precious time getting inebriated on five dollar Coors lites or playing in-flight poker, the douchebags decided to do the practical thing – a last minute review of lingua castellano. Leveraging a trusty phrasebook, we mastered basic but vital Spanish phrases such as: “Quiero mi befe chorizo muy hecho” (I would like my Beef Chorizo, well done), “Dispénseme soy usted un menor” (Pardon me, are you a minor?”), and “Dónde puede consigo dinero de fianza” (Where can I get bail money?)

Buenos Aires, which literally means “the Good Air”, is one classy metropolis, a capital of cool, a lost European enclave in the center of Latin America. Our trendy hotel was right smack in the middle of downtown, just behind the famous Teatro Colonial and the monumental Obelisco. Smelling the good air, we trooped over to the Puerto Madera area, a new development on the Eastern side which housed the finest restaurants and bars overlooking a random rio. Like Hoboken, but not exactly. Having the case of the post-flight munchies, we, as committed gourmands, decided on the area’s most authentic Latin eatery the good city had to offer: Hooters, Buenos Aires, a place where we enjoyed the local wings and other things.

After a tonic tasting of Isenbeck cervezas coupled by the blandest pollo ever concocted by man, the taxi dropped us off at postcard perfect La Boca neighborhood. The Calle Museo Caminito in the middle of this district was wrought with cobblestones, tango dancers, gaudily colored conventillos and plastic statutes of Eva Peron, Diego Maradona and Che Guevarra. The kitsch overload struck me more as commercial than cultural but it was an amusing outing nonetheless.

Downing buckets of Patagonia and Quilnes cervezas led us to desecrate the religion of tango in front of a somewhat appreciative audience in a local tango café. A ten minute cab ride then led us to San Telmo, the oldest Barrio in Buenos Aires. This neighborhood exuded that Euro-bohemian air, sans the Euro-bohemian trash, with its old churches, quaint cafes and charming antique shops.

We gaited through Plaza de Mayo before heading back to homebase. Next on the agenda was Fodor’s choice (or as The Murse eloquently puts it: “Frodo”) as the best parilla in Buenos Aires: Rio Alba. The beef chorizo was as amazing as the best service provider in a Palermo brothel. Rio Alba, hands down, served the tastiest and most tender cut of beef my palate ever experienced. After washing down a fine bottle of Argentinean Malbec, we ended the night at the trendy Recoleta area to experience even more stirring nocturnal activities.

The morning of the second day in sunny and sultry South America was spent with the Argentinean Gaston, a trusty and personable tour guide who bore an eerie resemblance to one of my Peruvian metrosexual friends. Gaston’s free tour comes highly recommended, mainly because it was, well, free and was given with a pseudo-left wing political slant. What’s refreshing is that he looked more like a UP activist than a Japanese commercial tour drone.

Gaston led us through Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires’ focal point of political uprisings and the Casa Rosada where Evita/ Madonna/ A-Rod’s beau gave stentorian speeches to the local crowds above a pink balcony. The fine walking tour ended at the Obelisco, the symbolic city center. Gaston recommended a local pizza parlor, the El Palacio de la Pizza along Avenidad Corrientes for an authentic working-class comida before we pay respects to the tomb of Eva Peron and other Argentinean aristocrats.

The La Recoleta cemetery houses graves of some of the most influential and important persons of Argentina, including several presidents, scientists and local nobles. While we were standing in front of Eva Peron’s tomb, at least six tourists were mumbling Evita show tunes. And right across the Peron-Duarte tomb is the mausoleum of one familia Alvarez. Como se dice “creepy” en espanol?

It was mid-afternoon and we zipped across other Argentinean landmarks: Plaza San Martin and Calle Florida, stimulating an appetite for another carnivorous dinner at La Cabrera: labeled as Tripadvisor.com’s best parilla. After another sitting of South American gluttony and downing yet another fine bottle of Malbec, we capped the Buenos Aires night off back at the trendy Recoleta area to tango with the locals and chillax in divey bars. 

Buenos Aires is one classy city, the cutting edge of cool with outstanding and thriving culinary and cultural scenes. It is a jewel right smack in South America, where denizens are educated, urbane and seem to be more convinced they’re more European than Latino.

MEXICO: Aztec Camera

"They might have the appearance of riches, but beneath the clothes, we find a man... and beneath the man we find... his... nucleus."  - Nacho Libre

The massive Teotihuacan ruins lie 25 kilometers outside Mexico City and are sprawled over an area of 20 sq. kilometers. The ruins are flanked by the mammoth Piramide del Sol and and Piramide de la Luna. It was an ancient city of unknown origin until the Aztecs, in the 14th century, adopted the area as ceremonial grounds.

The Teotihuacan ruins are not to be confused with the Oaxaca pyramids featured in the ending scene of the brilliant movie Nacho Libre. And no, the ancient city was not the setting of Mel GIbson's semi-stinker, Apocalypto - that's Mayan.

The lady hereafter known as “Model Girl” and I took a New York-style hop-on hop-off bus around the megalopolis of Mexico City, also known to locals as D.F. (deh-eff-eh; Distrito Federal) and now known to me as Ciudad de "Manila but Cleaner and with More Museums".

The highlight of D.F. was a night out at the gaudy Plaza Garibaldi. Garibaldi is where tourists, locals, vendors, drunks, vagrants and lady streetwalkers mingle and enjoy the plaza's extremely cheap alcoholic offerings. In Garibaldi, you can drink cheap "micheladas" while being serenaded by mariachi bands who play for 75 pesos a song. In between drinks, you and your amigos y amigas can pay around 30 bucks to be consensually electrocuted via a portable Mexican ultra-electro magnetic torture device. It was kind of fun, a way of bringing our group closer together. Fun times.

The following day, Model Girl and I hung out at the Chapultepec area to check out the voladores, who in true Totonac tradition, climbed up a tall iron mast and swirled slowly to the ground, and in all probability, with neither life or accident insurance. Other highlights include a trip to the Museo Nacional de Antropolica which houses the Aztec Stone of the Sun, a trip to Chapultepec Castle and an encounter with the famous Mexican luchador Huracan Ramirez.

I spent my final day in Monterrey. The city, surrounded by stunning mountains, is the third largest in Mexico. It is home to the country's wealthiest "regios" and prestigious universities. It is a charming enclave with that special Laguna export processing zone/ industrial park feel.