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Kölsch: The Beer That’s A Language Too
I took a late run in the day, when the train from Frankfurt dropped me off earlier than I expected in Köln (Cologne to the Francophiles and Englishmen). The rain had darkened the plaza and the Dom itself, not just the black soot of centuries tarnishing the cathedral’s façade and flying buttresses. Because the rain…
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A Heineken In Every Corner
It’s 2 a.m. body time, and I’m checking into a faceless, charmless hotel room hermetically sealed from all life outside. An air-conditioned box where I can let fall away all sense of time or place. I set out my things, and, knowing I don’t have a meeting til dinner time (local time) I drop into…
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Sagres For Sour Stomachs
I keep the balcony’s sliding glass door open to the breeze, which washes up from the Atlantic down the hill. Thank goodness they aren’t picking me up til 6 pm, I think, as I roll over again in the stiff white cotton sheets on the twin bed in the Eden Estoril. I’m up on a…
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The Mayor of Dublin
I came into Dublin for the first time alone, on the beginning of a business trip, in the midst of February rain. I had the name of a pub, The Clarendon Inn (a friend’s dear departed mum knew it as her “local”), to anchor my first night in town. I found a seat in the…