#i have them sitting in my drafts but well id like the gallery to be in the best shape possible…

[lesbiangiratina]

[bastardtravel]

August 11, 2018. Manchester, New Hampshire.

After seven hours on the road, pausing only to explore an Old Ones cult site, storm a terrible castle, and eat distressingly dry corned beef at a Greek diner that still advertised one of their menu items as “Michael Jackson’s favorite grinder”, we were in dire need of respite.

Establishing a forward operating base was our first priority. For my part, I can sleep anywhere. My bonfire days in the Frozen North frequently necessitated pitching a $10 K-Mart tent over gravel, then drinking bottom-shelf whiskey until you didn’t realize you were sleeping in a puddle of rainwater and broken glass. That’s not a knack you lose. It’s like riding a bike. The Girl was always more discerning, and became doubly so after our experience in Phoenix with the inept criminal front halfway house hotel. We agreed that she can veto any of the lodgings I book. Sometimes, late at night, I’ll hold a flashlight under my chin and tell her spoOoOoky stories about hostels in Ireland.

She insisted on the airport Super 8. I was hoping to stay in a quaint deep woods motel called “Unsmiling Jed’s Sleepaway”, attached to sister business “Unsmiling Jed’s Discount Plastic Surgery Silo and Chili Kitchen”.

If I can’t protect it, I don’t deserve to have it. That goes double for life.

A friendly foreign woman checked us in at the Super 8, then proceeded into utter bafflement when I asked for a first aid kid. I chewed myself up pretty good climbing Bancroft’s Castle, and I’d spent the last half hour bleeding into an oily dog blanket to avoid ruining my upholstery. I’m pretty sure that’s how plagues start.

There were no band-aids here, or antiseptics, or possibly medicine as a concept. There was a three gallon tub of hand sanitizer. I thanked her for the offer but gently declined.

We went up to the third floor. The hallways were lined with people sitting on the carpet outside their rooms, shouting and smoking cigarettes. The room itself was clean and the air conditioning worked. All my boxes were checked. The bathroom reeked of weed, which some would interpret as a bonus. I scrubbed my wounds raw in the sink, tucked away the precious cargo of wine and peaches, and set out to investigate downtown Manchester.

Streetlight technology has not yet made its way to Manchester, so we spent twenty minutes missing exits in ocean-floor darkness. It looked worryingly like Wilkes-Barre, which is not where one would choose to vacation, were one sane.

Downtown erupted from nowhere like graphic pop-in on a video game running at its lowest resolution. One second you’re in leatherface country, with nothing breaking the abyssal darkness but the occasional half-broken Jiffy Lube sign. The next, you’re on vibrant neon market strip, replete with hipsters and the homeless.

We knew we had hit downtown proper when we passed by the “craft grilled cheese bistro”.

only programmers will understand!!!! like and reblog if u get it

Since I am an adult man, grilled cheese cannot be dinner. Both “gastropubs” we tried, despite their bitchin Greek mythology names, offered generic terrible burgers and a draft list that consisted of Coors Light.

“I’m so hungry,” the Girl told me. “I’m gonna die.”

“We all will,” I assured her. “Soon.”

Yelp claimed there was a brewery five blocks away. We walked off the only lit street, into absolute, encompassing blackness. It would’ve been spooky if I didn’t always kind of hope some Putty Patrol mook would lunge at me from the dark while I’m far away from home, having told no one where I’m going and left no paper trail.

There were no incidents. No one was murdered in self-defense. No one knows what we did last summer. The Stark Brewing Company was in the basement of a grim looking office complex, and it was vacant save for two other wanderers.

We sat at the bar and ordered a flight and an imperial stout. I was pushing for finding an actual restaurant, but the Girl ordered “Penne with vodka sauce”, which was not the right color, flavor, or texture to be anything but penne bolognese. The Girl didn’t seem to mind. I ate a pulled pork sandwich.

The beers were warm, but I didn’t care. It didn’t matter what the beers were, so long as they were beers. And not Coors Light. The brewery themed all of their beers off of dogs, for some reason, which I believe to be the ideal business model. According to the bartenders, the brewery had been open for 25 years, but hadn’t yet received their big boom. I was outraged. The beers were excellent, and would probably be even better if they weren’t room temperature, and the taps were not only named for specific dogs, but also provided pictures.

To say nothing of the bathroom, which was covered in sharpie beer lore.

The bartender and waitresses swore a lot more than you would normally expect in this context. The Girl maintains they were swearing at us. I disagreed.

“They were swearing <i>with</i> us,” I mansplained.

“We weren’t swearing,” she countered.

“But if we HAD been.”

As I’ve grown larger and more sinuous, I’ve tried to cut back on how often I cuss at strangers. Cultural relativism is the understanding that not everyone grew up among the coalcrackers, and good-natured oaths like “how the hell are you” or using the fuck-word as a conversational placeholder, while subjectively soothing, can set off fight-or-flight in the small, soft, and bourgeoisie.

I try to maintain direct proportionality between my barbarism and my well-heeledness. Neither the wait staff nor the other two customers shared my bond, and the middle-aged guy on my right proceeded to tell me how his hometown of Denver, Colorado is the greatest fuckin’ city in America, next to maybe Southern California. Which is not a city.

We talked about our homes and travels for a while, then I got my pulled pork sandwich and they left. The sandwich was slightly warmer than the beer, which beat the alternative.

An armada of children came into the bar.

“Oh, shit,” the woman tending bar said. They were visibly teenagers, and on the wrong side of it. They had that gangly awkwardness you get around fourteen or fifteen, and if they were trying to play it off, they were woefully bad at it. There were also nearly twenty of them. It looked like a field trip.

People in their twenties don’t travel in packs of more than six. It’s hard to transport a throng, unless you have a party bus, and why do you have a party bus when you’re twenty-eight? You’re twenty-eight and party buses have always been sad. Get a job. Also, it’s hard to get that many adults to agree on something.

It can be done. You can say, “Hey, adults, you want to do some drugs?” And in a sufficiently sized crowd, you’ll manage to pull twenty or so who will follow you to your house or whatever. This is called an “afterparty”. It doesn’t go to bars at 9pm.

Have you felt out the social zeitgeist recently? Look at a random handful of current memes and it’ll be pretty clear that most adults consider socialization to be a required burden, like paying emotional taxes. “Going out” is the price of living in a civilized society. You’re not going to scare up twenty people, then put them in a party bus, then take them to an abandoned bar half a mile outside of where the actual nightlife is.

“Hey, we’re just about to close,” the bartender said.

A reedy blonde in a top that seemed to consist mostly of straps screeched, “But your WEBSITE said you were open til ONE!”

Screeched.

The bar fell silent. Well, more silent. The Girl and I traded looks, her horror for my delight.

“Uhhhhhh,” the bartender said, but with excellent elocution, as though that were the word she had deliberately chosen. “Okay.”

They sat the itinerant mall food court in an enormous corner table, whereupon they requested shots.

The waitress who had sworn at/with us the least came back to the bar and said, “You guys said you were from Pennsylvania, right?”

We nodded.

“Can I see one of your licenses quick?”

She compared mine against the obviously fake ID one of the tweens had given her. After a moment she said, “Yeah, you can see, the font is different. And the picture looks like it’s photoshopped.”

“Yeah, no one’s license picture ever looks this good,” the Girl said, studying the fake ID.

“Except mine,” I added. They ignored me. I didn’t take it personally.

The waitresses disappeared into the back. Five minutes later, the only dude working at the place was gendered into being the bad cop. He sulked over to the teens.

“You guys gotta leave,” he said. “We know your ID’s fake. We’re not trying to get fined. You gotta go.”

For maximum accuracy, imagine this said in Toby’s voice from the Office. Shamefaced, the flash mob of children dispersed.

We paid for our room temperature beers and left the poor, foul-mouthed brewery to close at 9:30 on a Friday. The Girl and I accidentally stalked the battalion of teens through the street, but only because we were all moving back toward the only lights in the city, not unlike moths. They turned a corner and vanished, presumably to find an arcade or laser tag or some sort of large carousel.

The Girl and I followed the sounds of some obnoxious bros announcing, “It’s like a fahkin sketchy ally, dewd”.

It was, in fact, the least sketchy alley I’d ever been in. Cat Alley was the best lit venue in all of New Hampshire. It was clean and well-maintained, and it was covered less in graffiti and more in an outdoor art gallery dedicated to cats.

There were more, but they didn’t all warrant a picture.

Portland Pie Co loomed from the endless darkness like a beacon in the night, hearkening back to those days lost in Maine during the Great Lobster Drought of 2017. We split a bourbon barrel ale which did me in. It was bedtime.

On the way back, toward the end of the main drag, a man made of pure light rode by blasting EZ-Listenin from his Tron bicycle, also made of pure light.

I can’t prove he wasn’t Jesus.

Heartened, we returned to the hotel, where no one was smoking or yelling in the hallway anymore. Excellent.

Next stop, Portsmouth.

Love,

The Bastard

Into the Abyss August 11, 2018. Manchester, New Hampshire. After seven hours on the road, pausing only to explore an Old Ones cult site, storm a terrible castle, and eat distressingly dry corned beef at a Greek diner that still advertised one of their menu items as "Michael Jackson's favorite grinder", we were in dire need of respite.

[allofbeercom]

Fun and Games – the inside track on Rio de Janeiro

Five insiders reveal how to run with the locals in the Olympics host city a spectacular tropical metropolis with great beaches, music, views and food

If the Olympic movement is having a hard time of it, consider the year the host city is having. In the build-up to the 2016 Games, Brazil is sinking under a tickertape parade of bad news. Given stories of polluted water, gang and police violence, an economy in freefall, the Zika virus, terror attacks and a president impeached, the reports of unfinished infrastructure for the Games almost pale into insignificance.

The Rio de Janeiro area

Lovely Rio, its easy to imagine, might just think twice given the chance to bid for the Olympics again. And yet, despite everything, the metropolis remains arguably the most beautiful city in the Americas, if not the world: whatever might happen in the sporting arenas, the Olympics has never had a backdrop as stunning as this.

The view over Rio from the Vista Chinesa. Photograph: Alamy

And despite all their worries, most cariocas, as Rios residents are known, are proud of their amazing city. As they prepare to welcome half a million visitors to the Games, we asked five insiders to talk us through the best of their tropical seaside home.

Eating out

Rafael Costa e Silva, chef-proprietor at Lasai, one of the citys five Michelin-starred restaurants

Rafael Costa e Silva Photograph: Claire Rigby

So Paulo has more options than Rio in terms of cuisine, but we outshine them when it comes to avant garde, contemporary local food. As well as Lasai, we have Olympe, owned by the chef who pioneered the fusion of Brazilian and French cuisines; Roberta Sudbrack, with a bistro feel and sophisticated, eight-course tasting menu. Also Oro, which reopened in Leblon recently, is extremely creative.

Were closed on Sundays and Mondays, so those are the nights we can get out to eat. For special occasions, we love Olympe; but we often go to Azumi (on Facebook), a Japanese restaurant in Copacabana. The broths, the udon and the soba there are great (12-21).

Bar Urca looks out over Guanabara Bay.

Bar Urca is a Rio classic highly recommended for visitors. The food isnt the greatest, but you go there for the ambience to meet friends and drink beer sitting on the wall outside, looking out over Guanabara Bay.

Theres a restaurant in Centro, the old commercial heart of Rio, where I dont go as often as Id like, but that I love Escondidinho (on Facebook). My dad used to go when he was young, I go there sometimes, and probably my son will go too. Its a traditional lunchtime restaurant going since the 1940s and known for its beef ribs in broth, with fried cassava and watercress (32, serves two or more). The meat starts to fall off the bone before youve even picked up your knife and fork.

We have a culture of botecos, classic neighbourhood bars where you grab a beer and a snack say a pastel (a small meat or cheese pie) or a coxinha (chicken-and-cassava fritter). Theres a great one in Praa da Bandeira (in north Rio, very near the Maracan stadium, which will stage the Games opening ceremony) called Aconchego Carioca that does all our national dishes and snacks very well indeed.

Aconchego Carioca in Praa da Bandeira

A more rustic, classic boteco is Bar da Gema in Andara. They do fried polenta with oxtail stew on top (10), and you eat it with your hands. Its amazing. They also serve pastel de feijo gordo (1.50), little pies filled with feijoada black-bean stew, our national dish. They are so good I could eat about 10 of them.

Brazil isnt so strong on street food, but the Saturday morning farmers market in Jardim Botnico, on Rua Frei Leandro, opposite Olympe restaurant, does a great tapioca, a kind of cassava pancake. It serves up a version with cheese, tomato, onions and oregano, using a cheese called queijo minas meia-cura, whichmelts perfectly when it hits the griddle.

Bars and nightlife

Alice Guedes, bartender at Brigites, a bistro in Leblon. She has twice finished in the top 10 in Brazils best bartender competition

Alice Guedes at Brigites. Photograph: Claire Rigby

Musically, Rio is incredibly rich its often music that gets people out at night. Monday is outdoor samba night at Pedra do Sal, in Largo Joo da Baiana, 10 minutes walk from the new Museum of Tomorrow (which is definitely worth a visit). Musicians go straight there to play after they get off work, from about 7pm. They play old-school, very traditional samba. Take a taxi if you dont know this area.

Samba dancers at Pedra do Sal. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

And on Wednesday nights at Praa Tiradentes theres a jazz scene in the middle of the square, just people hanging out and playing and listening to jazz. Its free. They just turn up and start playing, and if you get there at about 9pm, its generally in full swing. Cariocas are experts at making something happen out of nothing.

Praa So Salvador in Laranjeiras is another one: on Friday nights, the square gets packed with hundreds of people getting together in the open air, and guys selling beer from ice boxes. Everyone loves it.

Mixing is a kind of speakeasy in Rio Comprido, between Centro and Tijuca. During the day its a school of mixology, but on certain nights it transforms into a bar. Youd never guess it was there from the outside you go through a garage, up some stairs and along a corridor and there it is.

Traditionally, Rio has always been about caipirinhas and chope (light draft beer) but theres a growing cocktail culture. The challenge for Rio bartenders is to convince cariocas to go for drier, more complex drinks as they tend to veer towards sweetness. Bar DHotel, inside Marina All-Suites, has one of the best drinks menus in Rio; another is the new Bar Astor inside the Astor hotel, on the Ipanema seafront. Theyve brought high-level So Paulo-style mixology to Rio, which I love.

In Rio, music on the street is enough to get the party started. Photograph: Felipe Dana/AP

The new Atlntico Rio de Janeiro in Barra da Tijuca is one of the most Rio-spirited bars I can think of, though its owner isnt even Brazilian. Tato Giovannoni came from Buenos Aires, where he owns the bar Floreria Atlntico, and just did something different created a really good beach bar with amazing cocktails and fresh seafood.

He makes a dry martini with a tincture of sea salt, right there on the beach, and serves oysters at about 1 each. Theyre also doing a pop-up bar during the Olympics, at Clubhouse Rio.

For me, the best saideira (nightcap) is at Galeto Sats , open till late in Copacabana. Lots of bartenders and chefs go there after work for beer and grilled chicken. Its a tiny, old-fashioned joint where people spill on to the pavement. My order is a shot of good cachaa and a plate of grilled chicken hearts.

History and culture

Luiza Mello, art producer, Automatica, which produces the annual art event Travessias in the Complexo da Mar favela in north Rio

Luiza Mello. Photograph: Claire Rigby

A place I love to take visitors is Instituto Moreira Salles. Its a wonderful example of modernist Brazilian architecture, with gardens by Roberto Burle Marx and a beautiful panel by Cndido Portinari, facing the pond. It was once the home of a very wealthy family, but today its a cultural institution with an impeccable programme they hold great exhibitions, plus theres a photo collection, a music collection and a photography magazine.

Parque Lage is always good another very beautiful place, home to the EAV School of Visual Arts, with an interesting gallery in the former stables, called Galeria das Cavalarias.

Young people contemplate leaping into the sea by the Museum of Tomorrow Photograph: Alamy

Culturally, Rios downtown area, Centro, just gets more and more interesting. There is a great area around Praa XV, with art galleries, cinema and theatre in the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil ; the former imperial palace Pao Imperial, which is one of the citys most historic buildings and now a cultural centre; and the Casa Frana-Brasil, a contemporary art space in Rios oldest neoclassical building. The Candelria and Carmo churches are also both worth seeing.

An exhibition by veteran Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images

Centro has another cultural hub now: Porto Maravilha, Rios regenerated port district, with the MAR Museum of Art and theMuseum of Tomorrow. Close to that but less well-known is Cais do Valongo, the archaeological site of Rios former shipping wharf, where hundreds of thousands of the slaves brought to Brazil came ashore. Theres also the Galeria dos Pretos Novos, an art gallery, and part of a memorial complex on the site of an ancient slave cemetery.

Pao Imperial on the Praca Quinze de Novembro. Photograph: Alamy

Pedra do Sal is another historic site in the area, where there was once a quilombo, a community of former slaves and their descendants. Its just behind the MAR, and a very interesting place to visit.

Beaches and nature

Nicole Casares, blogger, Cariocando no Rio. She runs tours of some of her favourite places, booked via her site

Nicole Casares at Parque Lage. Photograph: Camila Neves

Rio is full of quiet spots from which to observe the citys curves, the contours of the hills and the green vegetation against the ocean. There are lovely parks, such as Parque Lage and the Jardim Botnico, and even the gigantic tropical rainforest, Floresta da Tijuca invades the city limits. Or just being in the sea is a peaceful experience.

Palm tree avenue at the Jardim Botnico Photograph: Alamy

If you only go to one beach, Id recommend Ipanema, at Posto 10 (postos are the beaches demarcation points and come every kilometre). Its one of the safest parts of the beach, and it attracts a lot of young, cool people. Theres a good place just across the road for lunch called Balada Mix, with great sandwiches and juices, including aai. Arpoador, a headland between Copacabana and Ipanema, is special too you have to see it at sunset, when people climb on to the rocks to look right down Ipanema beach to the sun setting behind the Dois Irmos peaks.

Surfers on Prainha beach, Barra da Tijuca. Photograph: Alamy

I also like the long beaches to the west: at Barra da Tijuca and also Praia da Joatinga, where the water is a beautiful green colour and there are no crowds. To reach it, you follow a steep trail down on to the sand. Some of Rios very best beaches are even further west, on the very edge of the city, like Praia do Secreto and Prainha.

Because of all the mountains dotted around, Rio must have the most spectacular views of any city in the world. My all-time favourite view is from Mirante Dona Marta. Its breathtaking you can see Sugarloaf Mountain below, with the sea all around it, the boats in Botafogo harbour and all the way across Guanabara Bay to Niteri. And in the other direction you can see Christ the Redeemer close up.

Rio must have the most spectacular views of any city in the world. This view is of Sao Conrado beach and the Rocinha favela. Photograph: Alamy

This unique topography means you can also hike and climb within the city. Of Rios best-known hikes, Dois Irmos is light to moderate, about 45 minutes climb from the top of Vidigal favela (which is safe to visit). You can take a van to the foot of the trail, or a motorbike taxi. Or inside Parque Nacional da Tijuca, Pedra Bonita is a nice, easy walk, about 40-45 minutes. Its steep, but if you take it slowly, its fine, and the view are similar to those from the top of Pedra da Gvea, which is a far harder climb.

One of my favourite, lesser-known trails is the Trilha do Morro da Babilnia. Its really easy only 30 or 40 minutes and has great views of Praia Vermelha beach and Po de Aucar. You start at Ladeira Ary Barroso in Leme, and walk up into Chapu Mangueira favela. Guides from Coop Babilnia, a residents cooperative, will take you up the trail for about 14. Its best to go early in the day, and make sure to be out of the community before evening.

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from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/fun-and-games-the-inside-track-on-rio-de-janeiro/