Blogs from Union Square, San Francisco, California, United States, North America

Just to fill your holiday during the stay at home, or rather Ground Hog Day existence we are now living. Some totally useless information that may bring a smile or a snicker. So, let's check into Twinkies, fried chicken, catsup, and apple pie and ice cream. From the NYT: Twinkies as we know them now are simple: yellow cake filled with vanilla cream frosting. But when the sweet snacks first appeared in 1930, the tasty filling was banana-flavored, not vanilla. Twinkie inventor James Alexander Dewar, then a baker for the Continental Baking Company, came up with the treat when he was looking for a way to utilize the bakery's strawberry shortcake machine when strawberries were out of season. He substituted banana cream, and the Twinkie was born. Unfortunately, with the advent of World War II, bananas ... read more

Rarely does anyone discuss travel budgets PRIOR to a trip to a far away place. I am so very fortunate to have the inimitable Mr. Mike as the best travel buddy in the universe. We have been all over the world, with rarely a hiccup. He knows how to travel (we both traveled extensively on business during our working days), and does not skimp on anything. Furthermore, we are not joined at the hip, stay in separate rooms, do not fly or sit together on planes, and pursue our own interests once at our destination. But I realize this is a rare occurrence, and most people who know us find this arrangement hard to fathom. We get asked often if people can join us on our trips. And to my great delight, he says I am ... read more

Is the Corona virus altering some or all of your travel plans. Where do we stand right now? The travel industry's refund policies are changing almost by the minute. Here's what they look like now: Airlines are waiving their change fees for flights in March and April.Cruise lines are offering credit for sailings until the end of spring.Hotels are loosening their cancellation policies for certain areas affected by the coronavirus o... read more

Now this is just crazy! What is wrong with us? I am guilty of this too! Number of minutes each day, sixty one, that women in the United States spend eating and drinking. (American men spend slightly more time). The U.S. was dead last among the 30 major countries surveyed in the Organization for Economic Co-Operation & Development’s Time-Use Database. The French spend more than twice as long—eating and drinking for a good 130 minutes each day. Obviously, this is not the case in many countries, like many European and South American countries. Eating tends to be very social, family time, and a great chance to catch up on each person's activities. Busy, hectic countries England, Japan, and China tend to have even quicker meals than here in the U.S. Adding alcohol to the meal obviously ... read more

Today starts yesterday, but bear with me. After a free burger dinner, finding out that my bus leaves at 11:59 not 11pm and being bored with every aspect of Chinese politics from a new friend it was finally time to abandon Isabell with him and get my Uber. I get a $15 free first ride, so I figured why not, especially after today's incident. You pay if it waits for you, so I grabbed my shit and headed down stairs to retrieve my main backpack from storage. Everything was going perfect, until I clicked confirm and then the Uber app kept sending me error messages, I turned my phone off and on, I shut the app, I logged in and out, I tried removing my free ride code, literally everything and nothing worked. It was already ... read more