[€uroMeinke]

First there are the places I’ve been that I instantly felt so comfortable that I know I could live there:

Paris – Hands down favorite, A place of expats, philosophers, and censored writers. Café culture, art, appreciation for beauty and all things creative – music everywhere. And the language and the accent – saying something in French makes it ten times sexier. Everyone is ten time sexier when in Paris.

Berlin – Cosmopolitan island in eastern Europe, brash, independent, unashamedly decadent and just a bit nihilistic. Street actors mocking their patrons, the Love parade, antiquities, and expressionist wonders. Berlin my Weimar Wonderland.

Chicago – Delightfully urban with everything you need a quick walk away. Public art abounds, while it’s museums and art institute continue to set standards. It’s a place with it’s own aesthetic represented in its architecture. Beauty is everywhere, and everyone looks sophisticated wandering down Michigan avenue in tailored suits and furs. This is a city for a cocktail in a smoky lounge where a breathy chanteuse cries you a river.

Then there are the vacation locals I love so much I keep wanting to back:

New Orleans – Another island of decadence tucked deep in Southern repression. Extraordinary food with music in every corner. Hot steamy summers to live out your Tennessee William’s fantasies, sipping bourbon as the heat lightning lights up the sky.

San Francisco – A taste of the East Coast on the West, nicely contained in its peninsula. City Lights Books a link to the beat generation, North Beach and its Italian food, The quintessential Chinatown, Carol Doda’s breasts on Columbus Avenue (oh how I miss them), The Presidio and Fort Point to experience your Hitchcockian fantasies. That and a cup of clam chowder and a loaf of sour dough – how could you go wrong?

Montreal – a slice of France in North America, cobblestone streets in the old town, and French voices singing out like seductive sirens. Outdoor cafés and a Maple Leaf flag – you are definitely not in America.

Seattle – Images of David Lynch and an abundance of Swedes, the Pike Place Market the ultimate shopping place to find the best seafood, wild mushrooms, and forest honey.

Then there are the adventure spots:

Peru, Arequepa was beautiful and our hotel so much like the village (I am not a number, I am a free man!). Even the young terrorist boy was a charming fellow sharing his notions of freedom. But Iquitos was the pirate town, they’d cut you down in an instant if you weren’t careful, smugglers and the anonymous melee of third world market places.

But, I’ll always treasure the bar of the Hotel Crillon in Lima, where we shared drinks with a Saudi prince whose Spanish was so much better than our own, Ceasar, our host whose bribes kept us out of lines and who could get us anything we wanted, drugs, girls, or boys; and the American pilots still in their flights suits just back from another mission in the war against drugs. Sitting in the dark, under martial law, because the terrorists bombed the power lines that night – you just can’t plan a vacation like that.