Travel Bug Robert
Finding the funny in the world.

How to Feel Like You’re on Vacation at Work

Hi there, fellow traveler.  If you’ve been checking this site for the past few months, you might have noticed I haven’t posted anything new.  That’s not to say there hasn’t been anything worth perusing on here.  Allow me to direct you to my back catalog of videos.  I’ve got some oldies but goodies in there.

The reason I haven’t been Travel Buggin’ (Copyright, All Rights Reserved) is I’ve been doing this thing called “working.”  It took me a while to re-learn what this “working” consisted of, since I hadn’t been doing much of it last year.  Sure, I traveled the globe and produced videos and wrote posts about my experiences, but I don’t consider that “working.”  Those quotation marks only come into play when your weekdays involve going to an office for a set period of time, oftentimes at least eight hours a day.  And now that I’m knee-deep in this full-time whatnot, I don’t have as much time or energy to be Buggin’ (Copyright, All Rights Reserved).

It’s common sense, but the pro to having a stable job is a having a stable income.  With stability, though, comes some pretty dull days.  Upping the cups of coffee makes a few weeks go by more quickly, but eventually you want even more excitement than an extended caffeine buzz.  You start forgetting the cons of joblessness and only remember the thrill of having unlimited free time, where you could go on an exotic trip without the worry of making it back in time for Monday.  Your rational brain turns off, not considering that spending money on a trip while having no new money coming in will make you poor twice as fast.

So what are you to do?  How can you both keep your job and go on vacation?  After months of wanting both, I finally discovered the solution.  And you, lucky reader, are about to learn the secret:  bring your vacation to work.  With just a few simple steps, you can make even the dullest 9-5er feel like an exciting holiday.

Tray Tables Up
A big trip starts on an airplane, so that’s where your “vacation at work” should start, too:

-Put a filing cabinet under your desk so you don’t have any legroom.

-On your lunch break, overcook a frozen meal until it’s mushy and unrecognizable.  Then, as you eat it with plastic silverware and drink “from concentrate” orange juice, watch a sub-par movie on Netflix streaming.

-Find the most overweight coworker in your office and convince them to sit next to you and share your desk.  You’ll be fighting over a small amount of space, just like you do at 30,000 feet!

See the Sights
You’ve “landed” at your destination.  Now it’s time to enjoy yourself:

-Take lots of pictures, but try to vary the angles of your shots.  For example, a picture of a vending machine is much more interesting if it’s taken lying down on the ground.

-Blend in with the locals.  Do not wear loud clothing.  You’ll be pegged as a tourist, or, in office language, “That Guy.”  A safe outfit for men would include a collared shirt and pair of slacks.  For women, something covering the shoulders would be acceptable.  Also, respect the office’s local culture.  For example, if Susan always gets to pick her cupcake first on “Cupcake Fridays,” do not alter this tradition by picking yours first.  You will suffer the wrath of the locals, or at least the wrath of Susan (and you don’t want to be on Susan’s bad side, especially since you’re sharing a desk with her).

-Many foreign countries have open air markets where haggling is part of the purchasing process.  Before you agree on an assignment from your boss, try to talk him down to a more pleasing workload for yourself.  He will appreciate your shrewd sense of how business works.

Winter or Summer?
Both seasons offer their perks for a holiday, but decide which one you would like before “landing”:

-For a winter vacation, lower the office air conditioning to 61 degrees and listen to Björk.  Then, make yourself an extra large hot toddy and curl up next to your fireplace screensaver.

-For a summer vacation, apply sunscreen liberally to prevent burns from the florescent lights.  Keep a flask of coconut-flavored rum on hand to get a “taste of the tropics” whenever you want.  If you feel generous, offer a nip to your coworkers, but never to Susan.  She’s a snitch.

-Regardless of the vacation season you choose, drink alcohol at work.

These tips will hopefully help you get through the doldrums of an office job.  And as far as traveling on a budget, you can’t get a vacation much cheaper.  Let me know how it works out.  As for me, I’m off to ski down our emergency stairwell.

Some Good Southern Eatin’ at the Silver Skillet

Admittedly, I really didn’t plan for my trip to Atlanta, and I didn’t know much about the place before arriving.  I was ready to see and eat whatever came my way, and boy was I in good hands.  Lilly from the podcast Out There Atlanta helped guide me through the countless points of interest and mountains of delicious food Hotlanta has to offer.  Oh, by the way, “Hotlanta” is a nickname I thought of for Atlanta.  You should start using it.  I think it might catch on.

We started our day with a fantastic breakfast at the Silver Skillet.

The Skillet has been open since 1956, and it still has that old diner look to it, including those metal stools at the diner.

Being a Yankee, I wanted to try a “traditional” Southern breakfast, and boy did they have that.

Grits, two eggs over easy, some country ham (which is cured in a way that makes it super salty, but great to dip in the creamy, bland grits).  And then redeye gravy, an essential part of the country ham experience according to our waitress.  Lots of soy sauce in that gravy.  The ham was pretty seasoned already, so I didn’t have much of it, but I’m glad it was at least on my plate.

Not salivating yet?  Here are some closeups:

Just look at that amount of butter!  That’s some good diner food right there.

You know what makes grits even tastier?  Two pads of butter.  Yeah, totally did that.  But none of this food compared to their Lemon Icebox Pie.  Yes, it was 9 in the morning, but it was pie o’clock somewhere in the world.  This piece of pie was seriously delicious.

A Nilla Wafers crust, whipped cream, but that lemon filling–whew.  I don’t know what goes on in that icebox, but they need to keep doing it.

I clean up nice

You’ll have to excuse my lack of posting this week.  I’ve been using all of my available elbow grease to revamp my site.  You might have noticed.  It’s a little sleeker, a little sexier, and hopefully a lot easier to navigate.  Like, I now have drop down menus!  Check it out!  Big time stuff.  So, enjoy the changes, and if you’re not a Fan of me on Facebook yet or haven’t started following me on Twitter, now’s a great time to remedy that.  The future is bright, traveler, and I’d love to share the sunshine with you.

Atlanta’s awesome!

Just got back to LA from my long weekend in Atlanta.  Man o man, is that city cool.  I ate like a king there, thanks to my very knowledgeable Atlantan (Atlantean?) friends.  Stay tuned for some glorious pictures of food.  Even after five hours of flying, I’m still in a food coma, so they’re not getting posted tonight.

Sprinkles for Breakfast

I didn’t know about hagelslag before visiting Amsterdam, but my local friend quickly filled me in on this Dutch food.  When I first heard the word, I couldn’t escape the image of Scotland’s traditional dish, Haggis.  I was very, very wrong thinking that.  Hagelslag isn’t sheep innards simmered in a stomach at all.  It’s actually buttered toast topped with sprinkles.

Delicious, right?  Can’t go wrong with butter, bread, and sprinkles.  But even with only three ingredients, hagelslag is pretty tough to eat.  Frankly, it has some engineering failures.  I love me some sprinkles, but only when they are well secured by more sugar.  Hagelslag lacks either frosting or a glaze to hold down the sprinkles.  As wonderful as butter tastes, it fails as an adhesive.  These Hagelslag sprinkles are completely loose, precariously balanced on frictionless bread and prone to falling off if you don’t eat the bread completely horizontally.  With every lift of the bread, a few more sprinkles roll away and meet their unfortunate fate of hitting the ground, uneaten.  I tried to eat over my basket so I could eat the rebel sprinkles later.  This is when I discovered there is no dignified way to eat a handful of loose sprinkles.  Try it.  It’s impossible.

It seems like the Dutch have learned to overcome these hagelslag pitfalls and are going back for seconds.  They even sell hagelslag in their grocery stores.

And this is a breakfast item, which isn’t really strange, I guess.  Having a little something sweet to start the day seems to be a Western World favorite.  Americans have donuts, and the Dutch have hagelslag.  But there must be some way to make these chocolate sprinkles more easily spreadable on bread.  Like, some kind of spreadable chocolate.  Wait a second, that’s Nutella!  Far be it for me to try and change a nation’s traditional food choices, but seriously, someone tell the Dutch about Nutella.  It would solve all of my eating problems when I visit their country.