G-Blogodaria

Things We’ve Forgotten: Sending “Letters” Using “Pens”, “Paper” & “Stamps”?

Do we still remember what those are? By our own estimation, the last time we sent anything in the U.S. mail system was during college application season 6 years ago. But that doesn’t count.

TechCrunch shines the spotlight on Stephen Elliot of The Rumpus, a popular eclectic literary website. When Elliot realized that he misses letter writing, he started this new subscription program called Letters in the Mail. For 5 bucks a month, you get a cool throwback to the days when we sent letters. Actual letters. He’s enlisted the help of people you know like Marie Calloway, Margaret Cho, Sari Botton, and a bunch of others to send you a letter “almost every week.” Dave Eggers is an upcoming letter writer too.

Why bother?

“When someone reads a letter it’s generally the only thing they’re doing,” Elliott says. “They give it [their] full attention. When someone reads an email they’re often reading it on their phone while boarding a bus.”

We blog. We email. We tweet. We update.

But we shall certainly look into this slow-writing phenomenon.

 

An Alpaca Says Hello

This charming alpaca and her recently born alpaca baby took some time out of their busy day to pose for this photo. Any guesses on where they live?

A: Arequipa, in Southern Peru

Let’s Talk About Cheese

For many of us, cheese is an integral part of our lives. Without it, pasta pomodoro is a bit less joyous and Cheezy Stix are just Stix.

With that being said, here is the first and only time I ever regretted too much cheese in my life. It was during a trip to Rome, after I joked my vegan companion that “it looks like I’ll be eating enough cheese for the both of us tonight.”

It was a Gorgonzola-Noci (walnut) pizza. It sounded so good at the time.

Here is the pizza that has prevented me from ever eating blue cheese ever again.

I had never known cheese to deceive me. Yet this one did. Though this picture doesn’t do it justice, I estimate a half-pound of blue cheese was artfully hidden throughout this pie. And that is how one fateful Roman evening, I ate way too much gorgonzola in one sitting and left the table absolutely terrified of ever encountering it again.

So traveling GLNers, what edible things have you encountered abroad that really left an impression?