36 Hours in Nantucket: A Travel Guide*

*Not associated with the series of New York Times articles that pissed me off.

Last week, when the editors at George Magazine pitched this assignment, I jumped at it. With the exception of Houston, Texas, there are not too many places in the world I won't visit as long as I'm paid well and get to expense everything. I borrowed a crisp white shirt with lots of buttons, a pair of Nantucket Reds, and a blue blazer from my obnoxious neighbor Spaulding, and headed for the ferry.

Nantucket is like Martha's Vineyard without the annoying black dog. With a name easier to pronounce than the nearby islands of Tuckernuck or Muskecunt, it is also far more popular. Nantucket is Algongouin for "in the midst of old money," if you ever visit, you literally have to bring a boatload of cash -- not a Boston Whaler, we're talking at least a 41-footer.


Friday 5 PM

Take a stroll down Main Street and stare at people that all look like the grandparents of those precious Lands' End models. It will make you feel good to rudely bump into all these rich assholes that some how manage to spend the whole summer on an island not working, so do it.

Stop in at the revered Mitchell's Book Nook. This store was recently saved from being turned into a Juicy Girl Couture Outlet by the wife of Google Founder, Willoughby C. Googlebinder. Talk about throwing heaps of new money after old. I bought a book of Robert Frost poems set in New England (57 dollars). I plan on sprinkling poems throughout this article in order to haughty it up a bit. Don't worry, they are in the public domain.




Friday 8 PM

The coolest new restaurant in Nantucket is called Dune. Way sweeter than Hard Rock or Mars 2112, you'll be greeted by young Paul Atreides, the heir apparent to Duke Leto Atreides and the scion of House Atreides. Order the tasty Melange-Spiced Duck with a side order of Duncan Idaho potatos (74 dollars) from your lovely blue-eyed waitress.

Good Food in a Fun Setting By Robert Frost

There once was a bistro named Dune
I went there for lunch just past noon
The waitress was hot
A tube collected her snot
When she tossed my salad, I finished too soon.

Friday 10 PM

Have a drink with the young (on Nantucket that's anyone under 62) crowd that gathers down by the water at the Weathered Beam. Try a Boston College Coed on the Beach (28 dollars), that's made with aged rum, Nantucket Nectar Pomegranate Pear Cocktail with a squeeze of an old man's sack. Now try a breathing Boston College coed on one of the sofas that are scattered on the actual beach.

A Girl from Nantucket by Robert Frost

There once was a girl from Nantucket
With a cunt so small no one could fuck it
She said with a grin
As it failed to go in
If you want, I can bend down and suck it.



Saturday 10 AM

Stroll through the Nantucket Farmer's and Artisans Market, two whole blocks containing 65 booths filled with every imaginable piece of crap made out of blueberries or driftwood.

Saturday 1 PM

Get a beach permit for $150 because what are you going to do with that kind of chump change anyway, buy another necktie? Rent a big, gas guzzling SUV (200 dollars for 3 hours) and head out west to Eel Point for the Seal and Turf Special (137 dollars for two). Back in the good old days, Nantucket was famous for more than rich, old people and dirty poems, whales and seals fueled the local economy and the local's gastrointestinal tracts. The tender baby seal breasts sauteed in whale oil partnered with broiled Black Lab tenderloins harken back to a simpler time.

Saturday 8 PM

Put on a pair of Nantucket Reds (70 dollars at Murray's Toggery Shop) or a pair of almost identical looking and way more comfortable pink khakis (27 dollars at Lands' End) and sneak into the Nantucket Yacht Club for whatever lame event they have scheduled. Rub elbows with the kind of WASPs you used to watch on TV. Try to get lucky with a visiting niece or hump a dowdy dowager. You could get really lucky and get to spend your summers in a beautiful place, doing absolutely nothing that betters the lives of anyone but yourself.

Love Lost by Robert Frost

There once was a dawk from New Yawk
Who needed a rich bitch to powk
Struck out at the Club
So he started to rub
And sprayed jizz from Nantucket to Montauk

Sunday 11 AM

After waking up alone, with the realization that tomorrow you have to go back to your crappy apartment and your vitality-enviscerating job, visit the Nantucket Shipwreck & Lifesaving Museum (suggested donation, 40 dollars). Sure your life sucks worse than Karl Rove with a mouthful of broken glass, but at least you haven't drowned in an angry, bone-chilling sea, yet.

Sunday 12 PM

There's just one more chance to overpay for a pretentious meal so head over to celebrity chef Todd English's latest excuse to make barges of money, The Summerhouse Restaurant. Sample classic dishes that have been civilized so that they can be easily gummed and pooped into a pair of Depends. Crab cake with corn salsa and Portugese orphan kidneys (57 dollars) is simply a ramped up standard. Warm lobster salad with ramps and poached Kennedy jowls (64 dollars) is another dish that requires the use of a with and an and.

Sunday 2 PM

While taking a final stroll through the dunes at Bluff Walk, marvel that the many mansions covered with weathered and worn wooden shingles could have been spared this indiginity with the prophylactic use of affordable vinyl siding (1.60 dollars per square foot). As your sunburned legs brush past the poison ivy that the billionaire owners plant along the boardwalk to discourage scum like you, leave Nantucket content with the knowledge that the Lyme Disease that the tick burrowed deep in your pubes is injecting into your bloodstream disables those with blue blood just as effectively as regular red-blooded Americans.

Cheap Shot at the Kennedys by Robert Frost

ol' Kennedy was at a place on the Cape
Where he drank and he drank to escape
He once killed a daughter
But it wasn't manslaughter
And his nephew got away with a rape.

Other Wasted Weekends
36 Hours in Uhstan, Kazakhstan
36 Hours in Phuket, Thailand
36 Hours in Mexico City
36 Hours in Rajasthan, India
36 Hours in Zagreb, Croatia

36 Hours in Phuket, Thailand: A Travel Guide*

*Not associated with the New York Times article that pissed me off and there are going to be a lot of Fuckit jokes so get over it. I know how it's pronounced but you're reading it not listening.



Last week, when the editors at George Magazine asked me to write an article on Phuket, I said, "No, go ahead, pitch the assignment." They said Phuket. I said, "No really, I have 36 hours to kill this weekend, I'll go anywhere you want me to go." They said Phuket. I said, "Phuk you!" stormed out of their offices and went to Starbucks for a latte with one muddaphukingly itchy trigger finger. If my barista cluckingly corrected my use of the word large, I was going to introduce the dude to Mr. Luger and Mrs. Hollowtip.

Then I got the text message, "phuket, you phuktard." Phuket? I spent most of 1982 in Phuket wearing nothing but a tie die tank top and a huge Thai-stick-smoking grin. I still get Christmas cards from a sweet, Laotian pool boy named Sammy that I only faintly remember.

A weekend in Phuket! 36 phun philled phours! I left JFK on Friday at 10:15 in the morning on Cathay Pacific Airlines. I arrived in Hong Kong 16 hours later, waited an hour and a half and then boarded another plane for Bangkok -- just a three hour flight, I can do that in my sleep and I did. A short one hour and fifteen minute wait for my one hour and fifteen minute hop to Phuket. Halfway around the world in only 23 hours and 20 minutes! This is a fantasy so the planes were always on time.

My agenda was ambitious so it was time to get started. Except it was 8:35 PM on Saturday night and I had to leave in 10 minutes so I could be back at work Monday morning. Phuck it! "Scotty beam me to Phuket and ready the transporter for a return on Sunday at 5 PM."

5 PM Friday

Head straight to the beach at Kamala for some well deserved relaxation. Rent a metal detector at Sammy's Seaside Shack (23 bahts) and see if you can find any remains of the tourists swept off this exact beach by the tsunami back in 2004. Nervously scan the horizon for rogue waves and the deadly undertoads.


7 PM

If you want to feel good about yourself, head up to Mount Nagakerd to gaze at the Phrapdavehuttcunninghamingpetermongkeefehfrancisomarottal-akenmuffyagatuppermankhiri Buddha -- his friends just call him Big. Enlightment ain't gonna happen so in order to reach some semblance of contentment, find the 147 foot Buddha's carved to scale penis and realize that, even if you're white, you still have three inches on the Big Guy.
9 PM

Forgo the clean, well-lit, touristy restaurants that are in actual buildings and head over to the abandoned lot near Robinson's Department Store. Find the stall, upside down crate or dung heap with the shortest line (because you still have ladyboys to fondle) and order the fried fish balls (44 bahts). Artfully arranged on a pile of bright green, fish pubic hair, these delightful mouthfuls are the perfect compliment to some locally brewed beer (6 bahts if purchased from the guy with the rusty 55-gal drum).

10 PM
Thailand's national sport, beating the living crap out of each other, is now available back home nightly on six different cable channels under slightly different names so, unless Jean Claude Van Damme is fighting Mr. T as the main attraction, skip it and go to sleep. Phuket basically shuts down at night anyway, you won't be missing anything.

9 AM Saturday

There's more to Phuket than hostess bars, go go clubs and ladyboy liasons, (You went to bed early? That was a joke, dude.), how does brunch in the jungle sound? The most unique way to get there is by orang taxi (247 baht). Africa has the almost human-like chimpanzee but only Thailand has gibbons and orangutans. The gibbons are native, the orangs are shipped in from the Malay peninsula to work in the burgeoning "green" tourism trade. You can't ride on the back of an endangered species back home, even at the Bronx Zoo, it's worth the extra baht.

Enjoy the floor show at the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project provided by the giddyingly, gregarious gibbons, over a bowl of steaming elephant trunk stew (45 baht).

Elephant does not taste like chicken. Served in ornately carved ivory bowls, elephant is reminiscent of the worst venison you've ever been forced to eat by your crazy hunter uncle, you know, the one that would get really pissed if he caught you spitting Bambi into your napkin. Chewy and dry, stringy like nylon, not cotton, elephant is like gnawing on a steel-belted radial only not as tasty. But it is illegal to eat in 137 of the 146 countries in the UN, so enjoy.


2 PM

Today is all about preparing for tonight. Elephant trunk? The Chinese swear it's great for ED although I'm not sure how they got that idea. You'll need to be loose because it's going to be strenuous. Time for a special Thai massage. Called the Satay Special (2397 baht) and available only at the Lemongrass Grill on University Place, it's a tantalizing mix of curry, honey and sand.


5 PM
Phuket is famous for all you can eat dinner buffets and some of them are located in actual buildings. The best bang for your buck is at Dennys on Route 47.


The pad thai is excellent.
7 PM
There are two things the Thais do better than anybody on the planet, 1. grow rice and 2. dress their boys up like girls. The Japanese have a proverb that roughly translated goes, "Not really gay if ladyboy not bigger than you." We're not talking height people and despite your apparent victory over Big Buddha, you need work. The elephant trunk soup is a good start but before you go partying stop by the cart of Madame Miraclegrow for a double shot of yadong, pronounced "yeah! dong!" (4500 baht). It's not called yadong for nothing, and while it may contain larger than trace amounts of mercury, lead, arsenic and cyanide, this stuff is like putting a Pinocchio nose on Karl Rove. You're going to need a snake charmer for Mr. Happy (a decent snake charmer 14 baht).




9 PM
Pick out a cute ladyboy and have some fun (66700 baht). How do you know if the woman you meet is packing? Well, if she hits on you, she's a working girl. If she hits on you and is a knockout supermodel that looks like that smoking hot token Asian on the Disney Channel? She's a man.

11 AM Sunday
Sweat out the cheap alcohol, bottomless guilt and suicidal tendencies on a beautiful beach where Leonardo Dicaprio made a movie nobody saw and James Bond frollicked with his own katoeys. Get some rest, you have 26 hours of travel ahead of you and a pile of work waiting when you get back to New York on Wednesday morning.
Other Wasted Weekends
36 Hours in Mexico City
36 Hours in Rajasthan, India
36 Hours in Zagreb, Croatia

36 Hours in Mexico City: A Travel Guide*

*Not associated with the New York Times article that pissed me off and I admit that writing this was like shooting illegal immigrants packed in a van fish in a barrel.

Last week, when the editors at George Magazine pitched this assignment, I said, "¿Donde esta mi tickets de plane?" On the way to JFK, I stopped at my storage place for my cabana wear, bulletproof vest and self-contained-breathing-apparatus.

Friday 5 P.M.

While you're waiting on line for a cab, take a moment to appreciate that late afternoon Mexican sun. Don't forget that sun gods have been worshipped in this ancient land from the Toltecs through the Mayans and Aztecs. No sun? That damn Smog God has been out of control lately.

Warm smog is still better than cold, New York sleet. Take a deep breath and clean out your system.

Friday 7 P.M.

Stop coughing. Time to go out to dinner. In Honolulu, you're greeted by hot mamacitas bearing flower leis. In Mexico City, you're greeted by armed health officers bearing sky blue masks. It's the only blue sky you are going to see in this part of the country so put yours on before you head out into the streets -- oh, and that swine flu is a bitch.

Friday 9 P.M.

It's time to grow a pair and try the exotic, mysterious, gastronomic treats that the natives call Mexican food. At Taco Bell in the Polanco district, the ground chicken tacos (121 pesos) and Coca Cola (110 pesos) are "muy delicioso!"

Friday 11 P.M.

Tequila is for gringos and sterlizing machete wounds. Buy a bottle of Mezcal Xanaxupchuck from a street vendor (30 pesos), steeped with chicken livers and corn fungus inside the bladder of a prepubescent drug mule, this stuff is more that a few steps up from that gimmicky worm-flavored peepee you can get back in the States. Find a stoop and enjoy a front row seat for the nightly drug trafficking battle. You don't want to end up in the trunk of a 1993 Ford Taurus (457 pesos) so tip everyone you meet liberally.

Saturday 11 A.M.

After a quick breakfast at the Taco Bell Drive-Thru, Double Sausage and Huevo Breakfast Gordito with a side of Cinnamon Toast Chimichanga with Cheese (76 pesos), it's time to engulf yourself in the world of Mexican Art.

Cavemen in France may have invented the mural but the Mexicans perfected the form and created iconic masterpieces of political and social commentary.

Marvel at the attention to detail, use of tropical colors and thoroughly modern design aesthetics.

A tour of Mexico City's vibrant art scene would not be complete without a stop at the Museo Frida Kahlo (admission - 5 pesos). No artist before or since has been able to paint breasts this beguiling using only a single No. 47 Black Sable Eyebrow.

Saturday 6 P.M.

Get in touch with your inner Aztec by visiting Aztec Land brought to you courtesy of the Ford Motor Company (admission - 4,003 pesos). Enduring contributions by the Aztec civilizaton include chocolate, popcorn and chewing-gum-snapping prostitutes. Sample all these pleasures (package deal - 511 pesos) but save time for a truly remarkable experience. For a few pesos more (3 pesos), ritually behead a young Juarez woman that has been used, abused and abandoned by a Texas billionaire.

Saturday 8 P.M.

¡Holy guacamole, Batman! It's dinner time and there is no better place to fill your bat cave with gastronomic splendor than the sleek new Taco Bell in the ritzy Sante Fe business district. Order the provocative Surf and Turf Special (344 pesos). It's a bottomless, cardboard container of premium All-Beef Tostados and Fillet of Fish Burritos with a side of french fried patatas. Wash it down with "cerveza de ninos." Coca Cola is a local favorite (110 pesos).

Saturday 10 P.M.

Sitting in the relative safety of your hotel room fantasizing about the caliente women of Telemundo Mexico is for wimps! Take off all your jewelry, remove any article of clothing worth anything, and leave behind all body hair, moles, or canker sores that might look valuable. Then hide your wallet in a plastic bag submerged in the tank of your toilet and, ignoring all those warnings from the U.S. State Department, head downtown. No really. Remember to bring one ATM card for the eventual kidnapping. The only thing worse than ending up in the trunk of a Ford Taurus somewhere in the bowels of Mexico City is ending up DEAD in the trunk of a Ford Taurus somewhere in the bowels of Mexico City.

Take a taxi, rental cars refuse to enter the downtown area even if you bribe them with carrots or lumps of sugar, to the teeny-weeny, La Perla (cover - 1,230 pesos) and enjoy the nightly drag queen cabaret. Yes, I do expect you to risk your life. Is it better than the relative safety of Lucky Chengs back home in the East Village, NYC? No, and the food isn't nearly as good, but did I mention that these are hairy, Mexican drag queens?

Saturday 1 A.M.

While you are downtown, and all hot and bothered by the cabaret show, don't miss a traditional Mexican cockfight. Michael Vick recommends El Palenquito and who are we to argue? Enjoy the spectacle of two proud, strutting cocks engaged in fisticuffs with the multigenerational crowd of mostly heterosexual locals (cover - you'll have no money or shoes by this time so its a quick trip to the alley and bruises on your knees).

Sunday 11 A.M.

How about a free bicycle ride courtesy of the Mexican government? In a pathetic attempt to curb the eye-watering air pollution that has inflicting every breathing organism in the city with countless variations of repiratory disease, the government provides free bicycles at kiosks along the Paseo de la Reforma.

Possible dangers in Mexico City include being kidnapped, stumbling into a drug battle, and breathing the air but those activities are akin to snuggling up in your favorite blanket on your favorite couch in your favorite home compared to crossing the street. Traffic accidents have killed more locals than Spanish smallpox. Wear your helmet!

Sunday 1 P.M.

On your way back to the airport, have your cab driver stop at any roadside stand to pick up some authentic Mexican cacao and Pre-Columbian artifacts. A careful purchase (20 pesos) can help defray the entire cost of your trip. My vacation was expensed so I'm going to save my money for those exorbitant iron lung rentals I forsee in my future.

Other Wasted Weekends

36 Hours in Rajasthan, India
36 Hours in Zagreb, Croatia

36 Hours in Rajasthan, India. A Travel Guide*

*Not associated with the New York Times article that pissed me off.

Last week, when the editors at George Magazine pitched this assignment, I jumped at it. With the exception of Houston, Texas, there are not too many places in the world I won't visit as long as I'm paid well and get to expense everything. Normally, I would spend my 36 hours in Rajasthan, India at the airport trying to get a flight out but that wouldn't be much of an article so I put a clothespin on my nose and went looking for fun.


Friday 5 P.M.

After 23 hours of air travel and eight hours on a crowded train from New Dehli, you're starting to think that another weekend in Milan might have been a better way to spend $60,000, but one glance at the cannonball dents left in the wall of a fort will put a smile back on your face. Be careful not to step on a dusty beggar as you trod past Mehrangarh Fort in beautiful Jodphur. Named for those silly pants favored by British fairies, this city of sandalwood, dirt and open sewers puts the "in" back in India, as in, get inside a fancy hotel and stay in!

Friday 8 P.M.

Book yourself a room at the Umaid Bhawan Palace, a lavish Art-Deco masterpiece that proudly contains the longest sewer pipe in the eastern subcontinent, assuring that you won't be smelling yourself two hours later. Rooms start at 500,000 rupees, or $10,740 a night and for an additional 10,000 rupees Elizabeth Hurley will recreate her wedding night -- with you as the groom. After quenching your carnal apetite, dine at the hotel's restaurant. Order the Indian-influenced lamb curry (47 rupees) and a delightful bottle of Mumbai Merlot (114 rupees).

Friday 11 P.M.

Jodphur is a world famous exporter of polyester and opium. Skip the polyester but head over to The Devil's Bargain, a safe but touristy opium den on the darkside of town. Find a comfortable pillow and spoil yourself with some top shelf, pea-sized "pills" of the local Bollywood Brown (64 rupees a pill). Don't forget to pick up an artfully wrapped tin (160 rupees) of raw opium paste for the folks back home.

Saturday 11 A.M.

Forget where you are and how you got there? Go back and read the entry for Friday 11 P.M. then hire one of the colorful elephant cabs for the short ride to Bikaner. Remember to ride side saddle or you may lose an hour recovering from a elephant-induced episiotomy.


Bikaner is one of the few places in the country where the cow is treated like a cow and the rat is treated like a cow in India. Enjoy a 100% beef 114 Grammer with Cheese (12 rupees) with a traditional Cherry Slurpee (6 rupees) at the clean and well lit Burger and Lassi before standing in the long lines at the Karni Mata Temple.


Saturday 1 P.M.


The locals call it the Rat Temple but don't let the teaming swarms of rats discourage you from visiting. The 14th century architecture is splendid, the historical mumbo jumbo relayed to you by a guide with poor english and few teeth about how Ms. Mati asked the god of death to reincarnate the son of a grieving story teller and ended up with a temple and 30,000 rats makes you feel good about being a Christian, and the smell of rat feces is a refreshing break from the smell of human feces.



Much like a Japanese Restaurant, no shoes are allowed in the temple, and if a rat scurries over your foot, legend has it that you will have seven years of good luck -- and goosebumps for three hours. If you see an albino white rat, you win a date with Padma Lakshmi. If you are truly blessed and a rat shits in your coffee mug, this auspicious occurence will result in you being reincarnated as a guy married to one of those buxom multi-arm goddesses that are hotter than a five story walk up in old Bombay.



Saturday 6 P.M.


After a four hour bus ride to the pink city of Jaiper, visit the snack bar at the bus depot and order a chai (6 rupees) and a sweet fan biscuit (4 rupees). Watch as the weird herby stuff is steeped in exotic steamed milk, just like at the Starbucks back home where a chai (6 rupees) is almost as good and the maple oat nut scone (9 rupees) is actually better than anything you can get in India.

Get back in the bus and leave because Jaiper has way too many Indians and the curry is subpar.



Saturday 10 P.M.


Sitting on the edge of an endless desert where the sand in the wind painlessly removes the enamel from your front teeth, Udaipur is considered the most romantic city in India, --the Reno, Nevada of the subcontinent. It also has really good curry. At the Royal Sitar eschew the tempting chicken fingers and fries (15 rupees) and order the mutton curry (29 rupees). It's a hearty stew-like dish flavored with curry and the freshly killed parents of lambs, and it will provide you with the fuel you'll need for the frantic festivities to come.



Saturday 12 A.M.


At the upscale Bengali Ranch, choose from the well thought out selection of local varietals. In a small but elegant room (200 rupees an hour), she'll remove her shimmering sari then you'll whip out your tikki masala, and to her surpise it will be every bit as hot as her vindaloo.



Sunday 12 P.M.

Just like it's sister city of sin, Udaipur is full of one arm bandits. It is also home to an alarming number of two armed bandits, one legged bandits and one armed one legged bandits so watch your pocket book as you stroll to Lake Pichola. Take a boat (24 rupees) or wade (0 rupees) to the island in the middle of the lake and have lunch at the Isleoflosttoys Palace. Built in 1373, it's menu hasn't changed since 1397, and for good reason, everything is delicious. Order the curry (62 rupees).


Sunday 4 P.M.

As you begin your 31 hours of travel back home, with an ice pack strategically placed on your inflamed sphincter, squeezed in a train that is stuffed like a samosa with less than savory ingredients, think back on the last 36 hours and be thankful that you didn't go to Milan or Miami for the weekend because then you'd be forced to go back to work on Monday instead of Wednesday. (You don't get sentences like that at the New York Times!)

I did this better before:
36 Hours in Zagreb, Croatia

36 Hours in Zagreb, Croatia. A Travel Guide

36 Hours in Zagreb, Croatia (not affiliated with the NY Times article that pissed me off with the same title)

Last week, when the editors at George Magazine came to me with this assignment, I jumped on it. What the heck, I mean Zagreb is 873rd on my list of cities I sort of want to visit.

Friday 3 P.M.

When I travel to a weird, former Soviet satellite place, I like to get my feet firmly on the ground by acquainting myself with the local history. I told the Croat cabbie to take me to the famous Nazi and he punched me in the face. Croat is one of those words that's incredibly fun to say but when you typ it out it looks like its got to be missing some letters. "Croat." Cool sounding but a little touchy with a quick right hand. I finally found a Serb cabbie that took me on a tour of Upper Town and left me off at the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the Rocks. Try getting that on the front of a CYO basketball jersey!

The cathedral houses the well preserved remains of Blessed Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac. You remember him. The Nazi sympathizer with a soft spot for Jews but an extremely hard spot for the Eastern Orthodox and Serbs. I believe he's the Patron Saint of Closemindedness and Hatred which makes him pretty damn popular. The nausea you get from seeing him in his elaborate tomb will make any dinner unpalatable so it's time to start drinking.

Friday 8 P.M.

At Cafe Jazz order a Fuzzy Liverwurst (157 kunas). It's a mix of Croatian vodka and a delightful local liqueur called Kümmel that can only be described as sweet, liquid caraway. The drink comes garnished with a dill pickle and a slice of liverwurst. Place those in your ears because Croatian Jazz makes Bulgarian Jazz seem as good as Estonian Jazz.

Saturday 2 P.M.

Get your Kümmel induced hangover to Jelacic Square for some coffee and the saturday morning ritual called "SpiXXXa." Watch the intricate dance of the French, Russian and Californian porn producers as they recruit the leggy, high-heeled blondes inhabiting every patio chair in the piazza. Purchase a vente cafe americano with an extra shot at Starbücks (43 kunas), sit your fat ass down and enjoy the spectacle.

Saturday 4 P.M.

For a late lunch, eschew the overpriced restaurants and walk to Zagreb's best open air market, Dolac. Under the red umbrellas, choose from the amazing spread of seasonal nuts, cheeses, fruits and vegetables. Below is a local Croatian fruitmonger with a slice of a local delicacy called watermelon. Try it. You didn't pay $5,000 and travel halfway across the world to eat at McDonalds, did you?

Saturday 8 P.M.

With the exotic taste of watermelon still on your lips, visit Luigi's, a Dalamation-style tavern, and order the frog and eel stew (84 kunas). If you ask the waiter nicely, he will flip the floating frogs over because sometimes their beady little eyes looking up at you can be down right unappetizing.

Saturday 11 P.M.

Go clubbing in Jaregrub within the warren of hotspots found in the shadow of that scary neo-gigantic cathedral. To get up the courage to hit on those extremely attractive blondes that were too smart to fall for those porn producers practiced lines, try a Tesla Coil (212 kunas), an alternating set of 3 dozen liquor shots served in actual vacuum tubes designed by Nikola Tesla.

Saturday 12:15 P.M.

Pass out.

Sunday 10 A.M.

At Runa's, a Weimaraner-style cafe, order the traditional snail and snot omelet with a side of smoky pickled slugs (40 kunas) or you could eat toast and jam (57 kunas).

Sunday 1 P.M.

Purge last night's demons with a modest walk through the Croatian Museum of Naive Art (adult, 20 kunas; children, 10 kunas). Marvel that all those plump hard-working women with those bodies so well evolved to dig potatoes with a stick have produced all those leggy, high-heeled blondes. Before catching your plane, grab lunch at one of the many pushcarts found outside the museum. Get a Coca Cola and Stalin Burger (243 kunas). The juicy burger is 95% ground Serbian infant with 5% Albanian filler and was a personal favorite of the former Cardinal. Muy delicioso!

Note: File this under An Unfuckingbelievable Coincidence. I post this bit and I immediately go check my e-mail and British FHM has sent an article about the hot women of Croatia called, Croatians, Not All Completely Useless.

Also unbelievable, tho not the unfucking kind, the British FHM used to love UncleMelon and I had a semi-working arrangement with them. For some reason, my humor goes over well in England, Australia, Canada and Iceland. Croatia? Not so good.