Stories from my life:

1. The cook at the Globe, one of them, is this American guy named Don who's pretty cool, total ex-hippie, missing teeth and scraggly beard. He's a helluva cook, but he's not always had as settled a life as working in the kitchen at a cafe.

Turns out, 10 years ago, he was in Winston-Salem, N.C. The reason I know this is because Google Maps has unveiled Street View for Winston-Salem -- now you can click and walk around my home town as if you were really there.

Well so and I was exploring parts of W-S on google maps a week or so ago at The Globe and Don walks up, being bored, and we start talking. He tells me that he actually spent a few weeks in NC when he was a big hippie in the '90s, and he stayed in Winston-Salem for part of it. And he had breakfast with Oprah.

What?

Yeah, he says, he had breakfast with Oprah in Winston-Salem, at the IHOP on the corner of Silas Creek and Peters Creek. Here it is on Google Maps:


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The story is that Don and his friend were chilling in IHOP when someone came by and told them that Oprah was in the back of the restaurant. Long story short, there she was, and they went to chat with her for the rest of their meal. She was nice and not done-up or very celebrity-esque, and was in town for a friend's wedding or something. So there you go. Weird.

2. Winston-Salem in on Google Street View. Why??

3. I went with Provokotor to the, uh...the name is something like "Recycle Center" in Czech, but it's specifically for electronics and "e-waste" that can't be disposed of safely in a regular dump or at a regular materials recycle center. Basically it was cool because they had mountains of old computer monitors, TVs and keyboards that they did interesting things with, incl. smash with hammers and turn into giant dinosaur sculptures. Here, check this stuff out (lots of pics/videos follow:):

 

 Homeless man we took a picture of even though he had just told us not to.

 

 "You should write an article called when guys look like chicks, but not in a good way."

Thanks, Peter.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

This is the room where Czech men break all the things people send to them to recycle, and put the pieces into the appropriate bins.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Coolest thing ever:

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Cool!

5. I met a French girl named Nathalie a few days ago who went to the United States for her senior year of high school, around 2001-2002, the same year I was a sophomore. And guess where she went to study abroad?

West Forsyth Public High School, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

O_O Seriously. We talked about Mr. Rushton. 

WEIRD!!!!!!!