Late night sandwich cart at Parque Kennedy in Lima, Peru. Looks like hot turkey sandwiches with a red (probably hot) sauce, lettuce, and onions, topped off with some spicy mayo. I didn’t get one because I’d already eaten, but this looks good.

Staying in Buenos Aires’ San Telmo neighborhood, RaRa was my home base.

During the day, it has an artsy café feel, with great coffee, good food at fair prices, and lots of natural light for reading, writing, and people-watching. At night, it has more of a bar and restaurant atmosphere.

If I recall, the Caesar salad and prosciutto sandwich were especially good, but that was about three years ago.

At the corner of Carlos Calvo and Peru in San Telmo, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Video I shot this week coming back from Pittsburgh. Approaching JFK from the west, over New Jersey, the Hudson River, Central Park, Manhattan, etc. Note the other plane flying across the screen around 12 seconds in.

Click the “HQ” setting in the YouTube player for a slightly crisper video.

Summary: In this 2006 episode, Rick Steves visits the Amalfi Coast, fancy resort town Positano, Sorrento, ancient Greek ruins, and the Isle of Capri’s Blue Grotto. More info and transcript on Rick’s site.

Frommer: Classic Rick; his Italy shows are usually very good. Nice mix of scenic shots, wacky Euro moments — see the bus-turning-on-the-cliff scene at minute 10:45, food, how-to, and culture.

Earlier this summer I spent about ten days in Peru and Ecuador, including the Galapagos Islands.

At some point, I plan write more about this, but in the meantime, I’ve posted 80 photos in the new Travel Photos gallery. Check ‘em out.

Almost three years ago, CNBC ran this 90-minute special, called “Inside American Airlines.” Some stuff has changed in the industry since then, but a lot of things are still the same. It’s worth watching for any airline or travel nut.

I had heard the Standard Hotel had opened up in New York, but I had no idea where it was until we randomly walked by it tonight on our way to the High Line. (The rooms look tiny! And this whole time I thought that building was dumpy old 70s-era condos. Weird.)

Anyway, The Standard Grill’s outdoor seating looked nice, and I was due for my monthly allotted burger, so we checked it out.

The burger — with white cheddar and bacon, on a brioche-like bun — was well above average. The fries were skinny and not too salty. The pickle was tart. The guy at the next table looked like Tom from MySpace. At $14, a great deal for the neighborhood. (And the cocktails were super: I had something involving vodka, ginger beer, and fresh ginger, served in a copper mug, and it was awesome.)

But the best part was the unexpected and plentiful freebies. At the bar, while we waited for the table, three slices of very good salami from the salami menu. At the table, good bread and butter, yes, but also dry Italian cheese (some sort of parmiggiano, perhaps) and mild radishes. And at mealtime, a small plate of patatas bravas — roasted potato cubes with paprika aioli.

The bathrooms downstairs were typical posh-hotel-wank-style stuff, including a long trough sink, but they have Dyson Airblade hand dryers, which look neat and work pretty well.

Anyway, definitely going back.

Pilot and journalist Miles O’Brien — you may recognize him from CNN — has a nice article at Reuters about what might have happened to Air France flight 447, the Airbus A330 that disappeared between Brazil and Paris on Sunday night.

But the most interesting question — to me, at least — is at the end:

Why not send steady streams of telemetry from airliners to the ground all the time — a la the space shuttle? This effectively places the “black boxes,” safe and sound — on the ground. Imagine how invaluable that much data would be right now — given the distinct possibility this could remain an unsolved mystery.

That’s an excellent question. Given how advanced communication technology is these days, it seems like a smart idea for airliners to constantly feed home base as much information as possible: Its location and position, how flight and peripheral systems are working, how many people are using the bathroom, what movies are popular, etc. Especially the safety stuff.

I can think of four reasons why airlines aren’t doing this already: Because it’s almost always data they’ll throw out immediately after the plane lands safely, because radio spectrum may be scarce and unreliable, because they aren’t required to do it by law, and because it’s the last information they’d want slipping into the wrong hands.

But so what? These seem like problems that can be worked out. Now, as O’Brien points out, we’re potentially in a worse situation: Not knowing if the A330 is safe to fly in certain conditions. So where are those data streams?

Photo of Air France F-GZCP — the plane that vanished — by Gabriel Widyna on Airliners.net

Tired and jetlagged, I stumbled into Café A Brasileira my first night in Lisbon. I didn’t stay long, but remembered it looked neat enough to come back with my camera.

Open since 1905, Café A Brasileira was once an intellectual hangout but now seems to cater mostly to tourists. It’s right off the Chiado Square. There’s a clean toilet in the basement.

Some great photos of the interior and carved front door sign on Flickr.

The Mountainsmith Euro LX (previously the Ramble) is an excellent, relatively inexpensive ($140 at Amazon) travel backpack. I’ve been using the Ramble as my main pack for more than four years, including long and short trips, and air, train and bus travel.

The Euro LX is about as simple as travel packs get: Big, main compartment that unzips all around for easy access; smaller, top compartment; and thin, front panel for books, maps, etc. The backpack straps zip in to a sleeve so they don’t get caught in conveyor belts, under tires, etc. (This is typical for “travel” packs.)

Depending on your airline, you might get away with carrying it on board. I generally check it on planes and buses, but it fits great in the upper storage on most European trains. There’s not really much missing — I even use it for business trips with a sturdy sleeve for suits/shirts.

For longer trips, its big brother, the Covert LX ($200 at Amazon), is worth a look — it includes about 35% more space, a detachable daypack and a laptop sleeve. But for trips as short as a weekend to as long as several weeks — if you really pack light — the Euro LX/Ramble is a good deal.