What We Loved This Week: Palau, the O.C. and the National Aquarium Through a Child’s Eyes

Eva Holland
I came home to Ottawa this week just in time to discover a new brewpub, Les Brasseurs du Temps, across the river in Gatineau, Quebec. The new spot is in a resurrected 1821 brewery building, and the house-brewed ales are delicious. I’m already plotting a second visit.

Terry Ward
My first morning in Palau. Jetlag had me up at 4 a.m., sitting on the porch of my room at the Airai Water Paradise Hotel, waiting for the sun to rise. Since I arrived at night, I had no idea what my surrounds were like. It was hallucinatory, listening to the rising chatter of birds, watching fruit bats dart over head and slowly making out the details of the landscape as the sun lit up the morning. Some 28 hours of transit from La Guardia and five flights to get here all felt like water under the bridge.

Sophia Dembling
The air in Pasadena, where I visited a friend this weekend, was smoky and terrible, but the O.C. was all sunshine and surfers on a Sunday afternoon. We came upon on a lively drum circle in Huntington Beach. Could it be more Left Coast? Drummers, dancers, lack of inhibitions ... ahhh, California.

Jim Benning
Seeing my favorite Latin pop star, Ricardo Arjona, play the San Diego Sports Arena. The places was packed with San Diego’s Latinos and Tijuanenses who’d driven up. From the spokesmodels pushing beer to the shout-outs to Mexico and other Latin American countries, I felt as though I’d crossed some sort of border. Here’s but one of the fine new songs he played:

Doug Mack
The Magritte Museum in Brussels is charming and weird in all the right ways. It’s a great showcase of the artist’s life and art, with suitably surreal touches like the bathroom mirrors in the shape of his famous man in a bowler hat. Best of all: I happened to be there on the first Wednesday of the month, when it’s free.

Michael Yessis
A day trip to the National Aquarium in Baltimore. We went for a 1-year-old’s birthday party, so I ended up seeing the marine life through the eyes of kids. As you can see, my son loved it too:

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