Triangle: Got to Be NC Festival, May 29-31

Excerpt from In the Field about the event:

The Got to Be NC Festival will return to the State Fairgrounds Friday, May 29, through Sunday, May 31. With free admission, free parking, free bluegrass and beach music and free food samples from nearly 100 N.C. companies, it’ll be a fun place to wrap up your Memorial Holiday week.

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You’ll want to come hungry and stop by the free Got to Be NC Food Expo. On Saturday, you can also get your fill of North Carolina BBQ as teams of Masons face off in the Carolina Pig Jig. Adults pay only $10 to sample as much BBQ as they can hold, and kids under 12 eat free. Looking for something a little more deep fried? The Got to Be NC Festival will feature some of your favorite “fair food” along with lots of rides and games from Brinkley’s Entertainment. And to get your motor running, you’ll want to attend the Draft Horse Pull on Friday night, the Tractor Pull on Saturday and the Lawnmower Race on Sunday. All events take place in the Grandstand and are $5 each.

Sounds like fun!  I’ll tweet about it if I decide to attend.

Triangle: Theatre in Oakwood Cemetery

Have you been to Raleigh’s historic Oakwood Cemetery?  If not, you should go!  I especially recommend visiting as part of the 2 hour Segway tour.  If you have been there, you’ll be intrigued by Burning Coal Theatre Company’s production this weekend – Lessons Learned: Stories from the Oakwood Cemetery.  This is actually the 5th play Ian Finley has written to be performed there.  (Source: WUNC.)

Image from CensusDiggins.

TTT: Know if you need an IDP before you go

Just a couple of days before we left for Germany with our grand plans of driving the autobahn in a few different countries, I remembered reading something about international driver permits being required by some countries.  Ya know, I should’ve thought about that when we were planning to drive in Mexico too, but it didn’t occur to me until it was mentioned on one of the webpages while we were renting the car.

So… for your next trip out of the country, check out this list, which identifies countries requiring IDPs as well as countries in which you should get one or definitely don’t need one.

How do you get one?  Thankfully it’s a quick and easy process.  If you’re planning well in advance, you can get one by mail with AAA by filing out this application and sending it in.  If you’re in a hurry, some AAA offices will make the thing for you in as little as 15 minutes at the same cost as the mail-in form.  Just make sure to call ahead and double check that your nearest office provides this service as not all of them do.

Destination: Olympia

Like Athens, I think of Olympia as another one of those must-see places in Greece.  I was thrilled that our itinerary included a stop at nearby Katakolon.

Triangle: Taste of Durham

Check out the fifth annual Taste of Durham at the Imperial Center tomorrow. 

What is it?  A food, wine, and beer tasting event with live entertainment.

When is it?  Tomorrow! Saturday, May 23, 2009, 11a-7p

How much is it? That’s a little more complex – it’s $4 in advance or $6 at the door to get in to the area.  Then you buy coins to pay for whatever tastings you want to do.  A coin is $1.  1 coin will buy a soda or water; restaurant samplings will be 1-5 coins; each beer or wine tasting table will be 1-2 coins; and beer/wine concessions will be 4-6 coins.

It sounds like a great thing to do tomorrow.  Have you been to one of the past events?  I wish they had more info on the website.  While they do have information about the food sampling,  they don’t have much info on the wine and beer side of things.  Frankly, those are the things that would get me to attend.  If you attend, let me know!  Hopefully I’ll find out some more info about this and attend next year.

Triangle: Durham’s City Guide

The fabulous Design*Sponge recently shared a guide to Durham from photographer, blogger, and Durhamite, Jessie Gladin-Kramer.  Check it out!  She tells you where to eat, shop, drink, and visit.  She also gives shout outs to a few blogs, including one of my new favorites, Carpe Durham (“Ramblings about food by people whose only qualification is that they eat a lot”).

TTT: Test your shoes

This Travel Tip Tuesday comes from our most recent trip.  Test your shoes before you leave.  This seems obvious, right?  Wellllll…. I got new shoes for the trip the day before we left.  Normally I wouldn’t do that, but, as you know, I didn’t know I was going a cooler climate until just two days before we left.  I found shoes that didn’t seem to require any breaking in period – they were comfy from the beginning.  That turned out to be correct.  What I didn’t realize is that the strap, which was secured by Velcro, on one shoe came off super easily!  Oops!  So this was a regular sight during the week:

If I’d tested this a bit more, I probably would’ve glued the darned thing down.

Restaurant Week Review: Savoy

Last night I had dinner at Savoy (Raleigh, NC) with my husband and 5 of our friends.  Savoy is one of the participating restaurants in Triangle Restaurant Week, so it was 3 courses for $25.  We were all looking forward to trying a new restaurant, and we were even pretty excited about the menu.  The overall consensus was that the food was pretty good, the atmosphere was nice, and the service was pretty bad.

TTT: Skip the Benetton luggage

I’m really sad to share with you this particular travel tip, but I feel I must.  I’ve been intrigued by hard shell luggage for several years – it seems like such a terrific choice if you might be bringing home breakable items.  Unfortunately, not all hard shell suitcases are created equal.  My travel tip today is to skip the suitcases from United Colors of Benetton.

Destination: Athens

Athens is the gateway to Greece.  Although it’s not the best of Greece in my opinion, it’s still a must-see.  I agree with Rick Steves – see the main sites here and get out.  We had what amounted to just half a day in Athens on our cruise, so I’ll share with you what I learned from that perspective.