Lobby Bar – November 2: Spaghetti in the Tube, Blue Christmases, and ‘I’ll Take Famous 17th Century Native Americans for $100, Alex!’

Lobby Bar: Brought to You By the English Alphabet

His bite is actually worse.  Checking in to the Hotel Jerome in Aspen, Jonathan Spira met the seemingly friendly four-legged concierge, who was wagging his tail in greeting the new guest. Unfortunately, Jonathan thought the concierge was offering him a welcome bone but that turned out not to be the case.

Over the river and through the woods.  Jesse Sokolow looks at important events in Novembers past and uses his time machine to go back to the very first Thanksgiving.  There he gets into an argument with Squanto over the best recipe for stuffing and refuses to leave until Squanto agrees that stuffing is better than potatoes.

‘Tis the season? Once again, Christian Stampfer takes a look at the best Christmas markets in Austria, Belgium, Germany, and the United Kingdom.  To do this, he borrowed Jesse’s time machine and went to the very first Christmas market, the December Market in Vienna in 1294. He had to leave in a hurry after inadvertently insulting the Austrians by telling them that, in the future, Austria would never win the World Cup, kangaroo mascot notwithstanding.

La dolce vita, ancora.  To counter the promised Tube strike, Transit for London, the agency responsible for the London Underground, sold itself to Italian train operator Trenitalia.  In testifying before the House of Commons, Charles Montgomery Langstaff-Foster, the head of TfL, said the move would increase efficiencies, make the trains run on time, and eliminate the likelihood of future strikes.

When one door opens, another closes. Meanwhile, U.S. citizens will now be able to use U.K. ePassport gates to speed their entry into the country.  However, authorities are still trying to figure out what to do with all the arriving tourists since there will be no trains to take them anywhere.

(Photo: Accura Media Group)