Self review: Requiem

[Hendu3270]

I've been on the forums for awhile now and for some reason have never visited this tread. Great job Gustavo. This was an interesting thread to read through. I'll definitely be checking back in to see what's going on with you. Blog on!!

[Requiem]

Thanks, Chris.

Next weekend I will cross the ocean to visit the US. In Fall River I'll go to "The Old Firehouse", the local B&M. If I have the chance, "LJ Perreti" is the place to go in Boston, I ear.
What about in Manhattan? Any pipe shop worth a visit?
I´m not planning to buy much, as I already have 3 pipes waiting for me and more tobacco then what I'm allowed to re-enter in europe with... however, I want to get 5 or 6 MM cobs and one pipe reamer... maybe another pipe if I catch a really good deal, or maybe a Dr. Grabow (just for being a classic).

Meanwhile, here's a pic of me and my wife at last weekend's picnic. Gorgeous, isn´t she?


About the HCA: after about 8 1/3 bowls, yesterday I had a 2/3 bowl of BBF... still extremely hot. I guess it can´t really handle virginias.
Also, I found a old thread from Club Stoggie where a fellow member was having the same problem.
Stanwell Hans Christian Anderson
Beware, people interested in buying one... I just hope it handles english/balkans better.

[Requiem]

Trip to the USA (part 1)

Our visit started by landing at Boston's airport and there towards Fall River (a one hour ride).
Fall River, where my wife's relatives live, is a little city on the decline. Unemployment is on the rise, as the clothing industries were shut down or moved away. The city is now full of abandoned big buildings and weeds grow on the sidewalks... Fortunately, all this bacy (except for the Artisan's Blend) and three classy pipes where waiting to welcome me.



So far, I only had three of this: Northwoods, Frog Morton on the Town, and Virginia nº 22, because I already had too many tins popped at Portugal and don’t want my tobaccos to get bone dry. Still, I can’t make a review on those blends yet, as I smoked mainly outdoors and not very often during the trip.
However, I think I already can roughly evaluate the new pipes, ...

This Boswell free-hand poker smokes great. Perfect drilling, while the ultra-thick walls make it as cool as one would expect it, and the bowl is very deep... most probably this pipe will be a favourite for virginia flakes.



The Stanwell Golden Danish canadian is not as big as I thought it would be, but I'm in love with it. The walls are quite thin, which means it takes a considerable amount of tobacco to fill it up, yet it smokes extremely cool even if puffed fast. I find it beautifull and it provides a dry and smooth smoke. Perfect drilling. I'm sure this will be one of my best pipes once it gets fully broken. The plan is to dedicate it to virginias.



This Brebbia's bent billiard's draft hole his drilled too high on the bowl. It is impossible to smoke the last portion of tobacco although it smokes cool and dry. It will probably go to english/balkans use. I know I could have sent it back, but staying only for two weeks and with lots of places to visit I simply didn´t want to bother with it.



Two days after our arrival, we went on a five days visit to New York City. Nice hotel, two blocks away from Times Square, great meals at nice restaurants, bus tours all around Manhattan, and lots of interesting shows to watch and places to visit. What a city! I was a London fan before, but now if I get in the mood for a big city there's none other than NY. The tops of our visit: Central Park; Journey through the Stars (a virtual reality show at the Natural History Museum-Rose Center); Mamma Mia (yes the musical... the wife loved it and I enjoyed it very much too - gladly, we didn’t watch the movie before); lunch at Carmine's (43th St. W) and the overall organization level on the Big Apple... impressive.
Bottom: Chinatown (not worth the time, IMO).
..


Many miles walked per day and the local rush are not very compatible with pipe smoking and I lighted up only once, at Bryant Park by night.
Indoor smoking is strictly forbidden (except in smoke shops) but I found no outdoors smoking restrictions at all.
Being on a tight kind of schedule, visits to smoke shops were not many but I managed to walk into De La Concha (on Av. of the Americas I believe, near Central Park) which had a nice selection of baccy and medium to high grade pipes, all on inflated NY prices.
Also passed by a strange looking cigar shop, on Downtown, but no pipe stuff there.
New York, I'll surely be back!

Stay tunned for part 2...

[rrb]

Mais um Tuga por estas bandas. Tropecei aqui e tenho que dizer que estou a achar este teu post deveras interessante. Bom trabalho ( ou devo dizer prazer?). Cumprimentos.

[jcats]

Thank you for sharing.

[Zeabed]

Congratulations! I hope the "Spoils from Egypt" made it alright back to Portugal! Great record of all the fun you had in your visit. Thanks for posting these great photographs.

P.S., I didn't know you married a beauty queen, seu maroto.

[turtlelax23]

Originally Posted by Requiem

I fit into a portuguese tradicional saying which states: "He can boil on low water" (do other countries have the same saying?) which means: he can get irritated quite easily, (though I'm very cool at most occasions)...
However, those are quick bad-temper explosions and a pipe is the perfect thing to cool it down.

A fact of life seems to be the increase of speed on how quickly life goes buy. Being english a second language to me, I'll give a common example: When we where kids, time seemed to run very slowly... we all wanted to grow up fast, so that we could have girls, drive cars, and smoke... that seemed like centurys through, comparing to how fast time passes by, while being an adult.

The magic of the pipe is related to that, in my opinion.

The pipe, like a couple of other special hobbys I keep (I collect and love comic books/graphic novels) has the power to slow down Time. When you light a pipe (at perfect conditions), you often get into a calmer, relaxed, slower environment, a safe realm where you can concentrate, relax, enjoy...

Nevertheless, I'm still going to shout at whoever locked my car in, last night.

------smoking-------

Made a pause on writing this post to have another bowl of EBM, this time in a Peterson p-lip. (Will do a post about the p-lip, in the future.)
My first EBM bowl of the night, right after the previous post, was in my Savinelli Tundra 628 rusticated (the couple is depicted bellow).



Erinmore Balkan Mixture is a very well balanced, medium-light, latakia/orientals mixture. It is smoky, creamy, the spiciest among others I've tried in the range.
Just for the record, on the English side, I´ve tried at least a tin of:
Old Dublin; Squadron Leader; Presbyterian Mixture (just a few bowls, given by a friend - any latakia on this???); Red Rapparee; Black Mallory; Commontwealth; Erinmore Balkan Mix., roughly by that order.
Given those terms of comparision, I think EBM is something in beetween Black Mallory and Squadron Leader, although in another completly sub-category (not quite much help, right...?)
It is much spicy-hotter, rounder, sweeter than SL, but not as earthy and without the latakia smokie feel of Black Mallory.
I'm still to try the Dunhill blends, which I will do soon, but some say EBM is similar to Dunhill's EMP.

All in all, it's a surprise to me that this blend is not very well known (according to tobaccoreviews, at least) as I dare to advice even the most experienced smoker to give it a try.

I love this pipe. Very nice look.
I am also quickly becoming addicted to your post in this thread. I wish I could light up a bowl as I am reading it but I am either at work (can't smoke at work) or home (can't smoke in the apartment)...

[Requiem]

Thank you all for your comments.

Trip to the USA (part 2)

Back from N.Y. we still had about a week to enjoy. We were blessed by the generosity and kindness of our american friends who drove us everywhere we went... from and to the airport, to and from N.Y., everywhere!
On that second week we had the chance to visit the stylish beach of Newport with its impressive mansions (in size and number), the colourfull Province Town and Boston.



Boston is beautifull and pleasing, with lots of open spaces and interesting places to visit. It looks like a fine city to live in.
About tobacco and pipe smoking, in Boston I didn´t go to LJ Peretti (though I was very close from it, at some point) but during that second week I smoked very often, mostly by night in the porch (much better then smoking at a tall building's balcony).
In Fall River I went to "The Old Firehouse smokeshop" where I had my only indoors puffs... very nice store, good people to have a chat with, nice tobaccos and pipes selection (also cigars, in a walk in hummidor) . I stayed in there for 2 hours and bought a Peterson 2009 St. Patrick's day billiard (fishtail) and a tin of Artisan's Blend.
Also walked in a smoke shop in Newport, but bought nothing there (no GLP's tobaccos, just McC, MacB, and Peterson's).



What I ended up not finding was a tin of Union Square and the 5 cobs I was looking for... Cobs where sold out on every Walgreen and Walmart I looked into. Thankfully, just before leaving, my wife found a couple of them in a Rite Aid shop.

All in all, we had the most amazing trip and returned very impressed by the people and the country.