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I got a reason! Three childr����:�1111 p spin yarns about favorite d tinations away from home. MIHO HATORI, Cibo Matto located on the upper heel of th of Italy, in the Puglia region. 1.llIr:� ��� l •••••• · ( e on Accessible by car, rail or small plane, th ' � the Adriatic Sea is essentia of Italy. Not in the way it looks or the type of people who live there, the vibe it gives off-kind of working c ass, and very metropolitan. My bandmate Yuka Honda has friends there, Francesco and Paula. When we visited, we got together and played music. Francesco, like most Italians, was late for everything, and that's why he was the inspiration for our song "Know Your Chicken," which is an old saying in Italy. Italians often announce, "I know my chicken," me�ning "Don't worry, I know my shit." About 15 miles south of Bari is the tiny fishing village Monopoli. The town is stacked on hills across from the sea. All the houses there-in fact every building you see-is a pasty white trul/i, much like in the Greek islands. Cliffs opposite the ocean stretch 100 meters up. In the evening, fishermen cast their lines to see what's biting. On a clear night, the moon looks so huge and gold-as if it is carrying itself on the mirror of the ocean. The winter temperature is usually a sunny 60°F, the ocean is crystal clear, there are plenty of delicious pastas and sangrias to taste and the Italians never eat last night's cheese. JODY BLEYLE, Hazel My band and I were stuck in northern Germany when a week-long hole opened up in our itinerary. Gathered around a phone in Siegen, we looked for our best option. We weighed the potential for book ing last-minute rock shows against the potential for exploring the Alps. The next morning we were in the Fiat "II Ducato" heading to Bern, Switzerland. The water coursing through Bern's Aare River is closer to the color of "tropical" water (as in credit card commercials) than any water I've ever seen. The Aare is also the most efficient public trans portation I've ever ridden. As it snakes through the city, you can jump into the deluge, float along with the locals, then grab onto eas ily accessible red handles installed every 50 yards and ascend a stair way to the bank. One day we took a walk and ran into the Aare. It was run ning alongside a public park (manicured like a Poconos golf course), complete with a kid's lap and diving pool. We disrobed and rushed downstream again and again, alongside groups of garrulous women in bathing caps. As we dried in the sun on the lawn beneath the cap ital building of Switzerland, we thought, "Shit, they have a lot of money," and, "Who let us in this place?" We stayed and played at the Reitschule, a former military school, now a legal squat with the best food and welded doors in Europe. We played mini-foosball at Zaffaraya, a piece of land strewn with' old circus cars, one hose and a bunch of radical freaks and bordered by a. police station, a highway and an on-ramp. There were so many acci dents on the highway from people gawking at this growing town of old buses that the city planted a border of trees about 50 feet wide with an app'arently subsidized pot field and garden (it's legal to grow your own marijuana in Switzerland) along the highway. We experienced finer recre ation than ecotourists at Epcot Center, and it was all for free. JOSEPHINE WIGGS, The Josephine Wiggs Experience In a crook of the Rio Grande, where the border between Texas and Mexico sweeps southwards for a hundred miles or so, lies Big Bend National Park-a landscape of mountain ranges and desert plains with an array of extraordinary flora and arid beauty. The park's campsite at Rio Grande Village is lush and green when compared to the faded desert. Every night at dusk, a family of javelinas (small, furry wild boars) trotted through, snuffling among· our tents. Every morning when we awoke, turkey vultures rested, black and ominous, in the trees above. The waters of the Rio Grande are warm, fed by nearby hot springs. On the road to Boquillas Canyon, a dirt track ends at derelict buildings and a grove of palms the remains of a spa resort from the 1920s. A narrow path leads to the springs contained within low crumbling walls at the river's edge; the torrent beyond is turbid and fast. Swimming, says the Park Service brochure, is "neither prohibited nor encouraged." Further pithy advice is offered on desert postings: An "aggres sive" mountain lion warning suggests that hikers should attempt to "appear large" in the event of a meeting. We laughed nervously. Bears were the large carnivore to watch for on our five-hour hike in the Chisos Mountains along the Lost Mines Trail. At the summit (7,650 feet), pinon pines give way to bare rock and a panoramic view of adjacent peaks, wooded valleys and the shimmer of the desert on the horizon.