Monday November 5th 2018, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 4:57
Monday Average: 8:36
Best Monday: 4:10

I flew through the today’s crossword sipping coffee and looking over the square in Belgrade Center, which unfortunately is under construction so only the statue is currently IN SITU (am I using that correctly?). I’ve only recently left the land of Mother TERESA (where I also saw a cool CAROUSEL in the Tirana city center) and chose to buy a tiny statue of Tsar Simeon instead of her tiny statue at the airport to spend the last of my Albanian currency, so we’re just short of a proper coincidence.

Today’s theme was SOUND BITES, as you can see from the longer theme answers including possible sounds of bites. It’s also just barely short of another theme with its snap, crunch (?), pop... so close. TOOTSIE POP, CAPN CRUNCH, and GINGER SNAP make up the theme answers and the fact that they already directly refer to food and to a lesser extent the sounds they make, it’s a little underwhelming. Wouldn’t it have been more interesting with answers like “pop the question,” “snap judgment,” and “crunch time?” Of course, you’d probably actually want to get “crackle” in there so you could go full Rice Krispies, but I can’t think of any “crackle” expressions off the top of my head.

I didn’t know the word ROUÉ for a “debauched man” before, so it’s always nice to learn a useful word from a Monday puzzle.

I have just one more school visit left today and then I’m driving to Ljubljana. Here’s to a new country!

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