Wednesday November 7th 2018, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 12:02
Wednesday Average: 17:27
Best Wednesday: 7:24

I might have found my new favorite setting for a crossword and that's the train from Ljubljana to Vienna. Throw in some espresso and an apple börek to go along with the mountains and castles and I'm just saying YES YES all the way. Even ROYALS never had it so good. ALAS, I don't think I'll manage to pull this situation off too often in my life, no matter how I might ANGLE FOR it.

Today's puzzle also hit my literary references just right, so I'm certain to get TILT AT WINDMILLS for "*Fight imaginary enemies" without needing any crosses. Obviously, we have WHALER for "Captain Ahad, e.g." and I immediately wrote but tragically misspelled Coleridge's "The EOLIAN Harp," starting with an A because I'm more familiar with the Aeolian spelling. That actually cost me about 4 minutes of searching, since it was crossing crosswordy EWER, which one day I'll remember as a large jug with a wide mouth.

Actually, that last square was filled in for me by the theme, which is based in PISA ITALY and if you look at the circled squares you'll see that they spell out "Leaning Tower" and hey, they kind of  make up the shape too. You then have themed answers of TIP SHEETS and PITCH OUT along with the other two mentioned above, all starting with synonyms for "Lean." Good stuff!

OK, my only objection in this puzzle is probably GAL PAL and I'd clumsily try to write why, but I think Urban Dictionary, weirdly enough, kinda nails it: "The word straight people use when they don't want to acknowledge that lesbian relationships exist."

All right, I'm off to TIE ONE ON in Vienna. 

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