Elsewhere

An Ode to Street Photography and How it Has Made Me a Better Traveler

My mother gave me perhaps the best photography advice I’ve ever received: “When you see everyone taking a photo in one direction, turn around and shoot in the opposite direction.”  She gave me that advice for a wedding I was about to photograph.  But my mother had become my photography teacher long before when we first started wandering the streets of Mexicali, Mexico together in the 1980s.

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My mom took this photo of me in our backyard in Bloomington, Indiana, when she was pursuing her master’s in photography.

We had fairly recently relocated to El Centro, California by way of Bloomington, Indiana, where my mother had gotten her master’s in photography. She was eager to keep practicing her craft, and the urban capital of Baja California, Mexico, just a few miles away across the border, was the perfect opportunity. It was an ideal setting for her to work on her hip shot photography, a technique in street photography where you “shoot from the hip” instead of putting the camera to your eye and alerting your subjects that you are taking a photo. Many of the famous street photographers at the time were known for their work in urban areas of the United States and Europe, but not so much in Mexico.

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El Centro, California and neighboring Mexicali, Mexico may be neighbors, but are very different places. Mexicali has a population of 690,000 and El Centro has a population around 44,000.

I was very young at the time, around six, and neither my mother nor I spoke any Spanish. We would wander the streets of Mexicali in the daytime, me eying the many window displays we passed, hoping my mom would buy me a little gift in exchange for cooperating with our long walks, and my mother busily focusing on the often chaotic environment around us as she took her photos covertly. We crossed back and forth over the border on foot, lucky to have the privilege of our United States citizenship to cross with relative ease, and the assumed lack of threat or culpability of a young white American mother and her child were also on our side.

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This is one of my mother’s hip shots that she took in Mexicali. Click the photo to view the album.

It was meant to be that we were able to cross so easily into this city that was so close yet so different, because the work my mother did was very unusual at the time – and is now unusual again for different reasons – telling stories of the lives of citizens of Mexicali that had not often been told to a U.S. audience. Some days she’d also lug her large format camera across the border and wander into neighborhoods where my mother would charm her way into people’s homes and take their portraits. I would wait for her outside, and the children would try to talk to me, and then tease me when they realized I didn’t speak Spanish.

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These are my mother’s large format photos. Click the photo to view the album.

When I look back on our mother-daughter adventures with ten years of solo travel under my belt, it dawns on me that those formative trips to Mexicali have probably affected my approach and passion for travel and photography more than I ever realized. Following in the spirit of my mother and her hip shot photography, my camera amplifies my curiosity about my environment, encouraging me to be content wandering a city instead of checking off a bucket list, and being drawn in not only by the buildings, art, and views that I pass, but also by the people around them and how they are interacting with each other in these spaces. I am so grateful to have had this rare opportunity as an American to acclimate to being comfortable outside of the U.S. at a young age, a gift that has supported me time and time again.

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My mom and I just a few years ago on a trip to Mexicali just for dinner – no long walks this time.

A great benefit of these uncertain times, where travel and exploration are indefinitely on hold, is the opportunity for artists to work on their craft and organize previous works.  My mother has happily embraced new technologies, and you can view her work on Flickr by clicking here or on the images above.  I’ve embraced a platform that is photographer-friendly called Steller, and have recently put together a collection of some of my favorite street photos in Italy.

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This is a photo I took on the beach in Cervia, Italy. Click on the photo to see the rest of the collection in my Steller story.

But my love of street photography isn’t just limited to my own work – I take great joy in taking in an exhibit or a book of street photography. Unlike other forms of art where composition can be a dominant element of the work, street photography’s dominant element is often storytelling. I love seeing a street photographer’s photo for the first time that appears, at first glance, forgettable, which is an alert for me that there’s a really good story there for the finding. And then I take the time to figure out what story the photographer found in this photo, and what story it is telling me. They often aren’t the same story, which is beautiful. Some of the most memorable street photography exhibitions I’ve seen have been at Fotografiska (The Swedish Museum of Photography), in Stockholm. But there is also a wonderful photography museum in my home base, the Museum of Photographic Arts, in San Diego, that exhibits incredible work.

One of my favorite street captures: A pair of girls on their way home from school, sharing gossip in front of the Ferragamo headquarters in Florence.

I wrote this article this week because the art of street photography is partially supported by the belief that everyone has a story to tell, so there are infinite quantities of stories to be found in every person we see when we are walking on the street. In this period of tumultuousness and disconnectedness, embracing an art like street photography and the idea that strangers, friends, and perceived enemies alike have an important story to tell, is a way that art can help bring us back together. I hope you’ll take some time to give some street photos a longer look. And maybe even give it a try yourself, when the time is right. Sometimes, shooting from the hip can be a good thing!

How to Kiss the Blarney Stone

It is a curious practice we have of kissing a 330 million-year-old dirty limestone. Legend has it that those who kiss the Blarney Stone are given the “gift of gab.” What is gab, anyway?  And more importantly, why do we want it?  Being a “talker” isn’t usually the most desirable trait — am I wrong?
Shockingly, kissing the Blarney Stone was not on my shortlist of priorities during my month-long tour of the Irish coast, inspired by Rick Steves.  The city of Cork was on my shortlist, however, a gorgeous city well-worth a visit in southern Ireland, just a two-and-a-half hour train ride from Dublin.  Blarney Castle, where you find the Blarney Stone, is a short trip outside of Cork.
When I arrived in Cork I didn’t have much of an itinerary planned, which is how I like to travel.  My Irish-American father reminded me of the once-in-a-lifetime Ireland trip my great aunts made many decades ago, which had included a trip to kiss the Blarney Stone.  So I thought, sigh, OK.  Twist my arm. Why not?
I started hinting to new Irish friends that I was considering kissing the Blarney Stone, and they were mostly all disgusted with me – in the most positive of ways, of course.  I have become accustomed to being balked at by locals for my tourist activities, as this kind of reaction was akin to what I experienced in Austria when I told people I went to Salzburg partly to visit The Sound of Music locations. And could I really blame the Irish for judging me for deciding to willingly risk infection from swapping spit with strangers for the chance at acquiring the gift of gab?
My Irish friends were more than a few steps ahead of me in understanding this endeavor, as I was starting to realize I had no idea what I was getting into.  My first clue should have been when our tour bus driver included a disclaimer about being afraid of heights before we set off to the Blarney Castle from Cork. Strange, I thought, having imagined the stone fixed in the middle of a glorious garden with a sword sticking out of it.
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I soon discovered my childhood fantasies weren’t anything close to reality.  Shocker.
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After entering the gorgeous-beyond-your-wildest-expectations grounds of the Blarney Castle via a Disneyland-esque entrance, it took me a while to recover from my shock at the beauty of my surroundings and make my way toward the Blarney Castle, where we were told we would find the stone.
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Inside the castle itself there isn’t much to see above what you would expect from an old castle.  You know, the typical dungeon down below and a dusty “kitchen” that looks more like a few piles of old rubble.
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Having been built many hundreds of years before people considered the handicapped in their architecture, the claustrophobic, winding staircase that was the only way to get to the Blarney Stone – which was apparently on the roof – left much to be desired.  It was not my first medieval staircase but it was definitely the most memorable.
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Grateful to see the light of day again on the roof of the Blarney Castle, I took a moment to catch my breath but promptly lost it again when I had a moment to take in the view of the immense and lush grounds from above.  I busied myself taking photos of the view while I worked up the nerve for what came next, which I had by this time understood that this kissing the Blarney Stone business was somehow designed more for gymnasts than your average tourist, requiring you to lay on your back and lean off the edge of the roof and kiss the stone upside down.  Being there early in the day meant no line and not very ample opportunity to fester in my surprise and back out of the whole endeavor.  The dramatic American women who arrived just behind me didn’t calm my apprehension with their loud proclamations of “barely” making it up the staircase, and one woman’s tearful protest and insistence on leaving.
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I also considered sneaking down the exit staircase, but was heartened by the piles of anti-bacterial spray and paper towels sitting by the stone’s setup, and was spurred along by the ladies that had eventually decided to go for it.
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“Your turn” the jolly Irish Blarney Castle worker yelled at me, and the photographer asked me if I wanted a photo.
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I was too busy fending the two off to think much about what was going on, which was that I suddenly found myself hanging backwards, upside-down, to kiss the Blarney Stone.  It was cold, and hard. And dry, thankfully.  The jolly Irish gentleman helped me up, and it was all over before I knew it.
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It took about three minutes to recover from the whole ordeal.  At which time I don’t know that I was overwhelmed with a gift of gab so much as a feeling of relief and – ok, yes, accomplishment – for this small yet important task I had, surprisingly, completed.  While the tradition wasn’t so revered by the local Irish, my experience kissing the Blarney Stone made me feel closer to my aunts that had done the same thing so many years ago, probably as a nod to the heritage that their parents brought with them when they came to the U.S.
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The trip down the staircase was notably easier than going up.  And I spent the remaining time we had allotted by the tour company exploring the grounds of the castle.
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The size and scope of the property and the imagination and meticulousness with which it was tended made me feel like I was winding my way through a living museum of Irish history.
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I could have spent days there learning from the stories that the plants and architecture were telling.
I always say my first visit to a country or city, and even an attraction, is my “throw-away” trip, where I learn what I like and don’t like, and if I want to return, what I would do to make my second visit as perfect as it could be. The Blarney Castle is absolutely a place I will return, and give myself plenty of time to get lost in the gardens. The gift of gab, though, I have plenty of. So next time around, the smooching of the Blarney Stone I’ll leave to my tourist friends.
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Vlog: Gracefully Global Goes to Ireland – A celebration of music on the Emerald Isle

My time in Ireland this year developed in me a love for the Irish that will never go away. Of the many qualities I fell in love with about the Irish is their love of music, poetry, and performance.  This was the connection to my family heritage that I subconsciously sought after.  My grandpa was a first-generation Irish-American and a paid actor in FDR’s Works Progress Administration.  This video prompted my dad to tell me for the first time that my grandpa had also been a singing waiter in Brooklyn.  The pieces of family history are slowly but surely coming together, and I thank my time in Ireland for a lot of that.

Since leaving Ireland, I’ve told so many stories of the special nights in the Irish pubs with locals singing and dancing, that I drove up a bit of demand for sharing the beautiful music and performance that I experienced. So, I decided to make my next vlog be a focus on the music I experienced during my trip.  This is my edit of the sounds from a few of my favorite performances I witnessed, which I paired with video I took on my phone of some of Ireland’s beautiful landscapes. I hope you enjoy, and I hope you make it to Ireland soon.

Oh, and don’t forget to turn your sound up!   🙂

Stepping Into Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera’s Mexico City

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It is hard to imagine that two artists alone could make an indelible mark on a city that would sustain for decades, a century, or more.  Yet Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo’s legacy in Mexico City – the fifth largest city in the world – is still very real and tangible.  As a photographer, theatre artist, and arts advocate, I feel at home in cities that embrace art, and Mexico City is no exception.  I relished every opportunity on my recent trip to experience the Mexico that Rivera and Kahlo knew and loved, taking in their art and visiting their homes and haunts.
In fact, I dedicated an entire day-and-a-half of my Mexico City vacation to my immersion into the world of Diego and Frida.  Here’s where I went:

Museo Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo
Calle Diego Rivera 2, Álvaro Obregón, San Angel Inn, 01060
+52 55 8647 5470
The home and studio of Diego Rivera where Frida Kahlo also lived and worked for many years, famous for its incredible architecture by Juan O’Gorman.
Time needed: 1 to 2 hours

Call me Jane: Adventures in the Los Tuxtlas jungle of Veracruz, Mexico

I woke up in Veracruz City on the second to last day of 2016 having no idea I’d be going to bed that night in a jungle.  Our hostel owner at the Oyster Hostel in Veracruz moonlights as a tour guide and is passionate about the many offerings of the dynamic state of Veracruz, especially the region of Los Tuxtlas around Laguna Catemaco which was our destination that day, compliments of his comfy mini-SUV.

We spent much of the day in the car, winding through the rural countryside of Veracruz on our journey to Catemaco, making pit stops along the way at a famous Cuban-style cigar factory, and a humongous waterfall.  The people-watching was as good as it gets.

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There was “animal watching” too, unfortunately.  I witnessed a group of turkeys standing in the rain along the road, very malnourished and somehow given up on life as their owner tried to hawk them to passing cars.  That was depressing.

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But Catemaco wasn’t.  We had no idea what to expect, which is somehow the best of ways to approach a new place. After arriving, we spent the rest of the late afternoon exploring Laguna Catemaco on a boat owned by a friend of our hostel owner.

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From land, the scale of the lake was impossible to recognize, as the lakeshore was lined by trees.  But when we actually got on the lake, I was overtaken by the size.  We sped along on the boat so quickly that the bumps of waves we hit started to feel like concrete speed bumps that sent us flying, over and over again.

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We explored every corner of the lake, from a lakeshore stop for volcanic mud face masks offered by the wife of our boat guide outside the vacation home of the owner of the cigar factory,

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to the sunset stop to drink water from a hole along the lake where naturally carbonated water comes up from the earth,

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and finally a pause in our boat to roll along the small waves of the lake for a few minutes and watch the monkeys on a small island.

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My favorite moment was turning the boat to the west and darting off into the sunset, as the least bashful of the monkeys watched us disappear while peeling a banana another boat had thrown at him.

We went to bed that night in one of the two guest rooms off of a coffee shop.

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I showered with no hot water and went to sleep hoping the thousands of birds that populated the trees along the shore wouldn’t wake us up too early.  Luckily, I woke up surprisingly refreshed the next morning, the last day of 2016, and enjoyed talking to the other guests over breakfast.  They asked what our plan was for the day, and I told him we were exploring the Reserva Ecológica de Nanciyaga, which is supposedly the most visited fee-based attraction in the region of Los Tuxtlas.  In other words, there weren’t many other options.

The reserve’s name, Nanciyaga, comes from the Nahuatl language and means “at the end of the Nance trees.”  I did some research on the area, and the discontinuous rainforest belt of Middle America reaches its northernmost extent on the mainland in southeastern Mexico.  Apparently, the forest in this region is not a rainforest, though, and is instead considered to be a moist forest.

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Ha!  Whatever that means.

We easily found a taxi to drive us the beautiful four-mile stretch along the lake to the reserve, the same route we had taken by boat yesterday.

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I was apprehensive about what we would find at the nature reserve, bracing myself for potential encounters with caged, unhappy animals, which happens sometimes when groups market themselves as sanctuaries to increase tourism.

When we arrived we were the only ones in sight other than the nice woman at the wooden ticket booth.  I don’t remember how much we paid to get in, but it was around five dollars each, and maybe even less.  After paying, the woman waved us toward a young man carrying a tall stick, who turned out to be our volunteer guide.  Instead of letting us wander around on our own and get ourselves into trouble, this young gentleman took us up and down the winding dirt paths and through a history of the ancient Olmec culture, and a bit of a background on the wildlife that call the Los Tuxtlas Biosphere Reserve home.   

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The ecological park is a self-sustaining property made up of ten acres along lake Catemaco including a mineral spring (Nipapaqui natural hot tub), a tiny lagoon for swimming, small bungalows that  accommodate overnight guests, and a wonderful open-air restaurant serving three meals a day to guests, but closing at sunset for those not staying on the property.

Really, though, there was so much more to the property than expected, which we discovered through our sweet young guide.   We stopped along the dirt path as we encountered random replicas of Olmec sculptures he used as talking points.  Highlights of the property included the temazcal (sweat lodge), which is actually functioning,  and group treatments are scheduled throughout the month.

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As a theatre person, I loved their outdoor amphitheater.  And then, of course, I was shocked-but-not-shocked at the wall of printed photos of guests in mud baths, mixed with pictures of celebrities.  Apparently, parts of Medicine Man (1992) with Sean Connery and Lorraine Bracco, and Apocalypto (2006) with Mel Gibson were filmed here.  The owner, a woman, is happily pictured in a photo with Mel Gibson.

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After enjoying the photo wall, we entered the wooden structure and found ourselves in a small but clean and lovely open-air salon.

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My friend enjoyed a mud face treatment, while I purchased the dried mud and some patchouli soap to take home.  Folklore claims a princess used to cross over from a neighboring island to use the mud in this region to beautify herself.  I took that as a strong hint I should be doing the same.

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Once my friend’s face was thoroughly green from this miracle mud, we left the salon to discover rows upon rows of tied leaves laid out for us to select from.  I was bewildered, as everything was in Spanish, so it was becoming a bit hard to keep up with all the surprises.  I followed my friend’s lead, green face and all, as he picked up a leaf and dipped it into a bucket of water.  To my surprise, the leaves were watertight, and the water was carbonated.  I took a gulp from my leaf cup: the water had a familiar taste, and I wondered if they pulled it from the same hole we had drunk from the evening before.  This was the first time, and possibly the last, I had drunk from a leaf. So far, so good.  I was thoroughly charmed by our jungle adventure.

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But the surprises didn’t end there. The handy leaf cup maker, a nice young woman, asked if we wanted to have a “White Magic” treatment.  I wasn’t aware of this at the time but later discovered from the mother of great friends of mine near Mexicali, Mexico, that this region of Veracruz was famous, or perhaps infamous, for its traditions of magic.  My friend and I decided to participate together, and we spent a thoroughly unusual but surprisingly pleasant five minutes being swept with leaves as our white magic doctor chanted and prayed around us.  At the end of the ceremony, he presented us with a clay ceramic face on a ribbon to wear around our necks, that he had blessed for us to ward off the spirits.  I keep it in my purse.  I figure I need all the help I can get. ;b

Our adventure continued alongside an algae-filled lagoon inhabited by more than a few crocodiles and turtles, with a fence separating us humans from these prehistoric-looking characters.  They were as still as statues.

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 And the turtles perched along the long wooden logs looked like a cartoon.

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Along with these guys, the area is apparently known for rich birdlife, including toucans and parrots, which we saw from a distance.

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In 2003, a few Howler monkeys were reintroduced in the reserve which apparently did well.  We saw a large iguana and babies.  And we didn’t see any unhappy animals.  I was relieved.

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Our tour wound down, and our guide showed my friend where to wash off his mask.

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Bowls of fresh patchouli leaves adorned the sinks, and our guide smiled and encouraged me to use them as my soap.

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I loved them: the fiber seemed to scrub my hands clean and left a wonderful scent.  We tipped our guide nicely as he handed me back my soap and mud that he’d carried, and we bid each other goodbye, at which point we were let loose in this little paradise!  I was thrilled.  It was lunchtime, and lunch at the open-air restaurant seemed like a perfect idea.

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We talked to a chef who managed the dessert bar, and she showed us some of the traditional cakes that they offer, tempting us to leave some room for later.

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We enjoyed a thoroughly relaxing, delicious lunch on the lakeshore, a beautiful piñata blowing in the wind above us.

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After lunch, we made our way back up the winding dirt paths to the wooden ticket booths and asked the woman to call us a taxi. While we waited, we chatted with the volunteer guides waiting for the next visitors to arrive. They were local students and all very proud to be a part of the reserve.

The visit couldn’t have gone better. I’ve promised myself I will return, and next time I will stay at the reserve. Full of good energy, happy people, and happy animals, this is the type of place I want to go to remind myself how much there is to appreciate in life, despite our everyday stresses and challenges.

And until my return, I luckily have quite a store of mud mask to tide me over. I put it on and pretend to be the princess of Catemaco. 🙂

For more information on Nanciyaga, visit this helpful website apparently maintained by an American ex-patriot not affiliated with the reserve.

Being an American Abroad in 2017

I woke up New Year’s Eve day in a small guest room off of a coffee shop on the lakeshore of Catemaco, Veracruz (Mexico) to a large flock of birds chirping incessantly.

I decided to take advantage of my early rising and unusual lodging arrangement by sitting on the porch of the coffee shop and enjoying a cup of tea and the lake view (pity I don’t drink coffee because Veracruz is famous for delicious beans).  At the next table, a pair of men – also enjoying the porch – were switching their conversation between English and Spanish.  My German travel companion and I played the typical game of “guess the home country of the ex-pats/tourists without directly asking them.”  We thought they were German, as the owner of the coffee shop was a German ex-pat.

Eventually, my friend got up to use the restroom, at which point one of the men decided to introduce himself while his buddy was packing.  He was an organic pesticide salesman traveling for business, and taking a holiday break to visit the famous butterflies and this beautiful lake in Veracruz.  He was the sort of man who used a bad word every three sentences, but it didn’t bother me because someone once told me people who swear are more honest.  Which was ironic, considering our next topic of conversation, where the inevitable question arose:

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“El Centro, California,” I responded.  “You?”

“I’m Canadian!” he belted, his voice rising above the hundreds of chirping birds across the street.
Now, I’m no expert.  But this accent was not the accent of a Canadian.  Or rather, since I don’t know Canadian accents well but can certainly recognize an American accent, that was the sound of an American if I’d ever heard one.  Our conversation continued on into past experiences he had “visiting” Seattle, and how much his Mexican farmer clients supposedly “hated” Americans because of Trump.  Which was a bit of an “ah-ha” moment for me in deciphering the mystery of this man.  I had never experienced any animosity as an American abroad, but I was open to hearing his opinions.

We said a pleasant goodbye and my friend and I headed out to a jungle sanctuary for the afternoon, followed by a rambunctious New Year’s Eve celebration in Santiago Tuxtla, and finally, back to Mexico City.  God, I love that city.  I had such a great time in Mexico City (posts to come!), and truly enjoyed the Mexican people, above all else.  Often I felt safer as a solo female traveler than I do in big cities in Europe, as I was frequently surrounded by families, and felt a much more relaxed, considerate vibe.  That is, with one major exception.

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The famous fountain in the Anthropology Museum’s courtyard known as “el paraguas”, Spanish for “the umbrella”.

On my second-to-last day in Mexico, I found myself enjoying the Teotihuacan pyramids followed by an afternoon at the National Museum of Anthropology, one of the more respected museums in Mexico.  I was taking a rest at the museum’s restaurant, as I love myself a good museum café, when a bit of a ruckus fired up near me.  I don’t like to make assumptions, but what seemed to be a fairly affluent American family sitting at the next table was complaining about everything, and the restaurant management was making rounds to appease their barrage of complaints.  I was embarrassed, as I feel inherently linked to other Americans while abroad in a way I don’t when I’m in the United States.

Everyone sitting on the beautiful patio trying to enjoy their lunch heard the ruckus, and an English-speaking Mexican randomly spoke up: “Be careful,” she said.  “Stay in the museum.  There are riots, and they are after Americans.”
I heard her words, and I immediately went from trying to tune the scene out, to hanging on their every word. “My husband called me and warned me,” she went on.  “They are angry about the oil prices, and they are blaming Trump.  They are going after the Wal-Marts in the city, looting, because the store is American.”

As I quietly freaked out by slumping in my chair and frantically texting my German friend who works at the Goethe-Institut and is very connected to city happenings, the American family didn’t make any effort to hide their concern.  They went from table to table, asking for more information from anyone that would respond.  Nice Samaritans began googling local news sites, and a young man tried to calm them, “The United States Embassy is next door.  You couldn’t be in a safer place.  And if you want, you can call them, but you really don’t need to.”  The family spent the next half-hour on their cell phones, calling various people at the embassy.

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Hiding away in the Anthropology Museum, and watching other visitors take it all in.

Meanwhile, my German friend started getting answers.  The Mexican woman was right.  There was looting going on, and they were targeting Americans.  His local friends that knew he was hosting me had started to text him, worried about me and urging me to stay inside.  I spent a surreal few hours in the starkly quiet museum surrounded by ancient treasures, trying not to think about the potential chaos outside.  They finally closed and ushered us out, and I called an Uber to take me directly to meet my friend.  As we drove along, there were guards armed with semi-automatic weapons outside all of the stores we passed.

The night ended without incident, and I was even able to enjoy the historic center the next morning, despite the warnings of a few friends in the city.  I returned home to San Diego unscathed, but with a lot on my mind.
This was my first trip outside the United States where my president – or rather, the president on everyone’s minds – was not Obama, a president that I have never heard a negative word about in all my travels.  Admittedly, I have a limited perspective, as I didn’t travel much before the Obama administration.  Hiding away in the Anthropology museum that afternoon in Mexico City was the first time I’ve felt vulnerable due to my nationality and the international politics of my president.  And technically, Trump hadn’t even been inaugurated yet.  The words of the “Canadian” organic pesticide salesman began to resonate.

Whether we like it or not, however long or short our travels are, we are mini-ambassadors to the United States in every interaction we have.  Interactions that are now under the shadow of the Trump administration, an administration that has sent a clear message to the rest of the world that they are putting “America first.”  Whatever that really means – I don’t mean this to be a partisan issue – it is left to the interpretation of the receiver of that information, which we can’t control.  And in the case of the Mexicans, understandably angry about the rise in oil prices, the Trump administration was an easy bad-guy, a scapegoat for their woes.  But here I am, in their country, face-to-face with these angry people, and Trump is safely in the Whitehouse with men with semi-automatic weapons standing on his roof, protecting him.

I’m considering being “Canadian” as well in order to safely live my ex-pat life, the life that I’ve become so accustomed to over the last five years, a life I’m not ready to give up yet, but a life that has drastically changed shape within this new international political landscape.

I’m curious if any of you have had similar experiences abroad in the last few days, weeks, and months.  I would love to hear your thoughts, insights, and concerns.

Thanks for reading.

Life Imitates Art or Art Imitates Life?

After completing two master’s programs in arts management, the topic of art and its relationship to life is of particular interest to me and has been the topic of many a paper and lengthy discussion with colleagues.
But in the case of the weekly WordPress photo challenge “Life Imitates Art,” I’m abstaining from profundity of any kind and delving into this photo challenge quite literally, utilizing the immensity of my library of travel photography as a significant asset.  I mean, doesn’t everybody love taking silly statue photos?

On that note, I now introduce you to the tip of the iceberg of my silly statue photo collection.  I apologize in advance.

Police statue in Budapest
Statues with lots of personality seem to be commonplace in Budapest, including this one just down from St. Stephen’s Basilica. Here my friend seems to have transformed herself into the pot-bellied double-breasted policeman.
Young girls statue in Trieste, Italy
My lovely arts management colleague Valentina interacts with a graceful statue in Trieste as if she were one of the group.

Polar bear statue at Venice Arsenale
This is one of a series of shots created with an obscure animal statue, me performing a selfie, and my friend Dan in the background responding to the serious posture of the animal. This polar bear is at the Venice Arsenale. We crack ourselves up.

Rhinocéros statue at Musée d'Orsay in Paris
Here are Dan and I again, this one with a giant “rhinocéros” statue in front of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

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My Dad at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. He’s the best model.

Manhole statue in Stockholm
Here in Stockholm, art imitates life with this statue of a man popping out of a manhole as people whiz by, as if he were about to fall into stride right behind them.

Stockholm Old Town statue
Another moment in beautiful Stockholm where art imitates life. This evening I was strolling through Old Town on my own, and this statue was so full of life that he almost transformed into my travel companion.

Dozza flower mural in Italy
My beautiful friend Lauren seemingly the human embodiment of the whimsical beauty of this flower mural in Dozza, Italy.

The reality of budget airlines and why I took the bus to Prague

For a lover of travel, the best thing Europe has to offer is having a completely different culture nearly at your fingertips…traveling from country to country in Europe requires less financial investment and often less time than traveling from state to state in the United States.

More affordable European travel is mostly due to a fairly robust train system, and incredibly low-cost airlines (low-cost as in, flying to Paris from Milan for $20). Airfares from low-cost airlines such as EasyJet, RyanAir, and WizzAir are, at face value, a traveler’s dream, made possible by the groundbreaking  “Open-Skies Treaty” in 1992, removing government restrictions on airspace.

The chance to fly throughout Europe at discount prices offers a lot of opportunity for the seasoned traveler with energy, patience, and time to spare. But the reality for the rest of us is that there’s a lot of expense, time, and effort that is in excess to the advertised discount airfares, which can be especially aggravating to the inexperienced traveler.

RyanAir, the king of low-cost airlines, topped Zagat’s list as the #1 worst airline in the world, receiving a measly score of 4.16 out of 30 possible points in customer feedback surveys. On the bright side, at least you’ve been forewarned. As a British expat said to me recently, “Well, at least RyanAir is number one in something.”

IMG_7507All that being said, on a recent opportunity to meet a friend in Prague and faced with the choice of a 125 euro round-trip RyanAir flight to Prague from a small airport 3 hours by train or car from where I live in Bologna, or a 15 hour bus ride, I chose the bus.

Here’s why:

1. Hidden airline fees
While baggage, beverage, and snack fees have become an industry wide standard, discount airlines take these fees to another level. 

  • BAGGAGE FEES
    Easyjet, for example, allows one carry-on and only one, so ladies, that means you either save room in your carry-on for your purse, or you’re going to be charged a baggage fee.  While RyanAir seems to be “generous” with their carry-on policy permitting a small bag as well as a regular carry-on, they instead search for other, more unexpected ways to extract money out of you.  For instance, if you don’t pay for your baggage online in advance of getting to the airport, they charge you a much higher baggage fee (I paid 100 euro for my bag when flying on RyanAir from Milan to Stockholm).
  • “PRINT YOUR TICKET AT HOME” POLICY
    RyanAir’s infamous “print your ticket at home” requirement has bitten me in the butt twice. Once on my way back home to Bologna from a trip to Paris, I lost my return ticket I had printed before leaving on the trip and had to pay the 10 euro fee to print my ticket at the printing kiosk at Beauvais. I was lucky they had a printing kiosk, as many airports don’t and the fee is even higher if you have to print it at the check-in desk.
  • SMART PHONES DON’T HELP
    With the advent of airline smart phone applications, I thought I had finally overcome this most annoying aspect of flying via RyanAir by being able to use my smartphone e-boarding pass, only to find out at the airport that RyanAir doesn’t permit non-EU citizens to use e-boarding passes, another predatory procedure aimed at tricking you out of your money, as the procedure is not clear via the app, and is not related to government policy (EasyJet, for instance, permits the use of e-boarding passes by non-EU citizens) and is instead taking advantage of travelers who are never originating from their home city and therefore with fewer resources for printing their tickets.

2. Extra ground transport time and fees
When you are visiting larger European cities, the low-cost carrier airports are often located further away from the cities, and require more time, creativity, and money to get to and from the airports, which ultimately cuts into your vacation time.

  • DISTANT AIRPORTS, SPARSE TRANSPORTATION OPTIONS
    Luckily in smaller cities like Bologna, the low-cost airlines share the same airport with the major carriers. But in most major cities this isn’t the case.
    For example, Beauvais is the low-cost carrier airport serving Paris. It takes about an hour to travel by bus to Paris from the airport. But the real challenge is getting back – the buses don’t run often and the bus company knows the airport schedule. If you arrive at the bus station – which is outside the center of Paris and requires a bit of time on the metro to reach – less than three and a half hours before your flight, the bus will have already departed for the airport and you’ll get stuck sharing the 125 euro cab fare with a few strangers in order to make it to the airport in time. Don’t worry though, the cabs wait by the bus station for unfortunate souls like us, so you’ll have no problem finding a cab (yes, unfortunately, I’m speaking from experience).
  • GROUND TRANSPORT CAN RUN INFREQUENTLY WITH DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND SCHEDULES
    Take it from me – make a mental note to learn the bus schedule of (often) the only method of transport to and from the airport serving your low-cost flight as in advance as possible, as sometimes this is no easy task when traveling in a non-English speaking country.
    Yes, along with my eventful experience in Paris, I’m also referencing my nail-biting wait in line with my nearly indecipherable general admittance bus ticket behind several hundred other anxious budget travelers at Stockholm’s bus station in the wee hours of New Year’s Day, as (luckily) the bus company called a sleepy bus driver to come in on short notice to accommodate the especially numerous tourists that morning. If I had been able to read the schedule better and had done my research in advance, I would have arrived at the bus station earlier. Which brings me to the next important point:
  • BUY YOUR TICKET IN ADVANCE / WIKITRAVEL IS (always) YOUR BEST FRIEND
    Always check (the life-saving) Wikitravel before you leave on your trip and see if you can buy your bus ticket online.  This will save you the inevitable wait in line behind everyone else on your plane to buy your bus ticket.
    In airports like Brussels South Charleroi Airport, your ticket bought in advance online could save you hours, as the electronic kiosks to buy your bus ticket at this airport are iffy at best,* and the majority of travelers whose ATM/credit cards are not accepted by the kiosk must wait in line to buy their ticket from the one in-person attendant available, who tends to take lunch during peak arrival times. I eventually wizened up and payed a local returning home in cash to put my ticket on his card at the kiosk and was able to get on a bus to Brussels without an really significant delay.
    I’ll never forget pulling away from the curb and seeing the hundred people (including many from my plane) camped out in line for their bus ticket in front of the “gone for lunch” sign at the attendant’s empty window. Take it from me (and all the people waiting in that line), read Wikitravel for the city you’re visiting before you get there! The Brussels entry had explicitly warned travelers about this problem, but unfortunately I didn’t read the entry until I was on my to the airport, so it was too late to buy my bus ticket in advance online.

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My happy friend Chris who met me at the Brussels bus station after I narrowly escaped the drama of the airport.

3. Additional accommodation fees, taxi fees, and/or major loss of sleep
Budget flights do not run as regularly between the destinations they serve as regular carriers do, and the flights often take place at less desirable times of day, like very early or very late. 
This could mean that you’ll arrive at your destination late at night, or that you’ll take off very early in the morning. And remember, most major cities do not run their public transportation 24 hours per day.

  • TOO LATE/TOO EARLY FLIGHTS
    It is easy not to consider enough just how much your flight time affects the way your organize your trip. For instance, if you wanted to head out on your vacation on a Saturday morning, but there are no morning flights offered and you are left with the choice of leaving a day earlier and paying an extra night of hotel stay, or leaving twelve hours later and losing most of a day of vacation, what do you do? An extra night of hotel is not a budget option. If you added the hotel stay to what you paid for the flight, you could probably afford a non-budget flight leaving at a more comfortable time of day.
  • MISSING YOUR FLIGHT BECAUSE THE METRO WASN’T OPEN YET
    Early morning flights can infamously depart sooner than it is possible to arrive at the airport via ground transport, or sooner than the metro that brings you to the ground transport starts to run.
    My friend Lauren missed her EasyJet flight out of London for just this reason – she had afforded enough to time to get to the airport, not considering that she might have to wait for the metro to start running in the morning. Wikitravel’s London page actually has a section describing how to sleep at London Stansted airport, as so many people riding EasyJet and RyanAir have encountered this problem over the years.
    With no public transport options early in the morning, your choice is to sleep for free on a bench at the airport, pay to sleep at an airport hotel, or pay for expensive door-to-door ground transport. Honestly, I don’t know about you but none of these options sound so great to me.

4. Lots of time and attention needed to meet stricter baggage and liquid requirements
If you’re flying low-cost, that probably means you don’t want to spend the money to check your bags. But take it from me – check them, and do it as in advance as possible. 
Check your bags when you originally book your ticket, as that’s when you’ll be offered the biggest discount for the checked bags. You can also check them when you check-in online for less of a discount. Do not check your bags spontaneously at the airport, as they will charge you a crazy fee.
Checking your bags saves you the stress of packing. And stressing/wasting time on packing is never worth it – that and the lack of stuff you’ll have access to for your trip (because checked baggage allotments are so minimal) can quickly negate any of the positive benefits you’re deriving from your trip.

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Arriving in Bologna on my first RyanAir flight.

  • STRICTER LIQUID POLICIES
    Discount airlines are often stricter about their baggage and liquid policies in airports only serving low-cost carriers. There is no customer service mandate that prevents them from caring about making you feel like a criminal because you forgot you had Chapstick buried in the bottom of your purse, so security lines at low-cost airports are often longer and more stressful than security lines at other airports. Save yourself this stress and worry by tossing all your liquids in your checked baggage. Then you can stand in the security line worry-free (as long as you arrive early enough for your flight!).
  • DON’T FORGET ABOUT WINTER AND SOUVENIRS
    Getting to your destination is one thing, but weathering long days being a tourist outside in winter without enough warm, heavy clothes to keep you warm because you weren’t able to fit enough in your carry-on is absolutely no fun. Also, layering is only fashionable to a point. I spent a freezing May in London pretty much wearing everything I had fit in my carry-on every day. I think the last time I was so perpetually unfashionable was in 1993.  Fortunately I’m not a souvenir gal, but I know many of you are. I can assure you there won’t be space in your bag for it, and forget bringing back a bottle of wine or heaven forbid some olive oil. But if you are flying low-cost there is still a way around it.  If you go crazy souvenir shopping, add a souvenir tote bag to your shopping list which will afford you more space to dump all your (non-liquid) souvenirs in the tote to carry-on, and then check your luggage in when you check-in online.

5. When you count out all the hours that go into all of the effort to take a budget airline, sometimes a bus or a train is actually a faster way to go. 
If I had flown to Prague instead of taking the 14 hour bus, I would have had to take a bus to the train, to another bus, to a plane, and then to another bus.

Including all connections, airport time, and flight, it would have cost 200 euro (train and bus tickets add up quickly) and would have taken about 11 hours. Instead, for 100 euro round-trip, I got to relax on a comfortable – albeit non-luxurious – bus with phone service the whole way, frequent pit stops, super friendly drivers who gave us free water and cookies, and as much luggage and liquid as I wanted to bring. All this without a stress or worry. No delayed flights, no standing in line, great view.  Loved it.

I’m making a habit out of this actually. In January I took a train from Milan to Paris, and tomorrow I’m taking the train to Munich. Another great alternative to discount airlines. You can find timetables for train travel across Europe on the German website, Bahn.

But if you really still want to fly, I understand. Just please, all I ask is remember these tips so you don’t have to suffer quite as much as me and my friends have…;)

* Kiosks may now be working better, as this occurred in 2012.

One of the most beautiful train rides there is

I’m on a train bound for Kufstein, Austria.  I’ve made the trip once before, in the winter, and it was a magical winter wonderland. Now it is an Eden of vegetation as far as the eye can see. Payoff for the long, wet winter. The train conductor is inching along and honking at some miscellaneous intruder. More time to enjoy the scenery…

This is almost the last leg of my whirlwind trip from California to Southern Italy, to Bolona, up to England, back to Bologna, and now on to Austria. I have so many stories to share with you, but I find it difficult to do this from the road, as I focus on living the stories that I write about later. I do manage to get a “pic of the day” posted on my Instagram account, but I often think I would rather post the pic to share with all of you, but I guess I just find the Instagram platform easier to use on the go. Please do find me Instragram so we can also connect that way.

This post is a check-in that I am, in fact, still alive. And it is a promise of some good storytelling to come when I get back to Bologna next week and can get settled in for the summer and can start focusing on other things I love in my life, like blogging with you all!

In the meantime, back I go to looking out the window on this beautiful ÖBB train. I love train rides – they offer such great opportunity for reflection. Maybe too good – I often see people crying on the train. I can’t say I’ve never done it!

We are about to start weaving through the Italian alps, so my phone service will go away. I will be left to staring at mountains and wineries and church steeples with the most particular architecture. So many cultures converge in these parts…borders have always been my favorite places to be.
Hope you all are well! A presto!

My Life as an Agatha Christie Novel


These contrasting black and white words in front of you were written and rewritten a million times in those unpredictable moments of reflection that inevitably sneak up on me while on or en route to public transportation, or just sitting alone in general, wherever I happen to be. But until now, the words never made it on paper (well, actually, my iPhone notepad) because the more time passed, the harder it was to come back to you guys. Thankfully, a recent conversation with an old friend finally gave me the inspiration I needed.


You see, I’m back in America now. Since last May – May 18th, to be exact. I’ve gone from Bologna to New York, and finally, back to San Diego. And this is my first blog post since returning to the United States. Let’s just say it has been a long few months. The good news is I’ve traded in my exotic travels for the chance to finally be able to enjoy my old friends and family. They are the highlight of being “back.” Being able to say “we knew each other when” is a luxury that I’m loving indulging in.

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My first “selfie” after returning to the United States from Italy. I met my wonderful friend and host, Janet, at work at MOMA in New York.


On one such visit recently with an old college friend in Las Vegas, my friend said offhandedly: “Boy, you sure do have a lot of stories.” I don’t remember which story in particular inspired his remark. Possibly it was the one involving the sombrero and the bus (definitely a crowd-pleaser). We were standing in the living room of his beautiful home, and I stopped and took in what he said, agreeing. “Yeah, I guess I do.”


Believe it or not, I’d never thought about it. But his point was true. As his house was growing, my luggage was shrinking, but my ability to entertain groups of acquaintances at cocktail parties was growing exponentially.
The conversation awakened my deep-rooted pangs for a more “normal” life. Getting older and acquiring more stuff of increasing value feels like the expected life progression. My annual trips back home to the U.S. used to make it easy to spot the transitions that my friends, family, and colleagues were going through. With a few exceptions, I noticed their gains in weight, wealth, and family clearly, since I missed the gradual daily changes.

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Touring Las Vegas!


My life path has been a bit different. So far, I’ve spent all of my 30s on the road. Instead of engagement parties, I’ve had tearful goodbyes in Milan with my now ex-boyfriend. Instead of Christmas with my family, I’ve lived (as my father said), an Agatha Christie novel of hopping from Venice and, in the same week, ending up in Paris during the terrorist attacks. Instead of settling down and enjoying home ownership, I have memories of frantically signing the final documents to sell my condo, located in San Diego, at 5pm on December 31st while sitting on the floor of a mall in Budapest using their wi-fi with my laptop and having a mall security guard yelling at me indecipherably in Hungarian to – I’m guessing here – get out.
I have managed to spread my friends and possessions across the globe, giving the illusion of less friends and less possessions. No gaining weight, wealth, or family for me. On the bright side, I save on gym membership.  And wealth, as they say, is relative. It just depends on what we each want and need, right? But what is that, exactly? Wouldn’t it be nice to know.


Being home and attending the baby showers and weddings and funerals that I normally glimpse from afar via Facebook makes me wonder when my next milestone will be. Or if there will even be a next milestone in the foreseeable future.  I am struggling to regain my footing in my own country.  But, as a good friend of mine reminds me, so is she, and she never left.


Somehow, holding onto my traveling ways gives me a sense of stability.  I still live out of a suitcase because, oddly (or not so oddly?), I’m more comfortable that way. My most important possessions include my pink LL Bean travel toiletry case that my dad bought me when I was 25 and I scoffed at, naïvely unaware of the future that awaited me.  My second and third most important possessions are my laptop computer that my computer nerd ex-boyfriend bought me in 2008, and a small stuffed toy that once belonged to my old dog. And the rest of my “prized possessions” are wound up somewhere between my heart and my head – memories of friends, of things I used to have, and memories of experiences. A lot…of memories.

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Relaxing in my hometown, El Centro, CA.


Not what I expected I would be using to measure my life by at this point. But in those inevitable moments of doubt and loss of perspective, I force myself back to a moment ten years ago when I was overhearing a colleague on the phone with a travel agent planning her second vacation to Italy with her husband. While I sat at my computer at the next desk, I clearly remember thinking to myself, “Oh, that will never be me. I’ll never be lucky enough to visit Italy.”
Ironically, I never doubted my impending milestones back then – it was the vacation to Italy that seemed unattainable. Well, it is true. I wasn’t lucky enough to visit Italy. Instead, I was lucky enough to make a life there.  But I wish I had never taken the normal stuff for granted.


I should just start creating my own weird “milestones” to quench my need to measure my life in a more mathematical way. I’m wondering how Hallmark might handle the increased demand for cards for non-traditional life events. But I can rest assured my friends will know how to help me celebrate, even if they can’t find a card for it.
The good news is, I have enough material to keep you all entertained on this blog for a very long time.  And I’m lucky to be a part of this blogging community, full of other adventurous spirits and wandering souls.


It is nice to be back.