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! 🙂
As I continue on with my late-summer East Coast travels – which will soon turn into my early-fall Italy travels – I’m barreling on with my vlog production, hoping to bring at least one of these to you per week. This particular vlog is near and dear to my heart: it documents a special weekend trip to a family mountain home in the Catskills that has been an annual occasion for more than ten years. But decades before this group made the tradition, it was the summer home of my friend’s great-grandparents, who were the matriarch and patriarch of a great family and legends in their own right.
I felt fortunate to be included this year with this group of friends, many who have known each other since childhood. Some of them see each other regularly throughout the year, and some become reacquainted just once a year here in Callicoon. I came to get to know them through a close friend from graduate school and his husband at the annual get-together this past Labor Day, and I felt both totally included and like an observer all at once. Which makes for better vlogging, in the end. Hope you enjoy our trip through Labor Day in the Catskills.
I feel like I have nine lives on WordPress: I disappear for a while, but I always manage to make it back. While some of my favorite alone time is spent reading blogs on WordPress, I’ve jumped into the world of education travel coordination with CISabroad, and coordinating faculty-led university student tours of Italy takes every last bit of energy out of me and leaves no time for blogging. That being said, I love my new job, and as I travel I’m developing more perspective and knowledge on what’s out there to share with you all.
I’m elated that I’ve finally gotten a little break from work, and last week I went to visit the home office of CISabroad, which is located in the beautiful college town of Northampton, MA. I have a beautiful new iPhone now with lots of memory (since I dropped the last one on its face and it lives no more), and I’m taking advantage of the great new lens on this iPhone and plenty of storage to start vlogging, as I’ve been aspiring to do for years. So here it is, friends, my first vlog in several years. Hope it takes you into the world of beautiful Northampton. And I hope you enjoy it! Here’s to many more…
Siena has been on my list of places to go for years (literally), but a long train trip has kept me away. But this video, just released for Siena’s race for European Capital of Culture 2019 has convinced me the train schlep is more than worth it. The spirit of the locals and the beauty of the city are standouts in this diamond in the rough of badly done, impersonal travel videos. Hope it makes your day like it did for me. And if it happens to convince you to go, check out Just Visit Siena! for super helpful trip planning advice.
We are thrilled to introduce our first of a series of videos about our travels around Europe and afar! Please check our YouTube channel! Our adventures aren’t the same without you guys to share all of our stories with.
Bologna is not the most famous city in Italy. It has no world-famous monuments or museums. There are no destination resorts or breathtaking seaside.
But Bologna is our home. And we love it. For good reasons I might add. Actually, for reasons so significant they beg the question: What makes a city famous? And what should make a city famous? Is what we need for living so different from what we want when we travel?
We think no. Because if there is anything we can be sure of when we travel, no matter where we go, no unforgettable travel story every started with, “So we were standing in front of this monument.” Ha! Instead, how do these travel tales that you tell for the rest of your life begin? Perhaps, “We wandered into this amazing restaurant,” or “We made some new friends that showed us the town….”
These are the experiences that you are going to find in Bologna. So if you are concerned with seeing some of the world’s most famous monuments, definitely don’t come here. But if you want to eat some pretty awesome food and make some new international friends, all on the backdrop of a undeniably medieval city, then don’t miss it. Seriously. Because what more can we ask from life than great food, new friends, and some medieval eye candy?
And for those of you who still aren’t convinced, here are Lena and I’s top reasons why we can’t live without Bologna…
1. The food
Bologna is internationally famous for its cuisine. And with good reason. The food here is, well, excellent. Spaghetti Bolognese (tagliatelle al ragu), tortellini al brodo, lasagna, and mortadella (aka Baloney). Rich and decadent, don’t come here if you are on a diet. And if you do try the mortadella, you better bring some home with you…unless you are worried about making Oscar Meyer jealous. For a classic Bologna mortadella experience, try Tamburini (via Caprarie, 1), which is in the heart of the center of Bologna, and popular with the Bolognese. Another favorite of ours for mortadella is Marsalino (via Marsala, 13), with a hipper feel in contrast to the classic Tamburini, and a super cute staff that always makes sure you are taken care of.
2. Fun to be found at all times (except in August)
In our humble opinion, what makes a city great is when the streets are filled with people enjoying life. And this is truly a signature of life in Bologna. Taking an afternoon stroll, hanging out with friends and family and enjoying the scene, almost nothing is powerful enough to keep people off the street in Bologna. Pick up a bottle of wine at one of Bologna’s plentiful enotecas, and head to the nearest piazza to relax and people-watch like the locals do.
3. Beauty in every nook and cranny
Bologna boasts the typical Italian beauty – narrow, winding streets painted in bright warm colors, shuttered windows, wrought iron terraces. But what sets Bologna apart from the rest of Italy are its portici, otherwise known as arcades. These portici are multifunctional – easy on the eyes, and a godsend when bad weather abounds. Thanks to the portici, I don’t even own a functional umbrella.
4. The people
We at Gracefully Global believe that traveling is about getting into the heart of the places we visit, which really means getting to know the people who make these places unique. Bologna is no exception – actually, Bologna’s heartbeat is undeniably the people who are on the streets every day and every night, in every shape and form, from around Italy and around the world. If you want to avoid large hoards of tourists and immerse yourself in the European experience, Bologna is a great place to begin. Once you’ve finished your bottle of wine and enjoyed the ambiance of the piazzas, just follow the crowd to the nearest pub. You’ll make friends in no time.
5. The aperitivo
This is the simplest of explanations. We love Bologna because it is one of the few places in the world that a drink can buy you access to an all-you-can-eat dinner buffet. Buy one drink, and a light dinner buffet is included, for free, at many of Bologna’s most popular bar destinations. What more could we ask for (as starving students and English teachers that is…)? 😉 One of our favorite aperitivo destinations is Lab 16 (Via Zamboni, 16), located very close to Bologna’s famous two towers. They have copious amounts of food (the pizza is great!) served between 7:30pm and 10:00pm, with just a small surcharge on top of your drink purchase (and they have great fruit drinks for those that don’t drink alcohol). The best part is during the summer they set up tables in the small piazza in front of Lab 16, which happens to be one of my favorite perches in all of Bologna.