Tag: traveler

Traveling from Home

Our current homebound way of life is undeniably tainted with mystery.  I find myself questioning the end of quarantine as I wonder about reaching the end of a rainbow.  Above all, in these uncertain times, I can’t help but send my heart out to those that don’t have a home to retreat to, or those who have a home that poses a threat to them in some way.

Rainbow in North Park, San Diego
A rainbow after a recent rainstorm from a window in our condo complex in North Park, San Diego

I am grateful to be healthy, safe, and comfortable at home, as I hope all of you reading this are, as well.  And as many of you can probably also relate to, one of the biggest dampers on my spirit is not being able to travel, and even worse, not even being able to confidently plan future travels.
Italian pizza flag San Diego Siamo Napoli
Friends who run a local Italian restaurant, Siamo Napoli, made a pizza honoring Italy’s COVID-19 battle on the last night they were open to the public.

Each passing day seems to bring contradictory information from government officials and scientists alike, rumors, and worst of all, the turning over and over of my own mind, lost in the lack of distraction.  The “COVID-19 scare,” as my favorite morning radio host has been calling it lately, makes it uber-challenging to stay positive about the prospect of international travel in the foreseeable future.
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A nearby vintage shop in North Park with a sense of humor.

Instead, like many of my loved ones and probably many of you, I’m loving the delicate joys on my daily neighborhood walks,
Wildlife in North Park, San Diego
Wildlife around every corner.

including the bird that pooped on me mid-flight – I’ve heard it is good luck – and observing the subtle and not-so-subtle transformations of the neighborhood, North Park, San Diego, where I’m currently perched.
A North Park church offering drive-thru confessions.
A nearby church is offering drive-thru confessions.

I’ve dedicated myself to cooking my way through my new Indian cookbook, Fresh India by Meera Sodha, cleaning and organizing, daily meditating with my Insight Timer app,
Spring in North Park
Welcoming spring on my daily walks has been a great joy.

and tending to my new indoor plant friends, who are my only living company if you don’t count the occasional fly that makes it through the screen or the little worms that occasionally make a cameo in the fresh herbs from the market.
I often catch the bunnies sunbathing when I walk in our Old Town, once saturated with tourists and now empty.

I have to admit, guiltily, that with acknowledging the gravity of the deaths, sickness, sadness, isolation, despair, anxiety, fear, frustration, and boredom that have come with this pandemic, I am also grateful for this “pause” on life to catch my breath and check-in with myself.  I’ve pursued a double life for many years: two continents, Europe and North America, and two professions, travel and theatre.  Isn’t it easy to get caught in the current of life until you finally make it out and ask yourself, “Why did I get out?” or “Why did I stay in for so long?” and “By the way, where am I?” (A little existentialism never hurt on a Thursday morning in quarantine, right? Ha!)
San Diego Repertory Theatre COVID-19 closing
The theatre I worked at for many years ended performances and shut its doors.

Meanwhile, I’m taking the opportunity to dust off a myriad of memories and photos of adventures that were tucked away for safekeeping.  Some long ago, like magical Berlin, and others recent, like boisterous Puerto Vallarta.  I was caught in the current for a long time, moving too quickly to download these adventures, but I’m sitting on the shore now, enjoying the pause, and putting them back together.  Because, in actuality, we all really can travel now. With our imaginations. Anywhere we’d like to go.  No one can stop us from that – we are bound only by the limits of our own creativity.
Chalk painting in North Park
A family diligently and creatively paints a North Park sidewalk with optimistic chalk designs.

I hope a few anecdotes and intriguing snaps from my travels will inspire your traveling daydreams from the comfort of your own homes.  New adventures coming soon.  Hope to see you then.
In the meantime, if you have some extra time on your hands, start traveling now with a few of my most beloved travel adventures:

And a personal favorite of mine, especially for artists and lovers of art:

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!   🙂

My first backdoor experience at the Colosseum

I must admit, as far as travel experiences go, visiting the Colosseum never ranked highly on my list of favorites.   Until recently, that is.  The mass confusion entering the Colosseum and the stress of dealing with their stringent yet non-communicative ticket office, followed by feeling pretty much like one of a million sheep, and not much to do once inside other than take selfies or watch other people take selfies really downgraded the experience for me.
When my extended family came to visit Rome and asked me to help them organize their trip, I was struggling my way through the Colosseum website and thought, “There must be a better way.”  And entered, The Roman Guy.  But more on that later.

Frankly, Colosseum ticketing options are not ideal.  I’ve had first-hand experience through my work managing on-site logistics for groups of American and Australian university students with CISabroad.  Often we opt to pay the reserved group entry (which is an additional cost on top of the ticket to enter).  The group entry has its own entrance a bit closer to the metro stop than the single ticket entrance, but, ironically, there is always a line at the reserved group entry, and eventually, this “special” entrance converges with the non-reserved single ticket entry line.

A small part of the line to get into the Colosseum.


Being fairly disillusioned with the group entry options, I eventually decided to try arriving early with one of my groups and give the unreserved entry line a go, only to find out after waiting a half hour that I was prohibited from purchasing more than 12 tickets at a time.  I’m not sure how I would have known this rule in advance, but whatever the case, now I finally understood the need for reserving the otherwise unhelpful group entry in advance.
The final solution for entry into the Colosseum is to purchase your single tickets online in advance and print them out at home.  Then when you arrive at the single ticket entry line, you have access to a special line for people who purchased online, which moves a bit faster.

All that to say, there isn’t really an ideal solution.  Until I finally rolled up my sleeves and was determined to find a better way.  That’s when The Roman Guy came in.  The Roman Guy sounds like one guy, but it is actually a robust Italian tour company based in Rome.  They have a lot of different tour options for exploring the Colosseum with a guide such as Colosseum underground and floor tours.


The idea of having someone else manage the craziness of getting us into the Colosseum was reason enough for me to book, but the tour also resolved my other primary disappointment with visiting the Colosseum: the lack of information about Colosseum history available to visitors.  Having a trained guide would really open up the experience for us, giving us the narrative that would make the place come alive.
The day of our tour arrived, we met our Roman Guy guide, and everything started out smoothly and normally.  But then everything was suddenly different.

The backdoor entry to the Colosseum was empty other than us.

We passed the mobs of people waiting in the three lines I had mentioned, kept walking around to the back of the Colosseum, and stopped in front of a back gate.  I was flabbergasted.  There was no one at this back gate.  Our guide simply called the name of the guard, he came over, opened the door for us, and we walked into the Colosseum.

HALLELUJAH.
Instead of the typical mixture of stress, anxiety, and annoyance that I carry with me after finally getting through all of the hurdles to enter the Colosseum, we merely just walked in.  I was in heaven.

We then proceeded to walk onto a deck perched just above the floor of the Colosseum.  Every trip I’d made here, I’d seen people on this deck from the other side, and always wondered what this magic place was that was not accessible to us.  Well, now I finally understood.

The view I usually have, without a guided tour, of the exclusive access area to the Colosseum.


This area was regulated by Colosseum staff, and only a certain amount of visitors can be there for a given amount of time (20 minutes or so, maybe a half hour), meaning there was plenty of space to move around and take pictures.  Since The Roman Guy is registered with the Colosseum, they can reserve this special entrance onto the Colosseum floor (and other restricted access areas), and bring people in through the back entrance.

I was such a happy camper that I took a rare selfie.
My stepbrother with his wife, his brother-in-law, and his parents-in-law.


We had plenty of time (and space) to take photos, and then our sweet Roman Guy guide, an archaeologist, started explaining the highlights of the Colosseum history.

Our sweet and knowledgeable guide had great visuals to accompany her talks.

We walked around nearly the whole Colosseum together, up to the second level, then ducked here and there, finding shade, water, and places to rest, as she explained fun facts.  My favorite trivia was about the female gladiators.  I had no idea they existed!  We also learned that the ruins across the street were ruins of a gladiator training school.  So cool.

We had a lot of fun. 🙂


The second part of our tour took place across from the Colosseum at the Forum and Palatine Hill, where we learned about the fascinating Virgin Vessels, and our guide showed us where Caesar was cremated.  I’d been to the Forum many times but had never noticed the tiny sign that points out this incredible history of the temple, now partly in ruins.

The Roman Forum is so incredible it doesn’t seem real, but there are no historical explanations so we were so glad to have a guide.


I had a few favorite moments, including when she pointed out a piece of what would have been a massive statue, and now all that remains is a foot.  I wouldn’t have noticed it otherwise, and it is rumored to be good luck to touch the pinky so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

Touching the toe for good luck.


The tour finally wound down, and our guide shared one last insight with us.  “Rome is like lasagna,” she said. “It is full of many layers, all of them worth discovering and savoring.”


I loved that moment, as it really made me think, and appreciate all the insight that this lovely archeologist guide brought to our experience that we would have missed if we had done it alone.  It is an experience that I won’t soon forget.

 
 
 

How I pick my guides: Enjoying cocktails and sunset with The Roman Guy

Big cities can be quite a puzzle to get to know, and Rome is no exception.  Even tougher still, Rome’s huge tourism economy makes it tricky to discover how to deviate from the beaten path.  I’ve been to Rome about ten times, and I still don’t feel like I could confidently recommend a restaurant for dinner, for example.

When my extended family called me in Bologna a few months ago and told me they’d be in Rome and wanted me to show them around, I knew it was definitely time to brush up on those dinner recommendations, among other things.  It was time to work on my Roman game.  

It was a huge relief when they told me they were willing to spend a bit of money for the experience they wanted to have.  Having a fantastic time in Rome is totally possible without spending much money.  The catch is that it takes quite a bit of advance planning and research, which they didn’t have, and neither did I, really.

I immediately thought of finding them a high-quality walking tour of Rome.  In my work managing logistics for CISabroad, I’ve come to really respect a good city guide.  That being said, not all guides are created equal, as the job requires a curious combination of social aptitude, knowledge, and passion for their city.  If you manage to find a good guide, what they offer is invaluable: a personalized, in-depth local’s perspective on the city you’re visiting. Which is kind of the ideal offering when visiting a new place.

Once I find a guide I really like, and the company they work for is easy to work with, I find I usually like all the guides from that company, and can explore other tours they offer.  But finding that company can be tricky.  For my family’s trip, I was searching for a great guide and a unique tour that didn’t focus too much on history or culture, as my family is more of the sporty type.  So when I stumbled upon The Roman Guy’s Cocktail bars in Rome: Evening Walking Tour, it seemed to be the perfect solution and I booked it immediately.  Let me tell you, my family really appreciates a good cocktail.  The Roman Guy is a big operation, offering many different types of tours, and lots of guides.  They pretty much bent over backward to get my family set up with three tours, with just a couple of days notice.

Piazza Colonna, Rome.

We met our The Roman Guy guide, Fiona, in Piazza Colonna.  She immediately endeared herself to us, admitting she was thrilled to lead our private tour, as she needed to get away from her half-Italian, half-Australian teenage son who had just started his summer break.  “Our apartment is feeling smaller and smaller these days,” she chuckled.  She is the kind of person you hope to meet at a cocktail bar for some fun small-talk with someone other than your family members, who you’ve been talking to 24/7 since your vacation started.

We wove our way to the first bar, and Fiona casually introduced my family to the important landmarks along the way, like the Tempio di Adriano, which was in the neighborhood of the first bar we visited, sporting elegant cocktails and the coolest Jell-O Gin shots set in lemon skins I’ve ever had (ok, admittedly, the only Jell-O Gin shots in lemon skins I’ve ever had).

Lemon wedges with jello Gin shots.

Next stop was the Pantheon, where Fiona explained its intriguing history to my family, filling in the blanks of my less-than-adequate description from when we had been by the Pantheon earlier that day.  What can I say?  My forte is logistics and not history.  I can’t do it all, sigh.

Our guide, Fiona, explains the Pantheon.

With my family sufficiently briefed on the Pantheon, we headed to the next bar, and within a five-minute walk, we found ourselves in a sea of fun and chic bars and restaurants that were anything but tourist traps.  I’ve been in the area of the Pantheon umpteen times, and I never knew it took so little effort to get away from the touristy cafes.  Our destination was Bar del Fico, where Fiona helped me improve my Italian by explaining the origin of their name.  I’d always known that “fico” in Italian was a similar slang word to our version of “cool,” but I had never known that outside the slang, the real definition of the word “fico” was “fig.” 

We loved our cocktails at Bar del Fico.

The bar was named after a beautiful fig tree standing proudly out front, under which crowds of men were hunched over chess boards, playing to their heart’s content amidst the bustling little square full of action and life.  I loved this place, such a great find, feeling so far away from the typical tourist destination, yet actually, just a five-minute walk away.

Playing chess under the fico tree.

Next, Fiona diverted our tour to the French church, San Luigi dei Francesi, to see a Caravaggio painting.  This diversion was a personal passion she wanted to share with us, as she loves art and is fascinated with the life that the painter Caravaggio, a feisty character, led in Rome. 

I love photographing in Rome. There’s beauty around every corner.

As we sauntered to the next bar, she shared stories about Caravaggio’s antics in Rome in the 1600s and pointed out places where he had lived and frequented.  She also stopped to show us how to properly get water from the famous Roman drinking fountains.

Fiona showed us how to properly use a Roman fountain.

Now was the moment I had anticipated: crossing the Ponte Sisto bridge into Trastevere, and enjoying this lovely, spirited neighborhood on a Friday night.  My family would have never gone to this area of Rome if it weren’t for the tour, and were grateful to take in the sunset over the River Tiber from the bridge, and the fabulous vibe of couples and families hanging out, playing music, and taking in the beautiful scene. 

Sunset on the River Tiber.

The next bar was just a short walk from the bridge at the edge of Trastevere, famous for having one of the best cocktail-makers in the city, and a fabulous aperitivo.  My family hadn’t yet learned about the fantastic world of aperitivo, where a drink purchase buys you access to a free, endless buffet. 

The aperitivo buffet!

I, on the other hand, lived on aperitivo when I was a poor student in Bologna.  We fondly call the act of eating aperitivo for dinner “apericena,” meaning, “aperitivo” plus “cena” (dinner).  We apericena-ed happily this evening, enjoying the rambunctious crowd on the patio.

By the end of our cocktails, my family was admittedly exhausted.  It had already been a full evening, and were feeling the jet lag.  Nonetheless, we couldn’t finish the tour without stepping into the famously windy streets of Trastevere, and also not without a bit of dessert.  Fiona had just the place, and we soon found ourselves standing outside of a little bar, Vendita Libri, Cioccolate e Vino, that only offered chocolate shots with raunchy names.  We were thrilled. 

Selecting our chocolate shots.

We all selected our shot, blushed a little when we ordered it, and watched the bartender combine all of the delicious components into little chocolate cups topped with whipped cream. 

The catch was, we were firmly instructed by the bartender that we must insert the entire shot into our mouth, which we all laughed our way through, some of us with more successful outcomes than others.

We ended our evening with a walk to the taxi stand a few blocks away.  My sleepy family got in a taxi and were off.  Fiona and I exchanged a hug and a goodbye, and I walked back to my Airbnb in Trastevere.  To me, that’s the mark of a good tour guide…someone you’d like to stay in touch with.  I hope to see Fiona again on another tour or just around town.  And despite the jet-lag, my family considers this evening on The Roman Guy’s cocktail tour the highlight of their trip to Rome.

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.

Repurposing On The Right Side Of Travel And Fashion

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This week’s photo challenge, Repurpose, is inspiring me to share an object I’ve repurposed, and continue to use every day in my travels throughout the U.S. and Europe.
Traveling doesn’t afford the luxury of taking any object in your possession for granted.  Each and every piece that you carry with you is evaluated on the basis of size and weight.  And if either of those measurements outweigh its worth in any capacity, that object is dunzo.
Until I began traveling full-time, I was a lover of stuff of all kinds.  I couldn’t throw away a postcard or a receipt if my life depended on it. My idea of a fun weekend activity was going to a home-decor store and picking up a throw-pillow, or two.  Or maybe a doorstop.  Or a fruit bowl.
Nowadays, that life couldn’t be more foreign to me.  I don’t even own a pillow, let alone a closet.  I work as an educational travel coordinator, and I live from hotel room to hotel room, couch to couch, and when I’m lucky, my parent’s spare bedroom.  If I want it, I have to lug it.  But therein lies the rub: I can’t give up my passion for fashion.  So, despite the fact that I live on the road, I continue to have a lot of clothes, shoes and accessories.
My accessories were a mangled mess,  tangled and mixed up to the point that I was only wearing three or four pairs of my own earrings.  Yet, I continued to lug around the whole collection.  What a waste of energy, and potential fashion opportunity.
The solution came not a moment too soon from my pioneering, Pinterest-loving, high school friend Giovanna.  Over brunch one Saturday she said, “Peggy!  Haven’t you seen my travel board?  Pill organizers!”
And the rest, my friends, is history.  My ears are now back to being as fashionable as the rest of my body.  And not a moment too soon.  Thank goodness.
If you liked this article, you might enjoy My Secret Packing Tips, where I originally shared my pillbox jewelry storage tip.

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.

Bologna: the city of nighttime.

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As the host of the oldest university in the western world, Bologna has been a second home for young people from across Europe for centuries. And with the saturation of young people comes the inevitable nightlife of those who don’t have morning meetings and people depending on them to make breakfast.
I’m one of those students that made my pilgrimage to Bologna, only to be charmed by the nighttime energy of this city. Only in Bologna does coming home at 3am on a Saturday night feel early.  After five years of this, I’ve finally learned to prioritize my favorite places, and cut my nights short so I actually come home before sunrise.  Sometimes.
The energy of the city is visceral, and therefore photographable.  Instead of always wasting my nights away in laughter and Italian wine, I’ve started shooting instead.  Or at least, taking a few minutes to shoot on my way home, ha!  My new lens is a f/1.8, and the results have been fantastic.  I hope you enjoy my meanderings through the streets of Bologna, seen below.  And stay tuned for a vlog coming soon, featuring interviews with Bologna’s best bartenders!
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