The Ghost Town That Wasn’t

We were in San Miguel de Allende, enjoying all the classic traits of a pretty Mexican town  – a gorgeous church dominating the skyline on the main plaza, colonial architecture with carved wooden doors and wrought-iron balconies, winding cobblestone streets, and quaint local markets where indigenous women sold traditional crafts. […]

From Tulum Trauma to San Miguel Magic

Our flight to Monterrey got cancelled again.  The first time, a year ago, we rebooked it for Mexico City, but this time airfare to León was cheap enough to make us consider going there… again. We had already taken the same flight a few years earlier and spent three wonderful […]

Mexican Chicago

Back in 2003, when I’d just arrived in Chicago, my first apartment was in Hermosa on the city’s northwest side. One evening, when I was in the back porch relaxing after a day of work, the street was suddenly filled with the sound of the revving engines. Motorcycles and cars […]

Go For Gözleme

The previous post about fish, bread, and never giving up on food dreams reminded me of something that happened two years ago, during a road trip from Izmir to Antalya in Türkiye. We left our Airbnb early in the morning, eager to start a long day of sightseeing, and skipped […]

Searching for Fish and Bread in Istanbul

Two years ago, when we did a road trip through southwest Türkiye, I kept looking for balık ekmek.  If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry.  Neither did I.  But Victor kept mentioning how he and his parents enjoyed a delicious balık ekmek in a restaurant by the Bosphorus […]

Mind The Gap: The Gap of Dunloe

By Julia / September 29, 2022

After so many years of traveling, I know how to spot a problem in the itinerary. “Let’s talk about the Gap of Dunloe hike,” I said to Victor. “We have three hours to hike 11 kilometers through a mountain pass?  Exactly three hours or we miss the boat that takes […]

Pub-Hopping, Pub-Crawling, Pub-Learning: The Truly Irish Experience

By Victor / September 24, 2022

Although we repeat that we rarely drink, we finished almost every day of our recent trip to Ireland in a pub.  We drank in pubs, we danced in pubs, and once we even slept above a pub. Our travel philosophy of adapting to the customs of the place we visit-and […]

All Aboard the Coffin Ship!

By Julia / September 14, 2022

We stood in the queue at the Embarkation area, clutching our boarding passes.  Through the windows, we could see Dunbrody, a three-masted sailing vessel, moored at the quayside, its wooden sides gleaming in the sun.  A woman, dressed in a dark shawl and clutching a large bag, rushed past us, […]

In The Skies Above Medellin

By Julia / August 18, 2022

On our final full day in Medellín, we met the car and the driver at the trendy El Poblado neighborhood, as scheduled.  We got there early enough to eat breakfast and for Victor to buy a few bags of coffee beans at Pergamino Coffee Shop.  As we climbed into the […]

Un Poquito De Español

By Victor / August 11, 2022

Start with Part I: Why I Decided To Learn Spanish. While in Guatemala, we came across numerous schools where visitors can stay with a local family and take Spanish classes for 4-5 hours a day. These immersion programs are popular with foreigners, allowing people to learn or improve their Spanish. […]

No Hablo Español

By Victor / August 4, 2022

When I was 22 years old, I made an unusual promise to myself. I decided that by the time I turned 40, I would speak Spanish.  I don’t know why I made this promise. At that time, Spanish was irrelevant in my life. I had no exposure to the language […]

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