travel kisses
Kisses
Egypt has more to offer than just exquisite buildings filling your mind with wonder and ancient fantasy. It also has gorgeous scenery, a sort of famous river, an expansive desert, and mouth watering food that is so fresh and garlicked to perfection.
What would you like to do in Egypt? Ride an ATV around the Giza Pyramids and weave in and out of the streets, eat a street vendor falafel that will change the way you think about falafels? How about spending two days in the desert exploring a volcano, collecting crystals …
Uruguay is right next to Argentina, and many people living abroad in Buenos Aires get their tourist visas renewed by popping over to Uruguay via one hour ferry ride. Turns out, it’s a lovely day trip to this little port city, and worth the space in your itinerary.
The air here, it really does taste good. It tastes like tango music and far away memories of when the economy wasn’t as volatile, like the Malbec that we drank every single night with dinner, like the dulce de leche that exists in every single sweet thing here. For five days I walked the city with my flight attendant travel gals, Val and Alex, falling in love with the subtle beauty that lingers when you reluctantly leave it.
I encourage anyone wanting to visit Paris to take a look at Montparnasse Cemetery; some of the tombs here are phenomenal pieces of artwork, carvings of longing and reluctance to leave the Earth, of romantic attachment, of family bonds that were broken too soon. It’s nice to be undistracted by the hustle of the city without having to leave it.
Cuba was a place I didn’t think I’d ever get to go, a forbidden destination when in school, this world trapped in time, a secret that Americans weren’t allowed to be privy to. When we were able to go, I jumped at the chance to visit.
Havana is beautiful and sad, a city of color and despair, with decaying buildings right in front of you and a gorgeous art museum next to you. It’s a city in repair, time paused for half a decade, restricted from tourism. It’s also a joyful place, with gorgeous beaches and an authenticity that isolation can bring.
Do you have those friends who you all share a specific kind of weirdness that nobody else quite understands? That is how I feel about the three of us; originally sharing our awkward adventures as expats in Seoul back in 2012, we slid back into our similar roles of quirky antics easily enough. Its magic to find friends who fall into place like a comforting hammock chair.
Italia! La mia amore! I and have fallen helplessly in love with you and your many personalities sequestered into cities and regions. You’ve shown me hot, flashy Roma, romantic yet admittedly decaying Venezia, and you even let me experience the magical Sardinia by the sea, but you have been keeping a well guarded secret from me. I have only recently been introduced to your quiet but somehow irresistibly handsome brother Bologna...
The art museums here are world class and filled with treasures, but sometimes you need a museum to give you a little more than beautiful paintings and ancient mummies. Sometimes you need to dive into a fantasty world with you as the star of your very own spy movie. What is your alias? Where are you going? Who are you fighting for? What are you going to wear?
Staying healthy while traveling is not easy; for anyone who regularly and routinely exercises at their gym after work, or wakes up at 5:30 every morning to run a quick 5K, travel can mess with your body if you're unable to exercise the way you are accustomed to. Even if it's just a weekend trip somewhere, it's a time to try new foods, go ahead and get that dessert, and relax, skip the run because you're on vacation and deserve a break.
The moment I landed in Cairo, I knew I had landed somewhere very special. The dusty streets lined with various shades of browns and grays had managed to hypnotize me into a state of awe and out of place wonder. Was that really a camel on the side of the road? Are those sheep going to be okay walking into traffic like that? Speaking of traffic, where are the traffic lights and stop signs?