Day # 11,051: Our second day in the Amazon, and breakfast proved to be much more entertaining than I had imagined: the lodge does a great job of serving up local Amazonian cuisine, and breakfast was one of the highlights. Fried plantains, tapioca pancakes made from the ubiquitous local manioc plant (points for style, but […]
Day #11,050: The Amazon is one of those places I’ve had a high school crush on for quite some time. The sort of desperate infatuation that one assumes can only exist from afar, never to be realized. Or so you think. Somehow on this morning I woke up- next to my real high school crush, […]
My younger sister S is one of my Absolute Most Favorite People of All Time Anywhere. We used to share a room growing up, and when we’d inevitably fight over you-stole-my-this or stop-looking-at-my-that, our mother would come into our room, hands on her hips, and say: “Girls. You are SO lucky to have your best […]
Whew. I can finally exhale a huge sigh of relief, uncross fingers & toes, and boldly announce: I’m off to Brazil! The reason for all this superstitious witchcraft? Despite having looked forward to this trip for the past month, I didn’t realize we needed a visa until last Sunday- less than two weeks before we […]
Day #10,294: The alarm went off an hour before the wet winter’s sun rose in Punakaiki, New Zealand. I wanted to visit the Pancake Rocks at sunrise, when high tide meant the famous Punakaiki Blowhole would be at its blow-iest. Armed with a giant umbrella and two paper cups of surprisingly delish hotel room coffee […]
Day #9,473: One of the things that struck me most about Africa- this being my very first international trip- was the lack of warnings. No ‘Stay Back From Cliff!’ or ‘Slippery, No Running!’ or ‘May Cause Cancer!’ South Africa requires you to be adult about things; it expects you’ll make sane choices and leaves you […]
Adult gymnastics classes at New York’s Chelsea Piers? Watch out, Flying Squirrel, there’s a new…uh… squirrel in town. Yeah.
Day # 10,654 1/2: My favorite aspect of Balinese Hinduism is the strong belief in karma, which is why the terrorist attacks that occurred in Bali in 2002 and 2005 (violent Islamist groups set off several bombs in tourist areas, killing hundreds) were even more of a shock to the locals- they just couldn’t imagine why […]
Day #10,654: On our first full day in Ubud, the central mountain village of Bali, we hired a driver to take us around the island. It’s really not as bougie as it sounds, promise. Because Balinese streets either don’t have names or have multiple different names, it’s kinda impossible to drive yourself around. Plus, it’d […]
Flying terrifies me. Nothing about it feels like something that should be humanly possible. I don’t like the idea that I’m hurtling through air, miles above solid ground. I really don’t like the idea that I have no control whatsoever over the journey. And I reeeeally don’t like the idea that if anything goes wrong, […]