There is a lot of content on this website covering my visits to Split. It’s one of my international homes, and prior to 2020 when governmental Covid-19 restrictions inhibited international movement, I was in Croatia perennially five summers in a row. However, my streak ended in 2020 and that made me mad; so much for being a no-mad. I did manage to break free of the USA in mid January, 2021. Any port in a storm and Split is a most fitting port — having been a port city welcoming foreigners for over two thousand years. It was a great decision and I’m very glad to have returned after over a year away. The Dalmatian coast is known for the rocky beaches of the Adriatic sea, island life, sunshine and pomalo summers — but even in winter during a pandemic, unable to do my daily swims or beach-basking, Split felt better than the black hole of fear, anxiety, divisive politics and caustic media that has come to define the United States of America. In previous visits when asking Croatian friends what winter was like in Split, I was led to believe “very windy, very cold, but sunny.” Maybe I lucked […]
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My dog Rodeo passed away this week. He arrived into my life at 10 weeks old, 12 years ago. Though he came to grow over 100 lbs – he had a gentle, sweet disposition. Well-mannered, never barking and always excited to go somewhere new, Rodeo was my role model and consummate teammate as I transitioned from my twenties to my thirties. Rodeo taught me a lot about responsibility. I had to be present whenever he needed to go outside our 2nd story apartment. His needs for exercise, play and exploration became my own. He came to define my regular routines which incorporated his visits to local parks and dog-friendly excursions with grocery shopping and other errands. Rodeo loved to go for car rides — and was tall enough to sit up and watch the world go by. A day wasn’t complete until I had sufficiently exercised his super-computer nose in search of good smells. He was restlessly driven to smell everything — cataloguing and comparing anything or anyone alongside his vast, proprietary olfactory database. Once he came to know all the smells in a particular place he would need new smells from elsewhere. Smells after it rained were always the […]
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2019 was a workhorse of a year for me. Colombia (twice), Peru, Hawaii, French Polynesia, Mexico, Croatia, Serbia, Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Latvia and South Korea — even some continental USA for good measure; all while working full-time. Next year looks to be more settled, so here is a collection of my favorite photos from 2019 that will inspire me to keep exploring, wherever I find myself. A great year 2019 — thanks for the memories.
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Seoul is a great city to explore owing to the beautiful architecture, temples and endemic culture that is preserved amidst a modern, economic boom. The food is my world-wide favorite (sorry Lima now you and ceviche are now #2) — spicy, savory barbeque and lots of fermented vegetables — it is as if someone calibrated my palate to be magnetized specifically toward traditional Korean cuisine. I’ve been trying to return to Seoul for the past four years after visiting in 2015. It took a while because of all of the other places in queue (at least thirty, I think) — this time around I squeezed two weeks in before returning to the USA for Thanksgiving. It was long enough to sate my cravings for Korean food but not long enough to be ready to leave Seoul again. I secured a well-located Airbnb in the district of Songa-pu which besides being conveniently located via hyper-accessible transportation to nearby Gangnam had a lot to experience and explore in its own right. I joined a gym that I absolutely loved and the people were very kind and friendly. One of my favorite parts was the exercise uniforms they provided each visit; absolving my […]
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This summer I spent three months in Split sandwiching a two-month trip around eastern Europe (Belgrade, Kiev, Odessa, Krakow, Warsaw, Minsk, Latvia). But before that, in June, my vacationing sister and her family met me in Cavtat (where I spent a month back in 2015) and Dubrovnik before returning to Split. In June I visited one of the islands off of the Croatian, Dalmatian coast, Vis. A small island only a few miles across with two towns. I rented a scooter and explored it for a day. Surprisingly, even though Vis is one of the most photogenic destinations I have visited, it was almost vacant of foreign tourists. In September, when I returned from my eastern European sojourn, I was happy to have a respite from changing destinations each week, and focused on work, yoga, swimming and fitness for the month. I made new local friends and it became our habit to congregate on Saturday nights for homemade thai cuisine, gin and tonics, and a marathon of competitive cooking shows and American television. One weekend I hosted a meal and cooked macaroni and cheese, orange chicken (my favorite recipe) and even a chocolate cake for my friend Dado who had […]
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I was in Riga for a week. I was busy with work but really enjoyed the architecture. It’s a beautiful, peaceful city that made for a great visit. The highlight was one day exiting a café I was working from to have an old friend message me on my phone — “Reid did I just see you leave Rocket Bean Roastery here in Riga?” My friend Paul, who I hadn’t seen since I was in Lima, Peru in May, 2016 had recognized me from behind while working in the same café. We admired our good fortune — what are the odds of bumping into someone on the other side of the world like that. We had Dinner two nights later and shut the restaurant down talking US politics, work and alien conspiracy theories. Thanks for the great memory Paul. I keep my eyes open for you in every café I work from now.
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I spent a week during the end of August in Minsk with no expectations. Travelling like this — everything feels novel, new and interesting. My apartment was close to downtown and the city is very walkable, has a subway and even Uber. I joined a nautically-themed gym named Moby Dick and frequented “Surf Coffee” — a small coffee shop themed after a surf shop. I had to clarify to be sure that there was not any available surfing within at least three thousand miles from Minsk — it was assured that I was correct. As luck would have it I caught the tail end of watermelon season in Minsk and was able to carry one home each day after the gym. I ate spicy thai and many kebabs. I took a lot of photos, and generally really enjoyed my time in Minsk though I can assert that I didn’t much scratch the surface of history or culture, instead choosing to diffuse and derive it through my camera lens and belly. This must be how deaf, mute adventurers do it all of the time?
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I spent a week in Krakow and a week in Warsaw working and exploring Poland for the first time. Somewhat surprisingly, after hearing many people tell me I would prefer historic Krakow to a “bland” Warsaw, I actually enjoyed Warsaw more. Krakow is the city that wasn’t destroyed during World War 2 and so all of the old, historic architecture is still in place. And perhaps it’s charming — but at this point feel that I’ve seen so many charming European city centers that they all seem rather the same. Krakow is charming enough to attract multitudes of tourists (like me!) who traverse the historic districts in golf carts with guides (not like me!) who point and explain the charming histories of the neighborhoods. I avoided the tour route and instead chose to experience Krakow culture by eating mountains of perogies — the pillowy-soft polish dumplings that come filled with just about everything: meat, cheese, fruit. I liberally spread sour cream on top of them and ate them by the dozen. Their appeal may be hard to appreciate without savoring yourself, but I’ll try to translate such a sensory experience into words: perogies have a warm, gummy-soft, chewy exterior that […]
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Ukraine has the best traditional cuisine I never knew existed. My friend Zeke says that it’s just traditional Jewish fare — potato pancakes, lots of meat, pickled vegetables — not much bread. I arrived in time for the summer harvest of berries and purchased kilos of black berries and blue berries along with pickles, fermented cabbage and salads. My homemade breakfasts and dinners were charcuterie spreads. Many *good* restaurants in Kiev are open 24/7 which makes it one of the most comfortable cities I can remember to get well fed and affordably. The main, broad streets of Kiev are in some places paved in cobblestones offering intriguing contrast when opulent sports cars will actively accelerate and honk at you if you don’t cross the street quickly. This is a city where pedestrians yield to cars and even fear from them. And the small bunches of people who wait alongside me to cross the street — we seem to have solidarity against the other class of super-car-driving maniacs who want to run us over. I must only presume that during the winter months the dynamic is different, when snow piles up with the bitter cold — how do these same cars […]
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