I spent ten days in the Roman suburb of San Lorenzo. From what I gathered prior, San Lorenzo is known for graffiti, university students, and dive bars, which interested me more than the sort of tourist traps I had surrounded myself with while in Palermo. For several years now, Rome has been a destination on my list; my European friends had been telling me how much they love it, which surprised me, as Rome didn’t make a positive impression on me the first time I visited, on a high school trip when I was 16 years old. However, I have traveled enough since then to understand that first impressions are just that. My first impression of Rome was how much the historic center seemed to pull everything toward it. Even a few kilometers away from the Colosseum and Forum, the city still felt centered, with a slight slope towards its core. The train station, the streets I passed through, the tourist services, stores, and restaurants, all of it angled inward, as if the whole city sloped naturally toward the tourist vortex. It’s difficult to describe, but I certainly felt a gravitational pull on the streets to where the mobs of […]
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I met my sister in Olbia, a main city on the island of Sardinia, Italy, for a five-day yoga retreat. She was leaving Paris and returning home to California, and before she did, we made time to see each other and do some yoga too. The retreat’s location was truly beautiful, situated on a private estate along the coast, and the hosts did an amazing job of making everyone feel welcome, including me, the only man in attendance. The airline lost my luggage, so I was without a change of clothes for the first two days, but it didn’t matter much; I made do with some help from my new friends. There was one other American lady in the group; the rest of the women lived in London, though their original nationalities varied. Argentina, France, Colombia, and Tunis were all represented, which made for some great dinner conversations and a lot of fun. I’m a little sad that everyone is based in London, because all these new friends I’ve made will be difficult to keep up with. I’ll try and pass through London on my way in or out of Europe the next time I can make it work; I […]
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I haven’t seen as much of Italy as I had hoped to by now. Recent visits to Tuscany, and Lake Ledro & Lake Garda, motivated me to make more of an effort to explore and learn more about the country. Increasingly, I found myself relishing Italian food, despite being the only person I know who avoids pasta and sweets (something I had always attributed to Italian cuisine). That’s just to say that I’m having a fun time figuring Italy out, bit by bit. What has kept my attention most is the regional differences. Italy feels bifurcated between north and south. In Sicily, a tour guide told me that Sicilians see themselves as Mediterranean, rather than just Italian. The divide isn’t hostile, just deeply ingrained, which might be similar to the divide in the USA between the North and South, or the East Coast and the rest of the country. This dynamic has reminded me a bit of Germany’s regional diversity with different spoken dialects (Sicily has its own regional dialect) I only had a week in Sicily before meeting my sister at a yoga retreat in Sardinia, and Palermo felt like the right place to spend it. Just enough time […]
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The yearly pilgrimage to Dalmatia continued unabated again this year, as I sought the holy waters of the Adriatic Sea to cleanse my spirit, a tradition I have kept over the past ten years. This year’s itinerary included a handful of days in Split, a return to the island of Vis, where I last visited six years ago, and a new, more remote island destination for me, Lastovo. Part of this plan is an intention to discover new reasons to continue returning to Croatia each year, as my friends here are dwindling, and so too are my reasons to return, amid the adoption of the Euro, post-COVID inflation, the joining of Schengen, rising tourist numbers, and increasing rental prices. These sacred waters have soothed me for ten years, but it might be time to pursue other horizons. While in Split, I tried to keep up with acquaintances. My friends David and Marketa, who will soon move to the Czech Republic to raise their first child. They hosted me for dinner, and Marketa made her world-famous Bún bò Nam Bộ. Really must learn this recipe because very soon I will not have the ability to eat it :(( I invited David, […]
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This was my second time visiting Berlin, and I thought it was great. Unfortunately, the Pergamonmuseum was closed for the second time I attempted to visit it. This is after visiting Pergamon, Turkey, and being unable to see the ancient relics that were looted by the Germans. The museum is currently closed to visitors and is expected to remain closed for 12 to 18 years, between 2037 and 2043, for the execution of comprehensive renovation works. Every other consideration regarding my visit to Berlin is secondary to that disappointment. I waited ten years to visit the Pergamonmuseum, only to discover I will need to wait another 15. –Germany I had a lot of work the week I visited and was unable to attend the KitKatClub, a famous nightclub in the area. Maybe I will pay it a visit when I am sixty years old, returning to see the Pergamonmuseum. I visited Berlin’s Zoo, as well as some other blasé landmarks; e.g., Jewish memorials do not interest me in an age of Israeli genocide. Which you can see in the photos. Going just about anywhere is fun when I bring my camera with me, because the ordinary becomes a fun challenge […]
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I spent a week in Tbilisi as a week-long reconnaissance trip stop-over on the way to Asia. As per usual, it served the intended purpose of scratching the surface of a place I’ve never visited before (but have been desiring to) and paving the way for coming back again for longer to do and see more, with a better idea of where to stay and what I will do. I had a busy work schedule while I was visting that had me glued to my kitchen table work desk more than I would prefer, but even that was a fun thing. I was staying in a very old AirBnb with very high ceilings (wood embossed), and large cracks through the walls and concrete floors. It had this dilapidated, dusty charm that I decided suited me well. Gigantic windows faced and overlooked the historic center 15 minutes walk down a hill. It was a cool place to be glued to my desk. My shifted work hours had me finishing past midnight most nights, but luckily enough there was still time for a quick ten-minute stroll down the hill to find a local restaurant still serving traditional Georgian fare. One place I […]
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I spent a week in Budapest to follow up on last year’s first visit. This time around, I had enough time to walk around the city and explore more. I stayed in the city center, an area crawling with ex-pats, digital nomads, and short-term vacationers. I wasn’t able to get as much of a local feel for how the city operates outside of these influences as I would have liked — my own fault. Next time I hope to spend more time, and outside of this vacationer bubble. I did manage to escape during a rainy weekend outside of the city to an Airbnb in the town of Pécs, which was the perfect weekend hideaway from the storm of cold, wind, and rain. Another highlight of Budapest this time around was my visit to a locally famous bodybuilding gym, which is apparently often frequented by Hollywood movie stars who spend time filming in Budapest. I didn’t see any, but there were a lot of pictures on the wall of them with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who seems to have some sort of association with the gym—there was a metal statue of a Terminator robot in the gym’s lobby. AS visiting local gyms […]
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When I was in Madrid this summer I had drinks with my friends, Adam and JP, who invited me to join them in on two islands in Greece for two weeks while we worked remotely. Of course I accepted – I hadn’t been to Greece since the 1990s, and never to an Greek island. We spent the first 5 days on the island of Kos, a small island, and then moved to Rodos, which was much larger. I had a lot of work to do while we were there, but so did the guys. We did a good job of balancing the work with exploration, beach time, the gym, drinks and conversation, and eating as much Greek food as we could. I thought both Kos and Rodos were really great. I was surprised at how delicious the food was — authentic, inexpensive and plentiful too. The three of us relished the local house wines, flavors and dishes at a local bistro whose father and son made their small homestyle operation seem effortless. We kept returning for the beef liver that didn’t taste like you always expect liver to taste — livery. Our local neighborhood didn’t have other tourists and it […]
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A week in Bratislava, for the first time. The city is underrated as a European summer destination – the streets aren’t packed with tourists and the architecture is beautiful. I attended a boat party on the Danube River which was a great way to spent an August evening.
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