He stirs the mixture of hot sugar, just one point in the process to create a simple candy cane. A father lifts his son on his arms to see the silver saint as an entire island elbows in between. And a lighthouse watches over a Christmas tree composed solely of lobster traps. I don’t often travel in December, mostly due to family filled schedules and of course the chaotic airport scene. After boarding a flight on Monday, a boarding process that took far longer than it ever should, I watched as people jammed their holiday gifts and jackets in the overhead bins, ignoring all announcements to leave Continue Reading
A Year in Travel
It is the eve of the last month of the year. December is a month I seldom travel. It is a month designated for family time. Each weekend seems to spur an event or occasion. It is also the final chapter of the year, a time for reflection. And on the eve of the last month of 2011, I couldn’t help but think back on my travels for the year, as many of us do throughout this time of ending and beginning. What I have concluded about my travels this year is that I learned something about travel I didn’t realize before. The realization comes after travel, when you are home reflecting on experiences. Continue Reading
Northwest Arkansas Wishes You Were Here
It’s Saturday night and Alice Walton is calling the hogs. The traditional Arkansas Razorback football hog call is something outsiders like myself never completely understand. The “Woo, Pig, Sooie!” cannot be uttered at certain times and comes with an entire set of hand gestures akin to jazz hands, jazz hands. And yet, in this northwest corner of Arkansas and throughout the state for that matter, great care, great devotion is paid to the University of Arkansas Fayetteville’s football team. You come here to call the hogs, just as Alice Walton is tonight. Alice Walton, the heiress to the Continue Reading
The Bold Civility of Montgomery, Alabama
“Alright Big Daddy girl, will you have a banana pudding?”, the rough and tough waitress asked me in Montgomery, Alabama. I had ordered a barbecue pork sandwich called the “Big Daddy” which apparently gave me the fine title of “Big Daddy Girl” for the evening. She was the type of waitress who told me Blue Moon was a local beer, calmly frazzled on her first day of work. The sun had just set on Montgomery when I overheard a conversation. A group of guys shouted across the street to their friend heading on her own way. They asked her if she would be fine walking to her car. She joked in the Continue Reading
New York City Wishes You Were Here
I get in line behind construction workers and a few men in suits. My mom and I are the only women around, with the exception of a Fox News anchor getting ready for her moment in the sun. As luck would have it, in one of the biggest cities in the world, we stumble upon a schnitzel food truck, Schnitzel and Things. Having heard about this New York City staple food truck, perhaps only in my dreams, it all seems meant to be to stop for an early lunch. My mom and I sit on the steps of a bank building, along with our fellow diners of businessmen and those in construction. Gorging on my schnitzel Continue Reading
Turning the page at New York’s Library Hotel
Full Disclosure: I received a complimentary night at the Library Hotel. These are my opinions about my experience. Your opinions my vary. The libraries at my elementary school, high school and college were anything but inspirational. Going to any one of the three meant a paper of great length where a dozen sources from actual books were required. I spent much of my senior semester of college on the spooky third floor of my college’s library, figuring out how to use microfilm and read through every book on the Sicilian mafia in the state of California for my thesis. And while the space Continue Reading
Savannah, Georgia Wishes You Were Here
Spanish moss drapes over live oak trees in the creepiest of fashions. I could only be in one city, supposedly America’s most haunted, depending on whom you ask. Savannah, Georgia regales in the thought of being both beautiful and exceedingly spooky. Laid out on a series of grids, disrupted by over 20 public squares, driving up and down Savannah is enough to make you go mad. As I hit one square after the other, the roundabouts grow tiresome. Like being trapped in a maze, you can’t escape Savannah by design. The reason for its spooky nature does not just come in the way in which the Continue Reading