8 posts tagged “travel”

Don't worry -- this isn't a review of "Ma Nishtanah," so you MOTs out there can stop calculating who the youngest person in the room is.

My curiosity was piqued about 3 weeks ago, when I was asked 2 questions.  Last week, another 2 were posed.  I've been having trouble finding the common thread among them, so I was hoping someone else's brain power would move my electric cart forward.

Context:  My South African friend K was disappearing to his native country for a few weeks, to visit family & friends and to check on his business there.  I, of course, asked him what he planned to bring me as a souvenir.  His answer:  "An African name."  No problem - it was inexpensive and it was easy for him to carry back with him on the plane.  Then the first 2 questions were delivered:

What is your favorite colour?  [his spelling - not mine]

What kinds of music do you listen to?

Seemed harmless enough.  I assumed he was debating about what to bring me -- some indigenously crafted handiwork, or perhaps some local sounds of popular band.  Either would rock the new pad (when I eventually move).  But then came the next 2 inquiries:

What is your star sign?

What are your top 5 favorite wild creatures (not including humans)?

I was definitely out of my element ...  Neither of these things seems to mesh with the first 2 questions, and these 2 didn't connect to one another.  What could he be thinking?

I'm at a loss ...  There is nothing striking about any of the questions, but because they were posed without any context of their own, without any small talk or banter to precede them, they seem so arbitrary. If I know K at all, though, there is nothing random about those questions.

So, I ask you - dear VOX friends - what could they mean?  Your guidance is immeasurably appreciated.

Brain-fried and defenseless,
Roboco

P.S.  I should mention that certain friends who know us both - K and me - think that my South African friend wants to be more than My South African Friend.  Could his questions be related?

Things that make you go, "Hmmmm..."

I went home this past weekend to visit the family.  I stayed long enough to celebrate the first night of Passover with the 'rents, grandmama, my brother & his family, and some great family friends that we know forever.

I watched "Friday Night Lights" tonight.  I stayed on the couch long enough to realize that the show makes me nostalgic, even though I have no idea why.

Parallel? 

Sort of.

I love going home to see my family.  I have no real draw to the Phila area anymore, except for the family, and it usually feels familiar.  Comfortable.  Like Home.  But whoever said that you can always go home again, lied.  You can't.

My family is cool and we're rarely on a schedule.  The house doesn't change very much.  I still know the security code for the garage door.  I'm no longer in my old room (it's big enough to accommodate my brother, his wife, and the baby, so I gave it up).  And despite having gone to high school from that house, none of the old ghosts haunt me.  Not IN the house, anyway.

Nope.  Instead, I find them out and about.

I knew that everyone in my hometown (of a certain age) is nosy.  I knew that they (of a certain age) like to compare notes and brag to one another about their families.  You'd think that being in a NATIONALLY CIRCULATED MAGAZINE and on a LIVE, NATIONALLY TELEVISED MORNING NEWS PROGRAM would be enough...  but no.  I was wrong.  It's not enough. 

Want to know why?

Because I am not married!

Yep.  You heard me.  I'm not married.

So what?  So tar-and-feather me.  I am 31 years old and not married.  I didn't realize it was a crime.

Forget the fact that I went through the Honors Program at a nationally ranked public university for my undergrad education.  Forget that I lived in Madrid one summer, unaccompanied, and studied at an international university, in classes that were conducted completely in Spanish (which is not my native language).  Forget that I landed one of the most coveted positions (in consulting) after graduating.  Forget that I went to a top-tier business school for my MBA and on scholarship my first year.  Forget that I've traveled pretty extensively and distantly, especially considering my youthful age.  Forget that my career has been nothing but one success after another, with both large companies and small.

I'm smart and attractive and ambitious and hard-working and dedicated and loyal and caring and generous and giving and friendly.  And I'm going to be in Glamour magazine.  And on Good Morning America.

None of that matters ...  apparently ...  because I'm not married.  Because I don't have a ring on my finger and a husband on my arm and a baby in a stroller.  Because I'm 31 and I'm not saddled with the kind of responsibility that some of my old high schools friends are.  Because some of them never left our hometown.

I am nothing without those things.

I don't believe that my parents drink the punch.  They want me to be happy -- they want me to find companionship to complement my happiness -- they want me to marry when I find Him and it feels Right.  They don't get into the one-up-man-ship that so often characterizes the casual chitchat of running into a neighbor.  But when I go home, and I run into folks who went to high school with me, I can't help but feel ... bad.  It's dumb, but it happens.  I feel like less of an adult when I'm in my hometown and I see what others have done.  I'm proud of who I am and I don't question my life when I'm at home in Miami, but what do I have to show for it all?

And why do I give a flying hoot what those Nobodies think anyway?!? 

When I was watching "Friday Night Lights," I realized how different the show is from my own high school experience.  We didn't have much of a football team, and our teachers weren't quite so friendly in the halls, and most of the students were not nearly as good-looking as the kids on TV.

But the show isn't so different, really, from high school.  The kids have so much optimism ...  feel the flush of first love with such passion ... navigate the waters of male-female friendships with absolute uncertainty.  The discomfort, the struggles, the tears, the parent drama -- it's all so familiar.  And it reminds me, so poignantly, where I am in my life.  Or, more importantly, where I'm not.

Parallel.  Sort of.

I thought that wisdom comes with age ....  Yeah, I'm still waiting for that.

I don't do resolutions.  I just don't.  I have nothing against resolutions, per se, but I don't believe in holding myself to an impossible ... um, okay, well that's not totally true. 

I do believe in holding myself to an impossible standard, and that's probably why I refuse to craft resolutions for the new year that are well-intentioned but likely to create anxiety and more self-deprecation than normal.  It's not that I don't believe in Change -- I fully support the concept of continual self-improvement and wholeheartedly wish to make some Worthwhile Changes in my own life -- but I don't think that we should try to write resolutions when most of us are at an extremely vulnerable point in the year.  I mean, there's pressure to buy the right gift for each member of the family, send holiday cards to your entire social circle, spend money you don't have on coworkers, and of course find the right party to attend on NYE (see a previous post for my thoughts on this one).  It's tough enough to get through the holidays with your sanity intact -- do I really need to start writing down thoughts on how to improve/change/alter/fix my life when I'm at the bottom of the proverbial fish barrel?

No.  Let me tell you ...  It's a bad idea.

With that said, I would like to offer one item for the Resolution Roundtable that I believe can be accomplished this year.  It is related to something I began late in 2006 and something that I hope to continue working on through the next 12 months ... 

I offer to the Table my commitment to write.

Yep, that's it.  That, right there, is my commitment for 2007.  I crafted the original commitment last year, when I first considered writing as a possible career/distraction-for-extra-money option, and so far I've been pretty good about it.  I started posting here on Vox, I started writing for a sports website (http://www.fantasymoneyball.com/), and I completed the first 6 chapters of the Travel Writers correspondence course from AWAI.  

(I got stuck on Chapter 7 because I actually had to submit an article with its details -- potential magazines for publication, target audience, etc. -- for criticism, and I just couldn't do it.)

My goal now is to get that article out there ...  get some feedback ... write more articles ...  and maybe, just MAYBE, earn some money for all of the writing I do.  Plus, I applied for another writing position today with a nationally recognized group that gathers thoughts, ideas, conversations, and self-proclaimed experts on a number of topics (including two of my favorites:  food and travel).  With any luck, they'll like my writing too, and I can start building that portfolio I need.

So, there you have it.  I commit to write.

It's not a "Resolution," but it is a pledge to myself for this new year.  And as a dear�friend articulated in his own post, there is only one measure of progress for this promise.

Wish me luck! 

Oh, and "Happy New Year."

Ay, caramba!

We all know (whether we admit it or not) that our neighbors to the south are little kooky.  They can be chaotic, loud, dusty, and a bit rude.  We also know that their most-visited cities reflect a little bit of that "uniqueness" that we love so much.  So why on earth was I surprised?

In October, I booked my airline ticket for my friend Evan's wedding in Acapulco ...  At the time of the purchase, I really had only one choice:  fly a local airline through Mexico's capital city (option #2 was Not Attending, which wasn't really an option because I had already sent back the response card and nobody likes a liar.)  Holy tamales!  After confirming with my pal Steph that Aeromexico's planes aren't as scary as they appear in my head, I bought the tickets.

Our definition of "reasonable," I found out, has a very different meaning en Espanol.

So let's start at the beginning...

Not only was I the only gringa on the avion (con el pelo rubio tambien!), but my Spanish was not exactly igualdad con las habilidades of the locals.  This made it very difficult to explain to the asistentes del vuelo that SOMEONE ELSE had eaten my specially ordered Kosher meal before I could get to it.  What I could glean from their not-so-subtle gossiping after my announcement was that they had accidentally placed my food on someone else's table, and said Other Person consumed a large portion of the meal, closed the top of the package, and failed to inform the asistentes del vuelo that s/he ate it already.  They gave it to me without inspecting it, and I was left to discover the remnants of what had appeared to be a delicious breakfast.  Bastardos!  Not a good start.

We arrived in Ciudad Mexico on time, which surprised me because everything in Mexico happens in slo-mo ...  but it wasn't long before my sorpresa turned into total frustration.  The 40-minute taxi to a barren field past the maintenance hangars and the hour-long wait for a shuttle bus irked a majority of the passengers since 90% of us had conexiones to make, but the asistentes del vuelo did a very good job of ignoring the rumblings from Clase Turista.  (Must be a special class provided to Aeromexico staff.)  The jam-packed bus ride to the terminal was nearly intolerable -- how do you fit an entire airplane into a mini-bus? -- but it was nothing compared to the terminal itself... 

Have you ever seen a mercado mexicano?  I kind of imagine one to look like the airport.  Loud, dingy, and a complete MADHOUSE.  There were Mexican people everywhere!  Spanish was heard at eardrum-shattering decibels from every direction!  Where the f*** is the domestic terminal?!!  This little gringa from the big city had to figure out rapidamente where she was, where she had to go, and how long she would be stuck in the chicken coop.  Not pretty.

Roughly 6 1/2 hours after I arrived in Ciudad Mexico, I departed ...  Bound for paradiso, I clung to the hope that todo sea mejor en Acapulco. 

... 

Somehow I find this whole topic difficult.  I'm uncomfortable just sitting down to attempt to write this post, and no one is making me do it.  Why would want to write about a topic that makes me uncomfortable?  Because it's been causing tremendous amounts of pressure on my brain, and now my head hurts!  I am hoping that a little (non-bulimic) purging will do some good.

I started writing this Vox blog because a friend started keeping hers here, and I decided that it would be good training for me. See, I've been thinking for a long time about becoming a travel writer.  The itch started when I was actually doing some traveling (as opposed to the mental vacations I take now).  I kept journals on all of my trips (thanks for the tip, Mom!), and I often emailed friends & family back home.  I'd regale them with anecdotes, photographs, and (what I thought were) hysterical observations about the people and the culture of whatever place I was visiting.  I believed that what I was writing was witty, insightful, and generally entertaining ...  Didn't everyone?

It turns out that most people did.  In fact, a friend of mine from NYC who wanted to start a magazine thought that I was so good that he invited Me -- smarty-pants-MBA-technology-geek-with-a-degree-in-econ-and-math Me -- to be his Travel Writer!  My first piece was a real gem, too...  Even though the mag is on hold for now, Shaun's request got me thinking about the possibility of writing as a legitimate career move -- and right then I realized that writing is too important to me to relegate it as a hobby.  I wanted to combine two of my passions -- traveling the world, and telling people all about it.  The few folks who have read my first piece have been impressed and have told me that I should write more often ("You have the knack, Rebecca!  It's a gift"), so I must have some inkling of talent.

I am trying to pursue travel writing as a source of additional income (Golden Handcuffs, anyone?), but it takes time and I'm trying to do it the right way.  So in the meantime (i.e., now) I'm willing to do a lot of different things just to build my clips.  After all, I have no real "portfolio" since this writing thing is new to me.  So far I have tried doing the restaurant review thing, but documenting which minute my server delivered my entree and at which time he delievered dessert, as compared to when I actually placed the order, isn't "real" writing to me.  I'm also signed up with an interesting sports website to get my name out there (or at least my Pen Name), and pretty soon you'll see articles written by BeeBee in her regular column, "The Angel's Angle."  I check Craigslist daily to see what other opportunities there are for aspiring writers who are willing to pimp their content without reward (i.e. pay), but it can be slow...

I guess I should be proud that I'm pursuing what I enjoy and that I'm finding outlets for my creativity.  It's not every day that someone can say they sat on their comfy bed, watching their favorite sport (Flyers hockey), writing the good & the bad, and have someone respond to it as positively as the FMB kids did.  But my real question is, At what point can I quit my day job?

I can't believe that I'm stuck traveling today.  Until last year, I had lived close enough to the family to take a train or to drive to my parents' house for the big Turkey Weekend, and I thought that was bad enough.  This year, though, I'm too far -- I think 1000 miles is a bit much to drive, even for 5 days.  Instead I'm stuck traveling by air with the other 25 million people who plan to head to the airports to get to some god-forsaken place to see their families for the ancient tradition of stuffing themselves silly.

I can't complain because Cherry Hill, NJ really isn't a god-forsaken spot.  In fact, it's ranked as one of the best places in the country to live -- I'm guessing due to its proximity to Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, AND Washington DC.  I'm not suggesting that anyone would want to commute daily to DC, but you could certainly make a day trip out of it.  And besides, Philly is COOL -- there has been a ton of work done to the city to rebuild its the old neighborhoods with newfound glory and glamour, and I'd say that it's one of the more desirable places to live (if you can stand the cold weather, which I can't).

It is one of the few places I'd consider living, if someone provides me with appropriate amounts of layers to keep warm.

In any event, I'm not looking forward to traveling today with the millions of other folks who need to get somewhere and aren't interested in lines, waiting, or the hassle of the TSA.  I can't wait to see my niece and visit with the folks, but I am dreading the middle portion of my day.

Wish me luck!  And have a happy happy Turkey Weekend.

What's your dream career? 
Submitted by Something.

Oh boy.  This question is trouble. 

Have I shown you Mallorca yet?  Try here.  That's my number one dream job of all time - being a travel writer.

Exploring famous spots and uncovering details that no one else has brought to light.  Finding the nook or the total hole-in-the-wall places that most people walk past without a second glance.  Advertising for those mom-and-pop restaurants and shops that only the locals know because they've lived in the same town for more than one generation. 

Yep, that'd be it.  I'd love to be a travel writer.

Oh, and maybe I'd add "restaurant reviewer" to the list.  Because I'm a food snob.

I couldn't resist changing my design theme - is there anything better than world travel?