California Gurls

It was just another average hump day at work when the travel bug set in like an unsuspecting sneeze or hiccup that somehow erupts seemingly out of nowhere.  Okay, well, I have a good idea of what triggered it--it was because I had JUST been alerted that I had a three day 4th of July weekend ahead, and for once there was no Bumbershoot...

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Manhattan, NYC - No Sleep Til Brooklyn

"Excuse me sir, can I have a quarter so I can kill my wife?" When in Manhattan, you can expect to have such a question posed to you.  In this case, Dave and I were attempting to navigate in the Astor Place area when a likely crazy man popped the above question.  All you can do is pretend to not hear, yet chuckle inwardly, because...

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Empire State of Mind

Statue of Liberty Whenever I ask a foreigner where in the USA they want to visit the most, the most common answer is New York City, and who would blame them? New York, NYC, Manhattan, Empire State, Big Apple...however you refer to it, if you're not enchanted by this city, you're in the minority.  The chorus of Jay Z and Alicia Keys'...

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Pleasure, Happiness, and Travel

 "....Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure.Ours is an entertainment seeking-nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one....This is the cause of that great sad American stereotype- the overstressed executive who goes on vacation, but who cannot relax...But is it such a bad thing to live like this for just a...

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Wrapping Up a Month of Travel

What's my age again? A huge leafy green salad.   That is the one thing my body is craving when I touch down onto US soil in Houston after my 9 hour flight out of Amsterdam Schipol.  The nutella-peanut butter sandwich and stroopwafle had definitely worn off, so a Wendy's chicken salad leaves me contented, and thus, my one month...

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Bavaria, Germany - recap

Sadly, I am no longer in beautiful Bavaria, but I was fortunate enough to spend last weekend with two of my favorite people in southern Germany doing the route my parents took me on 20 years ago when I was a toddler. "Sprechen Sie deutsch?" "Nein...definitely nein." There's no better way to be humbled than to realize that you can't even...

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