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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Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Before I dive into the post, I need to say a little something on the hurricane disaster relief efforts in Haiti.  If you've got the money or time to spare, please donate.  Yesterday the three musketeers hit up Amsterdam, because regardless to what you might have thought, my home base is an hour train ride away from European sin...

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Wageningen, Netherlands

Made it to Nude 23-A in Wageningen, the Netherlands, bright and early Friday morning. I unfortunately was stuck with a middle seat and a ton of energy throughout the 9-hour ride, thus being unable to sleep and staying up over 24 hours, but I watched a bunch of movies, including one of my childhood favorites The Green Mile. It is good to...

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George Bush International Airport, Houston, TX

La china guapa. It has been a while since I've had a nickname that stuck, but I have to admit that I like the one that Kumata and Sara picked out for me in Costa Rica. It stemmed from our first bus trip out to Corcovado, when several men on the street called me la china guapa, and it's pretty much stuck since that moment. For all of you...

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Isla de Caño, Costa Rica

Okay, well we´re not technically on Caño Island anymore, but we spent most of the day there today as part of a daylong snorkeling trip. Caño Island is a biological reserve located 20km away from Drake Bay, so we got up at 6am this morning (the sun was already shining brightly at this early hour) to catch a speedboat to the island. There...

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