Leipzig
During our last week in Sevilla, Tori met several people through her Spanish classes. We formed a little group and met up for dinner or drinks in the evenings. One of the girls we got to know, Johanna, was from Germany and invited us to spend some time getting to know where she’s from if we were ever around.
A Week on Hvar
There are hundreds of islands off the coast of Croatia dotted with towns and villages that, at first glance, more or less look the same. But, each one has its own story, its own history, its own feel. For awhile, I’d been looking for a place to spend a little bit of time to refocus, to set the screens down, to not have to be ten steps ahead in my mind.
Birthday Island-Hopping
On our first morning in Croatia, I found myself sitting side-saddle on the front of a speedboat through choppy seas as Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” blared over the radio. My face cold as we cut through the morning air. The sun hung low from the East casting shadows from the mainland across the channel giving the whole scene a subtle orange glow.
Daily Life in France
The other morning, one of the bakers asked me a question. I paused for a moment, but before she could finish repeating the question in English, I had answered her in French. The guy behind me leaned around and in a very thick French accent laughed, “Oh, he’s good.” It’s the small victories lol.
Gavarnie
The trail followed a mountain stream out of the valley, and shepards led a group of horses along the other bank as we made our way toward the granite cliffs. The crowds quickly thinned, and we strolled along drifting from topic to topic as we gazed at the cold peaks etching their way through the cloud layer.
An Old Friend in Lyon
Several summers ago, the family of the girl I was dating at the time hosted an exchange student from France, Pauline. I felt kind of bad that out of all the places in the U.S., she ended up in a forgotten whistle-stop in rural Tennessee, so we went out of our way to make sure she had a good summer from flying in the Cherokee to trips to Nashville and the symphony.
Skip the Leaves this Fall
The pumpkin spice lattes are out, and you know what that means—six more weeks until fall. Not too long from now, the mornings will be crisp, the wind will carry a touch of winter on sunny afternoons, the leaves will start to turn, and we’ll all start to settle in for colder days. But, what if this year, we didn’t?
World Travel: Day One
I woke up to a notification on my phone from American Airlines: “Your flight from DCA to BOS will now depart at 6:30pm.” Groggy from the late night packing away our lives outside of the carry-on and backpack each, I struggled to remember when that flight was supposed to leave in the first place. “Delayed” appeared in red lettering across my phone.
Escape to Mexico
In broken English, an airport employee attempted to tell me that the facility was off-site pointing at the reservation in my hand and leading us outside to a van. My inner-American was saying We’re definitely going to die, but upon further inspection, the side of the van did in fact say “Hertz.” They really need to update their website.
