Category: Travel

We made it through Customs, made it to our hotel and have checked in. It is 3 am right now. Lima is the same time zone as NYC.

When I travel, one of my favorite things to do is explore the city streets on foot. Hopefully despite going to bed so late, I’ll wake early enough to get outside and see how people in this neighborhood live. The first time I went to Japan, I spent days roaming neighborhoods, taking pictures of mundane sights that were exotic to me because they were Japanese. I want to see mundane sights here that are exotic to me because they are Peruvian.

My Spanish is terrible. I didn’t appreciate how terrible until I showed up here, started trying to communicate, and realized exactly how little I actually remember from my years of high school Spanish. I used the wrong verb conjugation for querer (I’m embarrassed to say it, but I used “quieren” instead of “queremos”). I forgot the word for “hundred” (it’s “cien”). I should’ve practiced before I traveled here. Well, so it goes. Que será, será.

Continue reading “Lima, Peru – Days 1 and 2”

It is the day before Christina and I leave for South America. I’m sure I’m forgetting a long list of very important things, but right now I feel ready for the trip. Well, as ready as I know how to be. I’ve tied up all loose ends at work and am ready to disconnect for 2.5 weeks. My suitcase is packed. I have my visa for Brazil. I’m ready for mountainous terrain, and I’m ready for the Amazon.

Continue reading “South America – Day Zero”

Aloha, baveblog readers!  Any time you travel twelve hours to get to your vacation destination, you should expect to encounter new things, gain insights, or just wonder at your mental state and/or the world around you.  Hawaii has provided all of that for me.

Hawaii has never been on my list of vacation spots.  For one, I sunburn easily, so whatever spiritual and psychological respite offered by the tropics would be offset by at least some physical pain.  Perhaps I could frame my tropical vacation as some sort of quasi-religious pilgrimage.  Anyway, my aunt had booked the hotel 1.5 years ago.  Since then, she and her husband divorced.  She kept the hotel room and invited my mother to come, and then impulsively invited me.  If someone invites you to spend ten days in Hawaii with them, you don’t say no.  And thanks to the interconnectedness of today’s modern world, I’ve been able to do my job from the balcony of my hotel each morning, while I drink coffee and take in the sunrise over the Pacific Ocean.

Continue reading “Travels in Hawaii”

Flight time from NYC to Johannesburg is fourteen hours fifteen minutes.  We arrived safely, picked up our bags, exchanged some currency, and picked up the smartphone I had rented.  I then spent some time setting up a new Apple account to download apps onto the rented iPhone as, when trying to use my existing account, I kept getting asked to enter the confirmation ID texted to my US phone number.

Uber will be a lifesaver, and will likely be the only method of transport we use in the city.

Continue reading “Johannesburg, Day 1”

A few weeks ago I impulsively booked airfare and hotels for a trip to South Africa (Johannesburg and Cape Town).  About a week ago someone asked me if I’d gotten the travel vaccinations yet.  My face responded, “Wut?”

Continue reading “Prelude to South Africa”

No, this is not a review of Robert Heinlein’s 1961 novel, though I did read it many years ago.  I would categorize that novel, at best, as fantasy masquerading as science fiction.  Just because the main character spent time with Martians does not automatically confer the quality of science fiction onto the story.  I don’t recall any real SCIENCE in the tale.  Anyway.

It’s Thanksgiving here in America, my increasingly paranoid and xenophobic homeland.  I was reflecting this morning on my visits to Japan, and how touched I was by random acts of kindness from strangers.

My initial visit to Japan was my first international trip ever (well, unless you include Canada, the 51st State).  I remember standing in a long, winding line waiting to pass through Japanese customs in Narita Airport.  Suddenly, the full awareness hit me that I was about to enter a foreign country, where I was an outsider who did not speak the language.  I panicked a bit, wondering if I was ready for this. Continue reading “Japan”