There is no Santa in Catalonia. That’s right – none. The kids in the northern part of Spain are told that Santa passes them over and doesn’t stop in Catalonia. No, they aren’t being punished because they were ‘bad’. They simply don’t need Santa in Catalonia…they have something else, something better. A Christmas log named […]
This article was originally published on The Journal, the Intrepid Travel Blog. I have their permission to repost it. “Did you go to Taj Mahal?” This is one of the inevitable questions I hear when I tell someone I went to India. The gleaming white architecture is a ‘must see’ on everyone’s wish list. However, […]
The sky was just starting to get light at 6:30AM. I moved slowly still trying to wake up as I took a deep breath of salty sea air. Palamos still felt like a ghost town at this hour, except for the little bustling activity around the fishing port. I watched as men greeted each other […]
I looked around the Two Rivers post office wondering what it was like to live in such a small community in Alaska. In this tiny little ‘rest stop’ along the Chena Hot Spring Road, the post office and the general store were attached to each other and seemed to be the hot spot of the […]
Sometimes you don’t have to go far to experience culture shock. I first heard the term Cowboy Poetry in the tiny town of McCarthy, Alaska. I had struck up a conversation with a young woman about travel and she told me about the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko as a festival that I “must […]
Every time someone said it, they blushed a little. “We call it the Happy End,” said Susanne. She was very quick to point out that it was meant to describe the happiness you find at the end of the road – not ‘the other’ happy end. I smiled. I wondered if they were aware of […]
The woman at the counter brings my pain au chocolate and says something to me in French. I always admire the French language; it flows so beautifully, like silk coming out of people’s lips. It makes me nostalgic for my high school days when I took French and wondered why I was taking it. After […]
I was going through all the motions…it had been a whirlwind travel day of moving, moving, moving. We did introductions quickly in the parking lot and shook hands. I never thought of myself as hurried – until I went to pull away from the handshake and he took his other hand and cupped it around […]
“Do you want to take the baby goats to pasture, “ Farmer Petter asked me. My eyes lit up and I felt 7 years old again. “Yes, yes! I’d love to take the baby goats anywhere!” I replied. Oh happy day! I’m not sure what it is about farms, but no matter how old you […]
At the far north end of the Dempster Highway sits the remote community of Inuvik. Located 125 miles above the Arctic Circle, with only one road connecting it to the rest of the globe. The community not only lives with, but also thrives in, 9 months of winter-like weather and 1 month of total darkness. […]