My Latest Adventures...

All the Women Who Inspired Me in Mexico…

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Mexico. I have been there more times than I can count. I have lived there, studied there, fell in love with Spanish there (it became my minor in college because of a January I spent in Cuernavaca my freshman year…surprising to a young women who literally saw no use for the language prior to the trip), had my first kiss there, developed my passion for different cultures and traditions there, and learned my famous guacamole recipe there. Besides my home country, Mexico – its people, vibrancy, passion, religious devotion, complexity and simplicity – has been most responsible for shaping the woman who started this blog over 8 years and 51…

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Nairobi through the Eyes of Former Street Kids

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It has been 8 years since I have been to Africa so I decided it was time to go back. Having already seen the West and the North, experiencing the offerings and animals of East Africa seemed like a logical next exploration area on the world’s second largest continent. I chose Nairobi, Kenya as my entry and exit point. **Reader side note: As I type this I am currently in the Masai Mara, Kenya’s famed national park. It is the home of the great wildebeest migration (which happens to be going on right now). From my current bed’s view, I can glance up to see elephant’s peacefully grazing in the…

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Pig Sacrifices and Cock Fights in Ubud, Bali

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I was in Bali this past August so this post cannot be counted as timely. However, it would be a shame not to document a 2 1/2 hour experience that was one of the most impressionable during my entire month long sojourn in Southeast Asia. This is the entrance to a family compound in Ubud that I stayed at for one night through Airbnb. I originally reserved a small private apartment in the compound for 4 nights, but after spending a night cowering in my bed like a prisoner from an army of vicious ants with very sharp and unrelenting teeth I decided to change my accommodations to a…

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Favorite Things about Laos

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Laos was one of the 4 1/2 countries I visited this past August (note: the 1/2 country was the 12 hours I spend in the South Korean airport, Incheon. If an airport could ever be called special, this one would be indeed. Parades of the royal family, chamber orchestra concerts, world class shopping and take-home art projects of traditional Korean handicrafts were just a few of its splendors I experienced!). I chose Laos with the thought that it would be much like my enchanted time in Cambodia (which I did not write about as my time there ended literally moments before I learned of my Dad’s death. The time and…

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That Time in Laos When My Tuk Tuk Hit a…

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This post was originally meant to be about my time in Halong Bay, Vietnam. However, it won’t be because as I was being taken by tuk tuk today from the bus station here in the small rural town of Vang Vieng, Laos, to my bungalow hotel, my driver hit a young girl on a motorbike throwing her little body onto the windshield and then to the dirt road with a thud. I am still traumatized by the whole sequence of events, so my hope is that writing about it will be some sort of therapy. My view as I write this at Bearlin Bungalow in Vang Vieng, Laos. Arriving in…

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