out of travel practice

after two and a half years of pandemic, i was out of practice traveling when i went to valencia the other week. lies. actually, i had done another trip to amsterdam a few weeks before. but still, i felt out of practice. when i went to amsterdam, i flew from billund, which seems like it doesn't count, since it's kind of not a real airport. anyway, i digress. this time, the trip started in copenhagen, which is still my favorite airport. 

since we were filming and recording a podcast, i had a lot of gear, so i had to have tickets where i could check two bags, despite flying shorter distances within europe. that meant that my ticket was business class. on air france. the very first time i ever flew business class was on air france, so i had good associations (that one was from atlanta to paris in about 2000, so a little different), but being out of practice, i didn't really know what to expect. and one hears so much negativity about air travel after the pandemic. 

and i have to say that air france has done nothing but up their game. the flight attendants were amazing, as was the smoked salmon croissant, the yogurt and the champagne. they were friendly, not snooty, very service-minded (topping off the bubbles, yes please!). it is amazing what great service and the feeling of being seen does for your stress levels. i was so relaxed when we arrived.

it was so fun looking out the window and being ahead of the engine. that's the mediterranean down there, as this was on the trip home, as we left valencia. i'll admit i feel a little shallow when i think about how much i enjoy being in business class. it's the same plane. we all get there at the same time. but the extra smiles and topping off your bubbles make a difference, they really do. plus, all the bags made all the flights and came off the belt close to the beginning. it just felt like luxury. and air france rocked it. i would never have expected that, but it seems they've really stepped up their game after the pandemic. too bad none of the other airlines seem to have done the same (i'm looking at you air canada and lufthansa).

the business class tickets even entitled us to the air france business lounge at charles de gaul during our four hour layover on the way home. what luxury! it was a great trip. and even if it's a little bit shallow of me, i really did enjoy flying business class. it had been too long. 

vilnius :: a hidden gem

if you hang out with me on instagram, you know that we spent last week in lithuania and we loved it. there are a few shots of sights that i actually managed to take with the real camera and not share on instagram. i'll admit most of my shots were taken with my iPhone 7+ - that camera is the shit and hey, it's right there in my pocket. but lithuania was really great. it's lovely, with cobblestone streets and beautiful buildings, vilnius is totally walkable and full of cafés where you can a seriously excellent latte for €2. i highly recommend it. it's like prague without all of the awful tourists. shh, it's a hidden gem. and i don't want everyone to know about it and spoil it. because i'm definitely going back.

stop overthinking and just enjoy

i apparently have theory on the brain...yesterday, cultural capital, today, orientalism.

you may have gathered that i love the philippines. the warmth and genuineness of the people, the food, their creative use of vinegar, the climate, the shopping. i love it all. but in my tendency to overthink and over-analyze, i wonder if i end up, in my deep and abiding affection, in fetishizing a whole nation?

nearly every time i've been to the philippines (and last week was my 17th trip), i have had the opportunity to see a performance like the one depicted here...magically lovely young girls enacting traditional dances from one of the philippines' 7000 islands. hotels almost always have such a show - and i wonder if such shows feed an expected stereotype...a taste of the exotic, served up to hungry tourists.

taal volcano - batangas, philippines

this show, on a friday afternoon, at a lovely hotel overlooking the taal volcano, was performed in a restaurant full of filipinos. looking around, i think myself and my colleagues were the only tourists in the place. which makes me feel a bit less like i'm orientalizing, as i'm sure they hadn't put on the show just for our sake.

maybe sometimes i need to stop over analyzing and just enjoy, because the girls were graceful and lovely and their silhouettes exquisite. and it's undoubtedly perfectly ok to simply enjoy that and not worry too much about it.  when i go back in a couple of weeks, i'll think i'll just sit back and enjoy the show.

oh the joys of travel

whether you mean it to be or not, every journey is a voyage of discovery. often self-discovery. in the wee hours of a long-haul flight, when sleep eludes, or in the quiet moments soaking in a sinfully deep bubble bath in a luxury hotel room, there is time for reflection, time to hear your own thoughts, time that doesn't necessarily appear in the reality of everyday existence.

travel is also jarring...the fact that a few hours on a plane can transport you to a different climate, to a different culture, to the other side of the world...is hard on the body. and the mind. and sometimes it's hard to catch up. but it's mostly amazing. and a privilege. 

travel makes me feel alive. it inspires me. it clears my head and gives me the time to think that i crave. breathing new air, drinking in new experiences, talking to different people, these things feed my soul. make me feel complete. and even when the journey is long and tiring, i find it somehow exhilarating.

traveling to distant shores helps me know who i am.

travel and driving and thinking and antiquing

we drove for eight hours today along stretches of not-very-busy interstate highways. and tho' we had three kids in the backseat, they were pretty content with iPhones, a DVD player and a nintendo DS or two, so it wasn't a bad trip, aside from the begging to stop at all of the snack villages (courtesy of my youngest nephew, our family name for those well-stocked truckstops). but there were quiet moments and they enabled a lot of thinking and some crocheting (when it wasn't my turn to drive).

i can feel on this trip that i was in need of the change of scenery that travel brings - new impulses, new impressions, new thoughts. it just realigns you in a way that staying at home can't do (even if you've just moved, apparently). all of the new input brings fresh inspiration and new configurations in the way you think about things.

there's something about being on the prairie that makes me feel nostalgic. it's partially going back home (which will be covered in another post), it's partially telling stories to sabin, and partially the purposeful nostalgia that is wandering around antique shops, plus a little bit of laura ingalls wilder. it's the winds blowing summer grass and seeing as far as your eyes will allow and the golden light of a prairie sunset.

so during those moments in the car when i had time to think, i found myself mulling over the textiles i had seen in the antique shop, the care that had gone into the stitches and the care that had gone into displaying them - they were washed and bright and charmingly displayed. little bits and pieces of lives gone before, lives lived on these prairies - handmade lives. pieces of a time both gone by and one which we find ourselves yearning for to the point where we scribble notes about them in the notes app on our iPhones. so i was thinking of how to marry that nostalgia with the present. how to live with a foot in both worlds. and whether it's even possible....

things i forgot (or possibly never noticed) about the US

somewhere near charles city, iowa

~ really wide roads.

~ the tendency of stewardesses on american airlines (delta in this case) to treat everyone like small, dull children. i was waiting my turn at the bathroom onboard, the stewardess turned to explain to me which doors were the restrooms, as if i'd never seen a plane before.

~ the intensity of the plastic packaging on everything.

~ fake sweeteners.

~  the ubiquity of strip malls. even the child care places are in strip malls.

~  it seems that all restaurants are chain restaurants.

~  enormous cars. lots of them.

~  car designs that look like the car is actually a tank in car clothing.

~  the heavenly interior of the gap. (where thankfully they have remembered that their core competency is the hooded, pullover sweatshirt.)

~  miles and miles and miles of cornfields.

~  blaring and constant ads on radio.

~  how incredibly cheap it is to go out to eat.

~  people constantly saying "sorry" and "excuse me." (bear in mind i live in a land where people will actually run over your foot with their grocery cart and not utter a single word which acknowledges your existence, let alone expresses remorse.)

~  gas stations that are veritable snack villages (and where you can buy a jesus t-shirt while you're at it).

~  fireflies in the ditches.

i find i'm actually suffering a little bit from culture shock. i've not been here for nearly four years and either i forgot about all that stuff, or things have really changed. however, i see no signs whatsoever of any shift away from enormous, gas-guzzling vehicles, so apparently in that area the crisis was short-lived. i'll be sneaking back with more impressions when i have a moment of peace.