A Few Hours in Verona

April 8, 2013

One of the things I really wanted to do this time in Italy was take a train to a smaller city for a day trip from Milan. One of my favorite movies happens to be Letters to Juliet, which is based in Verona and when we decided on Milan, I knew I wanted to take the hour and a half train ride to Verona for the day. I really wanted to experience a smaller city in Italy and Verona is a place that’s not super well known, so I thought it would be quieter and less touristy. Well it was quieter than Milan but still packed with people exploring the city, even on a cold rainy day.

I really liked Verona, though it turned out to be a day packed full comedies of errors. I started the day by banging my knee on an ancient stone (which throbbed the rest of the day and ended up creating a huge bump and bruise for the rest of the rip), Nick dropped his camera in a puddle (which thankfully did no harm to the camera), and he didn’t have a hood or umbrella and we got caught in a terrential downpour which left him looking like he had jumped in the river. In the end, we ended up grabbing an earlier train back to Milan that we had originally anticipated because we really couldn’t walk around anymore in the pouring rain, but we had a nice day exploring Verona and some stories to look back on and laugh at.

I loved the colors in Verona. The buildings, the monuments, everything was colorful. And mixed with the cobblestone streets, the ancient colosseum and the tiny only pedestrian streets, it was truly magical.

Verona’s pretty small and we basically did a big loop through the city, starting at the Piazza Erbe, where we had lunch and I had the most amazing lasagna I’ve ever had. Then we wound our way to Juliet’s balcony which is supposedly the house that Shakespeare modeled the Romeo and Juliet story after. Next we headed to Piazza Bra where we needed a respite from the rain and enjoyed a macchiato and gelato (and Nick had Tiramisu). After an hour taking our time with our coffee and desserts, we headed out into the weather again and wandered toward Castelvechio, a castle and fortress from the Middle Ages along the Adige River. This was a really interesting place and it had great views of the town and really took you back in time.

Overall, I really liked Verona albeit through the cold and rain and the obstacles throughout the day.

I’m really glad though that we spent the day there… it was truly one of those places that could exist no where else than in Italy and that made it so cliche in the best possible way.

I can see why Shakespeare chose this little Italian city as his location for the tale of Romeo and Juliet.

And no doubt his notion of Verona is still alive and well today in this little storybook Italian city.

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Exploring Milan in a Day

April 5, 2013

When we were planning this trip way back when, Nick and I really wanted to experience Italy again after our mishap in Rome a couple years ago. After our trip to Rome, we weren’t very eager to return to Italy for a number of reasons, but when I tell people that, I get this look of shock like I’m utterly crazy. So we decided we needed to try Italy again and when this trip came about, we wanted somewhere central between Paris and the French Riviera and a place from where we could do a day trip to a smaller Italian city too. So that’s how Milan came about and to be honest, I was really curious to try Northern Italy and Milan specifically. We didn’t have a lot of time though so here’s how we ended up exploring Milan in a day.

In the end, it wasn’t my favorite place but I liked it much better than Rome in the small amounts of the city I saw. In all honesty, we really only spent a day here, as our second day we used to take the train to Verona (which I liked a lot.) So in the day we spent wandering around Milan, it was also freezing cold and rainy but I did enjoy seeing the city.

We started the day off with the Duomo, a couple blocks from our hotel and wandering around the Piazza in front of the grand church. It truly was remarkable. Next we jumped on the metro and headed to Santa Marie delle Grazie to see Da Vinci’s Last Supper painting. This was one of my favorite moments of the trip and this painting is seriously incredible. I was expecting it to be like 4′ wide…. in reality it’s an entire wall of a chapel and totally spellbinding. To sit in the chapel right where Da Vinci painted that work of art, to imagine him there was truly incredible.

I also really liked that neighborhood of Milan, grand big apartment buildings with intricate detailing,the quintessential hanging lights known to Milan and streetcar tracks running down the cobblestone streets… it was the kind of scene where you know you could only be in Italy.

Following our viewing of The Last Supper, Nick and I finished off the evening wandering around the Duomo and Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping mall. We had dinner in one of the cafes in the Galleria, watching the people go by and totally in awe of the building itself with its glass domes.

Overall, I enjoyed Milan, at least the day we spent here. It was definitely a different feel than Rome, more cosmopolitan but also I felt less chaotic than Rome. It didn’t have the “romantic” quality that Rome can have, but is unique all its own in a whole different way. I’m glad we gave Italy a second chance and even though we tend to connect more with France, Italy definitely has a character all its own that is truly memorable.

Where to Stay in Milan

exploring milan in a day travel outfit for Italy

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An Ode to the Third Culture Kids

February 22, 2013

If this title confuses you, just bear with me and I’ll provide a background on what I’m talking about. But to start, one of the things I hope to accomplish on this blog is to promote understanding & to negate ignorances. I think in order to do that, we need to start with my backstory to understand where we’re going with this today.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I was born and raised in Saudi Arabia.

My home for all of my childhood, it was truly all I knew.

It was home.

So when it was time to leave, I left as a pre-teen child knowing that the goodbyes I was saying to my friends, my childhood home, the country I knew and loved,

I knew I’d probably never see any of them again.

That day we left Saudi was heartbreaking, not just for me but for my parents too.

I’ll never forget the feeling that crept up on me that day, it truly changed my life.

From then on, the first couple years back in the States I had a really hard time. Not necessarily adjusting to life here or meeting new friends, but in the fact that I felt like a whole part of me was suddenly missing. Something I couldn’t really explain to people that didn’t understand.

For years, I HATED the question “where are you from?”

I couldn’t answer it without going into the whole story because I wasn’t really “from” Saudi,

but it had been my birthplace, my home.

And I wasn’t “from” the States either, somehow that seemed far more foreign to me than saying I was from Saudi.

And hence came many many years of not really feeling at home anywhere, never truly feeling like I was “home” in the States, nor that it was truly what defined my citizenship.

I had no one except my parents that understood this, though they also were in a different boat than me. Their time in Saudi had been in adulthood, with many years in the States before that and so while they tried as hard as they could, it wasn’t a feeling they could totally understand either.

Through my high school years the connection to my Saudi childhood friends over the internet helped tremendously. At times when I’d really miss it, I’d talk to them. I’d look at their photos of our old home and reminisce with them about when we were kids.

Many of them I still am in contact with today.

I apologize that this post is so winded, but here in lies the rub, this is the story of my life and it is winded.

I can’t just say “I’m from Oregon” and be done with it.

Or “I’m American” and be done with it… because even though now both of those hold true,

they don’t paint the whole picture, just a tiny part of it.

So anyways, in college I came across the term “Third culture kid.”

And it seriously changed my life. This term describes kids like me, born and raised in a foreign country but a citizen of another and somewhere in between both of those, lies a third culture we’ve sort of created for ourselves, a mixture of the two that we “belong” to.

To finally be able to see my situation written in a word, to finally be able to express what I had been feeling all those years in a way someone else might be able to understand.

It was a huge revelation.

And then just the other day I came across this article talking about the exact same thing but relaying a single world for the feelings I’ve had for years. “Saudade,” a Portuguese word without an equivalent in English means “a longing, a melancholy, a desire for what was and something that really won’t ever be again.”

That word stopped me in my tracks the other day as I read the article (forwarded to me by a friend from Saudi). That one word is one that I hold with me everyday in my heart and I’ve been holding it for a very long time now without even knowing the word that described it.

To really imagine the feeling, imagine the place you grew up, your house, your home, your friends, your family, your hobbies, your reality, gone in 1 day, knowing you’d never see it again.

I guess my point in all this is that sometimes, as third culture kids, no one understands why we feel this way. People always tell me, “well you’re American though, so I don’t get it.”

And I wish it were that simple but it is far from that.

While my passport has always been American, in large letters in the place of birth category is written

prominently “Saudi Arabia” and there is the story of my life.

Caught between two cultures that have never been truly mine, either one of them.

So now years down the road, I look back and can understand a little better what I went through and what I felt is felt by third culture kids all around the world.

And so here is my ode to the third culture kids around the globe, may we find peace in who we are, where we come from and how the world has shaped us.

And may others try to understand that it isn’t so black and white for us,

that sometimes cultures blur, boundaries are undefined.

I think as a world we need to understand this more and as more and more lines do blur,

we must know that our hearts can hold pieces of our “homes,” even if that home can’t be

drawn on a map.

I’ll always be a little “Arab” and I’m so thankful for that because it’s a huge part of who I am

and I hope it always will be.

Now when someone asks me where I’m from, I smile and respond

“I grew up in Saudi Arabia.”

And then I wait for the questions that always seem to follow…

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New Orleans: Day 1 (The French Quarter)

December 28, 2012

Our first day in New Orleans, we wandered around the French Quarter, took in the sights and enjoyed the food. The city was a lot different than I had anticipated. I was expecting it to feel quaint and almost fairy-tale like after seeing photos of the French quarter, but that is not how it is in real life. I was surprised by how dirty it was, how many drunk people there were, and the overall aura of the area. With that said however, we did end up finding little areas in the French Quarter we really enjoyed (staying away from Bourbon Street). We really enjoyed wandering down Royal Street and Chartres Street and areas of others. We liked Jackson Square and the little area around there.

We had some amazing food while we were there the first day including Jumbalaya (which I found out I loved), amazing buttermilk fried chicken, and my favorite beignets at Cafe du Monde to start the day.

Overall, we’re glad we saw and experienced New Orleans, in particular the French Quarter, though I’m not sure it’s a place we’d hurry back to. Nonetheless, still a lovely trip and and experience.

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Our First Trip to Iceland: Day 4

December 4, 2012

We ended our time in Iceland on a high note, exploring Reykjavik on our last day. We left early afternoon for the airport, but before then, we used our last morning in Iceland to explore more of the town around us (since we’d been out in the country the previous couple days). Reykjavik was definitely different than I had expected and while most of it was very sprawled and industrial, the little “downtown” section had some cute areas with the colorful “Scandinavian” type style buildings I was hoping for.

We walked all around the main section of Reykjavik, then up to the Hallgrimskirkja Cathedral, which stands up on a hill with architecture meant to mimic the Icelandic landscape. It was a pretty spectacular architectural site and we ended up there right as the sun was rising and the sky was all shades of gorgeous colors. From there we headed down the hill on the main road through town to the “Pond” which happened to be frozen over. While it made me incredibly nervous, people were riding their bikes, playing soccer and ice skating on it, so we wandered out on the ice for a while (Nick farther than me). We enjoyed the local scene and then took a little break at a bakery with some hot chocolate and free Wifi and then headed back to our hotel to head to the airport.

Reykjavik was all in all very different than I had envisioned but we still very much enjoyed the main area of town. Overall, our trip to Iceland was very memorable and we hope to go back sometime in the future at a different time of year to see the landscape differently. There were many moments that I will forever remember as some of the best travel experiences of my life so far and this was a trip that touched me very differently than our usual travels, some for good and some for bad, but at the end of the day, I am so thankful and proud to have marked Iceland on my list of travels and its beauty will remain in my mind for a long time.

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Our First Trip to Iceland: Day 2

November 30, 2012

Our second day in Iceland was definitely the most memorable. We had booked a tour with a British guy that lives in Iceland and is part of the photography circle there (Nick found him via the photography community online) and it was the best thing we did on our whole trip. While expensive, it made up for it threefold, as it was a pretty incredible day. He picked us up from our hotel at 8:30 and we headed out into Iceland in the pitch dark before the sun rose and didn’t drop us back off until 5pm that night.

We saw so many sights that day, many of which I’ve documented below with my own photos (Nick is still editing his and I’ll do a post for them on their own later). The landscape in Iceland is truly extraordinary and its natural beauty and uniqueness are truly incredible. I was blown away so many times that day by how rugged the land is, how you can be driving on totally flat land and next to you a mountain springs up out of nowhere, how it can be snowing, raining and whipping cold all at once, and how in some of the harshest conditions I’ve ever been in, I was still so overtaken by the beauty of the land. For once in my life, the bitter cold didn’t take anything away from my experience in Iceland.

Iceland for me was so different than any trip I’ve ever taken and I reveled in the beauty of the land that was before me. There were so many moments standing up on mountains, or above waterfalls, or on the rocky lava strewn coast covered in olive green moss with no one else for miles, that I was simply just stunned at what was before me. So many times I really needed a moment to gather myself after we left places and I found myself totally overwhelmed by the rugged and stark beauty of Iceland.

It was a place that really is hard to explain, a place that is very hard to detail to other people who haven’t been there. It’s a country and a land with a very long history and a place that touched me in a very different way than anywhere else I’ve been.

Here’s some gorgeous views to leave you with for the weekend!

Thingvellir:

The site of the first Viking parliament and also the site where the North American and the Eurasian plates are separating, creating massive cracks in the earth here.

Driving into the interior of South West Iceland…

Gulfoss:

One of the huge waterfalls in Iceland.

Heading out from Gulfoss…

Volcano turned into a quarry… these colors in the rock were stunning!

The view from the quarry out over the expanse of Southern Iceland…

The South Coast of Iceland…

Natural geothermal hot springs…

Sunset over the South Coast…

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Our First Trip to Iceland: Day 1

November 29, 2012

Our first day in Iceland was a short one. We arrived at 7am local time, however when we arrived at our hotel around 9am, we were so tired that we went right to sleep for a few hours. When we woke up, we only had a couple hours left of daylight (sunset was around 4pm). So in that short time frame, we wandered around our are of downtown Reykjavik and down near the harbor.

Reykjavik was different than I was expecting, and definitely wasn’t the cute little colorful town I had envisioned. Nevertheless, we explored the area by the harbor, had lobster soup and fish and chips and then returned to the hotel to go to sleep again. That night we woke up around 10pm wide awake (damn jet lag) and proceeded to bundle up again and walk over in the dark to a pizza place near our hotel to get some dinner. It was delicious pizza and kind of a random adventure to finish off our first day in Iceland.

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New York City: Day 4

November 19, 2012

On our last day in New York, we had to leave our hotel around 2pm to head to the airport, so we stayed close to our Midtown hotel on Park Avenue. We started our day with New York bagels at Daniel’s Bagels, toasted bagels with mounds of whipped cream cheese. When we’d had our fill, we walked up to 5th Avenue and did a little bit of final shopping, then wandered around past the New York Public Library once more, then down near the Empire State Building to pick up a few little souvenirs.

We ended our day with a late lunch at Dos Caminos, then headed back to our hotel to grab our stuff and grab a cab to the airport. New York was one of those trips for me that I didn’t know what to expect, I wasn’t sure I’d like the chaos of such a huge and famous city, but I ended up falling in love with it. Of course, some areas were not my cup of tea, but others, I found myself drawn to, like the West Village, Dumbo in Brooklyn, the Flat Iron area (which will all be ending up on my {Favorite Places} list soon)…. these places for me, made a real impact and I’m so glad I got to experience New York the way we did, the way we love exploring a new place, walking around, feeling part of it.

I found myself falling in love with all sorts of things about New York and can’t wait to make another trip back there in the future.

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New York City: Day 3

November 16, 2012

Our third day in New York, we woke up very sore from walking so much and started our day slowly with a trip to Midtown for Nick to check out B&H Photo (a huge photo superstore) and I had coffee with a friend of mine that lives in New York. Afterwards, we wound down through the city toward downtown. We went through Chelsea, Meat Packing, then on to Tribeca and Soho.

In Soho, we walked around a bit and then had brunch at the trendy Balzathar restaurant. After brunch, we headed West through the NYU campus and up to the West Village. We stopped at Carrie’s brownstone (from Sex and the City) and then wound our way just around the corner to the famous Magnolia Bakery. We grabbed cupcakes and meandered over to a park across the street, enjoying our treats and taking a quick break.

After that, we grabbed a cab down to the Financial district and walked around the Freedom Towers and the Ground Zero site, Battery City Park along the water and then through the downtown area over to the Brooklyn Bridge. Right at sunset, we started our trek over the bridge (which takes way longer than you think it’s going to). When we got across to Brooklyn, we found a spot down on the water and I took in the fabulous Manhattan skyline across the water while Nick took some gorgeous photos.

That evening, we actually met some friends of ours from Oregon who were also visiting at the same time. We had dinner with them at Boqueria, probably our favorite meal of the trip and totally worth trying if you’re in NYC. It’s a Spanish restaurant that was amazing!

Our third day in New York covered a lot of ground and we were lucky with gorgeous weather which made it even better!

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Exploring New York City for the First Time

November 16, 2012

While exploring New York City for the first time, we spent our first day sleeping in and started our day with breakfast at Pershing Square restaurant at Grand Central Station. It was just a short 2 blocks from our hotel and was delicious with a very cool interior. After breakfast, we headed toward the Chrysler building, then on up to the Upper East Side and Central Park.

We spent our morning wandering through the glass box apple store, picking up Laduree macarons and eating them in Central Park as people sailed their miniature sail boats around, took pictures in the Fall leaves, wandered by the Met and grabbed lunch at a hot dog stand outside the Guggenheim. It was one of those days where every corner held a new place to be seen.

After lunch, we grabbed a cab back down to Rockafeller Plaza and walked around Radio City Music Hall, Bryant Park and ended the afternoon at the New York Public Library before heading back to our hotel a close distance away for a few hours of down time.

That evening at sunset, we walked a couple blocks from our hotel to the Empire State building. Nick really wanted to go up to the top to get some photos of New York, so we took the elevator up the 86 floors and wandered around the top of the Empire State building and took in the sweeping views of New York. Afterwards, we went to Pastis for dinner in the Meat Packing District. It was by far one of our favorite meals of the trip and the atmosphere is great and I’d highly recommend it. After dinner we headed back uptown to our hotel for a long nights sleep!