Exploring New England in Salem, MA & Maine

May 29, 2013

I’m just going to jump right into posts about our trip to Boston and New England over the holiday weekend a few days ago. Basically, we stayed in Boston, but drove up and down the New England coast as well as spending some time exploring the beautiful city of Boston.

Our first full day, we drove North and stopped first at the charming little town of Salem, Massachusetts. This was a stop I really wanted to make, just to see the town that has such a long history in the US of witchcraft. It was a delightful little town and we really enjoyed just wandering around and taking it all in.

Next, we jumped back in the car and headed farther North to explore the Southern part of Maine. Maine was beautiful. Somewhat how I expected, but somehow different too. The scenery though and the trees and the green: gorgeous. The drive North from Boston to Maine was lovely.

Our first stop of the day was in Kennebunkport, Maine. This little touristy town was small and unique and the home of my first ever lobster roll. It was delicious (but let’s just say by end of day 2, I was done with seafood because I’d had so much!)

After exploring the town a bit and then driving through some of the surrounding countryside, we headed up farther north to Portland, Maine. This brick city was totally different than I was expecting but we enjoyed it all the same. We enjoyed some Haddock fish and chips on the harbor and while the day was very cold and rainy, we thoroughly enjoyed this part of the state.

Our final stop of the day was the Portland Head Lighthouse. This was a stop Nick had really wanted to stop at to get some photos of (which I’ll share his photos a little later as he’s still editing them). It was freezing cold and rainy as we stopped here, but the views were amazing… rocky coasts and huge waves rushing the shore… stunning. This is the rugged beauty of Maine.

After that, we headed back to Boston (only an hour and half) and spent the evening at our hotel. More to come tomorrow on Cape Cod and Rhode Island!

Salem, Massachusetts

Photo copyright Nick Nieto Photography

Kennebunkport, Maine

Photo copyright Nick Nieto Photography

Portland, Maine

Photo copyright Nick Nieto Photography

Portland Head Lighthouse, Maine

What to Wear in Europe in the Spring

April 19, 2013

travel style for Europe in the spring what to wear

More What to Wear posts for more destinations here!

Traveling in the Spring to mainland Europe can be any sort of weather so you’ll want to pack for a variety of temperatures and layer your outfits. Some years in March we’ve had 70 degree blue sky days while other years it’s been in the 40’s, gray and rainy… so you need to be prepared for anything. And when you’re gone for a week or 10 days, you generally don’t know the weather that far in advance, so packing to prepare for what could come is important too. Here is what to wear in Europe in the Spring so that you’re prepared for any type of weather and travel style for multiple destinations in Europe. For this particular trip, we spent time in Paris, Milan, Nice, and Monaco, so here is everything I wore and the travel style I used throughout the trip.

And if you need advice for visiting different places around France, Monaco, and Italy – here is everything you’ll need to know:

France | Italy | Monaco

What to Pack:

A few options for coats/jackets – I brought 2 trench coats and 1 rain coat which served me well depending on what the weather was going to be.
Multiple scarves – This is an easy way to change up outfits, even if you’re wearing the same items like coats and jeans everyday, a different scarf can make the outfit look entirely different and keep you warm.
Layers – I usually wear a long sleeve t-shirt, a sweater, a coat and then a scarf, that way you can add or remove layers as you need to during the day when the temperatures vary a lot.
Comfortable Shoes – I live in my Converse and they are comfortable and easy to walk around cities all day.
A cross body purse – Your arm will get tired of carrying a purse around, so invest in one that also can be a good cross body bag and you’ll be thankful you did.
2 pairs of pants – I usually wear one on the plane and pack another pair so you have some variety.

What I Wore:

Outfit Details:

Gap Tan Trench Coat (similar) | Madewell Dark Denim | Tan Sweater (similar) | White Low Top Converse

Dooney & Bourke Cross Body Purse (similar)| Long Sleeve Striped Tee (similar) | Floral Scarf (similar)

Outfit Details:

Zara Blue Trench (similar) | Paige Flare Dark Denim (similar) | Navy Polka Dot Scarf (similar) |

Dooney & Bourke Cross Body Purse (similar) | White Low Top Converse

Outfit Details:

Black Calvin Kline Raincoat (similar) | Madewell Dark Denim | Scarf (similar) |

Black Leather Gloves (similar) | Cross Body Purse (similar)| White Low Top Converse

Outfit Details:

Black Calvin Kline Raincoat (similar) | Madewell Dark Denim | Scarf (similar) |

Gloves (similar) | Cross Body Purse (similar)| White Low Top Converse

Outfit Details:

Zara Blue Trench (similar) | Bandana Scarf (similar) | Cross Body Purse (similar) | Sunglasses (similar)

Outfit Details:

Zara Blue Trench (similar) | Navy Polka Dot Scarf (similar) | Madewell Dark Denim

Dooney & Bourke Cross Body Purse (similar) | White Low Top Converse

Traveling to France?

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Paris (March 2013): Day 4

April 15, 2013

To start the week and end my day by day posts from our trip,
I leave you with our last day in beautiful Paris.

Our final day in Paris is always a sad one for me and every time I’m in the city it gets harder and harder to leave! But we made our final day in Paris a good one.

We started our day with something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Every trip in Paris, we always cross the Pont de l’Archeveche behind Notre dame to get our croissants from our favorite place on the Ile St. Louis and this bridge is one that has been taken over by locks. There are many bridges in Paris that have done this, lovers lock a padlock to the bridge with their names on it and then throw the key into the Seine. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do and so this trip, I brought a lock with me and our final morning we locked our love to the bridge and threw away the key into the river below.

After that, we picked up croissants on the way to Nick’s family’s hotel. It was another cold day in Paris, and actually we saw some snow flakes falling later in the day but it was clear in the morning and the sky began to open up as we walked over to the Louvre.

The Louvre for me is a place I really try to avoid after we went our first time in Paris and I’m sure someday I’ll get back there on a quiet day to enjoy it, but it’s so over crowded, people everywhere and loud that it makes it hard for me enjoy it. But we wanted to make sure my in-laws saw at least the Mona Lisa and a bit of that wing, so we ventured to the museum in the morning.

After that we parted ways and Nick and I enjoyed a lovely last day in our favorite city.

We headed first for lunch at a little Spanish restaurant I had read about in the Bastille area. It was a charming little place and totally off the beaten path. We enjoyed Spanish Tortilla, Potatoes Bravas, Paprika Chicken and bread and delicious tomato relish all ordered in French from a chalkboard daily menu they bring to your table. It was here, while we were eating this delicious lunch that we looked outside and it had started snowing.

After lunch we jumped back on the metro and made our way back to our area near Notre Dame.

We picked up a few souvenirs that we always do (we always get some Eiffel Tower keychains while in Paris) and I had really been wanting to try a place I had read about on another blog called Odette, which is basically a little shop with all different flavors of cream puffs. I wasn’t totally sold and while I liked the chocolate ones, the other flavors weren’t my favorite. But overall, it’s an adorable little shop and worth at least a visit.

We finished off the day with dinner with everyone to cap off our trip. Afterwards, Nick and I said goodbye to Paris at one of our favorite brasseries, Le Petit Pont Cafe, across the street from Notre Dame, having a cafe au lait and crepes. We watched the city light up as the evening fell and enjoyed our last moments in the City of Lights.

Paris was lovely as always this time around, and while bitterly cold, it always holds such a special part of my soul. I feel totally in sync in Paris, a feeling that I find rarer and rarer as I see more of the world.

It’s a city that I will always hold dear and until my next trip, au revoir my dear Paris.

On another final note, I’ve updated my Paris travel guide here with a new hotel and restaurant recommendations and some new activities.

Photo copyright to Nick Nieto Photography

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Paris (March 2013): Day 3

April 12, 2013

We returned to Paris at the end of our trip for a day and a half. The evening we returned from Nice to Paris, we took Nick’s family to one of our favorite restaurants in Paris, St. Regis on the Ile St. Louis. It’s a picturesque little French bistro with an awesome menu that changes all the time. I’ve never had bad food here and it’s a little more elevated than your typical brasserie.

After dinner, we walked Nick’s grandma back to her hotel and wandered by Notre Dame at night which is always a favorite sight of mine and so full of that magic of Paris.

This evening was so quintessentially Paris and the city truly sparkles at night.

Photo copyright to Nick Nieto Photography

Headed to Paris?

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Where to Stay in France

An Evening in Monte Carlo

April 11, 2013

While we were in Nice, I really wanted to check out Monaco which is only about a 15 minute train ride East. I didn’t really know what to expect with Monte Carlo and in the end, I’m really glad we went, even if it was just for the evening. We took a taxi from the train station (a process in itself, since you aren’t supposed to flag taxi’s down in Monaco, so you have to call from a taxi stand and needless to say, my French came in very handy with this process.) We headed toward the Hotel de Paris since that’s such a landmark and I didn’t really know any other landmark at the time to tell the taxi driver.

We walked around the grounds of the Hotel de Paris, the Casino and the hotel and took in the ornate architecture and the expensive cars driving around the area. After that, we wanted to have a nice dinner in Monte Carlo, so we headed downhill toward the water from the Hotel de Paris and ended up eating at the Meridian Hotel Monaco for dinner. Their restaurant was lovely, with views out over the Mediterranean and the food excellent. Had I the opportunity to do this over again, I would have picked a specific restaurant in Monte Carlo that we wanted to go to and to know the hours, because most of the restaurants we passed didn’t open until 8pm. But all in all, we had a nice dinner and evening walking around Monte Carlo.

I know this isn’t peak season for the principality, but I was really taken aback by the almost eerie quality of Monte Carlo. It appears as such a cosmopolitan city, with it towers lining the mountain edge, but in reality I think it’s a city that’s half empty most of the year and that definitely showed while we were there. It was an interesting experience and not a place I’d rush back to but a place I enjoyed seeing. I’m sure too that during the warmer months it’s probably a much more magical setting and I think that would be worth experiencing too sometime.

Nice: Day 2

April 10, 2013

On to our second day in Nice, we’d originally planned to take a train for the day to Menton, a little town famed for its lemon trees about 15 minutes East of Nice but we really needed a day just to relax and enjoy Nice, so we decided we’d hit Menton up next time.

We ended up having the best day just on our own starting with room service for breakfast overlooking Nice and the Mediterranean from our balcony. We slept in, rested, hung around the room and then finally ventured out to head up Castle Hill. This hill which you can see from pretty much everywhere in Nice is famed for its views over the city. So we walked along the ocean until we found the elevator that takes you part way up, then walked the rest of the way up. There is a beautiful waterfall up there and it’s truly a gorgeous area, but the view from the top, seriously takes your breath away.

I’m so glad we made it up here and it really shouldn’t be missed when you’re in the area.

Next we headed back down and wandered along the Quai des Etats-Unis along the water, taking in the breathtaking views of the Mediterranean and watching people go about their days.

That evening we ventured into Monaco… but more to come on that in tomorrow’s post!

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Nice: Day 1

April 9, 2013

Upon arriving in Nice… I immediately fell in love with this city.

The red buildings of Old Nice, the Place Messena, the Mediterranean, the greenery, the rocky beach… seriously one of my favorite places I’ve ever been.

I immediately said to Nick the first day there, “I could seriously live here.”

And while Paris probably still tops off my number 1 favorite place, Nice is definitely up there high on that list.

We started our day actually in Milan with an early train to Nice. After about a 4.5 hour train ride with gorgeous scenery, we arrived in Nice and spent the rest of the day exploring.

I took a little break alone and did some shopping as I was so excited to see a Galleries Lafayette there

(a favorite of mine in Paris) and we ended our day and evening eating lobster in Old Nice, among the old orange and red buildings, watching the pedestrians saunter by.

Another favorite of mine from Nice was our hotel and the view from our room. We stayed at the Meridian and I would highly recommend it. The view from our room was seriously incredible and a view that was truly inspiring to look out over all of Old Nice and the Mediterranean Ocean.

Nice for me was the beauty of the Riviera, the ancient colorful feel of Italy, and everything I love about France rolled up into one city. Many of the buildings reminded me a lot of the architecture of the French Quarter in New Orleans as well, intricate rod iron balconies and soft shades of all
different colors. This place is gorgeous. We will definitely be returning and I’d love to explore that region of France more, heading into Provence and the other Rivera cities as well.

Nice was my favorite part of this trip (other than Paris of course) and a beautiful new edition to my favorite places in the world!

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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.

Traveling to Italy?

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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

Traveling to 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…

Interested in reading more about my childhood in Saudi Arabia?

See all of my posts on the country!

Exploring New England in Salem, MA & Maine

What to Wear in Europe in the Spring

What to Pack:

What I Wore:

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Paris (March 2013): Day 4

Headed to Paris?

Paris (March 2013): Day 3

An Evening in Monte Carlo

Nice: Day 2

Nice: Day 1

A Few Hours in Verona

Exploring Milan in a Day

An Ode to the Third Culture Kids

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