by Kirby Brooks “Big Sur is the California that men dreamed of years ago, this is the Pacific that Balboa looked at from the Peak of Darien, this is the face of the earth as the Creator intended it to look.” – Henry Miller. Big Sur had always existed as a mythical place in my…
by Rachel Ward “Esta es la Cataluña profunda,” quipped Juanjo—the tall and dark cinematographer boyfriend of my language partner Laia—referring to our remote location, deep in the wine and olive country of the Spanish province that borders France, called Catalunya in Catalan. I suffered waves of nausea from the backseat as our car curved deeper…
by Alison McFarlane I’m a desert rat. I love dry heat, hot salsa and icy margaritas. I just spent a sizzling 72-hour summer weekend exploring Tucson, Arizona and all of the above delicacies. I picked up the scent of deep, rich, dark-roast brew the first morning. Raging Sage, an independent coffee joint, provided the day’s…
by Rachel Ward I was an Italian-ignorant, lone American girl who, according to every Italian I met, could pass for 17. Yet I braved the streets of Naples, Italy’s most crime-infested city, the gritty home of the mafia, more Cairo or Bangkok than Milan and the closest thing to extreme travel on the European circuit….
by Shelley Seale Beijing is a city with more than 3,000 years of recorded history and a glorious cultural heritage; yet it is also a bustling metropolitan that has given birth to an artistic youth movement in recent years. Today’s Beijing is a place where ancient historical sights stand side-by-side with a thriving avant-garde culture…
My question is – why the heck not? I suppose being single and living alone for nearly a decade before I got married at age 35 conditioned me to be comfortable in my own company. Nearly all of my friends married and had kids long before I did, so I grew accustomed to them not…
by Alexa Evans Apparently, you can have too much Sauvignon Blanc. Although I am admittedly quite fond of the herbaceous varietal, a taste I obtained while residing in New Zealand, I temporarily called a moratorium on all glasses of glistening white vino until I was certain they would no longer induce spinning rooms. The decision…