“The only journey is the one within.” -Rainer Maria Rilke
Not all journeys we go on involve our physical relocation from one place to the next. The majority of the journeys we all will experience in life will require us to learn to move forward without the people we loved.
Some years ago while I waited at the airport gate in Grand Rapids Michigan for my delayed flight a stranger made an unexpected revelation to me. Read more
The other day a much younger friend said,
“You are sure doing a lot of writing on your vacation. All that blogging seems like a awful lot of work to be doing.”
She went on to ask me questions about why I wanted to start writing as if this “writing” process started on the day I made my first blog post. I went on to explain that I have been writing, reading, and reading books about writing for a very long time (perhaps more than half my life). I didn’t just start writing yesterday.
Whether or not I wanted to admit to it…I was and had been a writer for a very long time. It was only the fear of rejection that I nurtured more than my aspirations that prevented me from sharing what I have written outside of my very small circle of friends who are also aspiring writers. Read more
For me the charm of Europe has a lot to do with the preservation of it’s history. Where else can you drive over a 300 years old bridge, walk down cobblestone street paved with rocks collected and set by the workers of centuries past or lodge in a building older than the country of your birth? It is very hard not to walk down the streets of Europe and miss the bits and pieces of the cultural legacy left by generations past.
I have always had an affinity towards old buildings. Back home in New York City my favorite neighborhoods in which to walk are not the contemporary well lit ones such as Time Square, but the ones were the facades haven’t been altered in favor of a more modern look. So I love walking down some of the forgotten streets of lower Manhattan that still maintain their old world charm. Read more
Paris July 2015For some reason the only country on my itinerary that I was a bit skeptical about coming to was France. There was some irony in this because it was also the country that I wanted to visit the most.
For as long as I could remember my mother gushed on and on about France. Even before she first stepped foot on French soil she was a Francophile. She read books about France, took French language courses and was a Juila Child fan who owned her own copy of the Joy of French Cooking. When we were kids my sisters and I thought our mother’s obsession was pretty hilarious and we would often tease and laugh at her. The thing was, my mother’s passionate about all things French was infectious. So, how could I have grown up in that household and not want to visit the country that placed my mother under its spell? Read more
This is not a real post. Or at least not the post I I intended. It is more like an update since I have been missing in action for over 48 hours. I arrived safely in Paris on Thursday as planned. After putting the finishing touches on my post “Kayaking While Channeling Nicole” I was both physically and emotionally exhausted, so I took a little break from posting (I say posting and not writing because I am always writing something most of which I do not post) to explore Paris.
Yesterday I was out and about early determined to beat the lines at the Eiffel Tower (you will read more about that later). I spent the rest of the day sightseeing and walking the street of Paris. At the end of the day I was tired, but I was determined to post. That was the plan until…. Read more
On my last full day in Spain I decided to once again square off against a physical foe that pretty much whipped my behind two years ago–Kayaking.
Booking another kayaking excursion wasn’t easy because it brought back memories of my recently deceased younger sister Nicole and our kayaking experience off the coast of Aruba two years ago. Read more
Ok everyone has at one point or another suffered with bouts of the dreaded ailment, but for some reason it is the most difficult word for me to say publically. I really believe that profanity would have an easier time gliding from my lips than the word “diarrhea.”
So now I have to go into a Farmacia and find something that is the equivalent to Imodium or eat bread for the rest of my Journey. Not that I do not love bread, but after two days of sandwiches I could use a break. Read more
In Barcelona most museums are closed on Mondays, so I decided that Tuesday would a good day to explore the small streets of Barcelona and do a bit of museum hopping. The only plan I made for the day was to make it to my 11:15 AM appointment at the Picasso museum and that I would figure out how to walk to both the Picasso and Chocolate museums using Goggle maps. I was determined not to be that pesky tourist stopping random people in the street asking for directions. Read more
Yesterday’s journey to Barcelona wasn’t the seamless journey that I had hoped for as I hit quite a few snags.
The first was a last minute gate change that wasn’t announced until boarding, preceded by a 30 minute shuttle ride to the plane and finally an additional hour delay on the runway before taking off. Emirates my favorite airline was letting me down in a big way yesterday (I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later as we do not live in a perfect world).
As unpleasant as the start of my journey was I would have to say the rest of it went rather smoothly. Specifically my trip on the Barcelona Aerobus from the airport to the Placa Catalunya. This was an unexpected surprise since I did no preplanning for how I would get to my hotel from the airport as I normally do. Read more
Even though today marks my first official blog posting –thoughts of starting my own blog have often crossed my mind. Just like I have had thoughts of writing my own novel since college; I have had thoughts of blogging for perhaps ten years now. In an attempt to move forward towards this pursuit I purchased books about blogging last year and purchased my own domain this May. Despite these efforts my blog remained dormant for months–until today. Read more
Blainey's Life Safari 