The Everywhereist

Hi – I’m back! Forgive the lag in blogging. I blame Peru. That place is magical.

I’ve loads to tell you about that trip – and heck, I’m not even done telling you about Kansas or my trip to Lake Placid, Florida (please try to contain your excitement). But all of that will have to wait, because presently, I want to take a piece of sandpaper or, failing that, a cheese grater, to my ankle. It’s covered in bug bites attained at Macchu Pichu, and it’s positively killing me. While I’m blessed to not suffer from allergies (unless, say, I shove my face directly into a cat and breathe in deeply, which I’m sure we’ve all done once or thrice), there is one thing I am severely allergic to: mosquito bites. They usually swell up to the size of a quarter, and have literally woken me from a restful sleep with the sting.

I took a photo of my bug-bitten ankle thinking it would be impressive, but instead it looks disappointingly normal, so I now seem like a huge wuss. Behold:

The cropping on this photo is excellent. You can see neither my hairy legs nor my wonky toe. Huzzah!

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As a lover of bargains, history, and little old men in uniforms, I can safely say that one of my favorite things about travel is partaking in the many free national park tours our country has to offer. America’s National Park Service seems to exclusively hire flirty male septuagenarians as guides, and I am completely okay with that. (Interestingly, docents at museums in the U.S. are almost exclusively spunky single women in their golden years. I smell the makings of a senior citizen rom-com staring Susan Sarandon and Ed Asner. YOU’RE WELCOME, HOLLYWOOD.)

My love for gray-haired men in uniform is so strong that it sincerely saddens me to tell you that the NPS guided tour of Freedom Trail in Boston is not really worth the time. At least, not from a historical perspective. It was educational and informative, though, when it came to pastries.

And while I am sure you’d rather I discuss baked goods first, you will have to wait, as I did, and suffer through all the boring stuff. I know. Life is difficult.

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Forged by Lucifer himself, I'm sure.

I have a brilliant idea for a horror movie. It would begin like this:

A couple – a young man and woman – enter a hotel room. For the purposes of casting, let’s say that the man, dark-haired, bearded and handsome, will be played by Joshua Jackson. And the woman will be played by me (SHUT UP IT’S MY BLOG). They enter the room together, the man tugging a suitcase behind him, his toned arm flexing against his Ted Baker suit jacket, which he’s paired with a dress shirt, jeans, and, oh, I don’t know, yellow shoes. And no one cares what the woman is wearing because by the end of the movie her clothes will be in a crumbled pile in the corner of the room after a gratuitous sex scene.

Ahem. I have completely lost my train of thought.

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Today’s guest post is by my dear friend Dan Thies, and I consider the fact that it finally came to fruition a huge accomplishment … for ME. Because it has taken me literally months (perhaps years) to persuade Dan to guest post on my blog. But his reply was always the same:

“Blah blah blah something blah blah blah blah.”

Yeah, I know. He makes a compelling argument, right? So I continued badgering him (giraffing him?) until he finally agreed. And now that I’ve seen what he can create – a post littered with puns, corny jokes, and photos of monkeys – I know that it was TOTALLY worth the wait.

Now if he’d only update his own blog, too.

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When embarking on your very first guided African safari, be prepared to answer this seemingly fair and simple question: What animal are you most hoping to see on today’s outing? If asked, please know that your safari guide is not conducting an opinion survey; that this question is not to be answered subjectively. This is a serious, pass/fail quiz, and there is but one correct answer.

On my first safari, in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, I failed this test miserably. Though I clearly heard each person before me shout “lion” to the safari guide’s approving nod, I still got this one embarrassingly wrong. The annoyed sighs and disgusted sneers of a couple dozen Belgian and Dutch tourists said it all. By foolishly blurting “giraffe,” I might as well have been announcing that I hated both waffles and windmills. Our guide shot me a glare that seemed to say, “That’s enough outta you, wise guy.”
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The sign behind my husband lies. Italy is not Eataly, nor vice versa. But it's still damn good.

My cousin’s village in Italy is a relic of the sort you rarely see outside of Indiana Jones movies or PBS-programs narrated by David McCullough. It winds up a hill, dotted with ancient stone houses, now conveniently equipped with electricity and spotty hot water. The local children, carrying heavy monikers of saints or artists, call to one another as they play amongst centuries-old ruins.

And yet, when my family came to visit America, leaving the homeland of Michaelango and Leonardo (and all the other great artists for which ninja turtles were named), they wished to do one thing: shop.

In comparison to the dusty history of their home, the expansive malls and grocery stores of the United States were a sight to behold. They were new and briskly air-conditioned, full of rows of glittering items with reasonable prices that ended in .99. My cousin would explain to me that so many groceries I took for granted – Crest toothpaste, Lucky Charms, Nestle Quik- cost a fortune in Italy. I’d run down the aisles of our neighborhood supermarket with a new appreciation for the sugar-laden products of my homeland, marveling that I could have Frosted Flakes without having to shell out $12.

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It is Monday morning, and do to some unforeseen and unfortunate circumstances, I find myself in rural New Jersey (note: being in Jersey itself isn’t actually that unfortunate, but why we are here is. More on that at a later date). As this trip was unplanned, I was actually struggling to find something appropriate to blog about, when I recalled that my friend Philip (Yes, Philip, I admitted it: we are friends.) sent me a guest post. About toilets, no less. Japanese ones.

Naturally, this brightened my day exponentially. I hope it does yours as well. I will be back tomorrow with lots of crazy stories about … I don’t know. Something. In the meantime, enjoy the work of one of my former co-workers, and marvel at how someone would be crazy enough to hire both of us.

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Hi. My name is Philip. Geraldine and I used to work together once upon a time. On her second day in the office she baked brownies with peppermint patties in them. That was the day I knew I needed to be her friend. Fun fact you might not know about Geraldine: when we all got laid off, she was in Italy. Yes, the seeds of the Everywhereist were planted even then. The company actually had to lay her off a week later because she was on vacation. Well played. Anyway, in a move calculated to ensure that she never receives another accolade for blogging, Geraldine has allowed me to write a guest post.

My dear wife is from Tokyo and her whole family still lives there. We paid a visit recently and since I failed to write a guest-post the last time we were there (to my eternal shame) I was determined to get one in this time. It was our eighth trip there together in the 13 years we’ve been married, and the second with our now 4-year-old daughter. That being said, you’d think I’d have some unique insight or profound cultural observation to make. And you’d be wrong. For today, I present…

Bathrooms of Japan!

1. My decision to blog about toilets (and their environs) started with this beauty:
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   This is a public men’s room. In a park. Did it smell like human waste? No. Was the floor upsettingly damp? No. Was there some sketchy dude camped out in the corner? No. Did it have an adorable vase of wildflowers between the sinks? Yes. Yes, it did.
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… but never asked (mostly because you had never heard of it before).

Downtown San Marino.

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During our last trip to Italy, Rand and I spent a few days in San Marino, which is not far from Bologna. Prior to arriving, my knowledge of the place could be summed up thusly:

• It was the answer to a rather misleading question in Trivial Pursuit that threw Pinguina off track last time she played. The question was, “What European republic rhymes with the name of a famous football player?” And while “San Marino” and “Dan Marino” do rhyme, it seems kind of unfair as the last three syllables of each phrase is, in fact, identical. By such logic, one could argue that “orange” actually rhymes with itself. A bit of a cop-out, really.
• Absolutely nothing else.

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Mother’s Day is just around the corner, and I couldn’t think of a better way of celebrating than by paying tribute to her on my blog. Which, really, could almost be rephrased as an insult: “Really? You couldn’t think of a better way of celebrating than by writing on your blog? Seriously?”

She also taught me to not poke myself in the eye. A bit too late.

And no, seriously, I couldn’t imagine a better way.

I’ve mentioned my mom before on the blog – her antics on Facebook, her long-standing war with Rick Steves, the way she trolled me and my brother for Christmas – but I don’t know if I’ve ever discussed the skills she’s given me that help make traveling the world so much easier. So, in honor of Mother’s Day, and because we so rarely have the opportunity to say thank you for this sort of thing, here are the ways my mother has made me a better traveler.

1. Suspect everyone. Okay, fine, so my mom’s paranoia hasn’t exactly benefited me in every aspect of my life (until I was about 15, I would panic every time I walked by a large hedge, because my mother had explained that there were likely murderers hiding behind them, who could jump out and kill me). But when traveling, it’s always good to have your guard up, especially if you’re in a place that’s unfamiliar and new. I always stick to well-lit streets, keep my purse close to me, avoid flashy jewelry, and try to be wary of my surroundings … especially hedges.
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   Also, everyone is a potential kidnapper, so keep your babies close at all times.

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2. Demand your money’s worth. The setting: Universal Studios, Florida. The year: circa 1989. The scene: my mother, angered at the number of broken rides and malfunctions we were forced to endure after shelling out money for expensive tickets, leads a revolt of dozens of tourists, who manage to get their tickets prices refunded. My family and I use the money to gorge ourselves at the usually-prohibitively-expensive Red Lobster. The lesson? The (politely) squeaky wheel gets the Chesapeake Bay cheddar biscuits.  (more…)