Japan is decked out in full autumn foliage as the red clogs transit across the island of Honshu. We’re winding down our global travel lollapalooza and due to an Airline Situation, we have added 3 days which officially brings us to…Around the World in 90 days!
It’s my fourth visit to Japan, and the goal for this final segment was to take in the vibrant fall colors, disappear into the mountains (balancing out bustling Seoul and Tokyo), and explore new places that were not overrun with tourists.
It’s day 6 of a one week visit to Uzbekistan and I’m on the Afrosiab train criss-crossing the country from Bukhara to Tashkent via Samarkand. I could be on Amtrak except that the landscape is different – first desert-like, now more trees and lots of black cows, brown and white horses and occasional herds of goats. I see people picking cotton in the fields. Oh, and there’s the added benefit that the train staff keeps coming by to offer tantalizing treats – fresh fruit cups, strawberry or vanilla ice cream, and a cart loaded with snacks like Pringles, Lays, and Milka chocolate.
Hello from 10,000 feet altitude in Jebal Akhdar, Oman. Much cooler up here – a mere 83 degrees – than the 105 (feels like 115) that we experienced yesterday in the Wahiba Sands desert.
One consistency about our “Around the World in 86 days” trip is that each day seems to whiz by in a flash of impressions and experiences. There is so little down time. I’ve missed writing to you about Greece and Qatar (both of which were high points), so I will have to get back to those. But for today, I want to tell you about Oman. And to shake things up, we’ll have a little Q&A.
Today’s update on Croatia features something new and different – partial support from a guest writer who is sharing the red clogs. With all good intentions, I had planned to write brief posts from each country that we are visiting on our Around the World in 86 days adventure. And just like that – I’m now 3 countries behind. So with full rights to his content, I am leveraging a bit of my husband’s weekly email updates to his Men’s Coffee Group so that I can attempt to catch up!
Do you remember the BEST birthday party you ever went to? Maybe it was your own. Or a friend’s sweet 16, a relative’s sassy 60, or something in between? This past weekend I attended the best birthday party ever. On the occasion of a 175th birthday!
Hello from the hamlet of Lutzenberg, Switzerland. We’ve just arrived for the first leg of our “Around the World in 86 days” extravaganza. Having spent much of the past 6 months carefully crafting and refining the most challenging adventure yet, I am delighted and relieved to just start! My intention is to write more regularly (and less lengthily) so you can come along for the ride. You’ve never heard of Lutzenberg. Neither had I. But the location, at the crossroads (or cross-lake, more accurately) of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland can’t be beat. Nor can the view from our oversized terrace facing Lake Constance, known here as Bodensee. If we look to the right, we see Austria. If we look straight across the lake, we see Germany. Meanwhile, “home” is in the bucolic canton of Appenzell in Switzerland. The view from our oversized terrace. To give an example of how this…
Have you ever wondered what might have happened if only you had made a different decision? A few weeks ago, I tumbled headfirst into That Place and while there, I ate very well. Quite possibly as well as I’ve ever eaten anywhere. Upon graduating college, I had several choices about where to pursue a Master’s degree in International Relations. Boston and Washington, DC were the frontrunners, but there was a third option – a Johns Hopkins program which offered the first year of studies in Bologna, Italy. At the time, some 40 years ago, staying stateside seemed like the solid choice – presumably, it would offer more job opportunities with long term potential. As a financially-strapped 25 year old, I prioritized this aspect. But now that I’ve just spent a week in glorious Emilia-Romagna, home of Bologna and equally-worthy foodie destinations like Modena and Parma, I can’t help but wonder deeply “what…
“Man muss die Feste feiern wie sie fallen”. This reminder, one of my mom’s many hand-me-down German expressions, was reverberating in my mind as the cursor hovered over the “Buy tickets now” flag on my laptop screen. It was not the first time I’d booked a Christmas Markets trip. In winter 2021, when Covid should have been no more than an unsettling memory, skyrocketing incidences of the virus shuttered the beloved annual holiday markets tradition for the second consecutive year. And now, the cursor seems to plead with me, it wants to get the job done. What use is a cursor, if not to click? But I was torn. If I proceed, will I be disappointed yet again? (and left with more annoying airline credits with increasingly ridiculous rules for use). Would the markets even be open? How would we fare at our rapid pace in a cold, wet environment where…
Red Clogs here, reporting in from Lower Saxony (Hannover, Germany) this Sunday morning. It’s raining lightly, the rowers are gliding (seemingly) effortlessly across the tree-encircled Masch lake, and the ducks are having it out with another. Should they stay on the right side with the yellow benches or should they swim out to the middle? Decision reached. They swim to the middle, quacking noisily. It’s the perfect backdrop for reflection; something I’ve had ample opportunity to do these past 2 weeks as I make my way across the autobahns and backroads of Switzerland and Germany. 19 days, 1200 miles in a rented VW Passat, 55 meals and just, ummm… me. An unrecognizable Zurich airport Aug 31, 2021. “Wow, you’re brave”, “I could never do that”, “Really? You’re all alone?” were some of the comments I heard when explaining my planned trip. And it’s not without reason. Given the virus, the…
Now is the perfect time to start practicing your Kaiserschmarren to be ready for the Kaiser’s birthday celebration on August 18th. Kaiserschmarren – literally, “Kaiser’s nonsense”, is famously argued over in terms of its origin. One story tells that it was dinnertime at the palace and there wasn’t much left in the way of food supplies in the kitchen. An ingenious chef threw together what there was – milk, eggs,, flour, raisins, and rum to create this omelette pancake hybrid. Another legend, is that the dish was created for Empress Elisabeth, the Kaiser’s wife. Elisabeth, known as “Sisi”, had eating disorders. There are two camps – one claims this was something she would actually consume while the other maintains she refused to eat it and so the Kaiser said “Let’s see what Schmarren (nonsense) the chef has cooked up” and devoured it all himself. Regardless of historical exactitude, fact is…