Tag Archives: travel
My wish list for 2015: tolerance, cultural-crossbreeding and a comfortable bra
My neighborhood was vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti this week. It would be wrong and upsetting for this to happen to a Jewish community anywhere, but these are my neighbors; the people I sit next to on the bus, share a library and grocery store with, whose cute kids I play peekaboo with on the train platform. I am […]
Funniest travel moments from 2014
That one time I was photo-bombed in Ragusa Ibla… Some schmuck I met at Maulbronn monastery. The forehead that was more like a fivehead in the Icon Museum of Frankfurt. We watched a line of people pose with this penis in Agrigento. Restores my faith in humanity, that. I regret we didn’t stop in Frankenstein. […]
Medieval eye candy and Monsieur John Waters in Semur-en-Auxois
We had hardly arrived in Semur-en-Auxois when HOB started to worry: “But where will we catch our bus tomorrow?” I was doing my best to oooh and aaaah at all the charming details of this quaint town in the Burgundy region of France, but HOB couldn’t focus. Most places have well labeled bus stops complete with daily […]
How to travel in winter
Around this time every year I open my email to find an inbox full of cheap airfare alerts–cheap winter flights to cold weather destinations. I feel cocky seeing those cheap winter airfares. And oh yes, smug. Just for a minute or two, I indulge in contempt for snowbirds, for sun-worshiping zombies, for geezer cruisers. While they’re flipping themselves […]
Ostuni, the other windy city
Italians call it La Citta Bianca–The White City. I call it L‘altra Città Ventosa–The Other Windy City. Ostuni (the official name of this white and windy city) is remarkably picturesque from a distance. We approached by train though silvery rows of olive trees towards a small mountain of whitewashed buildings. After the friendly owner of our B&B picked us […]
Mosaics in the Cathedral of Monreale
We’ve already established that I suck at history, and while we’re on the topic of embarrassing self-disclosures, I confess I didn’t realize until recently that Normans were French. Here’s what I do know about Normans (other than that they all seem to have been named William): they built some gorgeous Romanesque buildings. In Sicily, once […]
Corpus Christi Catholic Church: grand architecture, Bavarian stained glass and a chance to say WOW! like true Americans
We set out from home on a rainy Saturday morning with our dorky matching backpacks and a thermos of bean soup bound for Bronzeville. Our first stop on Chicago Architecture Foundation’s’ Open House Chicago itinerary was Corpus Christi Catholic Church. Normally HOB and I tried to hold back on the gape-mouthed WOW! exclamations when travelling in […]
Art is alive in Pilsen
Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood is alive with art. Murals are everywhere; sophisticated and well-designed murals, political murals, naively-drawn murals, misspelled murals, and entire houses covered with murals. Pilsen smells fantastic—a combination of tortilla factory corn, fried dough, sugar and spicy street food. Houses are adorable and oddly sunk below street level. Spanish is spoken everywhere, guitarists […]
Picnic at the Cathedral 