T̶w̶o̶ One p̶e̶r̶p̶e̶t̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶a̶t̶s̶ immigrant settling into home country number five.
If I were to start out by telling you that both of my walking tours of Copenhagen involved close encounters with drug dealers, you might get the wrong impression of the city. So instead I’ll lead with this pig on a car:
One of the best parts of TBEX was the tours of Copenhagen. The first afternoon I got an insider’s peak at Christiania; the second day’s tour took me to Nørrebro, billed as Copenhagen’s emerging hip and trendy neighborhood.
When I asked friends for sightseeing recommendations in Copenhagen, Christiania came back as the top answer. So I was thrilled to see that one of the tours offered for the first day of TBEX was to this mysterious little area.
I had reservations about attending TBEX, but they were fleeting. I’m an introvert who hates mingling. I’m not exactly a professional travel blogger, just someone who travels and blogs about it. I don’t have the attention span to attend lectures and workshops.
Greetings from Copenhagen. What a beautiful city when the sun is shining! I’ve been here for the past three days for TBEX Europe, a big meeting of travel bloggers from all over the place. I’ve met some interesting people and learned some useful things, and in between I’ve had the chance to explore a little … Read more
Warning: this post is going to gaze squarely at my navel. Like, even more than your average post on a personal blog. I apologize in advance.
As of this summer, I have spent ten years of my life in Europe – ten out of the last fifteen, with five international (plus a few domestic) moves in that time period. I’ve changed cities on average about every two years.
I feel like I should reflect on this milestone, about how I’ve chosen to live my adult life. But what is there to say? I like living in Europe. I’m OK with being a foreigner. I could try to say something deeper than that, but I’ve never been one for sentimentality. So I’ve spent most of my adult life as an outsider looking in. That’s not so odd, given I spent most of my childhood feeling foreign, too.
I’ve been a little bit foreign almost as long as I can remember. When I was a child our little nuclear family moved from New Jersey to the Deep South. My first indication that this was a bigger deal than our move from one street in the neighborhood to the other was on the airplane. It was an early-morning Delta flight, back when airlines still served food and Delta was still Southern. Breakfast consisted of biscuits smothered in white, gooey, gelatinous ickiness with little specks in it. I looked at my mother questioningly.
After Opatija we continued our journey along the Istrian coast, stopping for lunch in Pula and then landing in Rovinj for our last evening in Croatia. I’m finding myself at a loss for words when it comes to Rovinj. The photos do a better job of communicating my thoughts. Rovinj’s old town is on a … Read more
Valsabbion kept showing up in my research of restaurants in Istria. It’s the kind of place where the dishes are small and fancy, and there are a lot of courses. I love that kind of restaurant. I asked if they could accommodate a vegetarian. They could. I reserved.
Valsabbion is a hotel and restaurant located near the giant harbor in Pula, down at the southern tip of the Istrian Peninsula. The immediate area was disappointingly uninteresting for wandering around, but that was fine: we were there to dine.
We settled into the outdoor table that would be our base for the afternoon and accepted an aperitif of local sparkling wine. The men chose a seven-course prix fixe menu that would set the pace for our meal. We were warned it would take several hours. That was OK, we had time. We chose a local rosé to complement our meals, and we were off.
My delight started with the appetizers, presented in a series of little glasses and spoons which contained tasty spreads of local veggies, cubes of local cheeses, and interesting little fried creations.
My next course was a sort of vegetable lasagna with an abundance of fresh truffles.
Next came a layered cup of local wild asparagus, a poached egg, and a wild asparagus puree.
Our drive from Zagreb to Istria was relatively quick and painless, and it took us through some picturesque hills. The first coastal city we passed was Rijeka, whose communist-era skyscrapers had us cursing Tito. Luckily Opatija’s architecture was more visually pleasing. Hotel Imperial was built in 1885; circa 1970, it seems, they decided they had … Read more
Allow me to fast forward to June, which began with a little vacation in Croatia with the Regensbloggers. Our time was limited, so we only did the very top: Zagreb and the Istrian Peninsula. It proved to be a delicious first glance at a country that I’m looking forward to visiting again soon.
Let’s see, where was I? From Italy I’ll skip ahead a few months to March, when I went back to London for another week of BritFun. This was the trip where a charming old chap tried to pick up my friend Em and I. Naturally, there are other trip highlights to report, too, so let … Read more