Day 2 on the cruise was a relaxing one. We made the decision to stroll around the ‘sleepy’ town of Liverno, Italy (Tuscan province). Basically, there is shopping, more shopping and even discount shopping in this cute and quaint town. We chose to spend the morning browsing and the afternoon lying on deck in the sun. The weather was phenomenal! Eating is a big task on this cruise. I have never eaten so much in my life! It is a bit ridiculous as to how much food consumption takes place. At dinner, some folks at our English speaking table (specifically my mom) order 7 courses as ‘why not taste everything’. OYE. It’s ridiculous. Day 3 on the cruise was spent in Sardinia. We arrived in the city of Olbia, Italy early in the morning. Our excursion ... read more

A miracle happened! Hope slept for over 8 hours. We started our day with a hearty English breakfast near our hotel. Afterwards we headed to the Picasso museum. Truth time - I generally dislike art museums. I find myself bored. I had to remind my mom that I liked calculus, statistics and chemistry in high school. English and history was not my thing. So even though Picasso has an interesting story… the history doesn’t interest me and the art itself is boring. Snooze. Until this day, there has only been 3 or 4 art galleries where I actually thought if I were rich, I would buy X, Y and Z. They were unknown local artists (enough known though for their work to cost $5,000 and up as only original pieces were sold). As with men, I ... read more

So, I knew it was going to be hot in Barcelona. It was by far hotter in Morocco; however I can’t seem to stop sweating. Hmmmmm. I have been drinking more water than humanly possible. The other night I was having troubles accessing wifi. Normally I wouldn’t get upset, but I wanted to arrange a private tour of Barcelona for my mom and I needed to send funds via pay pal for the deposit. I took a deep breath and went on the hotel’s public computer. What occurred is a freeze on my PayPal account for security breach. Urghhh. In the process, I meet an American woman who starts telling me the hotel’s wifi sucks and she was having major troubles. She then asks if I was alone. After telling her I was, she mentioned how ... read more

I arrived at nighttime to my little B&B. It is in an extremely old building, with an old lift and even old school keys. My pink bedspread and gorgeous chandelier makes this even cuter than I imagined. My pad for the 1st 2 nights is in the L’Eixample district otherwise known as the ‘new’ town. My plan was to explore this area before moving on to my beachfront home for the week. I head out to have some dinner. While staring at a menu in Spanish, 2 girls come up behind me and are debating where to eat. I turn around and say English? They said, even better…American. We introduced ourselves and I joined the girls for tapas and sangria. Turns out they are both from DC. One girl quit her job in production to see ... read more

Shookran means thank you in Moroccan Arabic. There are a few different languages commonly spoken in Morocco; Arabic, Moroccan Arabic and 3 different types of Berber dialect. This is pretty intense for just one country. After 3 amazing weeks in Morocco, I got dropped off at the airport in Casablanca. There are only 2 terminals. I am dropped off at the wrong terminal. I started getting flustered as everything was in Arabic. Imagine waiting for the 6 train at 77th street at 8:30am. That is how crowded part of the airport was. I have been to airports that are so large you can take a 25 minute transfer and have been perfectly fine finding my way. This airport was super small - yet extremely confusing and unorganized. After checking in, I had to go through security ... read more

It’s the final stretch of my 3 weeks in Morocco. The 1st 2 weeks were very authentic. The food, our accommodations, the day trips… The past week I have been on a tour of the Imperial Cities. Hotels, buffet style food, showing up somewhere to find the other 150+ people that we keep seeing in the same places. Basically, the parent name of my tour group is Atlas. Two Atlas buses are 100% Italian. I lucked out as only 4 people (including myself) signed up for an English speaking tour. The benefits are that we can stop and pull over whenever we like. Unfortunately, the Dutch couple purchased a full board - so we have to stop at their required lunch places everyday. Some days as we were in the middle of nowhere I ate lunch ... read more