Browsed by
Category: travel

Bangladesh Welcome

Bangladesh Welcome

Comments 0 Comment

“It’s your Bangladesh welcome, Madame,” said the Winrock driver as we sat in snarled traffic on the way from the airport to my hotel in Dhaka.

I was almost asleep. Now that I’m the hotel, of course, I’m wide awake.  Hoping a few minutes fully stretched out on what looks to be a comfy bed will change that directly.

But there are a lot of thoughts and images jangling around in the brain: motorcycles whisking in and out of the traffic, brightly colored tuk-tuk taxis with wire-cage sides, vendors hawking popcorn and peanuts in the gridlock, and, finally, a quiet hotel down a quiet lane. Ahhhh….

Taking Off

Taking Off

Comments 0 Comment

Writing this post from Dulles Airport, a gateway to the world that just happens to be 15 minutes from my house. Out the window: rain, clouds and the gigantic nose of an Airbus. Inside: people from many nations milling around in search of coffee, water and connecting flights.

I’ve been planning this trip for months, and will be preparing even in the hours I have en route. But in truth, nothing can prepare me for the people I’m about to meet, the roads and rivers I’m about to travel, the interviews I’m about to conduct.

In the end all I can expect is … the unexpected. That’s what travel is about.

Beach Walkers

Beach Walkers

Comments 0 Comment

Beach walkers are purposeful creatures, and when you hit the strand early, as I did today, you see them in droves: arms pumping, shoulders squared, feet clad in tennis shoes or serious sandals. I fit right in.

For the beach walker, the ocean is a backdrop, the sand a soft cushion for our plantar-fasciitis-prone heels. No shell will tempt us from our mission, which is to make it from the old jetty to the first (blue) lifeguard chair before being overcome by tropical heat and humidity.

But even the most driven of beach walkers can’t ignore gulf waters lapping, shore birds peeping, the glorious mixture that is life where land meets sea.

Vacation Time

Vacation Time

Comments 0 Comment

Every year when I’m at the beach I finally fall into vacation time. Never completely. There is always a part of me that is about efficiency and completion. And never right away. It may take days.

I knew it happened this time when I completely forgot about a meeting I said I might attend. It wasn’t a conscious slip of the schedule. It was a complete and utter forgetting. And when the reminder text came, it was as if my colleagues were hailing from a distant world.

This world is waiting for me — I’l return to it all too soon — but right now it is deliciously foreign, the sort of place I used to know but have almost forgotten because of the strangeness of its exotic customs.

Suspended

Suspended

Comments 0 Comment

When I traveled to Kentucky regularly I’d hit the road early and be in Lexington by mid-afternoon. But now when Ellen and I drive together we leave late on a workday, drive partway and stay overnight. Traveling becomes less a duty and more a road trip.

Last night we pulled off in Fairmont, West Virginia, and are now cosseted in a roadside hostelry. How sumptuous these places have become! A gym to die for. Bowls of fruit and raspberry tea. Soft lighting. High-thread-count sheets. This is not your grandfather’s no-tell motel!

A funny feeling takes over in these places. You are not quite here, not quite there. You are comfortable, You are just off the road or about to hit it. You are … suspended.

Mountain Light

Mountain Light

Comments 0 Comment

Days of rain and clouds broke up yesterday just as we were leaving the West Virginia mountains, and I got to see light from all angles and perspectives: the way it pooled on roads and hillsides. How it filtered through leaves.

Here it is in the woods and on the trees.

And high up in the canopy.

Mountain Walk

Mountain Walk

Comments 0 Comment

Less than two hours west is a different world, one bound by green and dripping boughs. Chalets on the hillside, mountain paths, water trickling over rocks. I won’t glorify these trickles by calling them waterfalls. But the water sings as it flows over stones and through leaves, so these trickles have an aural presence.

Some of the lanes here are paved and some not. Foot paths cross them, heading up the mountain. I may tackle one of them today. But yesterday was a get-acquainted stroll. The end of a long week.

I marveled as I strolled at how much difference a walk can make. And a mountain walk makes even more.

Almost Done

Almost Done

Comments 0 Comment

It’s the 11th hour, an unusual one for me to write. The day is almost done instead of just beginning. But the house is as quiet as morning; the same clocks are ticking.

Tomorrow will be a weekend family getaway. I’ve loaded the car with groceries and will pack the perishables in the morning. Monopoly and Scrabble are going, and a deck of cards.  The dog and the thousand-piece puzzle are staying home.

You can’t wait for the perfect time; you grab the time you have and make it work. That’s how I’m feeling now, knowing that gratitude will well up soon, it always does.

Continuity and Change

Continuity and Change

Comments 0 Comment

It was a weekend of reconnecting, revisiting and reminding myself why I do what I do.

There was the “World Room” with its stained glass window, the stairs that were always quicker than the tiny elevator, especially if you were racing to turn in a story by a 5 p.m. deadline.

There was Broadway, with its jumble of stores and restaurants and Cafe Milano where Mama Joys’ used to be. There was the campus quad, with libraries on either end and a new coffee shop in the journalism building. In other words, there was both continuity and change, as there should be.
Walking the Apple

Walking the Apple

Comments 0 Comment

In a few hours I’ll board a train that will take me up the Northeast Corridor to a journalism school reunion. Well, it won’t take me directly there. I’ll land at Penn Station, hop on a subway to 96th Street, check into the hotel, then walk, walk, walk wherever my feet will take me.

Maybe to Central Park, which should be lovely this time of year.  The Reservoir Path is nice, or I could dip south to the Sheep Meadow. There will be the castle and the Great Lawn and the arbor and the Ramble.

Later there will be lectures and panels, receptions and dinners. There will be classmates I haven’t seen in years.

But before that, there will be the walk.