Travel has always been a curiosity of mine. And, as a little girl I could only imagine about far off places I saw in National Geographic magazines. It wasn’t until a flight after high school with friends to Hawaii that I saw my curiosity coming to fruition. While I was aware of other friends able to backpack through Europe, I knew I had to start with a more financially realistic trip.
It was technically my second trip to Hawaii. My first trip was to the island of Oahu where I was lucky enough to play in a softball tournament when I was twelve years old. But, as a twelve year old there was not a lot of autonomy to explore. The second trip to Hawaii post-high school was to the island of Maui. My friends and I rented a condo, stalked up on food at Costco, rented a car and explored the island. We parasailed, went to a luau or two, had cookouts, swam in the ocean and went on a snorkeling trip I’d soon like to forget. We took in the beauty of Hawaii’s landscape and it’s people as a haole.
As I put myself through college I took a few smaller trips to places like Seattle for some baseball and secretly chasing Pearl Jam’s, Eddie Vedder. A big thanks to my friend, Dave, who talked me out of getting a 90’s grunge tattoo in a seedy Seattle tattoo shop. And, of course I explored around my home state of California to quench my sparked wanderlust.
But, it wasn’t until 2007 that I took my first international trip. My friend, Aislinn, invited me along to visit her family in Germany and I jumped at the opportunity. Immediately, I began saving my money and reading all I could in preparation. And, thanks to the Rick Steves books I consumed I knew I wanted to see and do it all. Thankfully, Aislinn would gently remind me what we'd realistically be able to accomplish on our two week visit. Plus the main reason for our trek across the Atlantic was to spend time with her family. After almost a year of planning, we were finally there. And, it was magical. The sights, the sounds, the food and I’m so glad I had Aislinn by my side as my personal tour guide and translator to my poor high school German to experience it all with.
I was exposed to a totally different experience on that first trip to Germany than most have. We stayed in both hotels and also my friend’s grandparents home. Once we arrived in her family’s hometown we had the A-List treatment. Each morning, Aislinn’s Opa would go down to the corner bakery and buy us freshly baked rolls before we woke. And, each morning, we'd have new cakes plus lunch meat and cheeses to try on the warm rolls. He was always watching to see what our favorites were while encouraging us to put more butter on the warm rolls. We went and visited extended relatives for coffee and more cake. We went out to eat at Aislinn’s aunt and uncle’s favorite restaurants they wrote about in a cookbook on Bavarian cuisine. We took hikes and walks through the outdoors, even in the rainy weather. The cousins took us out to the local Diskothek for a night of fun and lots of cigarette smoke we couldn’t get out of our clothes for days. And, viewed personal photo albums and heard stories about World War II from people who experienced it first hand.
One of my favorite memories from my first visit to Germany is with Aislinn’s Oma in her kitchen. I was not feeling well due to my Meniere’s disease so I stayed behind to rest as the others went out to explore for the day. After a nap I went down to the quiet kitchen to find Aislinn’s Oma making dinner for their return. Between my very limited German and Oma’s broken English, she taught me how to make Rouladen. If you are unfamiliar with the dish it’s a tender and delicious meal of thin beef rolled around pickle, onion, bacon and dijon mustard. Then simmered in a brown sauce until it can be cut with a fork. Typically it’s served alongside spaetzel, a dumpling like pasta. It was a special day especially since Aislinn’s Oma is no longer with us. Spending a rainy afternoon in Oma's kitchen cooking together is a memory I will always cherish.
Speaking of cooking, last summer in 2019 I took an amazing three and a half week trip with my mother and sister to Italy. We traveled all over from Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre, my great grandmother’s village in the North near Parma and beyond. We decided to take a cooking class in Bologna. We took a 15 minute taxi ride away from the city center to an apartment where we rang the bell. We were buzzed into the building and walked up six stories to meet our Chef. The in-home cooking class we purchased on TripAdvisor advertised as a 2-hour pasta making class turned out to be a 4-hour cooking adventure. The tiny kitchen and apartment left much to be desired. However, our Chef was a lively one with vast knowledge of many subjects including American sports and our hometown Oakland A’s and Raiders. After learning to make three types of pasta and two different sauces and a kick under the table we finally snuck out of the tiny apartment and back to the safety of our hotel laughing the whole way in our taxi.
In 2009 I took a very last minute and very affordable $300 round trip flight to Ireland with two of my friends, Leslie and Kathryn. We were quite ambitious and had rented a stick shift car as we traveled around for two weeks. Not only were we going to be driving on the other side of the road, but the driver’s seat was on the right hand side of the car and we’d have to shift with our left hand. There was a little lag time for our brains to adjust. One day we ended up at Valentia Island in County Kerry. After driving and sightseeing we wanted to warm up and headed into one of the few places open since we were ahead of tourist season. We asked the bartender if he was serving lunch and he asked, "how many"? We said, “three" and he hesitated and then agreed to serve us lunch with a hot tea each. We were never given a menu but after a little time, while we were entertained by the mid-day drunken locals, he returned with three plates. We were each presented with a sandwich on white sandwich bread, one slice of meat each and grated cheddar cheese on top. About ten minutes later another group of ladies came in looking for a meal and the bartender said he was all out. It was then, we knew that the kind bartender must have given us his own lunch. Ireland and it’s people are some of the most beautiful, generous and kind I’ve ever experienced, with and without Guinness.
Happy accidents are apart of traveling and on a trip to Portugal with my niece and mom we ended up at the wrong museum. However, in that happy accident we were given a 1st rate personally guided tour of the Lisbon Transportation Museum. The staff were very surprised to see us and excited that they had international guests to show around. They even made us sign the guest book. It wasn’t until we were half way through the hour long personally guided tour that my niece turned to me and said, "I think we got off the wrong trolly exit and this is not the museum we were supposed to go to". After the tour we kindly looked around the gift shop and said our thank you’s before we headed back out to the main road for the next trolley to our original destination. It was a great experience and place we never would have gone to, but we were glad we did. Especially without any crowds to contend with.
Another happy accident occurred in Philadelphia when I traveled with my friend, Monica, on an East Coast trip. We were visiting the famous Rocky stairs and statue outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art and saw all these people dressed up going inside the museum as we tried to enter. This very nice well dressed gentleman engaged us in conversation after he saw we were not allowed to enter the museum due to a private event. We told him we were on vacation and traveling around and this was our only day to visit the museum. He kindly pulled out two entrance tickets to the museum from his jacket pocket and said, “enjoy", then disappeared into the event. We were so shocked and appreciative that a perfect stranger would give us those tickets and we were able to view the museum that day.
I’ve also been extremely lucky to have traveled on someone else’s dime through my job. I’ve mainly traveled to states in the U.S. that I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to visit if I wasn’t going there for work. But, last year in 2019 I was lucky enough to travel to Brazil while filming a documentary. It never fails, I’m almost always the token female on an almost always all male crew. And, I knew no one on the crew prior to us all arriving in Brazil. The crew and director, all from New York, were well familiar with each other so they already had a bond and shorthand with one another. Thankfully, the guys were amazing and welcoming. And, even though they are my responsibility as their producer, they always included me and made me feel apart of the team. Another aspect to the team are fixers. And, my local fixer, Marcelo, and his local Brazilian team were special people. Marcelo and I hit it off from the start. He had my back and I had his. And, even though Marcelo and Nuno, our security detail, were my co-workers, I feel like I made life long friends as we all cried, hugged and said our goodbyes at the airport before I departed back to the U.S..
I could go on and on with travel stories. Like the time my friend and I were to meet up in Venice, Italy but she was stuck in London. So I courageously went out to explore Venice all by myself and had a drink at the Enoteca with the locals. Or almost getting stuck in Osaka, Japan with my nephew and mom by an unexpected typhoon. And, taking a day trip to Versailles in France by myself when the trains suddenly stopped working as we were mid-trip. Myself and several other travelers worked together through broken languages to figure out a way to get us all there. Or that time we closed down the restaurant in Jamaica with the staff singing and dancing to Michael Jackson until the wee hours of the morning before our early flight home the next day.
Traveling isn’t just about seeing a new place and checking off items on an itinerary. It’s about the people you’re traveling with and experiencing that amazing meal you had together in Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Jamaica and beyond. It’s also about immersing yourself into the culture and the people. Like the time with Aislinn’s Oma. It’s about living like a local and just aimlessly wandering around a gorgeous garden in Japan or uncrowded alleys of Venice, Italy with no care in the world. Travel changes us, hopefully for the better.
There are so many places I have yet to explore. And, my wanderlust is anxious to start scratching off countries on my travel map once it’s safe and open to us all again. One of my favorite things to do is to read, research and plan my next adventure. So, I’ll have to let that satisfy my wanderlust until I’m able to fly to far off places safely again. The way I look at it, we only live once. And, I choose to save my money to travel and experience those places I saw in National Geographic magazines when I was a little girl.
Where will your wanderlust take you?