Curated Fernweh
Imagine that you stand on the tropical shores of Indonesia, staring south into the endless tropical blues of sea and sky bisected by the distant horizon. Imagine, just for fun, that you decide to board a wooden canoe and paddle it 400 miles to Australia. Even equipped with advanced weather forecasts and handheld GPS units... Continue Reading →
Or, that one time I got stuck in Patagonia
Whether I like yerba mate isn’t really the point. Much like the anise-flavored rakı in Turkey, the allure is the shared experience. For those of you unfamiliar, yerba is a form of tea, the mate is a cup traditionally made from a hard hollowed gourd, and the sharing of “yerba mate” is a pseudo-religious ritual... Continue Reading →
This is the fifth time I've moved to a foreign country. I've been an expat for almost four years, bouncing from country to country with whatever possessions will fit into two suitcases, trying to figure out the whole world by savoring disparate bits and pieces of it. I love it, but I'll admit that it... Continue Reading →
I stick a hand in my pocket and find a medium-sized coin, and I can tell which nation it’s from without even looking at it. The metal of it feels wrong somehow; the face that kisses the pad of my thumb is a little denser and softer than what I’m used to now. American…not Canadian. ... Continue Reading →
I’ve always been a runner. Not in the actual foot-on-pavement way (who has time for that crap?), but in the sense that I always need to be moving. Whenever I get bored with a place, or if life takes an unexpected turn, or even just if I’ve been in the same place for too long,... Continue Reading →
When you’re stranded in a foreign country for the holidays and surrounded by people you’ve only known for a few months, there are only three real solutions: fly back to your family, get out of Dodge and travel around, or band together with your fellow expats and make the best of it. Just for something... Continue Reading →
An in-progress list of cultural differences between Germans and Americans, three months later: Goodbye! I’m not sure if Americans are just not very formal or what have you, but saying “bye” to each other is something we rarely do unless we are conversing with someone we know or we’re hanging up the phone. I’ve lost... Continue Reading →
When the sun sets on Freiburg - or really any city - its entire persona changes. The shops close and the sidewalks empty. Most nights, the city just rolls over and goes to sleep until dawn. But as the week comes to a close, sunset brings with it a whole other meaning. The shops still... Continue Reading →
There are countless travel destinations in the world - sprawling cities, adorable villages, stunning national parks, brilliant white beaches, etc. etc. I can't find the statistics to support this statement because Google doesn't know either, but it's a fair assumption that you could travel every day for your entire life and still not see even... Continue Reading →
[I've been in Freiburg for over a month now, and have yet to make a post about my new home city. I finally decided that my problem was that I was focusing solely on the city itself. Instead, I chose to write instead about my personal insights since moving here and intersperse it with pictures... Continue Reading →
Everyone sounds the same when they scream. This creepy thought hit me with a jolt as I watched twenty terrified trachten-clad* Germans freefall towards the ground on a rainbow-lit carnival ride. Although I probably wouldn’t be able to hold a conversation with most of these people, their primal screeches of fear didn’t sound any different... Continue Reading →
Let's set something straight: we have already invented time travel, only we call it flying overseas. Two days ago I raced east as the sun headed west, and by the time we met again high above the frigid seas of the north Atlantic, I had lost several hours of my September 1, 2015 down some... Continue Reading →
Window Seat Odyssey 