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youareinlovees · 3 years ago

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Taylor and Joe in 2021 (continued)

July 1st – Taylor leaves RI and arrives in Dublin.

July 2nd – Renegade by Big Red Machine (feat. Taylor Swift) is released.

The music video features home videos of Taylor that were filmed (almost definitely by Joe) in the Belfast rental.

(via soprettytothink)

Aaron Dessner talks to Zane Lowe about Renegade. (x)

“Taylor’s words shine a light on something I think anyone can relate to–how anxiety and fear so often needlessly stand in the way of love (...) I remember the weird electricity and goosebumps I felt listening to Taylor’s voice memo of her singing this song for the first time.”

July 13th – Todrick shares a video posted by a fan account of Joe shielding Taylor from the paps. (x)

July 22nd – Joe posts photos from their trip to Ballymastocker Bay in Donegal, Ireland.

July 24th – Taylor posts about folklore’s one-year anniversary and shares pictures from the same trip. (x)

In the afternoon, they leave Belfast for London. (x)

July 28th – @/daylightanna tweets about her family being mutual friends with the Alwyns. In 2019, she received merch and a signed photo for her birthday after Taylor found out from Joe’s mum that she was a huge fan.

(Another fan, whose cousin is family friends with Joe’s family, talked about the same story back in 2018.)

July 31st – Taylor’s jet leaves London for Belfast, and then parks in Nashville.

August 2nd – It’s rumored that Joe and Taylor are in Cavan, Ireland. (x)

August 3rd – According to an article from The Anglo Celt, Taylor and Joe are reportedly staying at Farnham Estate in Cavan. (x) Other Irish publications also discuss the rumors. (x) (x)

August 6th – Joe posts these photos on his IG story, where Taylor’s arm can be seen on the right.

He also posts pictures that were taken in Shepherd’s Bush, which were probably from their trip to London the previous week. (x)

August 11th – Around this time, Taylor and Joe have dinner at @/springfield_js’ friend’s brother-in-law’s restaurant. (x)

August 21st – @/graybeloathed tweets this.

August 22nd – Joe is spotted back in Belfast, meaning they’ve returned from their trip to Cavan.

August 23rd – Taylor posts a TikTok with Screwface Capital by Dave in the background, and we know Joe is a fan of his and went to a concert back in 2019.

August 24th – Taylor leaves Belfast for London, before going to NYC.

(Since Patrick Alwyn’s starting at NYU this year, it’s possible that her jet stopped in London to pick him up and fly him over to NY)

August 25th – Aaron Dessner makes an appearance on the Midnight Chats podcast, and talks about working on folklore and evermore. (x)

“Coney Island is actually something that my brother Bryce wrote and started the music for, and he had worked a lot on folklore and also on evermore and obviously we do so much together. I had sort of developed it, and Taylor wrote Coney Island with Joe, actually, Joe Alwyn, and they felt that it was like - it felt very much, of all the songs we made, that one felt the most related to The National or something musically.”

Joe takes a photo with a fan in Belfast. (x) He evidently later flies commercial to the States, and potentially meets up with Taylor in Nashville the next day.

August 26th – Taylor and Joe are papped disembarking from her jet in LA. (x)

August 31st – Taylor and Joe are seen hiking on the Hastain Trail in Franklin Canyon Park, CA.

September 2nd – Joe and Taylor leave LA for New York.

September 7th – Taylor’s jet flies from NY to Belfast.

September 9th – Taylor and Joe go out for dinner at Shu Restaurant in Belfast. (x)

September 10th – Joe brings Taylor as his date to the Conversations With Friends Belfast wrap party. (x)

September 12th – The CWF cast and crew move to Dubrovnik, Croatia. (x)

September 14th – Taylor leaves Belfast for Croatia. (x)

September 16th – In an interview with Audacy, Ed Sheeran talks about his friendship with Taylor. (x)

It's great, and [Taylor and Cherry] get on like a house on fire, and I love Taylor's boyfriend Joe. He's such a wonderful human and they just work really well together. It's cool. It's mad having, because I don't see it as - I know it's an industry friendship, but I don't see it like that. I feel like industry friendships, when you hang out you post a picture, people know you've hung out, whereas with me and her, she'll come around for dinner with Joe, or I'll go over there for dinner with Cherry, and it's like we have a friendship that isn't really in the spotlight.

September 17th – Taylor posts a TikTok for Wildest Dreams TV that was filmed in Croatia.

September 24th – Taylor leaves Croatia and goes to London for Lena Dunham’s wedding. Joe and Jemima are presumably stuck filming and can’t attend.

September 26th – Joe’s makeup artist posts photos with both Joe and Taylor on her IG story.

September 27th – Taylor leaves London and returns to Croatia. (x)

September 28th – Joe and Taylor spend their 5th anniversary together in Croatia.

September 29th – Joe attends Sasha Lane’s birthday party.

It’s also super likely that Taylor was with Joe, because the background of another photo shows him standing next to someone wearing a dress by Christy Dawn, a brand that she's been wearing frequently lately.

October 3rd – Taylor’s jet flies from Croatia back to London.

October 4th – Joe's grandfather’s funeral is held in London, and Joe and Taylor presumably attend together. Afterwards, Joe most likely flies back to Croatia commercially to continue filming.

October 9-11th – Conversations With Friends wraps filming around this time. (x)

October 28th – Tiernan Heffron appears on a podcast and talks about meeting Taylor and Joe at the Tipsy Bird in Belfast. (x)

“Like [Taylor] goes, “I heard you singing American country music tonight” and I was like “yeah I love that music, that’s the type of music that I’d love to write” and then she goes “This is my partner, Joe” so then she introduced me to Joe, and I shook his hand. She says, “look me and Joe actually wrote the past two albums together!” It’s like, even her telling me that is really cool.”

November 3rd – It’s reported that Joe will be co-starring opposite Margaret Qualley in an upcoming A24 adaptation titled “The Stars at Noon.” (x) Filming will be located in Panama, Central America.

November 12th – Red (Taylor’s Version) is released, and most of the songs were recorded in Belfast, Northern Ireland. (x)

November 12th – Joe’s mum attends the premiere of the All Too Well short film in NYC. (x)

November 14th – Joe follows Austin Swift back on Instagram (Austin had been following him since 2018).

November 16th – Ryan Reynolds likes this Instagram post.

November 17th – Taylor leaves NYC for Panama to go see Joe.

November 18th – Taylor posts a TikTok from Panama. (x)

November 20th – Taylor’s SUV is seen parked outside the National Theatre in Panama. (x)

(Translated from theswiftiecult’s IG stories)

November 18, Taylor posted a reel, we immediately set out to investigate the wall, and guess what; that same night we found the hotel and it was super easy because we looked in the hotels that are in the old town and the first one that came out was the American Trade Hotel, the same walls. With that we already confirmed that she was here (...) The following day, November 19, swifties went on rounds and saw Joe near Cathedral Square, but they saw him from afar.

November 20: The swifties were making rounds and saw that there was movement. They saw a black van with guards who had monitored the area as if they were looking for someone, after that the car moved and parked in front of the National Theater and there was Tay, only we did not know (later I informed them). And that same day a girl tells me that she saw Joe at the hotel (we have photos but they cannot be shared) and she also saw her bodyguard.

November 22: A friend who works at the Panama Pacifico International Airport tells a swiftie that Taylor is already leaving Panama, because they were preparing her jet and it was the same one who posted the fandom account on Tumblr. (We only have photos of the jet when it was taking off and they cannot be shared either)

The jet left at around 11 in the morning, they couldn't take a picture of it. And that same day another girl from the group that they were recording in Chepo communicated to us, because she lives near her.

November 23 arrives, when May takes pictures with Joe, but before that, she talked to a producer [of the Stars At Noon], and they told her that Taylor went to the National Theater and liked it a lot, they would go out at night so they wouldn’t be seen, also because at night Joe wasn’t filming.

November 22nd – Taylor leaves Panama for New York.

November 23rd – E! Online releases an article about Taylor recently going to Panama and visiting Joe on set. (x)

A source tells E! News that the 31-year-old singer took a trip to spend time with actor Joe Alwyn at his work following the release of Red (Taylor's Version) on Nov. 12. According to the source, "Taylor visited her boyfriend on the set of his movie."

Joe, 30, is currently shooting the film adaptation of Denis Johnson's novel, The Stars at Noon, per his IMDb page.

November – Joe meets fans whilst filming in Panama. (x) (x)

November 29th – Olivia the cat makes an appearance in the CWF photobook. (x)

December 13th – Taylor and Alana Haim throw a joint birthday party in NYC. Joe’s still busy filming and unable to attend. (x)

December 16th – Taylor’s jet leaves Nashville for Panama, ostensibly to go pick him up. (x)

December 17th – Joe wraps filming on The Stars At Noon, and leaves Panama for NYC.

December 22nd – Taylor and Joe leave NYC for Rhode Island. (x)

Courtney Love wishes Taylor a belated happy birthday, and refers to her as an occasional neighbour (they both have places in Belsize Park, London).

December 27th – After spending Christmas in RI together, they go to LA while Taylor’s parents most likely head back to Nashville.

December 28th – Taylor’s jet goes Nashville > St Louis > Salt Lake City > LA. Since she has relatives in St Louis and her family often stays in SLC during the holidays, it’s super possible they were picked up for some kind of gathering in LA. (x)

December 31st – Taylor and Joe leave LA and fly to Tahiti, arriving at 7:47am. Meanwhile, her other jet goes LA > SLC > Nash > St Louis > Nash, most likely dropping her family back home.

Bowen Yang does a photo dump on IG and includes a photo from SNL week that was taken at Taylor’s NYC place.

In the background, a framed photo of Taylor and Joe can be seen.

#taylor swift #joe alwyn #taylor and joe #swiftwyn #jaylor #toe

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pedropascalunofficial · 4 years ago

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Pedro Pascal and Lena Headey

Head to head interview

Hunger Magazine, Issue 6. Released December 28, 2014. Photoshoot October 15, 2013.

Thirteen million. That's the number of people, on average, who tuned into each episode of the third season of Game of Thrones. Among them was Chilean actor Pedro Pascal, who was as enthralled by the sex and slaughter as the rest of us. But little did he know that within a few months he'd be pitching up on the shores of Belfast to join the cast as Oberyn Martell, affectionately known as the Red Viper. Sound ominous? It is. The Red Viper is GoTs newest anti-hero, “sexy and charming but driven by hate”. Sounds like he'll be right at home.

Pedro, on the other hand, though he looks good on paper, wasn't the obvious choice for the role. Expecting a big name to ride into King’s Landing, the show's fans took to forums to express their concerns as soon as the news broke. So is he worried? Like hell he is. “The fans had the part cast in their minds already. They knew who they wanted and it certainly was not me. But I'm not stupid, | presumed that people were going to say ‘who the fuck is this guy’. Since I anticipated the reaction it didn't throw me off.”

“There are so many different ways to go into battle with yourself when you're trying to get a job. I felt a certain amount of pressure because I wanted to make everyone happy. The fan base is so specific and, as a fan myself, I understand the relationship that they have with the show. The Red Viper is the best part I've ever played, and in season four shocks come at the most unexpected times. You might think you know, but you have no idea,” he explains.

Looks like the Red Viper could be in line to fill a Walter-White-sized-hole in television, but to test the theory we pit Pascal against Lena Headey, aka the Queen. Because if you can come away from Cersei unscathed, you can handle anything.

LH: So, Pedro, you come into Game of Thrones in season four, playing a pretty major character. Does that fill you with joy or dread?

PP: I'd say it fills me with joy because it’s a really fucking fun part. He’s a badass. He comes up against a lot of the main characters in the show. I'm very aware of the show. I watch it like a fan.

LH: Were you a fan before you arrived in Belfast?

PP: Yeah, I was a proper fan. I was caught up in the drama of it before I even auditioned for the part. I was already up to speed.

LH: I remember meeting you and thinking, “he fucking loves the show’.

PP: I kissed your ass.

LH: Well, it worked. We're friends now.

PP: I was like a tourist visiting the set, and yet I had to act with you and be in a scene with the characters that I had such a specific association with already.

LH: So you’re saying it’s boring?

PP: No, it wasn’t boring at all. It was extremely, relentlessly surreal.

LH: And who were your favourite characters up until that point?

PP: Not you.

LH: I realise that!

PP: There are too many characters to have a favourite, but I was fascinated by the Lannisters because they're so frightening. They scared me and then you would come in and pull sympathy from your audience somehow, and I found that rather fascinating. The Northerners were so easy to like or get behind, but it was quite something to see people sympathise with a Lannister, after you made people see things from their perspective.

LH: Speaking of being slightly ambiguous as a character, you come in as a major player and a very well-loved character in the eyes of people who read the books, and he’s somewhat of an anti-hero. Did you base him on anyone?

PP: What does an anti-hero mean exactly?

LH: It means he doesn't wear deodorant, doesn't it? [Laughs]. Someone you shouldn't champion, but you do, like Walter White in Breaking Bad.

PP: No, | didn’t really base him on anyone.

LH: Did you take anything from classic movies that you thought you could use and spin to your advantage playing the Red Viper?

PP: God, that’s a good question. I probably did subconsciously. Now I feel under the spotlight because I need to think of somebody, and I have so many in my mind! I think that’s something that is happening a lot in TV today: the anti-heroes are central to these television shows, and people are really getting behind them, even though they're not necessarily the most moral characters. So I'd say that ‘ve become more familiar with the character who's obviously very flawed but gets you on their side — you have complicated feelings about them. But I think I saw the story too much from this character's perspective to perceive any flaws.

LH: He has some.

PP: I know, from the outside. But I don't see any of them. What are his flaws?

LH: His flaws? He's a dirty bastard!

PP: Why is he a dirty bastard? He likes to fucking fight, for sure.

LH: Back to you as an actor. You've done it for a long time and, as we all know, the path is not always golden, and sometimes you think, “fuck it” and you want to leave it and do something else. Have there been moments where you wanted to give up?

PP: Yes, there have been moments where I came very close to giving up. But I never had anything to fall back on. I think you can understand that.

LH: Because were stupid?

PP: We're stupid.

LH: I can't even make pizza!

PP: We don’t have any other skills.

LH: None at all!

PP: And that’s the odd conundrum. You get to a point where you think, “This isn’t going to happen. This isn’t sustainable. I'm too exhausted, and it can't be good for me.” There were moments where I truly did try to formulate an idea of what I'd do. I thought I'd go back to school, start pre-med again and go to medical school or something like that.

LH: But that didn't happen, you just thought about it?

PP: Yes, I'd have thoughts, but it was still fantasy really. But at the time it felt like a practical life plan. Do you know what I mean?

LH: Yeah of course, you need to pay the fucking rent.

PP: Exactly. You just try to escape from the chaos of what you're feeling by trying to create order in your life. Order seems like a solution to save you from the pain of acting!

LH: It's a mental pain. Who was the first person you called when you got the role?

PP: My sister.

LH: Does she watch the show?

PP: Yes, she does.

LH: Pedro Pascal... or Pablo as I called you when I had too much wine, which was deeply insulting.

PP: Even family members have done that to me! Do I look more like a Pablo? Because it happens with about ninety-five percent of the people I meet.

LH: No, I think I’m just an ignorant drunk person.

PP: No, you were an ignorant drunk person that night is what you're saying.

LH: And now I’m educated.

PP: [Whispers] But | want you to call me Pablo.

LH: Ok, Pablo! When you first arrived on set in Northern Ireland, what was your feeling showing up to a bunch of British actors? Did it feel different to doing an American project?

PP: Yes, but I loved it. It wasn’t intimidating. I found it surreal because I’d watched and loved the show. I hadn't had the opportunity to work on something that I was really familiar with before, so it was overwhelming. But it was far more delightful than intimidating. Also you guys were really cool. Everyone was friendly.

LH: Oh, that’s just fake.

PP: Well, you guys were good at it!

LH: We know Game of Thrones is very popular obviously. Do you have any thoughts, or fears, about what this is going to bring you in terms of exposure?

PP: I have hope.

LH: Oh, God. I don’t mean to shatter that, but give it up.

PP: I don’t know really. It’s all been filmed, and now I'm back to my normal routine, so I haven't really thought about it. I remember when we finished filming and we were on our way to the airport, you asked me, “How does it feel you're all done?” and I couldn't really answer.

LH: You were quite emotional that day.

PP: I was very emotional because I’d had such an amazing time doing the part. Also just being there immersed in the experience... You described it to me best. You told me how I'd be feeling.

LH: We don't know your character's backstory when you enter the show, and you have some rather brutal scenes. Anyone who has read the books will know what I’m talking about.

PP: My character comes in, he stirs a bunch of shit up, and then he makes this fucking enormous exit. Now can | ask you a question?

LH: What is it? I’m not going to sleep with you. Give it up.

PP: Oh, come on! This has gone to shit and it’s your fault, so good luck to whoever has to edit it! But anyway, sometimes I'd hang out with the cast members and we'd go to dinner and they would get stopped constantly. There was no denying who they played because they were so recognisable, but you got away with it because you have this beautiful blonde wig on in the show, and in real life you are...

LH: Grey?

PP: {Laughs] No! You have beautiful chestnut hair! Is it liberating to not be recognised the way some of the other cast members are?

LH: Yes, it is liberating.

PP: Liberating being able to walk down an alley in Dubrovnik without being stopped?

LH: Yes, except sometimes | get recognised in the weirdest places. A woman was emptying my bag at Heathrow Airport's security gates and just went, “Are you the Queen?” while rummaging through my underwear. It was so fucking weird.

PP: It seems they're more respectful to you?

LH: Because they're frightened. Wait until they meet the Viper.

PP: Well, that covers it.

LH: I think we're going to get our own show out of this, you know

youtube

Interested in learning more about Pedro? Check out Pedro Pascal Unofficial on Pinterest!

#pedro pascal #lena headey #hunger magazine #shot October 2013 #published December 2014 #game of thrones #queen cersei #prince oberyn #oberyn #oberyn martell #hunger tv

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perhapsthanatos · 4 years ago

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02:47 am with jeno ♡

nct's lee jeno x fem!reader (very heavily inspired by & based on the film howl's moving castle as well as the places portmeirion, wales & dubrovnik, croatia)

alternate title: odd counterpoises

genre: slight angst. mainly fluff. non idol au.

word count: 800+

playlist: landscape with a fairy by aspidistrafly, im gald there is you by julie london & junk by paul mccartney.

warnings: mild cursing. lowercase intended.

a/n: aaaaaa!! hello lovelies :) this is my first time really putting my writings out here so pls do treat me kindly :( but if u have any critiques, pls do let me know bc i really wanna improve & continue! also this was inspired by my landlady from dubrovnik, croatia, i hope shes doing well, i miss her :(

the first quarter moon glows lovingly throughout the old town. the moonlight sneaks through the white cobblestone streets, caressing the climbing roses on the walls and illuminates the night sky for all who are awake at this hour.

the small antique store stays serene and dimly lit as always, even more so now that it is past midnight. the ticking of the grandfather clocks or the additional unexplainable noises can not break the mysterious peace. you have already locked the entrance closed an hour ago, but decided to stay a bit longer, dusting the many shelves of old pieces and relics for tomorrow morning. you even took a little more time to tidy up the porcelain doll named eleanora that meets the customers at the entrance. at first glance, working in an antique store seems like nothing special, especially when you could do other amazing things around the old town. like make hats, blow glass, make pastries and so much more. but an antique store just seems to have something much deeper. each item is their own piece of art and history and each item has their own interesting stories. and as the shopkeeper, you have the honor of giving them a home.

getting distracted from all the dusting, you randomly pull out an old book from one of the shelves. opening the book’s old pages rather curiously, it sends dust flying upwards, obscuring your vision. you take a mental note that books are more dusty than they seem and that you should do something about it tomorrow. but for now, you pat the remaining dust out of the tea stained page and start reading silently.

... in ancient times a giant was wandering along the highway when suddenly a—

“ah! there you are my darling, i was looking everywhere for you. i thought you would be home by now?”

the room suddenly feels cooler in temperature. almost jumping out of your skin, you quickly turn to see a shadow in the darkest area of the store walking towards you wrapping his arms around your waist from behind.

you know the feeling all too well. jeno. the infamous, reclusive wizard that you have grown to love. you first met him almost a year ago at the market. he pulled you away from several creepy men who were trying to make some moves on you and since then a friendship (and then a relationship) blossomed between the two of you. you learned that he is the kind of lover who would tease you for the little things and apologize six million times if you acted upset. the kind of lover who would fly to your bedroom window at four in the morning to just listen to you ramble about your recent nightmare. the kind of lover your family would disapprove of due to his reputation, constantly reminding you that he is never up to any good especially because he is a wizard.

“fuck, jeno, don’t do that! i swear i was about to beat you with a book!”

he only snickers and pushes his face further into your neck, humming. “what are you reading anyway, my love?” he asked in a gentle voice which made your heart immediately melt and forget about the initial scare.

“some old book i found when i was tidying up, it seemed interesting,” you answered, your head leaning on his with your bodies swaying slightly. you look over to the other side of the shop where mirrors big and small hung on the wall. you couldn’t help but admire him. he looks regal. another-worldly definition of the word pretty. godly. out of this world. his pink harlequin coat and white dress shirt is worn without any wrinkles. there is not one strand of his long and softly curled blonde hair out of place, his eyes shining and curving into gorgeous crescents.

as much as you loved jeno dearly, a small part of you knew that he wouldn’t stay forever. surely your sadness and the dullness of the past will come again, even stronger when he bids his goodbye, but you choose to not let the inevitable fall ruin the rise. you instead to savor every moment with him, learning and growing in the process.

“lets dance,” you blurt out, rendering him speechless. the swaying stops as he turns to look at you, as if to ask if you were joking.

“right here?”

“yes, right here.”

“with no music?”

“yes, with no music.”

frozen in shock by your sudden boldness, you take him to the center and pull him to you and start swaying. he instinctively puts his hands on your hips while you wrap your arms around his neck, swaying again around the wooden floor of the shop. he smiles wider than ever and follows your lead. your heart bleeds furiously in love and in heartbreak.

oh my beautiful doll, i wonder what song we’re dancing to in your mind. is it in minor? is it in major? is it in adagio? is it in allegro? is it as lovely as mine? i hope it is.

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sabbaticallife84 · 4 years ago

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Lokrum

Getting up, I was excited to get ready to go. I had to grab my backpack, my sandals, clothes, towel, water bottle, almonds, and money. I had to squeeze into my wetsuit/swim suit, chug my coffee and run down the many steps to the old city, and get to the port. Luckily, I already had my ferry ticket and was ready to go. I quickly realized it wasn’t as big of a group as I wanted. But there were like 3 or 4 of us. Then 1-2 more came. So it would be five of us on this treasure hunt, our guide and our photographer. This day excursion was part of PR/photo advertisement for this company that was promoting digital nomads. I lucked into finding it cause my tour guide, who took me on the wall tour, told me they were going to Lokrum and sort of invited me along. We met at 8:45 AM, to leave at 9:00 AM.

I was nervous about getting sea sick. But it was a short quick jaunt to Lokrum from the port.

I got to talk to the British photographer and and he has lived in Dubrovnik for 23 years so he had unique perspective. He said this summer, their biggest tourist group of people was Americans. He said it was crazy cause Americans were coming from like 3000 miles away or whatever, but because of Covid-19 stuff and restrictions and USA was the first to the party of the vaccines, we were the biggest tourist group they were seeing this summer. This guy was funny, he reminded me of Ricky Gervais and we were laughing and teasing each other in no time. He named us our places we were from, so I was “Colorado”, this other guy was “Uruguay”, and then we had Columbia, Equador and Suzy-Q.

We are taken to this old Benedictine monastery, that is now like a museum/exhibit for the monks. For the millionth time, I’m asked if I have seen “Game of Thrones” Cause there is something famous on this island from that show. But nope, I still haven’t seen it. We are greeted, creepily, by a lady in a black habit who announces we are now needed to help lift this curse from the island of Lokrum. (This is the beginning of the treasure hunt) Our first clue has to do with Richard the Lion Heart and we have to find where he is mentioned in the exhibit to find our first clue. It turned out to be an herb we had to find in the Botanical Gardens. It was myrtle. Unfortunately, with all my plant knowledge, I still didn’t remember what myrtle looked like. So there are five of us, running around, being filmed by the British photographer. We are running around the Botanical Gardens, looking at every plant name, running back to the map, someone was holding, to see where it hinted the herb was.

Eventually the treasure hunt led us to the rocky “beach”/end of the island where people jumped in and went swimming. We were looking for a shell with a necklace in it by a hole in the rock (a famous Instagram spot, apparently). I was trying to bust it up these rocks, and the photographer yelled, “Colorado, where are you going?!”.. Then Ecuador beat me to the clue and I fell and scraped my knee. I fell hard, on my knees and hands, and it took a minute for me to pull myself up off the rocks. My hands hurt, and my knee hurt. The guide came to get me and help me. Then we transitioned to the “Clara is humiliated” part of the treasure hunt. We took a detour to this lake on the island called the “Dead Sea” cause it has a high salt content, the water is filtered in from the ocean, under the rocks. So now, there are 6 people (who I just met) sitting on a bench, as my tour guide is helping me get into the Dead Sea to soak my bleeding knee, and they are just watching me, waiting for me to slip and fall on the rocks getting into the Dead Sea. I definitely am not the most graceful. The Dead Sea is close to this nice beachy bar and so my guide finds a bar tender to see if we can find a first aid kit with a bandaid or bandage for my knee. We find this sweet woman, with a half shaved head, half dyed red curly hair cut, with some tattoos and she suggests tobacco to help stop the bleeding and help with healing. I have never heard of this before. But I’m open to suggestions. She is opening her tobacco pouch, where she rolls her own cigarettes from, and is pushing the straight tobacco leaf into my bleeding knee. We wait for five minutes.. Then she gives me a grappa soaked paper towel and I wipe the tobacco out. Then she gives me another grappa soaked paper towel and I wipe out the knee until it really stings. We both decide it’s better to leave the knee open to air at this point. This chick is like a natural healer, that we stumbled upon.

We resume the treasure hunt, run around the island some more, and “lift the curse off of the Island”. Then we go back to the Dead Sea and some go swimming, some of us sit at the beachy bar to chat and have a coffee. Then we head to a different restaurant to have lunch under the pittosporum trees. We all pick our sandwich we can have, our choice of drink and later our choice of ice cream, this was part of the island day, our luncheon. Now we have two other Americans show up, a mother daughter team. Soon, we become fast friends. We have more great conversation and then the people that still need to work, head off to take a ferry back to the old city. The rest of us head to the rocky beach to jump in the water. I am in no mood to jump off the cliffs with America and Uruguay. I climb into the water with the American kiddo, she’s 11. We swim around, meet up with her Mom and Uruguay in the water. We swim around a rocky outcrop. The water is so clear and blue. There are definitely cold patches, but it feels good.

After an hour or two, we head to the Dead Sea, and some of us head back to the beachy bar. We drink aperol spritzs. and then the American and I order a Hugo spritz, cause it sounds delicious, and it was! It was prosecco, and maybe lime? And “Hilderberry”, which I don’t know if that is a real berry. It was delicious. Eventually someone decides to get a couple of pizzas. In between cocktails and pizza, I hang out with the USA kiddo in the Dead Sea. We swim to this cave, which is cool, we see a male peacock in a tree and wonder if he is stuck. Sometimes he screams and it’s quite a different sound. Then Croatian kids from above, almost land on us, as they cliff jump into the Dead Sea. It was actually just this amazing, sparkling fun day with people, swimming in the Sea, drinking cocktails, and talking and sharing stories. I stumbled into this great, happy, fun group of ex-pats in Dubrovnik. I didn’t want it to end. We hung out until 6:45 PM, cause the last ferry left at 7:00. We were hoofing it, to not miss the ferry. We made it off the island. It was such a good day. I loved Lokrum. I’ll never forget that day!

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myassbrokethefall · 4 years ago

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It worked! That GORGEOUS picture is from her night at the Dubrovnik Film Meeting in 2009.

Hooray!! I’m glad the truth ended up being out there, anon.

#i missed this though i was planning to keep an eye out for responses #my internet is still going through some stuff and of course tumblr is the first thing to not work well when that happens #ga #Anonymous

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qqueenofhades · 5 years ago

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Ahem. As discussed, a prompt my good lady...Lucy and Flynn + fake married in Dubrovnik + the inevitable shenanigans...

Okay SO. On the plane over, there was something in the magazine about a website where tourists can go to Amsterdam and fake-marry a local for a day, so their new “spouse” can take them around the non-tourist parts of the city, and then they go their separate ways at dusk and it’s fun etc. I immediately decided that this needed a Garcy AU, for obvious reasons.

Lucy Preston wasn’t really planning on going to Croatia. In fact, she wasn’t exactly planning to go anywhere. But it’s been a rough few months to say the least – tenure meeting cancelled at Stanford, breaking up with Noah, Mom has to go back to the hospital for more tests and it isn’t looking good – and in a fit of late-night frustration, she decided to just fly somewhere over Thanksgiving break and forget about the clusterfuck that was her life for a bit. Somewhere warm, she wasn’t picky. She suggested that Amy go with her, but Amy had work and couldn’t get away, and by then, Lucy had already booked a ticket. She’s heard that Dubrovnik is beautiful, there is a university and a state archive there so she can theoretically disguise it as a research trip, and when she was running through the apparently deeply cursed Frankfurt airport to catch her connecting flight, a text popped up from Amy. Something that she thinks Lucy should try, just for shits and giggles. Some kind of app called Untourist.

Lucy took a look at it and decided that it was basically Tinder for tourists, even if the premise tried to be more classy than that. In short, you can pick a European city from the list (More Locations Coming Soon!, promises the popup), fill in some brief preference Q&As, and be matched with a local, who will fake-marry you in a ceremony complete with photos and then take you on a “honeymoon” for a day in the city. The idea is that you get to have a personal guide, explore places off the main drag – and presumably, if you hook up at the end, that’s a nice bonus, but not one that the app strictly advertises. It sees itself as promoting intercultural connections and lived experiences, rather than anything so ignominious as arranging casual sex with a hot foreigner. Apparently it got its start in Amsterdam, though, so this would not be surprising.

The split with Noah is still raw, and Lucy isn’t planning to use the app for that purpose – or indeed, at all. But after she has landed at the surprisingly tiny airport and has boarded the bus for the drive along the coast road to the city, she downloads it on a whim that she shouldn’t think through and decides it might be fun to have someone to travel with, even briefly. After she’s signed up, created a profile, and filled in her details, she is given two options to match with, and ends up going for the latter: Garcia from Dubrovnik. She thought about Marko from Zagreb, but his profile says that he’s a Dinamo Ultra, and she decided that she didn’t want to spend the day getting a crash course in the finer points of Croatian football hooliganism. Garcia it is, apparently.

Dubrovnik is insanely beautiful, with crystalline turquoise water lapping at towering medieval city walls (souvenir shops every few streets will proudly remind you that they filmed Game of Thrones here), palm trees, red-tiled roofs, old golden-stone buildings, winding side alleys, and sunlight that pours down as rich as olive oil. Since it’s November, it’s not quite as hot as in high summer, and the tourist rush is somewhat dimmed. Lucy sleeps late at her Airbnb high on a very steep side street, as the city is spread out over several hills on the side of the tall blue mountains that rise out of the water, and almost forgets that her fake wedding is today. She jumps out of bed, puts on some makeup (just because she’s not actually marrying the guy doesn’t mean she has to look completely trollish), grabs her bag, and heads down into town, following a winding alley of staircases that are probably going to be a pain to climb back up. She hopes this was a good idea. It was mostly to appease Amy, anyway. Can she cancel, or would that count as leaving Garcia at the (fake) altar?

What the hell, she’s here now, and maybe if she shows that she’s receptive to new experiences, the universe will give her a break. Lucy trots along the palm-treed square above the city walls, finds the door with the Untourist logo by the bell, and steps inside. “Dobro jutro,” she says, which is about all the Croatian she speaks, and most people have been happy to use English anyway. “I’m Lucy Preston, I have an appointment today?”

The slick Unreceptionist greets her, gives her a waiver to sign (bad experiences and/or unsatisfactory spouses are not their fault, any meeting beyond the day is done on personal terms, etc) and they await the arrival of her dashing groom-to-be. It is twelve minutes past their scheduled start time, and the Unreceptionist is making apologetic noises, when the door opens with a bit of a crash and a man who must be Garcia ducks in. He’s tall, dark, and craggy-handsome, probably in his forties, wearing aviator sunglasses, and clutching a takeaway coffee. He addresses the Unreceptionist in rapid Croatian, looks up, sees Lucy, and nods shortly. “Ah,” he says, switching to English. “Right, you’re here. Let’s go.”

“Sir,” the Unreceptionist says, looking as if he’s wondering if Garcia himself read the details and/or the release forms before signing up. “You’re supposed to…?”

“What?”

“You’re supposed to have the wedding ceremony first?”

“I’m supposed to have the what?”

At that, Lucy winces. Feeling as if this might be an opportune moment to interrupt the conversation, and wondering if it’s too late to switch to Marko from Zagreb and risk dying at an Eternal Derby game, she stands up. “Hi,” she says. “I’m Lucy Preston?”

“I know.” Garcia glances at her briefly, up and down, and then away. “What’s this about a wedding?”

“That’s the whole point of the app,” Lucy says pointedly. “Fake-married, take me to places that aren’t touristy, then at the end of the day, go our separate ways?”

Garcia looks briefly pole-axed, then seems to decide that right, well, this is on him for failing to read the terms and conditions. “Fine,” he says impatiently. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

Lucy’s cheeks sting. Making a mental note to give him a zero of five stars on any feedback form that she might have to fill in to rate her experience today, she follows him into the back, where they are joined in a very non-legally-binding ceremony, have their photo taken (Garcia looks like this is a real funeral rather than a fake wedding) and finally are released into the wild, as Garcia (who is a good foot taller than her) strides ahead without waiting. When Lucy runs to catch up, he says, “Nobody told me there was a wedding involved.”

“Did you even read what they wanted?” Lucy’s tone is slightly waspish, but then, he isn’t exactly showering her in that supposedly famous Slavic hospitality. The sweet lady at the Airbnb was much nicer than this. “It was right there in the entire premise. If you don’t want to spend a day taking me around the city, fine, but maybe next time, try to actually – ”

“No,” Garcia says abruptly. “You’re here now. Let’s go.”

With that, he strides off toward the gate in the towering walls, down into the Stari Grad. Lucy thinks the view from up there must be spectacular, but she’s not actually going to get a chance to find out, because Garcia derides them as too touristy and refuses to pay 200 kuna to go up them. (This is something like $30, so it clearly is a lot, but the city sees no reason not to profit off all the Game of Thrones fans.) Nor does he think much of the main drag, the cathedral square, the rector’s palace, or any of the other usual sights. He says that Lucy can call him Flynn, but doesn’t explain why. She thinks it’s his last name, but honestly, she can’t be sure. He has the social skills of a broken-down dump truck.

Finally, since there isn’t much of Dubrovnik, at least the old town, that isn’t touristy, Lucy persuades Flynn to let them go up the walls, though by the face he makes at the cashier as he pays for their tickets, the poor man might be found floating face-down in the ocean later. They climb up to the winding ramparts, gazing out over the Adriatic to one side and the crowded, tiled roofs on the other, and on one steep section, Lucy loses her footing and nearly falls. She wouldn’t have gone over the edge, there are plenty of barriers, but Flynn flashes out a hand and steadies her. It’s the first remotely human or non-dickish thing he’s done, and she raises an eyebrow. “Thanks.”

Perhaps sensing by her acerbic tone that he has not been the world’s most satisfactory fake husband to date, Flynn has the grace to blush, or at least look somewhat chagrined. “I’d definitely get in trouble if you died.”

“Thanks,” Lucy says again, even more tartly. “Guess it’s a good thing for you that you have good reflexes?”

“I fought in the Homeland War.” Flynn glances away. It’s the first personal thing he’s shared about himself, in a casual, offhand way that makes it sound no more remarkable than getting milk from the store. “Come on, let’s keep moving.”

Lucy glances at him. He’s made it clear that he’s not here for the fake marriage, let alone small talk, but she paid a decent amount of money to be here with this tall idiot and he can just suffer it. “Are you from Dubrovnik?”

“I was born in Šibenik.” Flynn doesn’t break stride, obliging Lucy to trot to keep up with him. “Lived a few places around the country. It was Yugoslavia back then, though. War started in 1991.”

“I know,” Lucy says. “I mean, I’m a historian, so I was recently doing some work on 1989 and the U.S. response to the dissolution of the Iron Curtain. Technically, Yugoslavia wasn’t Soviet, right?”

“No,” Flynn says, with a sort of grim pride. “Tito and Stalin hated each other. It was…. sort of an in-between place, I suppose. We didn’t need exit visas, there was a certain amount of social freedom, and Tito liked to market it as neutral, a third country between East and West, combining the best of both and the worst of neither. Of course, he was a dictator, but supposedly a benevolent one. Most people liked him. My childhood was – ” He stops. “Well, my mother was American, anyway. Maybe that was what drew her here. Running away.”

Lucy glances up at him. She has a sense that Flynn doesn’t often talk much about his past, and decides that since they are, after all, only fake-married, she doesn’t need to pry. However, since the subject of his mother has arisen, she holds back as best she can, not wanting to dump the fraught subject of Carol Preston on a strange man who has only just met her and treated her one step above gum stuck to his shoe, but finally needs to talk about it with someone who isn’t Amy. She still isn’t sure Flynn gives a damn, but too bad for him. She mentions that it’s been hard, with the Stanford legacy and the cancer and the expectations that she would accept Noah’s proposal, and she just – well, she doesn’t know. Maybe Lucy understands a bit of Flynn’s mother, whoever she was, whyever she came here. Maybe she too was, or is, running away. Even if she has to fly all the way back to San Francisco at the end of this week, some part of her would be more than happy to fling all her responsibilities to the wind, move into some picturesque old flat in one of those tiny streets, and stay.

They descend the walls after completing their circuit, and Flynn deigns to buy her lunch at a small cafe where the menu is only in Croatian and a sign informs customers that they don’t take euros, only kuna. Lucy allows him to order something for her, and they sit there eating in semi-awkward silence. Then Flynn says, apropos of nothing, “Maria.”

“What?”

“My mother’s name.” He shrugs. “It was Maria Tompkins. She was from Houston. She moved to Yugoslavia in 1970, after the death of her first husband and son. She was traveling through Europe, I don’t know that she intended to stay here, but she met my father, so she did.”

“Oh.” Lucy wonders what it would have been like here in the seventies. Probably still beautiful, though much less developed. So Maria Tompkins fell in love, that was what made a young American woman go Red, a move that must have been regarded dimly by her friends and family back in Texas. With that sort of tragedy shadowing her past, maybe it was easier to cut all ties, to get a new passport, to learn a new language, and never look back. Lucy feels a sudden pang of sympathy with this other woman, this unknown fellow traveler, who too found herself in this corner of the world wanting to leave it all behind. Lucy has responsibilities at home, not least her job (even if they didn’t give her tenure, or at least it’s very much in academic bureaucracy limbo), her sister, her sick mother, all the encumbrances and trappings of real life. She can’t do what Maria did, no matter how much she wants to. And for some reason completely unknown to her – it certainly isn’t the pleasure of Flynn’s company – she does.

They finish lunch and head out. It’s warm enough for November that Flynn suggests they can go for a dip, though he gives her a no-clearly-not look when Lucy naively thinks this will be at Banje Beach, the main spot just south of the walls. He leads her up to the street, where they find his car and get in. It’s an Audi, and she wonders what exactly he does for a living. He has a habit of scanning their surroudings, casually flicking his gaze at passersby, in a way that she doesn’t think stems from his military service alone. In fact, she’s starting to wonder if he joined the Untourist app to case the city and/or scope out people without it being too suspicious. Maybe it’s better for everyone if she doesn’t ask about his job. He might have to suffocate her and bundle her up in a black plastic garbage bag in the boot.

Flynn, it transpires, drives like a bit of a maniac, a habit he shares with most of the other road users (especially the scooters and motorcycles). Lucy has already noticed that Croatians seem to have a rather laissez-faire attitude toward personal safety, as evidenced by their tendency to stand outside guardrails overlooking steep drops, walk the wrong way along busy highways, dart across roads in front of oncoming traffic, and jury-rig anything that isn’t actively falling apart. When she mentions this to Flynn, he shrugs. “Slavs are like that,” he says matter-of-factly. “Especially Croatians. Though if you think we’re bad, you should meet the Poles.”

Lucy laughs despite herself, since that’s the first time Flynn has loosened up to flash any bit of actual humor. Well, that’s not quite true; he is remarkably sassy, has a sarcastic comment for most occasions and especially anything involving a tourist making a fool of themselves, but this is the first time that his humor has seemed gentler, more like he’s actually enjoying himself and poking a bit of self-deprecating fun rather than lashing out at the world. They drive along the cliff road for several miles in silence, until Lucy asks, “When did you move to Dubrovnik?”

“About…” Flynn hesitates, and she senses that there’s more riding on the answer to that question than he wants to let on. “Well, I lived in Zagreb until 2014.”

“And you moved here after that?”

“More or less.” Flynn adjusts the rearview mirror, which doesn’t really need it. After a long pause he says, “My wife and daughter died in 2014. I came here for – well, I didn’t want to stay there anymore.”

“I’m….” Lucy feels taken aback, almost guilty that she’s been so derisive of his inability to read app terms and conditions, his clear aversion to the whole fake-married part. Not that they’ve really been acting like it, anyway, but still. She can imagine it wouldn’t be easy for her, if that ever happened, to stand up and play-act some stupid charade for an American tourist hiring you like a beast of burden, not when you’d had the real thing, not when it was gone. “Garcia,” she says, the first time she’s used that since he told her to call him Flynn. She has a sense that he prefers that, that Garcia is some place too personal where he doesn’t let people go, not any longer. “I’m sorry.”

He glances at her, and for a moment she thinks he’ll snap at her, but he doesn’t. He keeps his eyes on the road, navigating the tight turns with ease, until at last he says, “I’m sorry I haven’t been very much fun.”

Lucy opens her mouth by polite reflex to say that he has, and settles for a noncommital hum. Flynn seems to sense that while he might have worked his way up from zero stars, he’s still a way off from five, and parks the Audi in a pullout. They descend a narrow cliff path to the sea, he reaches out to catch her arm when her feet skid again on the pebbles, and Lucy decides she should probably warn him that she’s clumsy before she really does accidentally kill herself. But if she fell into the sea from here, she has an unaccountable sense that he’d dive in after her, no matter how odd and brusque and grumpy he is. It’s less clear whether this is because he’s starting to like her a little, or because it would be an insult to his professional competence. Maybe he’s in the Mafia.

They reach a small quay where a catamaran is tied up, Flynn strides to it and produces two life jackets, and once Lucy has climbed aboard, he swings on, undoes the ropes, and angles the sails out into the wide blue water, endless as a reflected sky. It must be a busy harbor in summer, and there’s still a decent boat traffic now: ferries, jet-skis, a few sailboats and pleasure yachts. Lucy holds on tight as Flynn carves an expert white wake. “Is this your boat, then?”

“No,” Flynn says. “But I borrow it from time to time.”

“Did you – ” Lucy gives him a very narrow stare. “Did you steal this boat?”

“No!” Flynn looks miffed that she would ask. “I know the owner, he lets me use it when I want to. What kind of man do you think I am?”

Lucy opens her mouth, starts to answer, and stops. Truth is, she isn’t sure. An hour ago she would have said a raging, self-absorbed dick with no social skills and possibly black-market employment, and parts of that are still true, but the rest, well… she can’t say exactly. He keeps letting slip these odd, vulnerable parts of him, almost in spite of himself. His past in the war, his mother running away from her old life, his dead wife and daughter, everything else. She isn’t certain what she thinks of him, exactly, but she isn’t wishing that she picked Marko from Zagreb anymore. If nothing else, Flynn is complicated, and challenging, and oddly easy to talk to, and he hasn’t told her to shut up about the family/work/life drama that she occasionally returns to venting about. Lucy thinks she’ll take that, at least.

She looks at his hands, large and sun-brown and expertly pulling and tying the knots to trim the sail, as he pulls them to a bobbing halt in the sparkling water and asks if she wants to swim. Lucy didn’t put on her bathing suit under her clothes, but she doesn’t want to go to the bother of making him drive all the way back to the Airbnb. So she strips off her shirt and jeans, and, in just her bra and underpants (hey, they’re married, even fakely), she dives in.

The water is chillier than she expected – this is the southern Mediterranean, it’s never cold no matter the season, but it is November, and she splutters and gasps as she bobs to the surface. Flynn, observing from the high-and-dry comfort of the catamaran, smirks at her, and Lucy gives him the finger. “You dick,” she shouts. “You could have warned me.”

Flynn shrugs, apparently utterly untroubled either by this accusation or by her attitude; indeed, he grins as if he appreciates this feistiness, her willingness to talk back at him and tell it like it is. Lucy spends so much time biting her tongue around absolutely everyone else that this reaction is both unexpected and deeply liberating, and once she’s swum around the catamaran a few times and adjusted to the water temperature, she takes a deep breath and dives down under the pontoons. Then she surfaces on the far side, reaches up, and just as Flynn senses danger and whips around, she grabs him by the back of the shirt and jerks him backward.

He’s wearing a life jacket, of course, so he doesn’t go too far under, but the expression on his face is worth every penny that she paid to the stupid app. He shakes his wet hair like a dog as he surfaces, and she has to say, he looks really good while doing it. “Excuse me,” he says, in a tone of deep umbrage. “Who told you that it was a good idea to start a marriage off by throwing your husband in the drink?”

“Maybe if I’m drowning you for the life insurance,” Lucy shoots back, before she can stop herself. She has no idea who this woman is, who has gone from being exasperated and shut off with Flynn to – well, she did in fact just throw him in the ocean, but there’s definitely something different about their dynamic now. It wouldn’t be a stretch to call it flirty, whether or not this is listed in Untourist’s terms and conditions (and as well established, Flynn did not read them anyway). “After all, I think we can say that you deserve it. Tragic boating accident?”

Too late, she wonders if this is a bad idea to joke about, since she doesn’t actually know how his wife and daughter died (she hopes it wasn’t that, anyway) but Flynn actually laughs, and it transforms his whole face. They spend a very enjoyable forty minutes swimming around, splashing each other, and hanging onto the side of the catamaran and letting their legs sway in the current. They’re close alongside each other as they do, Lucy is conscious of only being in her wet underwear (it’s not like he can see anything while she’s submerged, but still), and something passes between them as their eyes meet. His throat moves as he swallows, and after a moment too long, he looks away.

They climb back on the boat, Flynn looses the sail and steers them back toward land, and they disembark, Lucy once more watching for investigative purposes as he ties up. They dry off and she pulls on her damp clothes, as Flynn decorously turns his back and waits until she is done. Then they tramp up the bluff to the car (Lucy was thinking about retiring here, since it’s warm and sunny and beautiful and all that, but if she is elderly, all the climbing might be too much) and drive back toward the town center. The sun is getting low, her paid-for day is almost done, and despite the total disaster that was it starting out, Lucy is oddly reluctant for it to do so. As Flynn pulls up in front of the Untourist office, she says convulsively, “Maybe we should… I don’t know. I think they’re closed, anyway. You don’t have to drop me off here.”

Flynn glances at her, then considers it. He could offer to just take her back to her Airbnb (those streets really were not designed for sane drivers, and Lucy can see why tiny Smart cars are popular around here, but Flynn would absolutely not fit into one) and he still might. Then he says, “Well, technically, the day isn’t over. Do you suppose I could take you out for dinner?”

“You….” Lucy coughs. “I suppose you could.”

They find parking, and walk down into the old town, as the moon is rising over the walls, the towers are floodlit, the city gleams in the cooling dusk like its nickname, the “Pearl of the Adriatic,” and they find another cafe where the clientele is mostly local. They linger late over dinner, and Flynn says that he will in fact drive her back when they’re finally done, and as she’s about to undo her seatbelt and get out, Lucy hesitates. Then she screws up her courage, leans over, and kisses him very fast on the cheek. “Thank you,” she says. “I had – I really did have a great time.”

Flynn looks as surprised as her to hear it, but somehow and shyly gratifeid as well. A fugitive smile plays at the corner of his mouth, tentative, tender. For a moment, she thinks he might be about to kiss her back for real, but he clears his throat and holds out his hand instead. “Er,” he says. “Thank you, Dr. Preston.”

Lucy hesitates, fighting her disappointment, and shakes it back. Then she steps out of the car and unlocks the door of the apartment, as he waits to see that she gets inside without random Ragusan fiends materializing from the shrubbery. Even when she does step in, the car idles a few more moments, and she glances back, wondering – or perhaps it’s only hoping – that he’s chastising himself for letting her walk away. Then the car starts again, she can see his dark figure sitting too stiff and straight at the wheel, and she watches until the taillights vanish around a steep turn, and fade into the night.

#lucy x flynn #garcy #garcy ff #croatia 2k19 #extasiswings #ask

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travelita · 5 years ago

Text

Interview Travelita Georgiana Spiridon

Travelita: 1. What does traveling mean to you? 2. Why is that important?

I believe that traveling contributes a lot in discovering other cultures, both for our mental health (mental hygiene) and professional. Each time I travel, I learn to become confident and in tune with my emotions and desires.

We have only one life, I choose to follow my dreams, make them come true, and travel is something that fulfills me, a fire that burns inside me. I love solo travel because is one of the most rewarding ways to appreciate the world. The independence that it gives you, things it instills in you and know how it allows you to have all the benefits to transform your travels and even your life.

Travelita: 2. Now that I know what it is, now that I know why it's important and relevant, how are you implementing this in your travels? I mean, is there a process that you follow when traveling?

Actually, there is a process that I follow: planning & organizing, financials, develop skills

I plan my trips in December for the entire upcoming year, before I choose the destinations I Iike to think – what am I dreaming about. So this year I wanted to visit the countries where Game of Thrones was filmed – visited Malta on my birthday, in July traveled to Dubrovnik, and for the other half of the year I chose Ireland in August and October in Rome to enjoy it with my mom, she’s my best friend and would like to spoil her for a moment. ☺ Planning ahead it gives me room to save money, now that I have all the tickets booked and accommodations as well. Every time I travel I have this system: 100€/ day, of course, I don't spend it all, but I feel much safer in terms of financials, maybe something comes up and I like to be prepared for any unplanned events. It happened to me once in London at the airport; I needed to pay for my luggage 150£ for some reason, I had that spare money and managed to solve the situation. Otherwise, I always get back home with some of the money, depending on where I'm going and what I plan to buy.

I very much enjoy creating my own travel guide for that specific location I’m traveling to – include what museums/ islands/ castles to visit with a bit of info about it, what to eat, where to shop.

Another thing that I love to do while traveling is to develop a skill that I’m not that aware of in terms of improving it or accepting it. For example, I'm afraid of heights; nevertheless, I always do my best to overcome it. If I keep feeding that overwhelming emotion I would never see cities from above or any gorgeous sceneries when traveling. I know my limit but I never give up, keep trying and always remember — if it scares you, you should do it. This way, I’m returning home with an improved side of me and some awesome photos as a reminder that if I persevere I’m becoming better every day.

Travelita: 3. What if people took advantage of your tips and steps you are providing? What will happen, how will their travels change?

I'm a stickler and a worrier at the same time, people would say that these characteristics are not helping you. I agree to disagree – sure they’re not something that one could easily live with, but they demonstrated that if I accept them, my true self, I would definitely enjoy what I love the most – see the world, learn from cultures, understand people better, become richer every time.

If people took advantage of my tips and steps I’m providing, I would say that is a very good thing to do and I’m grateful for that. Each and every one of us has our own tips. I rely on my instinct, learn from my mistakes, stay committed to pursue my dream and practice travel mindfulness – it’s a totally different perspective; that feeling of being present in the moment with openness and curiosity is one of a kind. I recommend it with all my heart, by devoting your full attention to each travel experience as it happens, you appreciate the moment more.

Travelita: 4. Now we would like to get just some general information about you and your travels: (if not answered before) – When did you start traveling?

Started traveling in 2015, visited Belgrade, Serbia. It was a great experience, it resembles a lot with my country. After that, I realized that all I wanted to do is to travel the world as long as possible. However, I was short on money and debated long and hard about what to do next, ultimately developed a plan to save money and to travel more. Since then I’ve traveled to 14 countries and counting! ☺

Travelita: - Do you remember how you felt when you traveled alone for the first time? - How did you, or do you deal with fears?

I've experienced my first solo trip to Budapest; enjoyed it for 4 days! So awesome, peaceful, the history is everywhere with you, the architecture is astonishing, riverboat trip (highly recommended!) is overwhelming, adding the star of The River Danube – Margaret Island – took a walk, enjoyed the nature! Also, visited the Parliament, 9 Bridges, Buda Castle, Fisherman's Bastion & St. Matthias Church.

Every day, I had an energetic and joyful experience by visiting the main and beautiful tourist attractions. On my second day, I was heading out to visit the castle, and all of the sudden a man approached me on the busiest street in Old Town.

He asked me if I speak English, I thought he needed some help, and I said Yes! :) ...Unexpected, I paid close attention to what I felt in that moment --- the fight-or-flight reaction kicked in, sensed the imagined danger, everything was spinning in my head and my heart was about to pop up --- all of these for a couple of seconds, to me it felt like ages... Moreover, questions were bursting in my head: "What if he wants to hurt me, what if he wants to rob me?" --- All those what-ifs were not actual events, but something I projected into the future.

You know, when your head is playing games and gives you what it thinks is good for you, it never is.

The guy was actually kind, knowledgeable, experienced in meditation, yoga, and healthy lifestyle. We talked about all these things, and what he actually wanted from me was to offer me a book, instead, he ended up giving me three amazing books and a soy cookie. :)

In the end, my fear was only in my head, our thoughts have tremendous power to create our personal universe, so make sure you create a good one! When we go right at it (and through it), fear can teach us so much about our personal powers and strength. There is no other feeling like the triumph you feel when you realize you did not get defeated when you realize that instead, you actually made or did it!

Travelita: - Is there a place where you have been and you would definitely not recommend it for women on their own and why?

Until now I was fortunate enough to meet kind and helpful people and I’m very grateful for that.

Travelita: - Do you still have this excitement, when you go for a trip? - what are your top 5 destinations and why?

I always have this excitement as a very good driver. ☺ My top 5 destinations, I’ll start with Norway for its dazzlingly colored fishing villages, gaping fjords, vast nature, and being an aurora hot-spot, would very much love to see the northern lights. Sweden, for being a diverse place that welcomes people with all sorts of different views and experiences, food and the minimalist style. Santorini, for the Greek people, delicious food, dramatic sceneries, stunning sunsets, beaches. Paris, to feel the romantic vibe, learn about history, walk the streets, and as Audrey Hepburn said: “Paris is always a good idea”. Vienna, because it is one of the most stunning and mesmerizing capitals in Europe.

Travelita: Thank you for the interview!

Free your travels, be a Travelita! #travelita #iamatravelita

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leilahoward · 5 years ago

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Adriatic Tour - September 2019

My fourth Rick Steves tour, and the second in 2019, was his Best of the Adriatic. A two-week tour taking in Slovenia and Croatia, with an overnight stop in Bosnia. Seeing three of the now seven nations created when Yugoslavia broke apart in the 1990s.

A Bit of History

Yugoslavia was created after World War I with the defeat of both the Austria-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. That changed in the 1990s when the regions started to breakaway to create independent nations.

Slovenia in the north is a member of the European Union and in the Schengen Zone. Thus my arrival in Europe in Munich was sufficient for my passport to be stamped. Slovenia also is on the Euro, so money I had leftover from my previous trip was used for the first several days. And, because of the borders, and the Schengen states, we seamlessly drove within Slovenia with a 30-minute drive into Italy on the outskirts of the city of Trieste.

Croatia and Bosnia on the other hand have their own currencies and tighter border controls. We went through customs and passport control as we passed through those borders. The Croatian Kuna is the Croatian currency with little acceptance of Euros. The tour made sure we did not need to have any of the Bosnian currency by having group lunch and dinner during our stop in Bosnia. Breakfast of course was included with the hotel. Luckily the gelato vendors in Mostar near the famous bridge took Euros or Kunas.

Slovenia

The main highlights of Slovenia was Ljubljana, the capital and Lake Bled.

Ljubljana is an old-world city with cafes and wide streets for easy walking. Clearly the Austria-Hungarian influenced the growth and culture of the city. I spent hours walking along pedestrian streets and into squares simply enjoying the ambiance of the city. One highlight was to see several buildings designed by a famous local architect, Joze Plecnik. One currently is a high school that was a block from the hotel we stayed, and the other is a university library. The playfulness of the library is that windows are shaped as if they were open books.

Lake Bled is within the Julian Alps and close to the Austrian and Italian borders. I’ve been told the only island in Slovenia is the small one in the lake with a church on it. A castle commands a high view from one side of the lake. After touring the castle, we were given time to stroll, hike, walk around the lake. That was a serene and beautiful way to see this marvelous place. Actually I did not walk totally around the lake but went about half way to 2/3 in one direction and returned the same way. So, yes, may not have walked all the way around, but covered the same distance. Preferred to stay in woodsy forest setting than ending up in the developed town by the lake. One note, a villa used by Yugoslavian strongman Marshal Tito now is a small hotel.

Other highlights of Slovenia is the beautiful vistas driving through the Julian Alps and a stop in the town of Kobarid to see a World War I museum. Several major battles were fought in the area and a young Ernest Hemingway served as an ambulance driver which he later turned into his novel A Farewell to Arms.

It was during this final stretch in Slovenia that we crossed into and out of Italy in about 30-minutes.

Croatia

The bulk of the two-week tour was in Croatia mainly spending the time along the Adriatic coast from the Istrian Peninsula down to Dubrovnik.

Istrian Peninsula juts out into the Adriatic and is close to Venice and the Italian coast. Supposedly from the town of Rovinj you could see Venice on a clear day. Well they say that but I didn’t. There is a heavy Roman and Venetian influence in the towns we saw including Roman amphitheater in Pula.

Rovinj

Three from Pula

Venetian influence is seen in Rovinj and Opatiija. As I walked into the warrens of the streets of Rovinj, I felt as if I was walking in Venice or a Tuscan or Umbrian hill town. It was as close to feeling in Italy without being there.

5 photos of Opatija

The interesting note about the Istrian Peninsula is that the towns all have two names, the Croatian name and an Italian name even though it has been centuries since the area was under Roman or Venetian control.

Plitvice Lakes National Park is an absolute jewel. The tour made sure we entered the park early in the morning at one end that is not the usual entrance for tourists. The goal was to walk through the park which is full of lakes and waterfalls until we arrived at the main entrance. It was a six mile, 16,000 steps walk seeing amazing vistas and waterfalls all by noon! I don’t think my photos do it justice. At one point I mentioned to someone I was walking with that it reminded me a bit like Milford Sound in New Zealand. Within minutes heard someone going in the other direction say the same thing.

Even though the tour guide was specific about where we should meet near the end of the trail, we lost four women. I later said they saw the walk through the park as a race and not a walk. They were in front of all of us and took the wrong turn near the trail end. While we waited where we were suppose to be, they ended up walking back to where we entered the park! Of course we found them but had to change where we would have lunch since their misadventure forced a change of plans.

Split

One of the jewels of Croatia is Split. An amazing beautiful city nestled on the Adriatic. We spent two nights there (thank goodness, was able to get laundry done) and was absolutely beautiful. Was supposed to meet up with my ex-boss who was going to be there at the same time, but he cancelled on me. So I spent free time walking along the seaside walkway.

The main tourist attraction is the remains of the Roman emperor Diocletian’s palace. The modern city used the remnants as a base to build along the waterfront. One part of the basement of the palace that is intact supposedly was used in the filming of the HBO show “Game of Thrones.”

I was able to find the synagogue in Split which is barely used for services on Saturdays or for holidays.

Split is definitely a place I would return to if the opportunity came again.

Korcula

A two-week tour is somewhat exhausting so the last weekend we were given a free day on the island of Korcula. It is off the coast of Croatia between Split and Dubrovnik. To get there we had to take a ferry from the mainland. And we needed the break. Absolutely gorgeous with amazing views of the Adriatic. I had not planned on bringing a bathing suit to go into the sea but if I had to do it over, would have just to get into the Adriatic. As is, I was only able to dip my toes and hands.

Dubrovnik

The old city is an amazingly beautiful walled city. We were given a walking tour by a local who lives inside the walled city. Luckily we did the tour in the morning beating the crowds from a cruise ship that disgorged hundreds of tourists into the small area of the walled city. Clearly a case of over-tourism. There were more tourists than necessary for us to fully enjoy the scenery.

The highlight of the day was walking around the city wall and seeing the city below in its full beauty. And, similar to Split, I was able to go to the synagogue which is now a non-working synagogue.

Bosnia

One of the “Wow moments” of the tour was our overnight trip to Mostar in Bosnia. Mostar sits in a river valley with high hills surrounding the city. It was from those heights that the town was shelled during the siege that devastated it during the wars in the 1990s.

The famous arched old bridge was destroyed - a bridge that was originally built by the Ottomans in the 16th Century. As the area calmed down and peace was relatively restored the bridge was rebuilt and is the main tourist attraction in the old town area. Locals will solicit money before diving off the bridge into the river. The crowds swell to see this sight. And, according to the tour books, so do the pickpockets. Luckily didn’t bother me.

We had a local guide, a Bosnian Muslim who described how she and her family survived the shelling and the siege. At one point when the bridge was destroyed, her family was divided by the river without contact from the other side for weeks. She recalled her brother still has shrapnel from a shelling that also killed her uncle. We saw numerous buildings still with signs of being damaged from the war.

She was not enthusiastic about the peace accord that ended the war. The agreement was brokered by the Clinton Administration and established a couple of autonomous ethnic zones, especially one for Serbians. She felt that has led to a country with multiple presidents and a lack of cohesion as a nation. However so far that agreement has held.

Observations

This was a region of Europe on my “must see” list for some time. Now I can go to other parts of Europe without wondering will I get to the Adriatic area. A member of the tour said to me that it is a tribute to Leila that I continue to travel, something we loved to do together.

Loire Valley and South France in spring 2020 and South Italy in October 2020 coming up.

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scandinaviacroatiaengbergs · 6 years ago

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Saturday Evening and Sunday: Saying Goodbye to Zadar, and Hello to Plitvice Lakes, Badovinci, and Zagreb

On Saturday evening, we spent an extra hour at the seashore chatting with the Austrians before heading home to the apartment for our last dinner there and what we hoped would be an earlier bedtime; it wasn’t. I did mention a few posts ago the guy who takes the money at the gate to the beach (it wasn’t very expensive to go in) everyday; I think I noted that Rowan befriended him. Well, this guy’s name is Ivan Vladimir and he’s actually an MMA fighter -- and that is such a crazy sport! He told us to look him up online, and we did, and we saw some of his fight results and clips. He was so nice to our kids and they took a picture with him, and we’ll share that to him via Facebook. He was from Dubrovnik and, after having been in a car accident earlier this year, was about to get back in the MMA ring for some new fights. It is so interesting the people you meet while traveling. We met an American friend of his too, a veteran of our U.S. Army who fought in Afghanistan but was discharged due to injury after four years, and this guy is also an MMA guy who trains in Las Vegas, but in Croatia, he trains with Ivan and wants to move to Croatia full time. Anyway, I really need to get to what we did today, Sunday! We had the craziest, longest day. I am writing this, finally, at 10 p.m. from the Airbnb we’ll be in for two nights in central Zagreb.

So, we started off from Zadar this morning, leaving there just before 10 a.m. We had some snacks packed, but nothing substantial, which was kind of Error Number One. It didn’t end up going too badly, but that was really poor planning on our part. We drove a few hours to Plitvice Lakes National Park, which my friend Kristin actually visited just a few weeks ago, so we’d seen her photos online, after we’d already decided we really wanted to go there on this trip. It’s Unesco World Heritage site and it is so obvious why. It was amazing. After our drive, on which we saw some beautiful farms and lots of roadside stands (seriously, like 20 of them) selling honey and cheese, we parked and bought our tickets into the park. It wasn’t cheap; I wasn’t sure how much it would be, but it actually ended up being about $100 for our family of four. There were tons of tourists there, lots from Europe and so many from China. So, once you park and walk across a bridge (over the highway), you follow whatever trail your time will allow you to do. We followed trail “E” because we had about three hours. Trail “E” was going to allow us to see about 12 lakes.

After the little path after crossing the bridge, you get on a boat of about 4-minute’s length and then you start hiking. The beautiful, stunning turquoise water starts immediately, with waterfalls over mossy boulders everywhere, and then larger waterfalls further on. In all, we hiked 2.5 miles, with Cece doing some shoulder-riding after a while. There were many hazards for children, ranging from slats too far apart on the boardwalk through all of the lakes to just the general fact that many of the boardwalks had no railings on the sides, and there were so many people that jostling was happening all the time, and a kid could’ve easily plunked in the water.

For the second half of our hike, when the crowds had thinned a bit, it turned out that we were right before a two-dad couple with their two sons (one was a 9-month-old baby in a hiking, child-carrying backpack). The second son, Ansel, was about 11 months younger than Rowan, and that family was from California, and they were so cool. Our kids were like a team with Ansel for the second half of the hike. It was great chatting with them. Both of that dads were in software (one in data analysis, like Eric). We also saw some goon—a young teen who was maybe a YouTuber because he had someone following him with a really nice camera, filming—strip down to swim trunks and dive into one of the pools, then hop quickly back out. It was totally stealth and super fast, because I am nearly 100% sure that is not allowed in the National Park. It was probably some stunt for online distribution. Anyway, I will just have to post pictures here of the lakes. I can’t even do them justice with a description. They were amazing. The only part that was not amazing was the ladies bathroom, which had like holes in the ground with a stainless steel plate, with treads where you were to put your feet. I might sound like a total delicate flower to say this, but I did not like that set-up. It turns out that the men’s bathroom was like a regular bathroom! With urinals and standard toilets in stalls! I can’t figure out why the women got holes in the ground. After Plitvice Lakes, we decided to tack on our 1.5-hour drive north to Badovinci, the town my Great-Grandmother Mary Badovinac left to come to the United States, as a very young bride. She actually came to the U.S. with her husband, had maybe one or two babies, and then took the babies and went back to Croatia, where she stayed for several years, and then her mom (Mara) was like, “You have to go back to your husband in the U.S.” and so she did. And, after she returned to the U.S., she had my Grandma Marion. Now, getting to Badovinci was 1) ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL, and 2) an adventure because we nearly ended up in Slovenia ;) OK, so, driving from Plitvice Lakes, as I said, we drove North, and about halfway there, the landscape changed a bit, and it really got hilly, there were amazing farms as well as people’s home gardens just bountifully producing. It was a lovely, sunny afternoon, too, with big, fluffy clouds that were doing some periodic sprinkling. Anyway, our journey to Badovinci, which has a population of maybe 20 people right now, was super curvy. The hills (or maybe I should call them mountains) and the valley were winding around, creating some amazing panoramas, but also lots of switchbacks. We got to a point where we only had about 10K to go before e got there, and on a one-lane road (most roads were, though people used them as two-lane roads) we encountered two boys who gestured to us that we couldn’t go further. There were a bunch of men working to clear the road of maybe some fallen tree, which they were doing some serious work with, with heavy machinery, and we had to rely on Google Translate to get through that encounter. We learned that if we waited 20 minutes, we could get through.

So, the kids and Eric got out and checked out the work, and then, soon enough, we were on our way. Not too long after that, because I thing we took a wrong turn, we were at the Slovenian border! The guard, who spoke English perfectly, told us that we couldn’t use that checkpoint, as it was only for locals and they didn’t stamp passports there, so we’d have to go to a different checkpoint. Badovinci is so close to the Slovenian border that you *could* get through by driving through Slovenia, but eventually, by backtracking and then following some random police officer who was driving by (mind you, this area is very sparsely populated), we got on the correct road.

So, it is a good thing I do not get car sick because these road were so narrow and there were so many twists and turns, that it wouldn’t be easy on a queasy person’s stomach. Finally, we got to the church at Badovinci and we went into the church yard and saw all of the family gravestones. Almost half of them were Badovinacs. We walked about a quarter mile to the village itself, and on the way, a car passed us twice, and on the second time, they stopped (which I would totally do, too, if some random family of four foreigners was ambling through my neighborhood on a Sunday evening) to ask if we were going to the village. We said we were and the driver introduced himself and his son (both Badovinacs) and they pointed the way; we were almost there. In the village, which I use loosely because it is only about four family houses and then some dilapidated old buildings (barns? Old homes overgrown now with shrubbery?), we saw a woman weed-whacking her farming plot and then the two people we saw in the car, and a lazy dog sleeping in front of another car at the end of the road. I took a few pictures and then we walked back to our car and took dozens of windy roads for another 1.5-hour drive, this time to Zagreb.

I can’t tell you how beautiful the region is where Badovinci is. From so many of the village streets, of all of the various villages there, all with their own Catholic church and many with roadside altars, you can see vast vistas and they are grape vines tidily spread out across the steep hillsides and just the lushest green panoramas you can imagine. The late afternoon light was incredible, too, and the photos surely won’t be able to convey that. We did not have a proper lunch or dinner, and this is where our lack of snack-packing became a particular problem. At one point en route to Zagreb, we stopped at a gas station and I bought a packet of crackers and some chocolate cookies and that is what my children had for dinner. They were such troopers the whole day. When we got to the Airbnb in Zagreb, I got them bathed and in bed in like twenty minutes. They were wild, exhausted creatures in those twenty minutes, but once we miraculously got their teeth brushed and got the lights out, they were probably asleep almost instantly. Tomorrow we have a full day to explore Zagreb! I am really excited to see what we will see.

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kevinspaceyarchives · 5 years ago

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After a two hour nap (recovering from the previous evening’s festivities), Kevin Spacey holds a press conference at the Dubrovnik Film Meeting. Even in the sober light of a new day he still finds it ridiculous that a 15 year old film (The Usual Suspects) rightfully not in awards contention, won the Audience Favorite Award at the Sarajevo Film Festival. Hey, people like what they like! lol | August 24, 2008

#Kevin Spacey #This Day in Spacey History #Dubrovnik #Dubrovnik Film Meeting #press conference #Hotel Excelsior #The Usual Suspects #nap #video #August 24 #2008

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alex-vella-blog · 6 years ago

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Musings of an Immigrant (4)

Imagine, much like broccoli arranged bouquet-style in a vase, this is the memory I carry from the last meal of my first around the world experience.

Once Around the Globe / October 26, 2018

The first time I circumnavigated the globe was on a 32-day trip in support of a theme I advanced for an American Express annual report…essentially to document through interviews and photography the global reach of the company.

The high was self-evident. Here I was 28-years old, visiting countries far and wide that I had never been to before, and in some cases since, while interviewing notable people in every facet of careers and professions. The low was a bit of a personal quirk, perhaps an emotional impetus that could have been put under better control: In short, I didn’t want to miss the first steps of my first born son, an event that was going to fall sometime during the month-long trip.

The first stop was Paris, France, where the banking, travel, credit card, and travelers check divisions of the company were huge business. The photographer I retained to travel with me and document the events of the trip was Eva Rubinstein, daughter of Arthur Rubinstein, the celebrated pianist. It was fortuitous that on the night we arrived he was being honored with a reception complete with all the expected fanfare of the rich and famous. At the time I smoked cigars, a bad habit I got into as a result of being around the company boardroom with its complimentary supply. Rubenstein not only smoked them but had his own farm and fabrication facility in Cuba at the time. My meeting with him was not much more then ano introduction and his request that I take good care of his daughter during the long trip. He was also gracious enough to give me a box of his Cuban cigars, emblazoned with his personal cigar band. As much as I welcomed the gesture, I was aware that I had to finish smoking the full box prior to returning to the U.S. because the land-of-Castro product was considered contraband by the U.S. government.

To represent American Express International Banking relationships I focused on Claude Lelouch, the then very famous French film director, writer, cinematographer, actor and producer, with whose company the bank did business. At the time, Lelouch was known in America for his 1966 film drama “A Man and a Woman,” and “Live for Life” in 1967. Now that a lifetime has gone by, I am not in the least embarrassed to say that I was very impressed to be interviewing one of the most celebrated ‘fellow’ creatives (hope is eternal) in his palatial digs, sitting facing each other on wingback chairs, and taking in the mesmerizing Parisian landscape.

Next came Spain where I was scheduled to focus on the activity of American Express’ travel division. So, what better than Costa Del Sol. But first I stopped in Barcelona, so after the magic of this city, the beach scene was a bit of a letdown. Rather than a slice of the Spanish population this region was more a mixture of other European nationalities than Spanish. For a local fix I went into the hills to a town called Benalmádena where I very unexpectedly ended having a meal at a private house. Memory fails, but when asking where I should eat, a local denizen suggested knocking on a particular door and the lady of the house would take care of me. It was very much the case. The then seemingly older lady who answered the door was very accommodating. She asked what I liked to eat and within the half hour she was back from wherever she needed to go to procure local fish and accompaniments. Perhaps it was the unplanned event and local fair, but the memory of the meal makes me salivate to this day.

Yugoslavia, specifically Belgrade in Serbia, and Dubrovnik in Croatia, as guests of the General Director of Star Travel, the then-communist state’s travel monopoly, was my host. Two impressions: Belgrade — grey. Dubrovnik — haunting, a perfect little Venice, except in miniature and less tourists. But most impressing was the state’s largess showered on me and my photographer in the way of entertainment and first class travel…all at the people’s expense of course.

When I arrived in Greece, the country was under the control of a Military Junta (1967–1974), headed by a group of 4 colonels of the Greek army and led by a man named George Papadopoulos. At one point I arranged to visit the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis. For a major tourist site, the place was fairly deserted on that day and provided the perfect setting for taking photos. As one would expect of a professional photographer, Rubinstein was shooting everything in sight. Suddenly, a convoy of sedans comes rushing in and a squad of military uniform-clad individuals step out. The photographer must have found the scene to be not only interesting but especially intriguing because she continued to shoot in their direction. This caused us some grief. We were quickly surrounded by security personnel fully equipped with nasty looking weaponry. In a nutshell, they took issue with the concept of us photographing military brass without permission…an act bordering on espionage. After some interrogation, and a period of heightened anxiety, they confiscated the film and we were let go.

India of the early seventies was a different kettle of fish from the driving, capitalistic society it is today. The following two episodes encapsulates the country of that time.

Once we deboarded and attempted to go through customs, literally in the middle of the night in ambient temperature that was well over a hundred degrees farenheit and no air-conditioning, we encountered Indian logic in its purest form. This event took place before the advent of digital photography, so the photographer was carrying hundreds of rolls of camera film, both exposed and unexposed. Now imagine a local customs officer speaking sternly in Indian English. Officer: “What is your visit’s purpose?” Me, and keep in mind that we did not have a work visa: “To see the sights.” Officer: “So why do you need so many rolls of photography film?” Me: “Because I work for American Express and might use some photos acquired on the trip in company publications.” Officer: “So, to be clear, you are not tourists but rather working on a photography assignment and you have no work visa to do so.”

It had become clear over the ensuing six hours, during which the full inventory of film, both exposed and otherwise, having been placed in a walk-in vault that was hot enough to fry an egg on any metal surface within it, that most imported products were controlled under some sort of business monopoly system. Photography film was no different and whoever held the import license needed to collect their pound of flesh. As tourists, people could bring in a few rolls of film without any issue, but in the quantities that we were carrying to satisfy the needs of the whole trip, it qualified as illegal import. In the end, with the help of local American Express support team, and a monetary contribution that could feed a small village in that part of the world for many months, we were allowed to keep our contraband.

The ordeal we had just experienced was quickly forgotten once we were being driven away from the airport towards our destination, Bombay, now Mumbai, because of yet another Indian oddity. The spectacle was seeing sections of large-diameter drainage conduit over many miles along the road, for sure intended for ground burial, but unintendedly, become domiciles for thousands of families. Life looked very normal at the front and back openings of each section of the pipes that was intended for a different purpose. People were going about doing their thing… cooking, bathing, living. If we hadn’t gone through the earlier experience at the airport it would have appeared as an alternate universe and more of a curiosity.

At the time of this trip, Hong Kong was still a British Crown Colony, and since I was born in a country with similar British experience, my assumption was that Hong Kong spoke English to one degree or another. In fact, the island of Kowloon which is where the business hub was located at the time is very much the case, but on the mainland and the New Territories it was another story.

Tired of the business opulence that was being showered on me and Rubinstein by the hosts, which included being feted at The Sky Terrace and The Peak Tower, it necessitated that I take in some of the local color and taste the more local foods. So, I took off by foot to parts unknown to see the sights. When the time came, I stopped at a local restaurant to have something to eat. So, this is when I came face to face with the cultural roadblock. The menu was in Chinese and no English was spoken at all. Never fear, there’s always pantomime. Trying to help, the waiter clucked away and flapped his arms. “Chic, chic” was the recommendation to which, since I was in full comprehension mode, I promptly agreed to and ordered. In short order, with mouth-gapping, I was looking at an aluminum cooking pot heaping full of chicken feet arranged with the claws sticking up and leaning over and around the edge of the pot.

Imagine, much like broccoli arranged bouquet-style in a vase, this is the memory I carry from the last meal of my first around the world experience.

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