It was midnight when I arrived in Delhi — an hour later than I was meant to — and my first thought was that airports look like airports all over the world. Of course, when I stepped outside and met up with my tour guide, Earl, he told me New Delhi’s airport was only a few years old and the previous one had looked more like a large bus station. My second thought was something along the lines of, “damn, it’s humid. Should it really be this hot at midnight?” The answer was no, it should not have been that hot in Delhi in October (especially not at midnight), but…
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Get Off Your Butt and Do Something (in Bulgaria)
After catching a ferry back to the mainland, Katie and I took an overnight train from Athens to Thessaloniki. From there we hoped to take a train to Belgrade (Serbia) and then onward to Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), where we planned to spend a few days. As it turned out, there were no trains departing Thessaloniki for anywhere outside of Greece, so, our best (and only) option was to take a bus to Sofia (Bulgaria) where we could get on another overnight train to Belgrade and from there, finally, catch a train to Sarajevo. You may have noticed that our mistake was trying to get from Kea to Sarajevo without…
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Relaxing Off-Season Travel in The Greek Isles
There’s this thing about backpacking and long term travel, and it can be hard to admit at first: sometimes you would rather relax than sight-see. I know, it’s hard to believe that you can buy a plane ticket to another continent and have days when you would rather watch tv than visit another church, museum, landmark, or charming sidewalk cafe. If you’re spending a weekend away or even enjoying a week-long trip somewhere, it’s possible to sight-see for 16 hours a day and crash every night. But that’s not sustainable when you’re traveling long-term and, although I’ve written about this before, I think it bears repeating. The first time I…
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Home From India
3 weeks, 25 cups of chai, and nearly 2,000 photo later, I’m home from India. I stepped off the plane a couple of hours ago, said “hello” to E and the cat, and turned on my laptop to write this post. I spent about 20 hours traveling today, so I hope you don’t mind my keeping it brief. You’re probably wondering how my trip was, but, unsurprisingly, I’m still processing the experience. For now, I’ll tell you what I plan to tell friends and family when they ask, “how was India?” It’s hard to sum up any trip in a few clever sentences or one wild anecdote, but that tends…
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Guest Post: Haleakalā Crater
Emma is still in India, but before she left, she asked her boyfriend if he would write a guest post for her. I said that I’d be happy to. I’ve been holding down the fort while Emma has been gone, getting to spend some quality time with the cat, so I’ve had plenty free time to work on said guest post. You may remember my last contribution to An Opportune Moment, where I shared my experiences flying for the first time. This time, I’m covering another aspect of Emma and my time on Maui – Haleakalā Crater. And because I had my camera out the whole time we were there,…
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Echinacea Tea and the Bradford, VT Film Slam
Just a quick update this Tea Tuesday. If you like An Opportune Moment on facebook (see what I did there?) you know that a couple weekends ago I was in Bradford, Vermont for the 4th Annual Cohase 48-Hour Film Slam. It’s one of two Vermont film slams my boyfriend, E, and I (and a group of our wonderful friends) compete in each year. I wrote about the other — The Green Mountain Film Festival’s 48-Hour Film Slam — back in March. In case you’re wondering, a 48-hour film slam is when teams of intrepid filmmakers get together to write, shoot, edit, and screen an original film over the course of…
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How to Travel With Your Friends and Stay Friends
You love hanging out with your best friends. I mean, they’re your best friends for a reason, right? Just because you love someone’s company, though, doesn’t mean you love it all. the. time. That’s why sharing an apartment with a close friend can destroy the relationship. Different problems arise when you live with someone than when you get dinner with them once a week. Similarly, a new set of issues arises when traveling with friends. Just because you and your best friend love each other doesn’t mean you’ll love each other on the road. Recently, I’ve written a few posts about the road trip I took in May with two…
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The Harrowing Ferry Adventure
Katie and I left Athens to take an off-season jaunt to the Greek island of Kea. Our couchsurfing host in Athens helped us choose Kea because it’s a short ferry ride away from the mainland (as opposed to Santorini) and it’s a lesser known but lovely island, which still had ferries going to it regularly. By November, a lot of the smaller islands have limited ferry schedules, with boats departing every other day or once a week. Kea still had two ferries per day (most days) and we were hoping to make the 5:00 pm boat. At least, we were pretty sure it left at 5:00 pm… Even with a…
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Travel Linkspiration: September 2013
I can’t believe September is already over, and I’m leaving for India in less than a week, and when I get back (October 29th) it will basically be November. Everything I’m planning right now is based around November. I’ll pitch that story, write that post, work more hours, etc. in November, which is so weird because November is the start of the holiday season and that’s the end of the year, and I mean, I love that time of year, but wasn’t it just summer, like, yesterday? What? How? Anyway! Enough about time passing at a terrifying rate! Here’s the awesome travel content you may have missed last month: Practical…
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Yankee Elitism and Southern Hospitality
I’ve been writing a lot lately about stereotypes, misconceptions, and open-minded travel (see: Understanding Istanbul and An Opportune Moment is Going to India). Learning from travel rather than confirming our own previously held beliefs is important to me, and it’s a topic that will continue to appear regularly on this blog. A few weeks ago I wrote about Charleston Tea Plantation and my first visit to South Carolina. This week, I’m writing about the other new-to-me state I saw on that road trip: Georgia. But first, some context: I was born and raised in New England and I’ve spent almost my entire life here. I’m incredibly liberal (I’m actually from…
