Category: Take Me Back

November 24, 2018

Valencia, Bilbao & Mallorca

The case for traveling for one thing and one thing only An old lady and a dog, a businessman with a briefcase around his chest, and a mother with her son walk into a bar. This is not the set-up to an epic joke, just some observations I made while in the Café Bar Bilbao for breakfast. It’s one of the most popular local bars in the city. Each of those characters was greeted warmly by the waitstaff and pointed to a table full of carefully selected food. Their order. Likely the order that they’ve asked for years. I envision ...

June 3, 2017

Morocco

I’ll be completely honest, I was afraid to travel to Morocco. Call it irrational, call it ignorance, call it “American media syndrome”, etc. I didn’t know how an Islamic country (even in Africa) would receive me – an African-American, Christian, Female. I had a very uncomfortable experience on a crowded train in Istanbul and was haggled and hassled way more than anyone would want on that 8-hour layover and automatically associated Islamic culture with that experience. I was absolutely blown away by how incorrect my assumptions were – the people were hospitable, good-spirited and friendly, welcoming us with open arms, ...

March 6, 2017

Lisbon

We stepped off of the plane and were happy to see the sun out (guns out?) after a few dreary, overcast days in Barcelona for a work conference. We made our way to the Airbnb by way of Uber, which was an extremely cheap option for getting around. The place was wild! Shout out to Pedro and Thiago for their quirky sense of style. The Casa da Padaria was the perfect Alice in Wonderland/Little Shop of Horror/Victorian play-place that we were searching hoping (?) for. Nothing prepared us for that or for the amount of time it would take to search for ...