Monthly Archives: May 2015

week end break

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON QUOTE #2

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I travel not to go anywhere but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move. Robert Louis Stevenson

Thank you subscribers and readers for taking the time to visit my blog!!

If this is the first time you are visiting the site, welcome to the tales of a woman solo traveler and thoughts to make today the start of something new.

Although I take a break during the weekends, I’ll be back on Monday and would be delighted, in the meantime, if you would look through my previous posts. Perhaps you missed a few or will reread one with a new perspective.There is a list of all the previous posts by title and date.

Since the configuration of the site may differ on your browser, perhaps you have not noticed the tabs which offer some additional information:Why this blog?, Images, How I Began, etc.

You can search certain posts by category: Practical Advice, Thoughts on Oneself, Snapshots, etc.

All of these may be at the very bottom of the posts.

While traveling I may not be posting each day. To be notified when I have written a new post please subscribe-of course its free.
I would be delighted if you would sign up.

I hope you find information and inspiration in the text and images and join me in my quest for growth, wonderment and self-improvement.

Here’s to new discoveries near and far!

Enjoy the days.

week end break

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON QUOTE #1

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Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.
Robert Louis Stevenson


Thank you subscribers and readers for taking the time to visit my blog!!

If this is the first time you are visiting the site, welcome to the tales of a woman solo traveler and thoughts to make today the start of something new.

Although I take a break during the weekends, I’ll be back on Monday and would be delighted, in the meantime, if you would look through my previous posts. Perhaps you missed a few or will reread one with a new perspective.There is a list of all the previous posts by title and date.

Since the configuration of the site may differ on your browser, perhaps you have not noticed the tabs which offer some additional information:Why this blog?, Images, How I Began, etc.

You can search certain posts by category: Practical Advice, Thoughts on Oneself, Snapshots, etc.

All of these may be at the very bottom of the posts.

While traveling I may not be posting each day. To be notified when I have written a new post please subscribe-of course its free.
I would be delighted if you would sign up.

I hope you find information and inspiration in the text and images and join me in my quest for growth, wonderment and self-improvement.

Here’s to new discoveries near and far!

Enjoy the days.

TRAVEL TALES

PRECIOUS FOOD

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IMG_3920Never having lived on a farm, most of my experiences with food is what I buy. However, a small vegetable garden my parents’ tended to and my chore of picking ripe tomatoes and cucumbers off the vines gave me an early appreciation for fresh produce.

As a teenager I spent a week on a farm in Vermont. Virtually everything was home grown. Few things I’ve eaten since compare.

I have been invited to dinners where the fare was simple but the lettuce and other vegetables came a few feet from where I dined. Buying as I often do prepackaged, prewashed salad from a store tastes like a completely different entity. I concede to the ease and conveniently forget what I am missing.

In my travels I have seen men and women toiling in fields sometimes aided by oxen and horses or basic tools. It reminds me of the hard work growing food entails.

TRAVEL TALES

UNFOUNDED CONCERNS

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IMG_4070During my annual check up with my ophthamologist a short conversation on travel ensued. I mentioned, in some context, that I often travel alone. His immediate thought was how difficult that must be. Then went on to describe an incident, his sole experience traveling alone, where a man kept trying to pick him up and would barely take no for an answer. Thus he assumed that a woman alone would be constantly bombarded with male attention. I almost didn’t wish to disappoint him with the truth. (I also suspect that there are a few men and women who might accept such attention gladly.)

Perhaps a great deal has to do with one’s attitude, but I have rarely if ever been in an uncomfortable situation because of a man’s advances. Even while I was sharing the close quarters of an overnight train, I felt the rapport was quickly established as friendly, but nothing more. My challenges were limited to the day-to-day affairs. Where was I going? How would I get there? Where would I be staying? etc.

We all have our travel tales and he clearly had his but it did not resemble mine or others I know.

VIEWPOINTS

WHAT IS WRONG, WHAT IS RIGHT

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IMG_4045 We place an extraordinary emphasis on getting things right. Few of us like to be wrong. But who and what is the judge? Right can be wrong and wrong can be right.

If we look through the ages at history, the arts, and sciences, we readily see that time has redefined these terms many times and they are likely, inevitably, to change again. Yet we are encouraged to stay within the realm of accepted knowledge and past practice.

While we revere creative thinkers for showing us the new, what is now deemed “right,” each must have reconsidered the paradigms of the day and dared to be wrong.

SNAPSHOTS

SNAPSHOT #7

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P1040334Sometimes a moment lingers and the memory it produces is like a snapshot.

Blue skies are not shielding the hot sun’s rays. I ride to the waters in Red Hook seeking cool air. I often go there to admire the Statue of Liberty, the barges, tugboats, water taxis and rusted remnants of its industrial past. Now there are well tended paths and lawns that abut the water’s edge. Modern lounge chairs of wood and metal are placed for those who wish to linger.

I note a box kite not flying very high but the movements are fluid and graceful. It is white and gray, perhaps homemade, a long, wide silk swath of pinkish hue is its tail. The sea breeze keeps it easily afloat. Guiding its flight is a woman lying with her back to the grass. Her straw hat provides shade as she orchestrates the dance. Her movements are subtle, she reins in and reins out the guiding string with the gentle movement of her hands.

It is an impromptu spectacle of anonymous expertise.

TRAVEL TALES

GOING ALONE

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P1050046I primarily began this blog to offer some thoughts and advice on traveling alone. Perhaps I have inspired some readers along the way.

Some recent articles indicate that we are part of a growing trend. More than before people are opting to travel alone. Those people tend to be women. They are not necessarily single nor unattached, but they are, for various reasons, opting to go somewhere on their own. Information abounds. Opportunities to find a travel experience suitable to your budget and needs is getting easier. Businesses are taking notice and companies are catering more and more to the solo traveler; paying single supplements are becoming less prevalent.

If you have been thinking about it, but have not yet done so this may be the moment for you to seriously consider a venture of some kind solo. Whether you decide to join a group or venture out entirely on your own, the world is awaiting your arrival. And it begins just outside your door.

week end break

FREYA STARK QUOTE #2

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To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.  Freya Stark

Thank you subscribers and readers for taking the time to visit my blog!!

If this is the first time you are visiting the site, welcome to the tales of a woman solo traveler and thoughts to make today the start of something new.

Although I take a break during the weekends, I’ll be back on Monday and would be delighted, in the meantime, if you would look through my previous posts. Perhaps you missed a few or will reread one with a new perspective.There is a list of all the previous posts by title and date.

Since the configuration of the site may differ on your browser, perhaps you have not noticed the tabs which offer some additional information:Why this blog?, Images, How I Began, etc.

You can search certain posts by category: Practical Advice, Thoughts on Oneself, Snapshots, etc.

All of these may be at the very bottom of the posts.

While traveling I may not be posting each day. To be notified when I have written a new post please subscribe-of course its free.
I would be delighted if you would sign up.

I hope you find information and inspiration in the text and images and join me in my quest for growth, wonderment and self-improvement.

Here’s to new discoveries near and far!

Enjoy the days.

 

week end break

FREYA STARK QUOTE #1

Leave a comment

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do. Freya Stark

Thank you subscribers and readers for taking the time to visit my blog!!

If this is the first time you are visiting the site, welcome to the tales of a woman solo traveler and thoughts to make today the start of something new.

Although I take a break during the weekends, I’ll be back on Monday and would be delighted, in the meantime, if you would look through my previous posts. Perhaps you missed a few or will reread one with a new perspective.There is a list of all the previous posts by title and date.

Since the configuration of the site may differ on your browser, perhaps you have not noticed the tabs which offer some additional information:Why this blog?, Images, How I Began, etc.

You can search certain posts by category: Practical Advice, Thoughts on Oneself, Snapshots, etc.

All of these may be at the very bottom of the posts.

While traveling I may not be posting each day. To be notified when I have written a new post please subscribe-of course its free.
I would be delighted if you would sign up.

I hope you find information and inspiration in the text and images and join me in my quest for growth, wonderment and self-improvement.

Here’s to new discoveries near and far!

Enjoy the days.

 

RANDOM THOUGHTS

THE POWER OF A LENS

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P1040824Music, for a time, was devoid of imposed imagery. Listening to a song I was free to make any associations I wished except perhaps while looking at the album cover. Then along came MTV. It revolutionized how I thought about popular music. Images were now chosen for me. I felt something unique and personal had been irretrievably denied.

Certainly a similar comparison between books, before the advent of film, can be made. Readers did not compete with someone else’s depiction of the characters they envisioned, except perhaps for those with illustrations.

It is hard to shake Vivien Leigh’s portrayal of Scarlett O’Hara or Madonna singing, “Like A Virgin.”

Once we witness an evocation through a lens, our perception is unequivocally changed.

Something lost? Something gained?