“Oooh, Miss M.!” squealed my students the day after I got engaged. “Your diamond engagement ring is HUGE!”
Well, folks, it’s time to come clean. I do not have a diamond engagement ring.
What I really have is… a $25 crystal ring. Hah!!!!!
Colin and I bought the fake ring together, laughing uproariously the whole time, from the back of a sketchy store in Boston’s Downtown Crossing. ”The funniest part about this,” I squeaked amid gales of [...Read More!]
“Sell-out!” jeered a cyber-heckler when I posted my article about going on a 3-day Florida-Bahamas Cruise.
So I can only imagine this heckler’s horror when he learned that this “brave solo world traveler” (a.k.a. me) super “sold out” and accepted a free 40-person teacher travel tour to Spain over New Year’s through EF Tours.
Why are many hip travelers so against the idea of large-group travel?
“Ugh– It’s like being in a bubble of [...Read More!]
When many people think of Black-White race relations in Boston, they often think of the violent racial battles in the 1970s over forced desegregation of Boston Public Schools through busing.
Either that, or, if they’re not from Boston, they think of the zillion recent Tough White Gangster Boston movies like “The Departed” and ask, “Wait, there are Black people in Boston?”
Guess what, folks? Boston actually has a LONG, RICH African-American History!
I am [...Read More!]
“Argh!” my friend emailed, “How are you able to juggle all your work and social and fitness obligations??”
“Help me organize my life!”
In the email I wrote back to her, I realized that I have, indeed, honed a set of concrete Life Juggling strategies that have enabled me to get a ton done (click here for examples of uber-productivity) while still staying sane.
Allow me to share these productivity tricks with you now, as you [...Read More!]
Ok, first, don’t worry, I’m not in jail.
That lead photo was from my first night going out in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The party my friend Marleny and I ended up at was “Cowboy and Jail-themed,” hence the fake jail.
You see, from the first day to the last day of our month-long travels through Brazil in 2005, Brazil surprised and delighted us. I simply have to write about it now, in 2012, [...Read More!]
WOW. I have just returned to Boston from five of the most action-packed days in Spain imaginable, thanks to the free teacher training tour run by EF Tours. And… WOW.
The unquestionable highlight of the tour was celebrating New Year’s Eve 2011 in Puerta del Sol, Madrid!
Puerta del Sol is the very center of Spain (if you type “Madrid” into Google maps, the marker will appear right at Sol), and all points [...Read More!]
Happy New Year from Madrid, Spain!
What a year it’s been, eh? As December 31, 2011 draws to a close, here are some glittering photos of holiday-decorated Madrid, Spain (as snapped last night), along with a kind of “State of the Union” run-down of statistics from this teaching-traveling website empire for 2011. (As always, click blue-highlighted words for related articles.)
2011 IN NUMBERS:
First-person world travel articles written on AroundTheWorldL.com in 2011: 59Global education interviews and [...Read More!]
Hello From Madrid, Spain, where I am on a wonderful, whirlwind Free Teacher Training Tour run by EF Tours!
On this 5-day trip, I am in training with a group of teachers who have flown in from around the United States to prepare as much as possible to lead a group of our students abroad. In my case, I will be leading 42 Boston students to Beijing, China in just 1.5 months!
So far, this [...Read More!]
One of the most dramatic tourist attractions in New England is totally free: the 3.5-mile Cliff Walk in historic Newport, Rhode Island!
Just make sure, as this sign pictured to the left politely points out, not to hurtle off the “cliff” aspect of the whole “Cliff Walk” thing.
Here’s what makes the Cliff Walk so amazing: it’s a marriage of nature’s glory with the most opulent human-made mansions imaginable.
On one side, you have [...Read More!]
In the previous article, we discussed the most shocking bathroom situation of my world travels.
But what is the most luxurious toilet of China?
Easy. Just go to Shanghai and travel about 1,000 feet… straight UP!
The Cloud 9 Bar and Grill is on the 87th floor of the Grand Hyatt Hotel of Shanghai, and is one of the highest-up and most beautiful bars on Earth.
It also has one of the best bathrooms in [...Read More!]