Category Archives: Blogs

Monkeys and Elephants and Sea Gypsies, Oh My! Adventures in Thailand and Bali

by in Blogs, Pacific Rim | Leave a comment

Back in 2003, during a sabbatical from my university, I made a circum-Pacific trip that took me to Thailand, Bali, Australia, New Zealand, and Tahiti for the first time. My adventures during the last three stops have been documented in separate blogs here on my website, but I thought it was time to resurrect the Thailand and Bali parts of the trip. I’ve decided to post them in the form of the travel diary I kept and which I sent to friends and family via e-mail while I was on the trip. So here were my impressions of these two amazing travel destinations.

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The Thai Coastline in Krabi Province

Let’s go!

There’s No Place Like Home: Fall in New England

by in Blogs, U.S.A., USA Roadtrips | 2 Comments

Not unlike a salmon fighting its way upstream to return to the place where it was born, I go through considerable effort to make an annual pilgrimage to my native New England in October to experience the most wonderful time of year to be there: fall foliage season. Typically lasting from mid-September to mid or late October, the change in the foliage that occurs in the northeastern USA is an event that attracts tourists from all over the world and until I can manage to live back there permanently, I will continue to travel back for at least a few days to experience the show.

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The gold of fall touches southern Vermont

Read on…

“They Won’t Kill You; They Just Rob You!” A Visit To Naples, Italy

by in Blogs, Italy | 2 Comments

You’d think I would have had enough travel over the summer: a month in Europe, a few weeks in New England, a cross country drive from California to Virginia, Boston and back, and 10 days in Hawaii. But during the second week of the school year I was selected to present at a conference in Naples, Italy…

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Naples in all her glory, with Vesuvius looming in the background

Join me on a trip to Napoli…

The Powerful Pull of Portugal’s Algarve

by in Blogs, Europe, Portugal | 4 Comments

After a week in Europe, the first rain of my trip came on the day I was driving from Lisbon to the Algarve region in the southwestern part of Portugal. It was the perfect day to be in a car, as I could only imagine myself slipping and sliding up and down Lisbon’s precarious hills on slick, unevenly tiled sidewalks.

Inside a sea cave, Algarve
Praia da Marinha, Algarve

The Algarve is calling… answer the call!

Music, Graffiti and Custard, Not Necessarily in That Order: Lisbon

by in Blogs, Europe, Portugal | 4 Comments

I grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a city where 30% of the residents are of Portuguese descent. I grew up with many Portuguese friends, my favorite pizza was covered with linguica, a Portuguese sausage, and every Easter morning my mom would stand in a long line at the bakery to pick up the Portuguese sweet bread that she’d ordered weeks in advance. Ironically, while I have traveled across Europe from Iceland to Turkey and Finland to Spain, I had missed Portugal, so this summer I decided it was time to make my first visit. After a few days in England, I flew into Lisbon and got my first taste, literally and figuratively, of Portugal.

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More on Lisboa…