A couple of years ago I had the amazing opportunity to create my own radio show for Dominican University of California’s Penguin Radio. Under the excellent guidance and with the enthusiastic encouragement of Leona George-Davidson, a Humanities and Cultural Studies major with a concentration in Communications, I developed and recorded a 10 episode radio program called, Strada Facendo which I hosted as my Italian alter-ego, “Matteo”.
Whenever I travel to new places, I try to get a sense of the culture through things such as art, food, and music. On my first trip to Hawaii back in 1994, I became captivated by Hawaiian music, which seemed to be experiencing a Renaissance in popularity as a number of young and talented artists explored traditional Hawaiian music and energized it with a contemporary feel.
Warning: Other than the title, this blog post is not about travel. It is about my long term devotion to the group Fleetwood Mac. If you’re a fan, or you want to learn about the band, you may enjoy this. If not, you’ll probably be happier back in the Travel Blogs section! 😊
When planning for my Spring Break trip this year, I searched the Internet for hours to find the best travel bargains on my airfare and rental car. I could have flown round trip to Boston and rented a car for 10 days and spent over $1000; instead I discovered that if I flew to Newark, spent a couple days in New York, took the train to Albany to visit friends, and then rented a car in Albany that I could return at Boston, I would save about $400. And on top of the saved cash, I got to experience several different places, making for a much more diverse vacation!
I recounted by eastbound road trip in On The Road Again, and my beautiful New England Christmas in My 12 Days of Christmas, so technically, this is Part 3 of a trilogy! Hey, it’s not Lord of the Rings, I’m not Tolkien and I’m not a hobbit… but this IS about a great travel adventure, so…
After a successful and enjoyable cross country drive in mid-December, I was back in Massachusetts and I awoke on the morning of the 24th to find a thin coating of snow covering everything outside. As I was taking in the scene from the window of my little rented cabin in the woods, I got a text message from my friend Joanne saying, “You did it again! Where did this damned snow come from?”
My father left my mother and me when I was a baby and I only met him once briefly when I was 16, I become more convinced of the power of genetics when I think about how my father was a long distance trucker for most of his life after divorcing my mother. When I did meet him, he told me how much he liked being out on the road for long periods of time, as was required by his job. So I wonder if other than the red hair that I absolutely adopted from him, I also possess a gene he passed down that explains why I am seldom happier than when I embark on yet another cross-country drive.
The horror genre has never been a favorite of mine, and I typically avoid these types of TV shows or movies like the plague (pun intended!). However, about two years ago I happened to be curled up in a warm hotel room on a chilly New Year’s Eve, avoiding the crowds and the drinking and the sub-freezing temperatures. Flipping through the TV channels I stumbled upon a marathon of The Walking Dead on AMC.
January:
At just about this time last year, I wasn’t feeling very well. I had chalked it up to the fact that I was fatigued from driving cross country for the holidays and then surviving the bustle and chaos of the holidays.
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.
MATT: AT HOME IN THE WORLD 