travel – Page 3 – It Is Trish

Dinner with Persephone by Patricia Storace

December 12, 2015December 1, 2015TrishLeave a comment

51bQ2iwdmPL A travel memoir about a woman who lives in Athens for a year? How could I pass that up?

Fortunately, if I ever write a memoir about MY year in Athens, it will be distinctly different in feel and tone. Storace is almost to poetic in her language for my taste – instead of describing where she’s going or who she’s hanging out with, she jumps over the details in order to describe general trends and observations. Which are totally interesting, don’t get me wrong. But it doesn’t actually feel like a travel memoir. Instead, it’s something more like an emotional evaluation of Greece – past, present, and future. Continue reading →

Sunday Summary #9: What’s On the Internet

December 6, 2015December 5, 2015Trish2 Comments

1| Intrepid Travel has created a year-long adventurer’s trek across the world, and I want to go so badly! Covering “34 countries, 5 continents and over 200 breakfasts” (lol) it’s not a bad deal at $75,000. Anyone want to fund me?

2| I am so late to the Kid President game, but his pep talk is a thing of pure beauty. “We got work to do – we can cry about it, or we can dance about it.”

3| J.J. Abrams explicitly says his new Star Wars movie was made so that women and girls would feel included in the universe, and my 8-year-old self is SO HAPPY. I’ve seen commercials where a young brother and sister team up to take down Stormtroopers with lightsabers, and I’m so glad a new nerdy generation will be raised without all the “I’m a girl – should I like this?” shame that I did.

4| I’ve never watched The Tudors, but this emotional reaction to the historical inaccuracies feels like it could apply to most TV shows (and movies.)

5| One Direction was on The Late Late Show with James Corden, where Harry lost a game of tattoo roulette and Louis sat on James’s lap pretending to be a cat, and I had absolutely zero feelings involving tearing my eyeballs out of their sockets and/or shouting into the sun.

6| White Walls & Wanderlust put together a list of Christmas gift ideas, and I fell in love with the Etsy shop ResilienceStreetwear, which has t-shirts that say things like “Single and ready to get nervous around anyone I find attractive.”

Sand in My Bra edited by Jennifer L. Leo

November 24, 2015TrishLeave a comment

366190 Female travelers of the world will love this compilation of travel essays from 28 women headed into hilarious, dangerous, and awkward situations all over the world. Although some of the essays are generic travel stories, most are distinctly female, and it made me aware of how infrequently I read about women adventurers. There are stories about accepting imperfect bodies simply by being on a beach overseas, and horror stories of period catastrophes, and a lot of unironic adoration of being female.

I mean, that’s pretty much it. If you like traveling and you like women, then you will probably like the majority of these essays. But hey, here’s a quote to entice you just a little bit more:

This is the heart of travel. This is why we do it. This is why we are so willing to strap our fragile bodies into metal capsules and fly thousands of miles with hundreds of strangers endlessly exhaling new viruses into our airspace, drink water from dubious sources, eat food virulent with unknown flora and fauna, put up with impossible travel companions, lost luggage, and the legions of mule-like bureaucrats who manage to win positions of petty power in every city and village on earth. We do it because we love this beautiful dangerous planet and we want to know it personally and, on balance, the pluses far outweigh the minuses, right?

Continue reading →

The Illyrian Adventure by Lloyd Alexander

October 10, 2015September 15, 2015TrishLeave a comment

There has never been a better opening paragraph than this one:

Miss Vesper Holly has the digestive talents of a goat and the mind of a chess master. She is familiar with half a dozen languages and can swear fluently in all of them. She understands the use of a slide rule but prefers doing calculations in her head. She does not hesitate to risk life and limb–mine as well as her own. No doubt she has other qualities as yet undiscovered. I hope not.

Now that is a heroine. From the first page (and every page thereafter) I was completely enthralled by Vesper’s persuasive wit. Added to the fantastic characters was a really fun plot–an Indiana Jones-type treasure-seeking adventure. The book is short, and its brevity quickens the novel’s pace. Where modern YA books might describe long treks through the jungle or every detail of a banquet, Alexander bypasses these scenes with clever paragraphs that add to the dry humor of the story.

I really enjoyed reading about Vesper and Brinnie’s adventures, and I will definitely be on the lookout for more in the series in future. Continue reading →