Prisoner of Hopes

Tag: connection

  • Everyday Gourmet: Travel Goals

    Gourmet: high quality and/or rarity, crafted to deliver exquisite taste and presented in a pleasing fashion. Thus begins our daily adventure. We have no destination in mind other than to seek out high quality experiences and/or rarities. Our first stop is the market. I am disappointed that there aren’t a lot of stalls. We give…

  • Museum Overload: Travel Goals

    Today we ride the metro for the first time. It is clean and bright. I wish for the millionth time that my city would embrace public transportation, but probably not in my lifetime. Midwesterner’s have a lifelong love affair with their automobiles that precludes discussion of public transportation options. We exit the metro station into…

  • Inside the Fiera da Ladro or How We Make Out Like A Bandit at the Thieves Market: Travel Goals

    It is Saturday morning and we make a slow start. We wander up the hill toward Sao Vicente da Fora and immediately notice an increase in pedestrian traffic. Every seems to converging in the alley that flanks the monastery. Trying hard not to be flattened by the endless parade of tuk tuks, we follow the…

  • Journey to Belem: Travel Goals

    The journey to Belem, the birthplace of Portuguese exploration, begins with a little exploration of our own. The walk through Alfama had fewer mistakes and backtracks than our walk yesterday. We celebrate our progress. It is now time to conquer the bus system. We look for the 728 bus stop and with some assistance from…

  • First Encounters: Travel Goals

    After a quick shower and change of clothes, we are off to enjoy the city. Well, if I am being honest, we are out walking around to keep ourselves awake. We have found that if we can stay awake the first day until evening in our new location that there is no jet lag. So…

  • Not in Kansas Anymore

    It is no secret that I love to travel. Each adventure changes me. I believe it makes me more empathetic and allows me to think more broadly than my otherwise limited experience would. I now have a great sympathy for visitors who struggle to understand our customs and strange ways of being. Even the simple…

  • Roots

    The roads are winding and only sometimes paved.  Creeks and man made ponds dapple the landscape, visible between tall stands of oak and pine. Heaven on Earth.  Turkey vultures strut through barren fields.  Rocks are plentiful in the overturned soil.  Cattle call across the hills and hollows. Hauntingly beautiful and impossibly difficult terrain. It is…