The first view of Chefchaouen is a stunner — pale blue structures with terra cotta tiled roofs situated at the base of the Rif mountain range. And once you’re in this otherworldly town, walking around narrow streets and up uneven stairs, you’ll find it to be just as stunning. Old men dressed in wizard robes […]
A few days ago I posted about the amazing shopping in Morocco that my friend Neda and I partook in during her recent visit to Morocco. And now, for part deux: Surf and yoga camp in Morocco. So neither Neda nor I know how to surf, but we thought it would be fun to learn in […]
My good friend Neda, who is one of my all-around favorite people, came to visit me in Morocco. (Our first Morocco visitor, yay!) I thought that a surf-and-yoga retreat I’d heard about sounded like a perfect friends’ getaway for us. See a new part of this beautiful country and be super active with my adventurous […]
Our first day trip from Rabat was to Tangier. Or Tangiers, Tanger, Tánger, or Tangah. They’re all correct pronunciations, apparently, depending on whether you’re speaking English, French, Spanish or Berber. However you say it this pretty city is in northern Morocco and located right where the Mediterranean and the Atlantic meet, on the Strait of […]
If you’ve wondered why I’ve been absent from this blog, it’s because we have moved from Jerusalem to Rabat, with a six-week United States vacation called “home leave” in between. This year, our home leave included Washington DC, Michigan, Yellowstone National Park, Portland, a day in Los Angeles, and a few in Santa Barbara. It […]
In 2014, when I was living in Spain, I published a blog called Great Hikes Near Madrid that I hoped would be useful for English-speaking hikers because almost all of the online info about hiking around Madrid was in Spanish. Four years later, that post gets more traffic, by far, than any other post on this […]
The saying goes that Jerusalem is about 40 miles and 200 years away from Tel Aviv. So its always a welcome reprieve to drive less than one hour from the monochrome ancient city of Jerusalem and to arrive in colorful and modern Tel Aviv, with its beachy vibes, exposed butt cheeks (it’s the year of […]
Israel offers some great tourist spots, and they’re all pretty easy to get to being that that country is the size of New Jersey. We have just five weeks left here and we’ve checked off most of the big ones: The desert in the south, the Red Sea, the Sea of Galilee, many jaunts to nearby […]
After spending a week at the artists’ retreat in France, my writing buddy Chris and I drove to the Mediterranean Spanish town of Cadaqués to meet Mr. Em in Jerusalem for a few days. Cadaqués is in the Catalonia region of Spain, on the Costa Brava. And oh my goodness, if you’re a Spain-lover like […]
I have just returned from a writing retreat on a mountaintop in France. Let me just let that one sink in, so you have a chance to be like “ooh lah lah, someone think she fancy.” But, there it is. After getting a writing degree that required twice a year stays in Paris, I just […]
