Postings

Learning to Cook Bosnian Food - A few months ago I crashed a cooking lesson with my friend Lisa, who was out visiting Sarajevo during the early Autumn months.  While on a bus to Mostar, she overheard a couple people raving about a new cooking class in Sarajevo.  One of the owners, it turned out, was also a tour guide in Mostar, and …

The Tail-End of Leaf Peeping Season: Pennsylvania & New York - While living in Portland, Oregon, my husband, Brendan, and I spent a lot of time exploring the Pacific Northwest – from the Olympic National Forest to the Oregon Coast to the Wallowas – and had been wanting to do the same for New England.  Timing was always a challenge, though.  So last October, when a …

The 2018 Sarajevo Film Festival - About five years ago I gave up going to movie theaters.  I finally conceded that they, along with any other dark venues featuring flashing lights, were a trigger for my migraines and it was time for a change.  But now we’re living in Sarajevo, which this August hosted the 23rd annual Sarajevo Film Festival. Premiering …

HVAR - Not much beats a lunch of espresso and gelato on vacation (the caffeine/sugar combination is the perfect afternoon pick-me-up and tide-me-over until a dinner location is decided).  And no destination fulfills the gelato-espresso gorging bill better than sunny Hvar, a long, narrow island off the coast of southern Croatia. There are two main ways to …

What to Do in a City with Nothing to Do - “Pristina?  Where is that?” “It’s the capital of Kosovo,” answered my husband. I immediately informed him I would be crashing his work trip. We were in Sarajevo, and in no way was I going to pass up an opportunity to visit the place that dominated my university studies and newsfeeds everywhere during the turn of …

Sarajevo’s Famed Cable Car is Back in the Mountain Climbing Business - Sarajevo is freaking gorgeous.  Situated in a small valley in central Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), orange tiled roofs and conifers of every variety descend from the tops of evergreen-covered hills down towards the sparkling Miljacka River, weaving its way through the valley floor.  Buildings encompass a mix of elaborate Austro-Hungarian facades and simple Ottoman architecture.  …

Waiting for Barbara Streisand - Through the long months of rain and the snow, tucked between the Sequoia, Pine trees, Magnolias and Palms in Portland’s Washington Park, a magical little garden remains quiet and dormant. With February showers leading to March showers leading to April showers, I watch the thorny sticks, willing them to bring spring. On the occasional warm, …

A Day in Dubrovnik - I always have a plan.  And I used to almost always have a color-coded travel spreadsheet – a beautiful, multi-tabbed document detailing business hours and transportation routes and hotel check-out times.  For years I wouldn’t approach a vacation without either; even downtime was scheduled.  When trips involved multiple destinations and I’d end up with only …

A Birthday Road-Trip to Jajce - What better way to celebrate my birthday than with a road trip to a medieval village, killer waterfalls and a castle on a hill?  Almost none, I tell you.  Jajce, about two hours northwest of Sarajevo, was the perfect escape for a low-key weekend away with the hubs and an ideal second Bosnian road-trip. This …

A Short List (10!) of Must-Do’s in Istanbul - I love history.  I was even one of those weird kids who loved history in grammar school.  And I can say with relative certainty that though Istanbul was occasionally mentioned in history class, it was never as a city benefited by a focused study (such as Rome or Paris), and rarely presented as importantly tied …