Tag: travel
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How One Big Toe Nearly Overshadowed Alaska
As I sit with my feet up because of three toe “avulsion” surgeries, almost three full years after our trip to Alaska, I’m reminded of the Toe Saga of 2023 that nearly ruined our entire trip. The story begins in Texas in mid-April, two weeks before our cruise. Technically, the story begins a month before…
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The Best Wedding I Ever Attended
Twelve years ago, I attended the best wedding of my life—apart from my own wedding—and I neglected to blog about it because the task seemed too daunting. “But Jenny, you wondrous wordsmith, how could such an event that made your ‘top list of all time’ be too daunting to write about,” you ask? Well, my…
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Top 10 of 2024
The Shand household is sick, so I’m writing this blog in a clouded haze of brain fog and I’m not entirely sure what I will type. I’m just happy to be writing a blog at all since I’ve been preoccupied for the past 12 months with keeping another human alive 24/7. Mom bloggers out there:…
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Well, Folks. Here it is: The Top 10 of 2023
Let’s pretend it’s six months ago, and that it makes sense to write a “Best of” post for 2023. To be clear: it was my intention to publish a blog on New Year’s Day, per my blogging tradition, when 2023 was fresh in everyone’s minds. But that didn’t go as planned, and from January 2nd…
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One Year Married: Best Dining Experiences
When Rob and I began dating in 2021, he created a list of all of our restaurant dining experiences. The list has continued onward into our marriage, and when we were rehashing the “Best of” shortly after the new year, we consulted the list and chose our favorite dining experiences, categorically. As a tribute to…
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Get Thee to the Nunnery! (our honeymoon cont.)
(If you have not caught up with Part I: How to Spend a Bonus Day in Greece, I recommend starting there. This will make far less sense otherwise.) *** British Airways gave us vouchers for the Athens Marriott, a 5-star hotel, with complementary lunch and dinner, a drink and snack at the airport, and a…
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How to Spend a Bonus Day in Greece
When Rob and I were planning our honeymoon in Greece, we knew we wanted to stay on the mainland. We would be traveling in winter, and many of the islands shut down in the off season. But in terms of specifics, Rob gave me free rein to plan the trip. He had only one requirement:…
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Into the Wild Frontier
“I’ll call the Poor Clares [monastery] and ask them to pray for your trip,” my mom said on Tuesday, the day before my flight to Orlando. “Can’t you just pray?” I whined. “We don’t have to ask the Poor Clares pray for every little thing,” I said. These are the words that will go down…
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Getting a Greek Tattoo
I knew before I boarded the plane for Greece this year that I wanted to get a tattoo, but it wasn’t until a week into my trip that I knew what I wanted to get: a quote from Seferis, the Greek poet who was exiled from his home for 28 years. His quote is this:…
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How To Blend: First Class Flying
A few months ago I started a blog about my return flight from Hawaii. I was derailed from finishing it, however, because I gave up my seat on my connecting flight to PVD in exchange for an airline voucher, and that required me to taxi across Washington DC, and physically run back and forth between…
Travel & Food Writer 