life, travel, stories – Join the journey, Love Raven
Dear Reader, It’s 2022 and I am absolutely struck by how quickly time flies! I am writing this to you as I prepare to go on a six-mile hike at Boston’s Blue Hills Reservation with a local group. Two years ago, I wrote a post about preparing for my first hike with the same group... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, Have you ever suffered from jet lag? And, I do mean “suffered” rather than “experienced.” While I have experienced tiredness and have gone to bed a little too early or too late on occasion after flying, I feel that today is truly my first experience suff-er-ing from jet lag. First, what is jet... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, As I sit on the Lufthansa plane, departing from Frankfurt, Germany, I’m already starting to miss this country. For those of you who follow CuriousWordsBlog.com, you will already know that I encountered a somewhat unfortunate series of events already. First, before I even departed from Boston, I learned at an airport check-in counter... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, If you’ve been following along with my blog, you will know that I am writing to you in isolation as I have recently tested positive for COVID-19 (more here and here). While I was lucky to have my health (no more symptoms!), isolation in the two-room, ground-floor apartment in Bavaria, Germany was not... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, I tested positive for COVID-19 in Germany (more here). Now I am in isolation. Like many who are testing positive in this new of wave of illness, I genuinely did not know — let alone suspect — that I had COVID. I had cold symptoms (more here), no dry cough, no loss of smell or... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, I tested positive for COVID-19 in Germany — let the nightmare begin. The phone rings. Me: Hello? Hotel Reception: We just received your rapid antigen test and you have received a positive result. Please stay in your room. We will send up someone shortly to conduct a PCR test. Yikes. We all know... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, This is kind of gross, but I am writing to you at the moment on a Deutsche Bahn train with a runny nose. As mundane as this sounds, I am astounded by this development, as I haven’t been sick since 2019 — over two years! Before COVID-related social distancing measures, I would catch... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, Does anyone else feel a weird obligation to stop by a local museum when visiting a foreign city? Whenever I search for “things to do in insert-city-here,” often, a museum is likely to make the list, if not top it. For example, in Paris one should visit the Louvre, in London — the... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, It’s hard to love a city on a rainy day. During my stay in Berlin, Germany (more here and here), I had the pleasure of taking a short excursion to the city Hamburg. Only about two hours north-west from the capital city by train, Hamburg is Germany’s second largest metropolitan area and is... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, The stereotypes about Europeans are true — they really do like to swim naked. Over two years ago now, I briefly wrote about nakedness, when I confronted a locker room in Iceland that mandated cleansing communal showers without swimsuits before entering the public pool (more here). Today, the showers are not the only... Continue Reading →
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