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After many years of trying, we were finally able to sell the home I was born and raised in.

It’s a positive thing. The house had been sitting idle in Caracas, like thousands of others all over Venezuela - decaying furniture, unseen paintings, dirty clothes on hangers. Now it gets to be lived in again, to hold new memories for another family. And, most importantly, my parents have a few years of rent paid off. We should be grateful.

And yet, the moment the deal was officially done, I cried. The only thing I could think of was: that was my last anchor, now there is nothing tangible connecting me to the place I was born and raised in.

My grandfather, an Italian immigrant, oversaw the construction of the building and was later able to buy the apartment where I would live from birth until I was twenty - longer than anywhere else. Its corners are etched in my mind. I can still see myself lying on the cool parquet floor for hours, chatting with friends over the landline; taking guitar lessons at the dining room table; the view of the mountain that envelops Caracas, El Ávila, framed perfectly through the balcony.

I can see my dad sitting at the desk by an oversized computer where I played that roller coaster game (IYKYK); my mom cooking in the small but mighty kitchen - the old, broken dishwasher never used for anything other than storage; a leg of Spanish ham that my dad once bought hanging over the washer; my crammed room with more furniture than it should have had; my cousin and I painting each other on the balcony; modeling my cute little costumes all over the house; and the colorful paintings on the walls - many of which I still have in storage in Utah, and which will likely have to be given away next year.

I recently read a review of Isabel Allende’s latest book, My Name is Emilia del Valle, which I haven’t yet read but certainly will soon - and a sentence from the review stayed with me for days. The one-star reviewer wrote:

“Nothing insightful to add… only the same overwhelming nostalgia that she seems unable to cope with sensibly, which drives her to write the same things over and over, always about the Chile she lost decades ago… just nostalgic reminiscences about a country she no longer knows well.”

The first thing I thought when I read it was: this person has no idea what it’s like to leave a place you didn’t want to leave.

Because for those of us who did that, it seems completely impossible to stop carrying a nostalgia and a deep longing for a place that made us, and that we know we no longer know. How could this not seep into who we are - into how we relate to others, into what we write, talk about, and care about? How could it not?

I haven’t read Isabel’s latest book, but I’ve read every other one of hers and loved them all. I hadn’t considered that what she writes might feel more powerful to those of us who’ve also felt displaced - far from our roots, always in search of home. So, for that, I thank that mean reviewer.

I am deeply grateful for the life I have now, and I know I wouldn’t have it if I hadn’t left my country. But that doesn’t erase the longing. It doesn’t fill the hole that only being in the place you were raised in - surrounded by people who speak like you, feel like you, act like you in so many small and meaningful ways - can fill. It’s a je ne sais quoi: a shared history that connects you in ways you can’t quite recreate elsewhere.

My partner and I recently watched Nadie nos va a extrañar (No One Will Miss Us) on Amazon Prime. It’s a melancholic, beautifully shot story about loss and change in Mexico City of the 90s. We watched it mostly because he wanted to be taken back to the place and decade he was born and raised in - and to show it to me. Every few minutes he would point something out:

“Those are the pyramid-shaped juice boxes I drank at school - Boing!, usually guava flavor.”

“OMG, I had those exact same bedsheets, and notebooks!”

“We used to play Looney Tunes Tazos in school too”

Even the music in the show - those pop and rock songs from the late 90s and early 2000s that filled the radio and every corner store - transported him instantly. It’s the kind of soundtrack that doesn’t just remind you of a place, but of who you were when you lived there.

We all have this kind of longing for the past, but if you’re still in a familiar place - for instance in the same country - or can visit often, then you see it evolve. It doesn’t weigh on you in the same way. It’s simply a fond memory of a time gone by. Or at least that’s how it is for my partner and Mexico City.

But it has always felt different for me and my Caracas. When I left the apartment that saw me grow up, I never imagined I would never go back - that we’d feel forced to sell it for little money, that I would be leaving it for good.

I feel somewhat silly writing this - it’s just an apartment, just a city, just a place I haven’t even been to in more than a decade. But the truth is, it isn’t just that. This kind of nostalgia will likely stay with me - and maybe with you - forever. And that’s okay. We can live full, happy lives while carrying it. I don’t need to overcome it; I’ve learned to live with it, and I feel no shame in that.

I might even write about it hundreds more times. Like Isabel.

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Lately, I’ve been feeling a deep sense of gratitude for our childfree life - an almost quiet contentment that feels directly tied to our decision not to have children. The truth is, for us, it wasn’t a difficult one - not that we didn’t spend a few drunken nights debating the pros and cons, but it was never a grueling, multi-year conversation. We were both leaning that way, so when we finally landed on it, it just felt right. It made sense for us.

There were many reasons we chose to be childfree (I wrote about that a while back here), but the core one wasn’t about the environment, politics, or our careers - it was simply that we liked our life as it was. We valued our independence and flexibility, and we wanted the freedom to do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. We didn’t want to worry too much about money or have to work until we were 60. We wanted the option to live anywhere in the world. We wanted fewer worries and a simpler life - the time and resources to pursue passions, whatever those might be (there are infinite options!). Other reasons added to the pile, of course, but you can always justify anything one way or the other. The truth is, independence was the core reason for us.

To be clear, I know we’re giving up something, and for many, this might be the most important experience in a human’s life. And we’re okay with that! We’re all giving up experiences all the time. Parents are also giving up a life without children - they’ll never know this level of freedom - and that’s okay too. Every path comes with its trade-offs, and I think real peace comes from owning yours fully.

Every single childfree person I’ve met is happy and fulfilled - not bitter or regretful, as so many expect (or even hope). I’m sure regrets happen, but you know what else happens? Parents regretting having children or longing for the life they left behind. It’s just less talked about, buried under the weight of what being a “good parent” is supposed to mean.

I’ve written about being childfree (and shameless) before, but felt compelled to do so again for two reasons. The first is how often my partner and I remark that, with every passing year, we feel more validated and happy with our decision. We feel truly fortunate *not to have children* - and I think that’s worth celebrating and sharing, especially for those out there who need some reassurance: a childfree life can be a truly wonderful and fulfilling one. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

The second reason is that it still surprises me how much of the world doesn’t understand this choice, and often pushes against it, usually in passive-aggressive ways. I recently posted a photo of me holding the newborn of good friends, and the amount of messages I got mentioning that I “look good as a mother,” or were shocked I was carrying a baby, or said I was “finally practicing,” or other near-sighted comments, was baffling. I know they’re not trying to be mean or offensive, but that’s like excusing outdated behavior because “they don’t know better.” Everyone can learn and grow, and realize that what once was okay no longer is, because as a society we’ve (in some ways) progressed.

Sometimes I think people react this way because our choice challenges the default narrative: that parenthood is the only path to purpose. But here’s what I want to say, loud and clear, for those in the back:

• Not having children doesn’t mean you don’t like them, or don’t want to help raise them, or build deep, meaningful relationships with them. Seems obvious, but it’s worth shouting from the rooftops, because this stereotype refuses to die.

• Not having children doesn’t mean I don’t think I could be a good mother. I know we would be good parents if we chose this - but we didn’t! You’re not going to convince me to have a baby by telling me how good a mother I’d be or that “we’re the type of couple who should have children.”

• “Never say never.” “You might regret it.” “Make sure you consider all angles.” These are simply condescending comments. They imply that you think we haven’t thought it through, that you know us better than we know ourselves, and that you’re somehow more enlightened (usually because you have children). We have. You don’t. You aren’t.

• Do not - and I repeat, do not - feel sorry for childfree people or tell them “you’ll never know true love.” We’re doing just fine, thanks.

In Puerto Vallarta, we’re surrounded by childfree friends. They don’t define themselves by that label, but it’s clear this decision shapes how they live - how they spend their time, use their money, and pursue what lights them up. There’s a shared ease in those friendships, a mutual understanding that life can be rich and meaningful in many forms. Honestly, witnessing the fulfillment and happiness of childfree people is a beautiful thing in a world where this lifestyle is still uncommon, judged, and frowned upon.

We’d choose the life we have now - and the one we’ll hopefully have for many decades to come - over and over again. My hope is that someday, a childfree life will be celebrated just as openly as any. Until then, we’ll keep living ours fully, freely, and without apology.

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I’ve been calling my muse every day for months now. She’s not picking up. I think she is waiting for commitment, and she knows I’ve been flaky.

In my defense, settling into a new city, moving into a home, building a community, and starting not one but two jobs - all while trying to work out, eat well, and enjoy life - takes a lot of time and energy.

But I miss her. I crave seeing the world - outside and inside myself - through a writer’s eye again. Finding wonder in everyday life doesn’t always come naturally. Still, I know it’s a state I can nurture, especially when I shake things up and face lots of newness - one of the reasons I love traveling so much. But I need to learn how to call my muse even without all that novelty.

So, I’ll keep ringing her.

For now, below is a little something. Written in Spanish because it’s literally about being latina, though I attempted to translate it further below, which made me realize translation is freaking hard. Sorry.

I believe this piece works better out loud, so I added a short video version too.

Thanks for being here.

Cualquier ritmo mueve mi cadera.

Una salsa, un reggaeton, una cumbia, un corrido.

Llorar escuchando a Mon Laferte o a Natalia Lafourcade.

Cantar a todo pulmon Shakira o Soda Stereo en karaoke.

Perrear con Bad Bunny, soltarme con Rawayana, mover mi cuerpo al ritmo de Buena Vista Social Club.

Coño, que rico es bailar!

En 21 paises puedo hablar con la señora de la fruteria y el vecino que toma el fresco en la puerta de su casa.

Una de las pocas cosas que le agradezco a aquel Imperio Español.

Al menos nos deshicimos de la zeta…

Lo verde llena mis pupilas.

Cocoteros y loritos, el pan de cada dia.

Comer mango bajito sentada en la arena.

Subir cordilleras, admirar un salto eterno, jugar en el desierto, adentrarse en la selva.

Infinitas costas, el paraiso.

Saber los nombre de los hijos del mesonero del restaurante de los domingos.

Que te inviten un digestivo.

Los chistes entre tu papa y tu tio.

Celebrar una boda bailando hasta las siete de la mañana.

Familiones, comilonas, abuelitos sabios y cascarrabias.

Peleas a gritos, pero cuanto amor.

Que fortuna la latinidad.

Any rhythm moves my hips.

A salsa, a reggaeton, a cumbia, a corrido.

Crying listening to Mon Laferte or Natalia Lafourcade.

Singing Shakira or Soda Stereo at the top of my lungs in karaoke.

Twerking with Bad Bunny, letting loose with Rawayana, moving my body to the beat of Buena Vista Social Club.

Damn, dancing feels so good!

In 21 countries I can chat with the lady at the fruit stand and the neighbor cooling off by his front door.

One of the few things I thank that Spanish Empire for.

At least we got rid of the “Z”…

Green fills my eyes.

Coconut palms and little parrots, the usual sight.

Eating low-hanging mangoes while sitting on the sand.

Climbing mountain ranges, admiring endless waterfalls, playing in the desert, delving into the jungle.

Infinite coastlines, paradise itself.

Knowing the names of the kids of the waiter at the Sunday restaurant.

Being offered a digestif.

The jokes between your father and your uncle.

Celebrating a wedding dancing until seven in the morning.

Big families, huge meals, wise and grumpy grandparents.

Shouting matches, but so much love.

How lucky we are for our latinidad.

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The Amalfi coast is a 50-kilometer stretch of coastline on the Southwest of Italy, dotted with charming fishing villages and mountain towns. This is not an off-the-beaten-path destination, but it’s famous for a reason. You can spend your days hiking from village to village through towering mountains filled with lemon orchards. Or, instead, laying on a sun-bed admiring the aquamarine sea while eating fried anchovies and drinking a spritz. Or maybe chasing art in the village’s open air museums, where public staircases are adorned with colorful ceramics and impressive paintings. There is really something for everyone here.

We expected to like the area, but not as much as we did. It’s of course very impressive naturally (and this is the reason I thought we would like it), but we also found it to be authentic and not catering to tourists as much as we thought it would given its popularity. That said, we spent very little time in Amalfi and Positano, the main touristy hubs on the coast. Instead, we hiked our hearts away, ate some incredible meals, found solitude in many corners, and ended up visiting almost every single village on the coast.

So, without a further ado - and because this is supposed to be a mini guide - below are all our recommendations!

The Basics

The official Amalfi Coast is considered the area between the town of Positano and the town of Vietri sul Mare, which includes (among others) the villages of Cetara, Maiori, Minori, Ravello, Scala, Atrani, Amalfi, Agerola, Praiano, Nocelle, and Montepertuso.

On both ends of the “official” coast there are also worthy places to see as well as potential bases, such as Salerno and Sorrento. We spent two weeks in the area, but only about five full days in the Amalfi Coast itself.

Where to stay

This is an important question and the one I spent the most time trying to answer when I was planning the trip. Now that we have explored the area quite a bit we definitely have thoughts.

Our top recommendation is to stay somewhere well connected by ferry. There are plenty of little towns all over the coast as well as the mountains, but not all are easy to reach via the sea, which is by far the best way to get around because 1) views!! and 2) simple and hassle free.

The main ferry company in the area is called TravelMar and connects Salerno, Vietri Sul Mare, Cetara, Maiori, Minori, Amalfi, and Positano. Although it’s not the only ferry company, we found it to be reliable and extremely easy to use by just buying the tickets online and showing up a few minutes before departure.

We based ourselves in Salerno, and would highly recommend it as a base. It’s not officially part of the Amalfi Coast (which is one of the reasons we chose it), but it’s extremely close to it (you can literally see Vietri Sul Mare and Cetara from it), it’s an actual city, very chill, and much more affordable than anywhere on the coast. That said, if you are only visiting for a short amount of time and are trying to cram many things into just a few days, then you might want to stay in the coast itself, such as in Maiori, Minori, Cetara, or Vietri. Outside of these well connected towns, Atrani is the only other village I’d consider, given it’s walking distance from Amalfi and its port. I wouldn’t recommend staying in either Amalfi or Positano, but if you like being surrounded by tourists all the time, then you do you!

You can of course base yourself in many other cute little villages, such as Praiano, Agerola, Nocelle, Ravello, etc, but then you have to figure out another mode of transport if you are seeking to see more than just the town you are staying at. There is a bus line that connects most of these villages, called SITA, but the one and only time we tried using it it didn’t even stop as it was full (and this was in mid-June) so I probably wouldn’t recommend it to reliably get around. A car can be really useful, and we used ours a couple of times to get around - both on the mountains and the coast - but the roads did feel dangerous at times (mostly due to the big SITA buses) and parking was indeed a nightmare. So, I would not use a car as my main mode of transport, though a motorcycle might do the trick if you have experience driving them.

What NOT to Miss

There are countless things to do while on the Amalfi Coast, and you will find plenty of ideas in subsequent sections. But, I think there are some experiences you should absolutely not miss:

• Yes, go to Amalfi, Positano, and Ravello. The three most popular of all the towns on the coast and also absolutely worth seeing.

• Explore at least one other smaller coastal town. There are many and they are all so unique. We particularly liked Vietri sul Mare and Atrani.

• See the coast from the water. Hands down what I will remember the most about this piece of golden coast is admiring the colorful villages nested between mountains from the water.

• Go hiking! The famous Path of the Gods is beautiful, but it’s also not the only option. Get some ideas from the Hiking section below and take a look at AllTrails.

• Don’t forget about the mountain towns! The coast is just a piece of this area. Even if you don’t go hiking, explore beyond the coast. We loved wine tasting in Tramonti and learning how to make fior di latte in Agerola.

• Explore outside of the official Amalfi Coast! There is Paestum and its incredibly well preserved Greek ruins, and of course the authentic and unique Naples. More ideas below!

What to do

This depends on what you like to do. If you are reading this you might already know that we love to hike, eat, and swim, so that is what we did on this trip and what my recommendations are going to be about.

Hiking

The entire coast is well connected by trails (and stairs 😅) so if you are into hiking we highly recommend planning to take the ferry to a town, hike to other towns, on the way eat a leisurely lunch and have a swim, and then take the ferry back. We spent two full days doing this and saw soooo much because we did.

We found most paths in AllTrails. Be careful with Google Maps as it will many times send you through the coastal road (the one for cars), but you almost *never* have to do that. We saw so many people walking on the narrow road with cars going pass them super fast, but this is unnecessary because there are (much prettier and safer) walking paths connecting the towns. Below were two of our - very unofficial and spontaneous - routes, which I hope they might serve as inspiration ;)

Day One

• Start in Maiori, grab a sandwich (tomatoes, prosciutto, and stracciatella) from La Tramontina and start walking to Minori through the “Path of the Lemons”, an easy 2km route. Sit in a bench to have your breakfast with views of lemon orchards. Continue your hike until you hit Agricola Ruocco's, and grab a lemon granita to-go. We were stuffed by when we got to Minori but if you need a pick-me-up grab a pastry at the very famous Pasticceria Sal de Riso.

• From Minori walk up to Ravello, which is in the mountains, so not an easy stretch but also not long, around 3km. Lots and lots of stairs await, but also solitude and incredible views! We loved it. If you are not into climbing, grab the bus. In Ravello drink a celebratory beer in the plaza (you will need it after sweating like a pig going up those stairs) and visit the Villa Rufolo and maybe also Villa Cimbrone for views and pretty gardens.

• From Ravello, it’s time to go down to Atrani. Yes, that town in Netflix’s Ripley show (which is great btw). Atrani is as cute as expected! Get lost in its streets and then grab lunch watching the sea at Le Arcate - the lemon pasta was divine! Then, go for a swim and a nap at Lido de Ravello.

• Lastly, walk to Amalfi (not through the road!). If you are lucky (we were) this will be the first time in the day you will see crowds. Check out the impressive Duomo and then walk to the far right port Piazzale dei Protontini for excellent views of Amalfi.

• Grab the last ferry back to where you started from!

Day Two

This was definitely a much more adventurous route than above, and it was a long day of hiking, so use with caution.

• Start in Positano, grab a cappuccino (or spritz if you are on the mode - we had both 😂) at Angelo Cafe while overlooking at the colorful pyramid of houses that defines Positano.

• From Positano go up to Montepertuso for lovely views over the bay and some peace after the buzz of Positano. Grab a lovely lunch at Il Ritrovo, don’t miss the filled courgette flowers! You could stop your hiking here, and simply go down to Positano and chill at the beach. But, if you - like us - refuse to go down the same way you came up, then:

• Continue to Nocelle. This part was a tiny bit sketchy as the path was very overgrown - but it was short!

• In Nocelle, find the “Paths of the Gods”. This is the most popular hiking path in the area which connects several different towns. There are many ways to do the hike, but the most common is from Bomerano (Agerola) to Nocelle. We were planning to do exactly that route a few days afterwards, but then we were already in Nocelle so decided to do it backwards. And because we were desperate for a swim, we did it to Praiano instead of Bomerano (you just go down at an intersection in the middle of the hike instead of continuing). This is proper hiking (so no pavement and stairs) but also not particularly difficult or with a lot of elevation gain. That said, if you decide to go to Praiano there will be *a lot* of elevation loss. This way down was probably the harder part of the day. If we had better planned the route and were prepared to maybe not go swim (how could we?) then I think we might have continued to Bomerano and taken the bus down to the coast from there.

• In Praiano, admire all the art covering the staircases as you make your way to the ocean and take a well deserved swim at Marina di Praia. If you are hungry and not in a hurry to get to a ferry then have dinner in Kasai, which we didn’t do but wanted to. Praiano is not connected by proper ferries but you can take a water taxi to Amalfi or directly to wherever you are staying!

• Congratulate yourself on a big, challenging, and very fun day!

Swimming

Beaches in this area (and honestly in most of Europe) are small, crowded, and rocky. So, don’t expect the Caribbean. That said, the swimming is truly wonderful because the waters are extremely calm and clear, and many beaches in this area are actually sandy. Almost all beaches are divided into two, they have an area with a beach club where you can rent umbrellas and chairs, and a (usually smaller) free area where you can just lay on your towel. Here were our favorite swimming spots (including some we had on our list but weren’t able to make it):

• Rosa dei Venti or Cretallera in Vietri sul Mare. A long stretch of sandy beach!

• Spiaggia del Lannio in Cetara. Small but super cute and chill.

• Lido di Ravello in Atrani. Lovely!

• Marina di Praia in Praiano. Didn’t love it here (too rocky and too small) but it has a unique location.

• Fiordo di Furore in Furore. We weren’t able to make it here, but it was high on our list!

• Positano Spiaggia in Positano. Long and sandy! We didn’t actually stay there, but were tempted.

Other Activities in the Amalfi Coast

• Go wine tasting in Tramonti. We *loved* our visit to the Monte di Grazia winery. Complex wines, gorgeous setting, and interesting conversations with the owners in a very intimate setting. If you are looking for a more commercial experience, Tenuta San Francesco, another winery, is very close by. If you drive to Tramonti don’t miss going towards the other side of the mountain (away from the Amalfi coast), around here, for incredible views of Mt. Vesuvius (an active volcano!).

• Learn how to make fior di latte (or pasta, gnocchi, etc) in a pretty garden at La Vigna Degli Dei. A touristy experience, but still very fun.

• The villas and gardens around Ravello are worth seeing. Go to Villa Rufolo and if time allows also to Villa Cimbrone.

• Learn about lemons at the Amalfi Lemon Experience. We didn’t do this, but had it on our list.

Other Activities around the Amalfi Coast

• We based ourselves in Salerno and really loved it! Even if you don’t stay there, It’s definitely worth at least a day-trip. When there:

  • Go up to the Arechi Castle which overlooks the bay for great views! The walk up from town is nice though steep.

  • Walk the tree-lined promenade and get lost in the narrow streets of the old town.

  • Admire jacarandas in the Villa Communale gardens and the view over the town from Giardino della Minerva. This last one was close for renovations when we went, but the same views can be seen from this panoramic point a bit higher up.

  • Go to the impressive crypt in the Cathedral, visit the Church of St. George, and the ruins in San Pietro A Corte

• If you are really into cheese and have a car and some time, you can head south of the Amalfi Coast to Paestum to visit a buffalo farm (we went to Barlotti) to learn how mozzarella di bufala is made, and of course eat lots of dairy products made with buffalo milk! While in Paestum don’t miss seeing one of the best preserved Greek ruins in Europe at the Archeological Park of Paestum.

• Sorrento, on the north, is a very popular cruise destination and this will be obvious if you visit (large groups everywhere). It was our least favorite town in the entire coast, so don’t have much to recommend. We did have the best delizia al limone in La Cantinaccia del Popolo, but overall we found the town and everything in it to be a bit of a tourist trap.

• And then there is Naples, there is *so much* to say about this authentic and unique place. We spent two weeks there prior to going to the Amalfi Coast, so I plan to write a mini-guide for it :). My biggest recommendation is: don’t miss it.

Where to Eat

Here were some of our favorite meals:

• Le Arcate in Atrani for their lemon pasta!

• Il Ritrovo in Montepertuso for the best filled courgette flowers I have ever tasted.

• Ristorante Dea Mangiona in Cetara for their famous anchovy pasta!

• Angelo Cafe in Positano for a cappuccino with a view.

• Agricula Ruocco’s in the Path of Lemons for a wonderful lemon granita.

• Pizzeria Giagiu’ in Salerno for some of the best pizza we have had in Italy.

• Hostaria Il Brigante in Salerno for a very traditional meal.

• Osteria Angolo Masuccio in Salerno for their fresh tuna pasta!

Ok, that is it, the mini-guide turned out into a maxi one 😂, but nothing can be done when you have lots to say about a place! For many more visuals, check out the story highlights in our instagram: Amalfi and Around Amalfi. For a Google Map list with all the places mentioned in this blog post, DM me on IG or here.

What a special place the Amalfi Coast is, we hope to be back one day ❤️

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I started writing this blog post in mid-January, a week or so before starting my new job and a couple of weeks before flying back home to Park City. Shortly after that we decided to sell our place there, so between the new gig, packing, and an intense desire to spend all our free time snowboarding, cooking, and cocooning at home, many months have gone by in a flash, and I haven’t put words to paper, not even a single sentence. It sometimes weights on me, but most of the time I know it’s just what I needed at the time, and honoring what my body and mind *needs* is a small mercy in the relentless push I put myself through in the pursue of things I *want*.

Now we are back on the road, traveling through Italy until September - something I definitely want, but like to thing I need :). And wow, being away from places I am used to is always such an inspiration. So much newness - different nature, food, people, and ways of seeing and approaching life - is a shock to my senses in the most wonderful way, it sharpens them! The differences in the environment make me so much more aware of everything that is happening - of how the light hits that tree, or the curious way people express themselves, or the abundance of a specific breed of dog, or how on time public transit is (or isn’t), or what is always on the menu. When I am traveling and exploring I am always asking questions, researching something online, reading about whatever I found curious that day. It makes me feel like all the 3 year olds I have spent time with recently, in a constant state of curiosity, asking myself and everyone around me: “but, why?”. Traveling makes me inquisitive, in ways that delight me and make me full of life.

All of this to say: Hi, it’s been a while!

But, although I wish I could boldly state that I am “fully” back, ready to be posting every Monday as I did during the glorious 16-month in which traveling was our full time job, the truth is that I know I can’t commit to that right now. At the moment, we are digital nomads who work full time for demanding tech startups. Yes, we are fortunate to be able to do that while also roadtripping Italy, but between exploring and working there is little time left in the day to do anything else.

That said, I will do my best, because writing always makes me understand myself and the world better, and hopefully it also brings you some joy, or inspiration, or knowledge, or simply entertains you while you are on the toilet ;)

So, back to finishing the post I started in mid-January - can you believe it’s already June?!

At the end of last year I finished reading “Die with Zero”, a book about why and how you should aim to die with zero money on the bank, literally.

Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but the core premise is that you should focus on maximizing your life enjoyment rather than on maximizing your wealth. In other words, you should live life to the fullest by using your money wisely and deliberately, and spending it all while you are alive and healthy.

Side note: even though this is not a book review or anything of the sorts, I feel compelled to mention - because I know there are many of you wondering about this - that the author is not suggesting you don’t leave anything to your children or subsequent generations (if that is what you want), but that you should do this while you are alive. For more on that, read the book :)

The philosophy of the author, Bill Perkins, closely aligns with our own and how we tend to look at life, so it was a refreshing - though slightly repetitive - book to read.

The whole experience made me want to write down what our philosophy is. How, exactly, do we see life? What motivates and propels us to live the way we do?

So, here is my attempt at summarizing our philosophy to its most simple form:

• We are hyper aware of our own decline and mortality, which translates into a focused hunger for *not* leaving to tomorrow what we can do today. Basically, because we don’t know what will happen in the future - how long we will live and in what shape - we don’t want to wait to live a life we love today.

• We see money as a conduit to experiences, and we see jobs as an important part of our lives but certainly not as our identities. We want *just enough* money to allow us to have the experiences we want in life. We have no desire to spend time accumulating more than we need. In fact, we see time spent accumulating unneeded wealth as a waste. A waste of valuable hours and effort, a waste of good hours days and years, a waste of life.

• We believe we will only regret the things that we didn’t do. Hence, we are generally quite open to “risky” decisions, such as quitting our jobs or moving, if that will allow us to have the experiences we are seeking.

All the above believes have led us to the life we have today, one in which we prioritize experiences and are aggressive in the pursuit of them. One in which, as an example, we quit our jobs to travel the world for 16months in our mid-30s. This was hands down the best investment of money and time we have ever made. Sure, we could have saved even more and do a more lavish trip when we “retired”. Sure, it was a risk to quit our jobs, what if we didn’t find new jobs when we were back? Sure, we not only lost our salaries during that time but disrupted the course of our careers and likely tampered future earnings. And you know what? It was worth all of that and so much more.

So, your dream might not be to travel the world or retire early or live in many places, and your philosophy might have zero overlap with ours, and that is okay! The advice here is: get clear on what your philosophy is, and spend your money to realize it. To start, think and talk about the (near) future! We spend a lot of time envisioning a certain type of life in a certain type of place (usually not more than 5 years into the future), painting a picture of it in our minds and getting excited about it. Once we have this picture in our heads then decision making to bring it into reality is so much simpler, even if the decisions are hard (and most times they are extremely hard).

Also, don’t think about this future life vision, or even your philosophy, as a forever thing. Nothing is forever! Life is full of twists and turns, and you can change your mind on anything and everything. What Alan and I wanted five years ago is not what we want today, and that is what is fun and exciting about it all. It’s easier to commit to something when you know it’s likely you will change your mind, and can pivot later on.

I always hated the typical interview question of “what do you see yourself doing/being in 10 years”. I always wanted to scream: I DON’T KNOW AND I DON’T CARE! Ten years is a freaking lifetime. Truthfully, even at 36 years old, I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up. I can probably tell you what I’d like to be doing in one year, maybe three, but even that is a stretch. The only thing I know for sure is that in a few years what I thought I wanted today would have changed, transformed into something new by the weight of everything I will experience from now until then. So, I am going to spend my money and time on making my near future dreams a reality! Of course it’s okay to have some big lofty dreams that never change - such as retiring early for us - but don’t let that stop you from enjoying your life today.

So, going back to the idea of “dying with zero” and our philosophy around money, if you have similar ideas to us then your next logical question is: what is *just enough* money and how do you calculate that? Basically, how do you make sure you don’t end up working for 2 or 5 or 10 years more than you need (and die with unused money in the bank, which is a lot more common that I thought). This is a good question and depends on a myriad of different things including where you want to live and what you want to be doing when you retire. I am not going to go into all of that now, but thankfully if you want to learn about this there are a myriad of resources out there about the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement, and the different ways to approach it.

But, what I do want to share is that in our opinion even more important that having clarity on this number is to not delay enjoyment of life until you achieve that. It’s not about accumulating and accumulating until you hit that - at least not for us - it’s about having a life filled with joy while you are at it.

As an example, one of the core ideas of the book and something we found particularly useful as an exercise was this concept of “Time Buckets”. Very high level, it’s a way to understand what you want your life to look like and have some more specific direction. How? First, draw a timeline of your life from now to the grave (you can calculate your life expectancy or just pick a number), and then divide it into intervals of five or ten years. Then, and this is the important part, think about the key experiences you want to have in your life. Don’t consider the money at this point, just make your dream list.

You might want to have a child, spend a summer in Spain, go rafting in New Zealand, learn how to blow glass, run a marathon, start a business, hike the Himalayas, see the cherry blossoms in Japan, join a nonprofit board, get married by the ocean, take your mom on her dream trip, learn German. The possibilities are endless.

Then, start putting those experiences into the year buckets. This is one thing that makes this different than a simple “bucket list”. Going through this exercise makes it crystal clear that our lives have seasons, and that age can matter. So, for instance, you probably wouldn’t want to put “rafting in New Zealand” in your 80s bucket. You might still be able to do that then - who knows! - but it’s a lot likelier that you will have the energy and desire to do so much earlier in your life.

Through this exercise you might realize - as we did - that some of those experiences won’t happen at all if you don’t start to plan for them now. And, sure, the list will change with time; experiences will get added or taken out, some will get crossed out and others modified. The point is: time buckets help you be proactive. Maybe give it a try?

This is just one example of a specific tool we found useful, but the core premise is: live fully today, take calculated risks, and plan intentionally. We all want our lives to be rich in experiences and joy, but often forget we have to be purposeful in creating that. Ultimately, it's about defining your own philosophy, being proactive in achieving your dreams, and embracing the flexibility to adapt as life evolves.

Until next time!

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My writing muse has been gone for a bit. I haven’t felt inspired to write - or create in other ways - for a couple months. I am told this happens, it’s normal, don’t fret. But I wondered, why does this so-call-muse leave? and what makes her come back?

I reflected on this until a few days ago, when I got dragged and pounded on by a large wave while on my third official surfing lesson. It scared the shit out of me. I don’t think I would have been able to hold my breath longer than a few more seconds. The moment I breached the surface and took enough breaths to be able to speak, I looked at my instructor - who had also been dragged by the wave and was a few meters away from me - and yelled to him I wasn’t going to do this, “I am out!”.

Back on the shore we had a long discussion about overcoming fears, calming oneself in stressful situations, and learning to trust. He was trying to encourage and push me, but throughout it, all I could feel was shame, all I could think of was: what a failure this was, what a failure I was.

And at that exact time, I felt my muse returning. Shame brought her out from her hiding place. For the first time in a while, I wanted to write, both to try to understand why I am always so quick to judge and be hard on myself, and also because I knew this feeling must not be unique. As a society we fear failure, we hide from it, we shove it under the rug. We see it as something that is meant to be forgotten. But because of this we tend to not learn and grow from it.

In the end, that was my last surfing lesson (for now). There were many reasons for this, most out of my control, but the core truth remained: I had not only failed at overcoming my fear that day and getting back into the water, but I had also failed at the more fundamental goal I had: learning how to surf.

How was this possible? A key part of my identity has always been my physical abilities. Put me to do anything that requires I run, catch, lift, throw, kick, etc, and I will do it well. I know I am strong, fast, and a quick learner. But none of that was evident when learning to surf. Absolutely none of it.

Talk about a reality check. It’s like the world was telling me: “You thought you were all of those things, but not always! Don’t get too comfy on that high horse.”

I told myself that maybe it was the lack of connection with my instructor, or the fact he didn’t seem comfortable teaching an “alpha woman” (his words, a story for another blog post), or the ocean conditions, or the board, or simply my state of mind. But also, maybe I am just trying to learn something that is freaking hard, something that needs time and patience and perseverance, and require that all the right pieces fit into place. Maybe it simply wasn’t the right time, the right place, the right anything.

When I told Alan I was going to write about this, he told me he didn’t see what happened as a failure, “it is just a learning opportunity”. And he is right, it is a learning opportunity, but it is also a failure, and that is okay. I think Alan’s response is a common one, we are so afraid of failure that we want to hide it behind semantics. But the definition of failure is simple: “a lack of success in doing or achieving something, especially in relation to a particular activity.” So, we probably fail at stuff much more often than we are willing to admit and acknowledge.

Failure is part of life, and we should be okay with it. I want to be okay with it. I really want to embrace this failure, own it, let it propel me further, make me wonder what I could have done differently, make me commit to what I will do differently next time I try to learn how to surf. Because I will, as I am committed to continue to do hard things.

I am not one for new years resolutions, which I share a bit about here, but having dinner with friends during NYE we asked each other what we wished to start or stop doing in the new year, and of everything I said I just remember one thing: “I want to be kinder to myself”. Writing this is me trying to do just that.

Where are we now?

Last time I wrote we were eating our way through Mexico City, which was really really lovely. We got to see lots of family and friends, and truly live in the city for several weeks, which we hadn’t done together before. I also got to experience my first earthquake - not once, or twice, but thrice! Yeah, THREE earthquakes. Thankfully they were all quite mild, but they still made me anxious. After Mexico City we flew to the Pacific coast of Mexico, landing in Puerto Vallarta and making our way north to the coast of the state of Nayarit, which is doted with cute little towns. We traveled with good friends for several weeks and spent New Years in a secluded home next to the ocean. Currently, we are in one of those cute towns, Sayulita, which will be our base for a few weeks. I can’t say I am in love with this place, but we are definitely enjoying our time in the area. I start my new gig tomorrow - aaaaaah! - and on Friday fly to Nigeria for an offsite - even more aaaaaah! Wish me luck :)

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Not long ago, I reached out for input on what to write about next - huge thanks to everyone who responded! One of the most common request was “how do you find remote jobs?”. And, as I am, right in this very moment, signing a job offer to start my next remote gig (yay!), I thought it was a very fitting topic. So, let’s dive into this!

But, not before a disclaimer :)

My advice will be based on our personal experiences, and the truth is that the (American) tech sector is what we know well. This is also where I believe the largest opportunity for remote work is at. There might be other industries well suited for remote work, and some of my advice will be applicable to any form of job-hunting, but if you are not in tech please take my advice with a grain of salt. I have included some relevant info about our careers path at the end of this post in case you are curious.

As we all know, the pandemic changed the world in many ways, and one of those ways was showing companies that fully remote work is not only possible, but can actually be advantageous for a company. This fact dramatically increased the amount of companies willing to let its employees work remotely, and although this also increased the amount of people in search for those jobs, I think there is still plenty of supply to go around. For people like us, who don’t just want a remote job but for whom it’s an absolute requirement, I believe it’s been a positive shift.

That said, I think it’s important to keep in mind that fully remote work is not for everyone. I know plenty of people who like going into the office and although they like the flexibility of hybrid work, they are uninterested in working fully remotely. Honestly, I get it, working remotely is not all rosy. It can sometimes be isolating, frustrating, and uncomfortable, but this is not a post about the positives and negatives of working remotely - though let me know if that sounds interesting to you! - it’s a post about how to find a remote gig! So, I will assume you are already on board with the idea and are just looking for a little push.

Without further ado, here is my advice when trying to find a fully remote job (in the tech sector):

Don’t overlook your current job, even if it’s fully on-site

I started working remotely several years before the pandemic, sort of by chance. I really wanted to work at a specific company but they were based on a different city. Fortunately, they were remote-friendly, so it just happened. It didn’t take me long to realize the potential of it, and I told Alan he better find a remote job too.

At that point he was working at Google in a sort of hybrid scenario, he went into the office a few times a week and worked from home the rest of the time. So, he started to push the envelop a bit, asking for more and more time away from the office, and he got it! The truth is that once you earn the trust of a company and specifically of your manager, you are in a solid position to request more WFH time and even to eventually go fully remote.

As a manager, I can tell you that retaining top performers and making sure my team was at its best was my most important job. If that meant letting employees go fully remote, then that is what it meant. Once I realized the full potential of remote work, not only for employees - duh, flexibility - but also for me as a recruiting manager - the pool is much larger when you cast a wider net - I became a huge proponent of fully remote work, and eventually built a team of remote employees, and also advocated for those on hybrid arrangements to go remote if that is what they desired.

My point with all of this is to not overlook the potential for remote work in your current position, regardless of what your work set up is at the moment or even what the “official policies” of your company are. No one wants to loose good employees, so don’t be afraid to be assertive about your wants and needs.

Take full advantage of your network! 

I don’t mean you need to know how to be an expert networker. Although that is great, it’s not a must (we are not particularly good at it). What I mean is that utilizing your network when trying to find a job is the surest way to get noticed. Companies get many resumes for any position they post so it’s actually very hard to get noticed if you don’t have someone on the inside. As someone who spent a lot of time hiring people I can tell you that if someone I know recommends someone else then their resume goes to the top of the pile. Besides, if you know someone working in the company you are interested in, then you can also know whether the company is truly remote friendly, and all the other important details you wouldn’t get without having someone on the inside.

In my recent job search, I interviewed formally with seven companies. Four of these seven were for positions for which I was recommended by employees (people I knew) within those companies. Ultimately, I accepted an offer from a company that contacted me directly through an internal referral.

So, in practice, how do you take advantage of your network? Well, you reach out! The point is simply to connect with people that are either working for - or have worked for - companies you think would be a good fit for you, or are in an industry/role you want to learn more about. I use LinkedIn as my starting point, and I share more about this below.

Think of LinkedIn as your connector

One of the first things I did in my job search was to literally go through my entire contact list in LinkedIn and scan the companies people were working for. Anything that sounded interesting I’d look up, which you can do directly on LinkedIn to see if you have any other connections working there, learn more about the company, and even see if they have any job openings. (Note that you can’t just depend on that Linked feature as not all companies post jobs on the site, so always be sure to also check their Careers site).

If I found an open role that I liked within one of those companies, then I’d reach out to my contact and ask whether they would be willing to recommend me for it. (Don’t apply before doing this as depending on the company they might have pretty specific process for recommendations/internal referrals).

But, even if I didn’t see an open role, I’d still reach out to my contact(s) if I was very interested in the company! Managers are always on the lookout for good talent, even if they don’t have an open position just yet. If you come recommended and they know they need the skillset you can offer - now or in the future - then it can work out. I did this even with people I wasn’t directly connected to, through LinkedIn Premium InMail credits. More on this below.

Consider signing up for LinkedIn Premium

I took advantage of their “first month free” offer and, honestly, that was enough time. There are plenty of bells and whistles to it and I encourage you to research and play with it, but personally, I only found one feature particularly useful: InMail credits. Basically, it gives you the ability to message anyone in the network, regardless of if you are connected to them or not.

If I found a company or role I was very interested in but didn’t have any personal connections to, I would try to find whoever was in charge of the department I would like to work in (i.e. Customer Success) and write them. I did this a bunch and got several reply backs, and at least one (which didn’t even have an open role) led to a live chat with the department head and then to be fast tracked in the interview process when they finally opened a position.

Finding the “right” person is not complicated. Just go to the company page on LinkedIn (as an example this is the one for Microsoft), click on “People” and then search for the terms that would be associated with the department you are interested in, for example I would search for “customer” “client” “CSM” etc.

But, even if you don’t find the “right” person, go ahead and still send that message to whoever is most applicable, things can work out regardless! For the company I mentioned above that eventually led to an interview, I initially wrote to the “wrong” person but he still connected me to the the “right” one and we took it from there! Having initiative is seen and appreciated.

Get clear on your desired sub-industries and then focus your research on remote-friendly companies

Figure out the specific sub-industries you're aiming for. In my case, I had my eyes set on health-tech and anything linked to data annotation for machine learning. Plus, I made sure the companies I looked at had a social impact side to their work as this was really important to me. These are broad specifications, but deciding on them allowed me to really deep dive on specific industries, determine the major players, and decide which companies I would be interested in based on their impact and how remote-friendly they were.

Determining whether a company is remote friendly can be as easy as taking a look at their open positions. For example, if a company notes a specific city as the location for an open role then that is a bad sign. I am not saying you should completely dismiss that position, specially if you are really passionate about the company or role, but you should approach it more cautiously and be super upfront about your remote needs (which I expand on in a point below).

Fortunately, more and more companies are simply noting “Remote” in their role location, so my advice would be to focus on those.

LinkedIn has a “Jobs” section and in it you can set filters, including for “Location”, which you should of course set to “Remote”. You can then use all the other filters too based on what you are looking for and then set an Email alert so you get the newest positions straight to your inbox.

Use targeted remote job boards, and - you guessed it - LinkedIn

Sure, there are plenty of targeted job boards that you should absolutely use, but in my opinion there is truly no better tool than LinkedIn, period. Simply put, there is no website as ubiquitous as LinkedIn. Everyone and every company is on it and this can provide you with invaluable insights. As I mention above, I’d recommend spending time on their “Jobs” section and setting alerts!

But, still, also check out remote job boards and others that align with your sub-industry focus! Here are some focused on remote work: 4dayaweek , Remote.co, We Work Remotely, Power to Fly, Just Remote.

And, in case you are interested, here are some focused on impact careers: Idealist, Indeed, Impact Jobs, Impact opportunity, Net Impact, Probably Good.

Highlight your remote experience in your resume

I'm not suggesting you simply mention that you've worked remotely before - thanks to the pandemic, most of us have that experience now, right? ;) What I'm getting at is showcasing how you thrived while working remotely or even because of it. Highlight specific successes you achieved while working fully remote. If you led teams from a distance, definitely highlight that. Also, emphasize if you recruited and got new team members on board while being fully remote, or if you were onboarded remotely yourself. These are the things that make a difference!

Be honest and transparent about your remote needs from the get-go 

Once you have an interview, be upfront about your remote needs! Don’t wait until you are hired to have the conversation. Ideally, the job is already remote so you don’t have to make a case for that, but still, you should be clear about what your definition of remote is.

For example, where are you planning to work from? is it many different locations? inside or outside of the USA? would it be in a completely different timezone? You should ask yourself these questions and have clear answers before you - potentially - bring some specific and targeted questions to your potential employer. For instance, if you plan to work from outside the country but are unclear about whether the company would be open to you doing that, then it would be wise to clarify.

That said, I say “potentially bring these questions up” because you don’t have to bring up anything. As long as it’s clear the position is fully remote, the truth is that some things are better negotiated once you are on the inside. This is something you have to determine based on the context.

Also, be aware that a remote position is not the same as working for a remote-first company. This is important! It’s not the same to work for a non-remote company as one of the few remote employees than to work for a company in which everyone (or mostly everyone) is remote. In the former it might be somewhat harder to get your job done, and you might sometimes feel isolated and out of the loop. In the later, everyone is on the same boat, so people tend to be a lot better and more effective at sharing info and collaborating online. I wouldn’t discount working for a non-remote company as a remote employee, but if you have a choice then always go for the remote-first company (or at least remote-first team).

Be patient

My last piece of advice might be the hardest to follow. Being patient, specially when you want/need to find a job, is not easy. The process to find any job, let alone a remote one, can be frustrating and painful. Timing is important and if you are searching at a weird time - like I was, close to the end of year - then things might be slower than usual and it’s easy to get impatient and think you better start applying to things that do’t really excite you / are not remote, or worse yet, consider accepting the first offer you get no matter the details. Don’t do it! Stay focused, present, and just know that it can take some time to find the right thing. I wrote this when I was in the middle of that funk, in case it’s useful.

Welp, there you have it. The above is basically what I did over the two months I was actively trying to find a job. It’s all quite simple and straightforward, but harder to execute when you just want to get on with it. Thanks for reading and best of luck on your search! If you have any questions, just reach out :)

About our career paths

• Both Alan and I studied Computer Science and have more than a decade of job experience.

• I started working 100% remotely in March of 2017. At that point Alan was working in a very flexible hybrid role, and eventually landed his first fully remote gig in 2019.

• Alan has worked as a Data Scientist in the tech industry for most of his career, he is highly technical and has worked as an individual contributor as well as a manager.

• I have worked in several roles and industries, but primarily in the tech industry (plus a few years in the Global Health space) and in non-technical roles (mainly in Project Management and Customer Success). The majority of my career has been in client facing positions in social-impact companies (either non-profits or socially conscious for-profits). Half of my career has been as a manager.

Where are we now?

We are on the road again! If you recall, we ended our 15-month sabbatical in mid-September when we landed in Tulum. There, we spent about two months at home. It was really wonderful to slow down, reconnect with things and people we love, and create new routines in a place we care deeply for. But the time came to move on again so we took a ferry to Cozumel and spent the last 10 days there, visiting good friends and taking it easy. We went snorkeling, ate good food, got back to living out of an airbnb. Honestly, it was lovely. And just last night we got to MEXICO CITY!! and I am so so excited to be here. I really love this city. What is even better is that I won’t start my new gig until Jan 15th (benefits of finding work at the end of the year ;)), so I got three weeks to explore this magical city before we move on again. Stay tuned!! Oh and send recommendations if you have them <3

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As we are about to leave the warm cocoon that is our home in Tulum, along with its beautiful, wide, and comfortable kitchen, I thought I could share a bit about my cooking journey, some of my favorite recipes and general cooking methods, and ideas regarding how to cook more - in case that is something you want to be doing. Besides, I get asked quite often for recipe links so now I will have this handy post to send over :).

Just like traveling, cooking is a great passion of mine, but I didn’t discover it until my mid-twenties, when my interest picked and I started experimenting in the kitchen a lot more. I had always loved to eat, but didn’t grow up cooking or learning how to cook - although I really wish I had been smart enough to spend time learning from my maternal grandmother, who was an incredible Italian cook. My point is that you don’t need to love cooking today to end up liking it in the future, but you do have to give it a try - in earnest - to potentially fall in love with it.

Nowadays, particularly when we are home, I cook a lot, almost every day and in fact multiple times a day. When people ask me how I am able to cook so much at home my initial cheeky reply is “I don’t have kids!”, but although there is some truth to that, it’s also because I am practical and very organized.

More and more I simply ignore a recipe if it sounds complicated or has ingredients that are difficult to get. You can make an incredible meal with the most basic of ingredients, so why bother? I also always have certain staples in my pantry, and make some dishes over and over that last for a while and go well with many things, like beans and salsas. And, I am organized with my cooking, both to not waste food and to never feel like “there is nothing to make”.

But, what does this mean? Well, here is what I do:

Keep track of what you have and what you need.

To put it simply, have a list. This is what mine looks like today.

Pretty basic, but it does the job. In here I keep track of 1) ingredients I need to buy to make things I want to make and, 2) dishes I already have ingredients for that I should make. And yes, I mix my languages ;)

I am constantly updating this list, so I never feel like there is nothing to make for dinner. Some of the things in the list are basic dishes I always do (like beans) and like to keep in the fridge, but most are either favorites of ours I keep on rotation, or recipes I saw somewhere that I want to make, which leads me to the next point.

Follow accounts and blogs / Have and read cooking books

Even if you are amazing at improvising and cooking with whatever you have at hand, seeing others make recipes or reading them in a book or blog can work as inspiration for your next meal. Here is what I use / who I follow:

• NYT Cooking. Probably my most-used avenue for cooking. Easy to search for specific recipes, ideas in general, or what I have at hand (i.e. “eggplant”) and see what comes up. Simple to organize favorites inside the app and also note when you don’t like a recipe so you don’t make it again. You do need a subscription to it but we also read the NYTimes so have a subscription that includes both and this works great for us. IG: nytcooking

• Blogs / Books. There are many many many cooking writers, these are just some of my favorites.

  • Alison Roman. I follow her blog an also have her books and honestly it’s hard to find less complicated and more satisfying recipes than Alison’s. I am a big fan, like many other people :). IG: alisonroman

  • Pati Jinich. If you are in the USA and are looking to learn how to cook Mexican food then Pati is the perfect teacher. Her recipes are accessible and simple, and as a Mexican who has lived in the USA for many years she is really thoughtful about ingredients. She also has a blog and several books, all excellent. IG: patijinich

  • Melissa Clark. She writes for the NYT but also has several very solid books with many different types of recipes, great for quick weeknight dinners. IG: clarkbar

  • David Lebovitz. Amazing dessert and baking recipes. Oh, and the best ice cream! IG: davidlebovitz

• Instagram Accounts. The amount of IG accounts solely devoted to recipes is outstanding, and honestly quite useful. I save recipes I see in IG all the time, some are from accounts that I already follow but many more are just reels IG shows me because it knows I like and save recipe reels. But, here are some accounts I actually follow and have cooked from:

  • General cooking accounts: bonappetitmag, cooksillustrated, buzzfeedtasty, thekithcn,

  • Specific people accounts (some might also have blogs/books or write for NYTcooking): acozykitchen, rozetraore, ericjoonho, chetnamakan, fitgreenmind, lahbco, markbittman, cloudykitchen, thekoreanvegan

Side note: I also loveee to take cooking classes when we travel. I have learnt a lot from classes and to this day I apply a lot of those learnings to my cooking, both with specific recipes and also techniques. Highly recommend it!

Keep certain pantry basics in your house, always

Everyone has their own “pantry basics”, but the point here is to know there *are* basics you should have to make your cooking easy and effortless. Here are mine:

• Kosher salt! It really does make a difference. Also, fine salt and flaky salt.

• Extra virgin olive oil, good quality but also no need to break the bank! I cook almost everything with it, but also always have vegetable oil on hand.

• Flour, all purpose, whole wheat, almond, and in this house also harina pan (for arepas).

• Pasta, several different types, always a short and a long.

• Noodles, rice and flour.

• Beans, canned and dried. Used for different things, for example I make black beans from dried but usually have other canned beans for chili, as well as chickpeas for a bunch of different recipes (though I sometimes cook those from dried too, specially to make hummus).

• Chilis, fresh (jalapeno, serrano, thai) and dried (chipotles, ancho, pasilla).

• Rice, long white, jasmine, brown, and arborio.

• Sugar, white and brown.

• Onions (all kinds) and garlic.

• Limes and lemons.

• Milk, greek yogurt, cream, butter (unsalted for cooking and an excellent quality salted one for eating on bread, arepas, etc)

• Cheeses, any and all, but the ones that are never missing in my home are parmigiano reggiano (it’s worth the price, and don’t get it shredded) and feta (or queso fresco when in Mexico).

• Canned tomatoes and tomato paste, good quality.

• Chicken (or veggie) stock, go with “Better than Bouillon” if you can find it.

• Anchovies, capers, and olives.

• Baking stuff, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder, chocolate, vanilla bean (mostly for ice cream), and vanilla extract.

• Nuts, I love them all but always have peanuts, cashews, and hazelnuts.

• Condiments: vegetable oil, sesame oil, soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, white vinegar, rice vinegar, fish sauce, Worcestershire sauce, whole grain mustard, pesto, peanut butter, tahini, gochujang, harissa, curry paste, chili oil.

• Spices: at the very least red pepper flakes, cumin, paprika, black pepper, cayenne, and cinnamon. But the list can be interminable here.

Consider buying some kitchen essentials

As someone who travels a lot I can confidently say “you can cook anywhere”, but I can also confidently follow that with “not necessarily comfortably or efficiently”. Out of the many places we have stayed while traveling I can count with one hand those that had a well-equipped kitchen. Getting home to my kitchen and my “kitchen stuff” really does make my heart happy because I can finally cook comfortably. Here is what I consider kitchen essentials:

• A good quality knife. Honestly, all you need is one good knife, but you do really really need one. I used to travel with mine, which I got in the Kyoto market, has my name engraved in Japanese, and it’s always perfectly sharp (don’t ask me how), but I didn’t take it on our sabbatical and missed it with all my heart. I haven’t found any other knife that compares to it so I don’t have any good recommendations, please send over if you do!

• Skillets, pots, and dutch ovens. The perfect amount (for me) in order to be able to cook absolutely everything comfortably is:

  • Two skillets, preferably cast iron but can also be stainless steel, an 8” and a 12” (I find Lodge to be a good affordable brand).

  • Three pots, a 2-quart, a 4-quart, and a 10-quart.

  • One dutch oven, 6-quarts.

• Cutting board. You need at least one really good quality cutting board, preferably of wooden material. The truth is that I have tried dozens of them and I also don’t have a great recommendation yet in this department. If you do, please send over.

• Scale. A kitchen scale is extremely useful, specially for baking but honestly I use it for a lot of recipes.

• Mixing bowls. Probably my most-used equipment. You need *at least* a set of three in different sizes but more is better.

• Sheet Pans. A very multi-purpose item, I like the regular aluminum ones (13” x 18”) or the glass pyrex ones (9” x 13”).

• Blender, a good one! I swear by the Ninja kitchen system that has all in one.

• Pressure cooker. In my house I use it mostly for black beans, but to me it’s essential. The Instant Pot are functional and affordable.

• Toaster. You simply need one, any kind is fine.

• Tupperwares! If you are going to be cooking, they are an absolute necessity! to save leftovers, store sauces, freeze ice cream, etc.

• Other smaller items: measuring cups and spoons, set of colanders, peeler, grater, silicone spatula, tongs, wooden spoon and spatula, ice cream scoop, lemon squeezer.

There are other “non-essentials” that are really nice to haves, like:

• Air fryer. We recently got one as a gift and honestly I love it and use it a ton. I can’t remember brand or model (it’s in Park City) but it’s a pretty basic one and works great so I don’t think there is much to them.

• Pasta maker. To make incredible pasta at home, from scratch! The best lasagna I have eaten in my life we made ourselves using this pasta maker! The recipe was from a great cook book called Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan.

• Ice cream maker. For the best ice cream, make it at home. It’s honestly so much easier than you think, and it’s fun!

• Coffee equipment. We like expresso-based drinks and swear by our trusty ROK. To froth our milk we use this Breville beauty, and this to grind our coffee.

Orange juice squeezer. If not, what are you going to do when you want mimosas?

Lastly, use your freezer

Don’t think of your freezer only as the place to keep ice cream. Honestly, most everything freezes well, and then you have stuff there super handy. I freeze butter, cheese, bread, beans, and pretty much anything I make too much of that don’t want to eat for seven nights in a row. A couple of weeks later I can pull it out and have an incredible dinner with zero effort. Here is a quick guide on freezing food.

Now onto some of my favorite recipes! These are those that I keep making again and again. There are others that live in books and are too long to share here, but this is a pretty long list regardless. I will update it on an ongoing basis!

From Pati / Mexican!

Salsa Macha

An incredible sauce of chipotle, peanuts, and sesame. Very spicy, holds well for a while in the fridge.

Salsa Verde

Chilaquiles

Guacamole

Tomatillo & Avocado Salsa

From Mexican Today

Ingredients: 1lb tomatillos, 1 large avocado, 2 tablespoons of white onion, 1/4 cup of cilantro leaves, 1 serrano chile, 3/4 teaspoon of kosher salt

Blend it all together!

Pickled Jalapeños

Such a staple to have in the fridge to accompany any meal. I generally put more carrots than anything else because it’s what I like the most!

Chicken Tinga Tostadas

A great thing to cook when hosting people.

Pickled Onions

Shrimp Enchiladas in a Rich Tomato Sauce

Big Brunch Enchiladas

Tex Mex Chili

I make it with 1lb of ground turkey instead of all the meat that it calls for and it’s delicious, specially the following day once the flavors have had time to settle into each other.

Corn Torte

For a really “wow” dinner, make this alongside the three things below: red rice, salad, rajas, and shrimp mole. One of my favorite combos to make for a fancy dinner party.

Red Rice

Watermelon & tomatillo salad

Poblano Chiles

This critical ingredient of Mexican cooking is very rarely used raw. Instead it’s charred and peeled to bring out its amazing flavor. I generally do this process for many poblanos at a time and then keep them in the fridge for daily use (I love to throw them in scramble eggs for instance). You can also freeze them!

First up, place the chiles under the broiler, on a hot comal, or directly over the flame of a gas stove/grill (this is how I prefer to do them). Then roast them, turning them every 3-4minutes for about 10min. You know they are done when their fresh is cooked and black in some areas (I like to take them there!). Then put them in a plastic or bowl and seal the bag or cover the bowl to allow the chiles to sweat for at least 10 to 20min. I always wrap the plastic bag in a kitchen towel. Lastly, remove the charred skin with your fingers, sometimes it helps to do it under a thin stream of running water. Then remove the seeds and stem and use in, for example, the below recipe.

Creamy Rajas

From Pati’s Mexican Table

Ingredients: 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter, 1 1/2 cups slivered white onions, 1 lb poblano chiles prepared as described above and sliced into strips, 1 tsp kosher salt, 1/4 tsp black pepper, 1 cup Mexican cream (or heavy cream), 1/2 cup of crumbled queso fresco, cotija, or feta.

Heat the butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat until melted and foamy. Add the onions and cook until soft and starting to gently brown, around 15min. Increase the heat to medium-high and add the poblano chile strips. Sprinkle with the salt and pepper and cook for a few minutes until the chiles have lightly browned. Reduce the heat to medium, add the cream and cheese, and cook, tossing gently, until it thickens, 5-6min.

Shrimp in Red Pipian

From Pati’s Mexican Table

I love any and all types of moles, which btw there are thousands of. But, I really like pumpkin seeds, peanuts, and sesame, so Red Pipian is one of my favorites.

Ingredients: 2 lb shrimp (peeled and deveined, shells reserved), 2 1/2 tsp kosher salt, 6 guajillo chiles (rinsed, stemmed, and seeded), 2 ancho chiles, 1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds, 3 tbps sesame seeds, 4 whole cloves, 1 lb tomatoes, 3 garlic cloves, 1 thick slide white onion, 1/2 unsalted roasted peanuts, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp of black pepper, 2 tsp dark brown sugar, 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar, 3 tbsp vegetable oil

Place the shrimp shells in a large pot, cover with water, add 1/2 teaspoon of salt and bring to simmer. Cook for 20min and strain the broth, discarting the shells.

Heat a comal or a skillet over medium low heal until how and then lay the chiles flat in the pan and toast them for 15-20 sec per side until they become fragrant and pliable. Transfer the chiles to a pan and cover with water. Bring to summer over medium heat and cook for 10min.

Toast the pumpkin seeds in the comal until you hear popping sounds and they begin to brown lightly. Set aside. Add the sesame seeds and toast until light brown, 2 to 3min. Toast the cloves, until they turn darker and are fragrant, 30-40sec.

Char the tomatoes, garlic, and onion under the broiler, on the comal or an outdoor grill at medium heat, turning occasionally until nicely charred and softened, around 10min. When the garlic is cool to handle, peel it and place in a blender or food processor along with the tomatoes, onions, and the chiles, with 1 cup of their cooking liquid. Add the pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, cloves, peanuts, cinnamon, the remaining 2 teaspoons salt , pepper, brown sugar, and vinegar and puree until smooth.

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat until hot but not smoking. Add the puree and 4 cups of the shrimp broth and simmer, partially covered, for about 45min, stirring often so the sauce doesn’t stick to the bottom, until thickened and deepened in color.

Raise the beat to medium-high, add the shrimp, and simmer for 2-3min then turn off the heat. Let the shrimp finish cooking in the sauce, about 5 more minutes, then serve.

From Alison

Pie Crust (Galette)

The only pie crust you will ever need, trust me. I have made it dozens of times and have filled it with both savory and sweet fillings and has never ever disappointed.

Frizzled Chickpea Salad

Bolognese

Bean Stew

Pork Noodle Soup

Latkes

Clam Pasta

Crispy Cutlets

Spaghetti Carbonara

Cinnamon Rolls

Eggplant Parm

Meatballs

From NYT Cooking (you will need a subscription to access)

Lemony Shrimp Stew

Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Bibimbap

Shakshuka

Waffles

Miso Pasta (Alan’s fav)

Shallot pasta (my fav)

Tiny, salty, chocolaty cookies

Baked tofu with peanut sauce

Baked feta with veggies

Baked eggs with smoked salmon

Thai Larb

Gochujang Eggplant

Cod Cakes

Cauliflower and olive gratin

The best scramble eggs

Beet rosti

Meatballs & Peaches

Ice creams!

Important note: I make every single ice cream recipe and most baking recipes with 1/3 of the sugar called for. It’s always more than enough for us.

Vanilla ice cream

Hard to beat a good (real) vanilla ice cream! It’s worth the price of those vanilla beans, promise.

Mexican chocolate ice cream

From The Perfect Scoop

Ingredients: 2 1/4 cups heavy cream, 6 tbsp unsweetened dutch-process cocoa powder, 3/4 cup sugar (I use 1/4), 3 oz bittersweet chopped chocolate (I use 85%), 1 1/4 whole milk, 1 tsp vanilla extract, pinch of salt, 1 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 3 tsp chile powder (I use dried ancho chile), 2 tbsp brandy (I use mezcal :))

Whisk together the cream, cocoa powder, and sugar in a large saucepan. Heat the mixture, whisking frequently, until it comes to a full, rolling boil (it will start to foam up). Remove from the hear and add the chocolate, then whisk until it is completely melted. Stir in the milk, vanilla, salt, cinnamon, chile powder, and mezcal. Pour the mixture into a blender and blend for 30 sec, until very smooth. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerators, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions (usually 20-30min).

Roquefort & Honey ice cream

From friends / family / other

Flourless Chocolate Cake

My favorite chocolate cake! I have never made the ganache - it doesn’t need it - but it sounds amazing.

Gochujang Pasta

Air Fryer Buffalo Cauliflower

Tortilla de papa

Scallops a la gallega

Venezuelan Black Beans

I don’t have a recipe for this as I make them so often, but it’s pretty basic.

Ingredients: 1 lb of black beans, 1/2 white onion whole, 1 white onion chopped, 8 garlic gloves chopped, 1 cup of olive oil, 1 cup of piloncillo (you can find this in most supermarkets in the USA, but if not, you can use dark brown sugar), 1 tablespoon of kosher salt, 1/2 tsp of black pepper

1. Cook the dried black beans in a pressure cooker along with the half onion and around 10 cups of water (until soft, usually around 30min on high pressure + 20min release).

2. In the meantime, heat the olive oil in a skillet and cook the onion and garlic until very very soft, around 15-20min.

3. Once the beans are done, put them and their liquid on a big pot and add around 3 to 5 cups of water, enough for all the beans to be under water.

4. Add the salt, pepper, and piloncillo and bring to a simmer for 20min

5. Add the onion and garlic sofrito, and simmer for another 10min or until the consistency thickens.

6. Let cool and put in containers. I usually freeze half of it.

I usually eat as-is (as a side for my eggs topped with cheese, inside arepas, etc) but you can also re-fried them, by putting more onion and garlic to cook in oil and then adding one or two cups of beans to the mix until it thickens.

The Best White Rice

Ingredients: 2 cups of white rice, 3 cups of water, 1/2 onion, 2 garlic cloves, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

Wash the rice in a colander under running water. Put rice in a heavy pot with the water, onion, garlic, salt and oil. On high heat get the mix to boil until almost out of water, around 5min. Then lower the heat to its lowest setting, cover, and cook for around 20min or until it’s soft and dry. Mix with a fork and serve.

Mushroom Risotto

Ingredients: 7 cups of chicken stock (or veggie), 2 tbsp olive oil, 1/2 cup onion chopped, 1 lb mushrooms (any kind! mix them up), 2 garlic cloves, 2 tsp thyme, 1 1/2 cup arborio rice, 1/2 cup dry white wine, 2 tbsp fresh parsley, 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, 1 tbsp of butter

Bring stock to simmer in a saucepan and keep it simmering on the stove. Heat oil in a wide and heavy skillet (dutch oven is great here!) over medium heat and cook onions until tender, 3 to 5 min. Turn up heat and add mushrooms, cook until they being to sweat, around 3-4min, then add garlic and thyme. Season with salt and pepper and continue cooking until they are soft. Add rice and stir until it’s all covered in the mix, then add wine and cook until the wine is evaporated. Then stir just enough of the stock to cover the rice. Cook while stirring often until almost all stock is gone, and then do it again. Repeat this process for around 20min, or until the rice is tender (but still al dente). Add some more stock, stir in parsley and Parmesan, and remove from the heat. Stir the butter, season with black pepper and serve right away, with more Parmesan on top :).

Beet & Chia Arepas

Ingredients: 2 cups of Harina Pan (found in most supermarkets in the USA), 1 medium beet, 1/2 - 1 cup of water, 1/2 tsp of kosher salt, 1/4 cup of chia seeds

Disclaimer: for a long time I have made arepas without any measurements or exact recipe. Recently I taught a good friend how to make them and tried to pay more attention to that stuff… but, note that this is all an approximation ;). Let me know how it goes!

Turn the oven to 450 F (or highest setting). Peel the beet, cut it, and blend it with around 1/2 to 1 cup of water. You should have around 2 cups of this beet liquid. Put flour in a bowl and add chia and salt, mix. Then add the beet liquid and mix (with your hands!). The consistency should be pretty soft but it shouldn’t stick to your hands, add more water or flour as needed (understanding the right consistency is not super easy but it will be clearer once you make them a few times). Cover with a kitchen towel and let sit for a few minutes.

In the meantime put a skillet (cast iron /comal is ideal here) under medium-high heat, and add a splash of olive oil (just to coat the surface, using a paper towel helps with this). After a few minutes check the flour mixture for consistency, again it shouldn’t feel too hard (it should give when you put a finger on it) or too soft (it shouldn’t stick when you touch it), so if it does add a bit more water or flour. Then shape them! first make a circle and then flatten it while shaping the corners of the circle (again, this will come with time). Truthfully, any shape is fine! wathever makes you happen :)

Place them in the cast iron (which should be very hot by now), and flatten them a bit with your hand or a spatula. Let them be for around 5min, or until you can easily flip them without them being stuck to the skillet (sometimes they will stick regardless, just try to salvage as much as you can and flip). Let it be for another 5min. Then flip again and cook for at least 2-3min each side again, until the outside skin is cooked/charred in some areas. In theory, they are done now and you can eat them as such. But, they will be better if they spend a few minutes in a very hot oven! So, put them directly in the oven rack, around 5min per side. You will see them puff up and become crispy on the outside.

Fill them with whatever your hearts desires! I love them with butter, white cheese (fresco or feta), and fried plantains.

Fried Plantains

Note that you need a good plantain here, which is sometimes difficult to find! Let the plantain become very very mature, almost entirely black. Peel and cut it in rounds. Heat an inch of oil (I use olive oil) in a small skillet (cast iron is ideal) and fry them up!

Happy cooking!!

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Recently, I laid for an hour in silence on a massage table while a woman hovered her hands above my body. She was an expert in a Japanese form of energy healing called Reiki. Normally, I would never seek something like this - there is zero scientific evidence on Reiki’s benefits, and yes, this is an important criteria for me. But, I am always willing to try new things, whatever those are, and a friend who was visiting was interested in the practice.

So there I was, laying on a bed listening to birds chirping and feeling absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. My friend, who had her session before me, was so moved afterwards that she literally cried. When the practitioner finished with my session she told me I was in a very balanced energetic state - thanks! - and also asked me if I wanted to have children because she had seen, and removed (!), a cloud over my pelvis area. I told her I didn’t want to have children but what I really wanted to tell her was: “Return the cloud to its rightful place!!”. But, anyways, I doubt the absence of the cloud is stronger than my IUD, so we should be good.

This experience made me reflect on my opinions and biases regarding spirituality, specially given I have spent a large chunk of the last decade on a place that is considered an “energy vortex”, and which has been aggressively marketed as a spiritual place for many valid and also many BS reasons. Everyone in Tulum has had their astrology birth chart done (don’t ask me what this is), and you can’t meet five people without one of them being some type of spiritual, energetic, wellness shaman.

The truth is that one of the reasons we decided to buy land in Tulum all those years ago was because we liked its “hippie” vibe, and although what used to be a low key atmosphere has long been replaced by a high-on-a-horse Tuluminati aura of expensive and fancy spirituality, some of its origins remain. All of this to say that I am often exposed to conversations and activities that are spiritual in nature, and hence I tend to think more about these things when I am here. And the reality is that I often do an internal eye roll when listening to these topics (i.e. I feel very identified with the reel below :)).

Please note that if you, like many of my closest friends, consider yourself a spiritual person, please know I do not judge you in the slightest and this is not a post about shaming those believes. It is, as usual, a post about me exploring my personal believes around a subject at an attempt at identifying and managing biases.

ellecordova

A post shared by @ellecordova

More and more people, particularly young, self-identify as “spiritual but not religious”, which I briefly wrote about on another post about atheism, but that label has always felt inadequate to me, because my believes don’t fit into a neat little box. Maybe yours don’t either?

You see, I believe that we are all connected to each other and to nature. I believe in the inherit goodness of people all over the world, and on the sometimes inexplicable bonds we form with other beings. I believe there are hyper-sensitive people, extra aware and intuitive of other’s emotions and desires. I believe that mind and body are intricately connected and that creating space to process whatever weights on our hearts is imperative to being healthy. I believe in the power of meditation and yoga and music and dance and friendship and therapy.

But also, I don’t believe anyone has any special supernatural power that others don’t, like the power to the see the future or your aura. I don’t believe in any pseudoscience; not in astrology as a way to discern information about who I am or what will happen to me or the world, not in Feng shui as a way to harmonize your surroundings, not in chiropractic or acupuncture or any type of alternative medicine as a way to improve health.

So, am I a spiritual person? I dunno, It all depends on your definition. Do I consider myself a spiritual person? Sometimes :).

Ultimately, I think you get what you seek. My friend sought out the Reiki session because she knew - even if she didn’t fully understand it yet - that she had something to work on, she was open and ready to process a heavy feeling in her heart. And that is what she did, Reiki “worked” for her. I think this applies to most everything in life, even when we can’t articulate it we know when something is off within ourselves, we know when we need to figure out ways to process how we feel, and that (hopefully) leads us to seek ways to do that. Whatever way you choose - whether therapy, or meditation, or temazcal, or acupuncture - I see it simply as you creating an opening, a space to let yourself feel, to let yourself process. And we all need these spaces, so regardless of what your spiritual believes are, regardless of what your logical or non-logical brain tells you, know that by simply acknowledging your need to process hard feelings and finding ways to do that, you are honoring yourself.

So, who knows, maybe I will do another Reiki session someday, when I am open and ready for it….but probably not. I will, however, continue to seek other practices that align more with my worldview to feel at peace, both physically and mentally, regardless of what is happening around me. And I wish you the same.

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Like most of the world, I have been struggling to make sense of the horrific scenes unfolding on the other side of the world. The images, videos, and testimonials of what is happening to civilians on both sides of the conflict are dizzying and maddening. The reminder, once again, of what humans are capable and willing to do to one another, in addition to the extreme nature of most opinions out there has been truly disheartening.

I am no expert in this long regional conflict or in this particular flair of extreme violence, but I need to put words to feelings, I need to try to articulate this knot in my throat, because when I write I understand myself and the world better. I am not here to try to convince you of anything, though I hope to make you re-consider any extremist stand you might harbor. But, ultimately, I am just sharing my personal opinion.

As someone who is married to a very liberal man who was born and raised in a very conservative Jewish community, I find our position somewhat unique. In this very particular case, we are not in a liberal bubble - as usual - but instead we are exposed to a wide range of opinions from both sides, coming from friends and family that we love deeply. The one thing that’s been the most obvious is that opinions are extreme, they are either on one side or on the other. To be in the “middle”, to be in a grey zone, to have a somewhat nuance opinion, feels lonely and dangerous right now. But that is where we are. So to get us on the same page - or not - let me tell you what we stand for:

Hamas is a terrorist organization that committed gruesome crimes against civilians in Israel.

Hamas does not represent Palestinians or the two million people living in Gaza.

Palestinians have the right to be free, to live in land not controlled by anyone but themselves, they have the right for self-determination.

The state of Israel has systemically oppressed the Palestinians for decades.

No civilians deserve to be terrorized or killed, whether they are Palestinians or Israelis.

Jewish people are not synonymous with the Israeli government.

Antisemitism is never okay.

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s be extra clear: the terrorist attack Hamas unleashed on Israel on October 7th was a deplorable and horrific act. Hamas attacked civilians in their homes and kidnapped concert-goers. They terrorized thousands of people and indiscriminately killed as many. No matter your opinion on *anything*, if you care about human lives, if you have any empathy at all, then condemning the Hamas attack should be simple.

It is also true that these attacks are a (violent and unjustifiable) response to an oppressive system, a response to the desperation of people locked in what is essentially an open-air prison for decades. Have you ever seen Gaza on a map? It’s 25 miles (40 km) long and 5 miles (8 km) wide, around twice the size of Washington D.C. It has a population of 2 million, half of them children. It’s fenced off with basically no open border to any country. Food, water, internet, and electricity is fully controlled by Israel.

When Alan and I visited Israel many years ago, we also chose to visit the West Bank in Palestine, and my most vivid memories of that day are the hundreds of water tanks in every single building, and the tall walls and fences separating the land. “Water is cut all the time by Israel, so everyone has several tanks to have enough water for a few days”, our guide told us nonchalantly. I thought about that phrase all day, and the past week it has been resonating loudly in my mind. When one side of a war can control the water supply of the other - the most basic human necessity - then you know it’s not a simple war between two sides.

More than 6,000 bombs have been dropped on that small Gaza enclave in the last week, thousands of civilians have been killed, many of them children. Half of the population in that small sliver of land was told to migrate or else. To where? How? For what? Forcing a population to migrate or be killed is called ethic cleansing. Let’s call it what it is. So, yes, please do condemn and grief the Hamas attack, but don’t use that grief to justify more terror.

And also, don’t let that terror push you to extremes. Understand that Israel doesn’t represent all Jewish people, no matter where they live. This fact should be central to this discussion. Any form of antisemitism is a cowardly and disgusting reaction to Israel’s actions. And, unsurprisingly, there is a lot of that going around. The Israeli government also doesn’t represent all its citizens, regardless of their religion, and it’s not okay to paint all Israeli citizens as the bad guys. Just as we shouldn’t treat all Russians as war-thirsty criminals and boycott all their businesses, but that is a story for another day. Think about it, have your views always been represented by your government? I doubt it.

Be critical, don’t let the propaganda on either side of this conflict get to you. It’s simple, innocent civilians are being terrorized by both sides, but one has infinitely more power than the other and the support of the strongest military in the world, and that is important too.

Ultimately, I wonder how long this war will go on for, how many innocent lives will be lost. I wonder how will we look back twenty years from now at this moment, how it will be taught in schools around the world. I suppose this is how all atrocities happen, in plain light for all to see. But as you go about your day, know that staying engaged and informed, and not amplifying extremism is sometimes the most you can do, and that is okay.

Here are some articles on this topic I have found interesting lately:

A three-state solution is the only viable future for Israel and the Palestinians

What is Hamas?

Israel / Gaza: Another Way

What’s the Israel-Palestine conflict about? A simple guide

5 books to read to understand the Israel-Palestine conflict

Economic possibilities for Gaza

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I have been feeling restless since we arrived to Tulum, somehow not fully here, but also not anywhere else. In a sort of limbo, reflecting often about how I think I should feel, but also totally confused about how I actually feel.

Being somewhere so beautiful, being reminded often how lucky I am to live in “paradise”, doesn’t help clarify anything, it actually makes things murkier. It’s like the world is telling me that feeling anything but joy in a magical place is not allowed, it’s an impossibility. It’s a constant internal fight between what I actually feel and what I think I should be feeling.

This is a feeling I have experienced many other times in my life: the weight of the should.

I should be grateful.

I should be happy.

I should be perfect.

My internal self-talk never letting go: “What am I even complaining about? Who do I think I am to ask so much of this world?”

Maybe you have felt this weight too?

And then I stumbled into the video of this beautiful song by Bomba Estereo, one of my favorite bands, called Ahora / Now, and things sort of clicked. The song starts with these lyrics:

Estoy aquí
Estoy sentado en el lugar correcto
En el momento correcto
En el tiempo correcto
Deja que tu corazón se abra
Y repite este mantra:
Estoy bien, estoy bien, estoy bien

—

I am here
I am sitting in the right place
At the right moment
At the right time
Let your heart open
And repeat this mantra:
I am okay, I am okay, I am okay

It’s funny how the lyrics of a song, or a line in a book, or a phrase someone says to you in passing can have the power to center you, ground you, remind you that now is really all we have. I can dwell on the past and worry about the future, but neither of these feelings are productive and I know this. I just needed a reminder.

So, I am here, surrounded by lush and beautiful jungle, appreciative of this special space I get to call home, frustrated with the slowness of the job market, grateful for a weekly swim in warm Caribbean waters, overwhelmed by repairs and improvements to our home, joyful at learning new ways to work my mind and move my body, disappointed in the state of the world.

Estoy aquí y estoy bien / I am here and I am okay

Following this simple realization, I started being more and more conscious about being present in my day to day life. And although I am absolutely no expert in this, I thought I’d share what I learned and what I have been trying to practice to be more present each day.

None of this is a mystery or something new and novel. It’s basic stuff, but basic stuff doesn’t mean it’s easy to do! Actually, this stuff is hard, you have to be intentional about it, calculated, thoughtful. But I promise you it’s worth trying.

Here we gooooo:

Move! your! body!

Nothing is able to bring me more into the the present than moving my body, challenging it and feeling my heart pumping inside my chest. Without fail moving my body *always* clears my mind. My advice is to find something you enjoy, not whatever you think you *should* be doing (again, ditch the should!). Whether you focus on one or ten different practices, move slow or fast, in groups or alone, intense or calming, doesn’t matter. What is important is to just do it. Prioritize it. If you find it hard to stick to a routine by yourself, then get a personal trainer, join a group class, or buddy up with a good friend to keep yourself accountable.

Other ideas to successfully make moving your body part of your routine: establish a consistent and specific schedule (i.e. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday at 8am); while working out limit distractions, turn off your phone, lock your room, etc; if you are not feeling inspired by a type of workout then change it up, ditch it and don’t look back; create a workout space, even if it’s just a tiny corner of your room or living room still designate a specific area for workouts (side note: as someone who workouts everywhere she is and moves around a lot I can tell you that truly *any* space can be conducive to a good workout, so don’t let your space or lack of it keep you from doing this).

As we are often on the move I have become well-adjusted to doing workouts at home, lately I have been doing either Heather Robertson’s workouts (free) or Jeanette Jenkins’ ones (paid). There are plenty of other websites/apps and channels focused on other types of exercises as well, I have tried BeachBody, Glo, Insanity Program, and others. Now that we are in one location for a few months I started going to group classes of pilates and also belly dancing, and it has been wonderfully challenging.

Work your mind

As you work your body, you also have to work your mind. Your mind needs to be taught how to bring you back to the present when you wonder into the past or the future, because this is not an intuitive thing to do. Training our minds how to be mindful is hard and important. Meditation is a powerful tool for this, but I will be the first to say that it’s difficult to make it a daily practice, or at least it has been for me (send tips pls!). I have had months in which I am very committed to the practice and dedicate at least 10min a day to it. But then somehow I always fall off the wagon. But, I *know* it’s good for me, so I keep coming back to it. Headspace is a great app to start trying to meditate.

That said, meditation is certainly not the only way to work your mind and practice mindfulness. Here are some other ideas I have put into practice that might work better for you too:

• Mindful breathing. Just as it sounds, you don’t need to be meditating to practice mindful breathing. At any moment, when your mind is wondering and you want to bring it back, just take a few conscious deep breaths. Focus on the sensation of the breath entering and leaving your body.

• Journaling. Write what you feel, reflect on your experiences and emotions without judgement. Even if it’s only a few phrases a day, even if you are just notting them down on your phone, whatever works!

• Intention Setting. Start your day by setting specific intentions for what you want to accomplish and how you want to feel. Come back to these intentions throughout the day, check your progress, and modify as needed.

• Visualization. Dipping your toes into meditation 101, just take a moment to close your eyes and visualize a peaceful moment. Picture the sensations and emotions associated with it.

Get out of your comfort zone and try new things

Learning new things can be an extremely powerful way to be more present. New experiences are often challenging, which requires you to be more present and attentive as you navigate the unknown. When you focus on simply going about your routine you can end up in autopilot, not fully present because your brain follows familiar patters (like when you drive, run, or drive a bicycle). Trying new things disrupts these routines and encourages you to be more present. So, sign up to learn that language you have been wanting to learn for years, go on that solo trip you have postponed many times, commit to learning how to bake, sign up for that glassblowing class, learn how to garden, etc etc.

Create time to do things you already love

Might seem obvious and simple but we very often don’t do this. We get busy and other things and other people take priority over ourselves. But if you want to be more present, it’s important to find time to do the things that bring you happiness. Remember that time is not found, it’s created. You are the owner of your time, so don’t let external factors take over, don’t become a passenger on your own ride. I know it’s easier said that done but take charge, schedule time for yourself, say no to commitments that get in the way of this, eliminate habits that take time without giving you anything back, wake up earlier, and delegate responsibilities so you can free up time. Go on that bike ride, allocate an hour every day to read that book, set boundaries so you can cook at home, stop scrolling and dance instead, get up early and go on that hike.

Practice gratitude

Consciously feeling grateful is a sure way to be more present and appreciate the current moment. But what does this mean exactly? Honestly, it could be as simple as taking a few minutes of your day to think through a few things you are grateful, big or small! For example, right now I am grateful for the somewhat annoying singing of the Yucatan jays outside my window (bc that means we haven’t yet driven them out by all the construction in this small but growing town we live), I am grateful for the papaya with lime and mango juice I am eating and drinking (bc it’s fresh and yummy and not easy to find elsewhere), I am grateful to have people in my life that love me unconditionally. What are you grateful for?

You can do this throughout the day or at some specific times, whatever works for you. For example you could do it right after waking up or before going to sleep, or at some specific times during the day, or simply when something happens that makes you feel good. This morning I was working out and it was incredibly hot and then a beautiful breeze blew over, and I stopped what I was doing, closed by eyes and felt grateful.

Limit your social media / news intake

Everyone gets this, but almost no one actually does it. I could tell you that technology can help you here: “just set up your time limits in IG and actually stick to it”, but you and I both know you will just tap out of it and go about your scrolling. Social media is designed to keep you there, the apps are not trying to help you. The only thing that has actually worked for me is being super aware of when I get the urge to open up my phone, and then redirecting that energy to something more productive. I grab my phone but open up Duolingo instead of IG/news, or put down the phone and grab my kindle to read a book, or go to the kitchen to make myself a snack/refill my water water, or literally leave the phone in another room. Consciously redirect redirect redirect!

A long time ago I also muted most notifications on my phone and moved the apps I felt I relied most when distracted off the main screen, and these things have been helpful as well. Designating tech-free zones, like your bedroom or the dining table, is a good idea I’d like to try but haven’t yet.

Connect with nature

Nature is healing, and has immense power to center and ground you. Find ways to connect to it even if you live in a concrete jungle. Stroll through your neighborhood park, go on a hike, do a picnic under a tree, go camping, or just sit outside. Let yourself be in these spaces, don’t take pictures the entire time or even listen to podcasts or talk on the phone. Truly disconnect from technology and simply be - engage your senses, pay attention - at least for a few minutes.

Find joy in the little things

Ah, out of everything in this list, I am a solid 10 at: prioritizing moving my body, practicing gratitude, connecting with nature, and finding joy in the little things. I am not great at everything else, but at least I am trying :). To me finding joy in the little things simply means: 1) to accept that small and “insignificant” things can make you happy and 2) to pay attention to your surroundings all the time.

When you are about your day, be aware, literally ask yourself: what is going on around me? Even when you are home or in some familiar place, you will be surprised by what you notice. Smell the air, listen to the sounds, look around you instead of at your phone. Pay attention to the flutter of birds, the expression of someone you are passing by, the leaves dancing with the wind, the state of your house plant (if bad, water it!), the tail wagging of a dog, the smell of fresh brewed coffee. Acknowledge and embrace that these little things bring you joy, and ground yourself in that feeling.

Accept there is a lot you can’t control, and let go

JUST LET GO! I know it’s easier said than done, but really, why hold on to emotions in regards to things you can’t do anything about? The world is a complex place, life is filled with uncertainties. We have power over lots of things, but certainly not most things. First up, accept this: there are things you can’t control, period. Then, distinguish between what you can and cannot control, and focus your energy and effort on the things you have influence over, such as your actions, choices, and reactions. Those things that you cannot control? See them as opportunities, embrace uncertainty as a natural part of life. And remember, letting go of what you can't control is a continuous practice that requires self-awareness and patience, don’t be too harsh on yourself, which leads me to the next point…

Be kind to yourself

It’s so much easier to be kind to others than to ourselves, why???? There is no reason! Treat yourself with the same kindness, patience, and understanding that you would offer to a close friend facing whatever you are facing. Literally ask yourself: what would I say towards this good friend of mine if she/he were in my position?, and then say that to yourself. This has been *really* difficult for me lately, but asking myself that question every time my self-talk is negative has been really helpful. Another thing that has been meaningful is setting realistic expectations of myself; not thinking I can do everything but instead setting achievable goals and recognizing that I am human.

Organize yourself

It’s easier to feel all over the place if you don’t have some sort of structure to your days and hours. When you don’t organize your time you become fully reactive rather than proactive, and hence you simply do what’s in front of you / what seems the most pressing rather than doing what is actually the most important and meaningful. So, to be present it helps to be organized with your precious and limited time. Here are some ways to create an environment to foster mindfulness and living in the moment:

• Prioritize your tasks, create a to-do list and prioritize it! Knowing what needs your attention first helps you stay focus and present on what is most important

• Set specific blocks of time for different activities throughout the day. By allocating dedicated time for specific tasks, you can be more mindful and engaged during those periods

• Eliminate distractions, following the suggestions above for limiting social media /news and focusing on your prioritized list

• Set boundaries! Learn to say no to commitments that overload your schedule.

• Setting clear intentions, practicing mindful breathing, and practicing gratitude can also help you be more organized

In summary, the path to mindfulness and being present requires embracing acceptance, gratitude, and joy in life's little moments. Letting go of what we can't control, prioritizing self-kindness, and staying organized can help us create an environment conducive to living in the moment. None of this is easy, but we gotta keep trying, right? If you have other ideas or things you practice to achieve this, please let me know! I’d love to hear from you.

I wish you mindfulness <3

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PS - In the last journal post (as well as in an IG story) I asked for your opinion on what to write next - thank you to everyone that got back to me! - and one of the most common request was: “tell us more about your lifestyle!”, basically: how do we make it all work? And I just want to say, I hear you! and I will write about this soon. Please do keep sending over ideas!

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I have been blogging for several years, sometimes about traveling sometimes about other things, sometimes consistently sometimes sporadically. But, this past year, while I discovered so much that was new to me, I felt like there was only one option: to write. These weekly journal posts were born out of an intense desire to share what I was learning during our sabbatical, what surprised me or moved me, what made me wonder, and what I thought might make you wonder too. I hope it did.

Now that we are back in a familiar place and routine, I have been thinking about how to evolve this space we share. The reality is that our lives are changing. We won’t stop traveling, but it will be different, so it feels that my writing should be too.

So, my dear reader, I ask for your help. Tell me, what do you want to see here? what are you interested in reading? I’d love to know. Please comment on this post or reach out directly in email with any and all ideas and requests. Do you want to keep seeing journal posts like what I have been sending lately, or also more recommendations, stories, and opinions? You can also reach out simply to say hi :).

For now, I am going on a little hiatus, probably for just a few weeks. I need some space to think, feel, and be. Some time to settle into this new-old life of ours, without thinking about what I should be writing next.

The truth is that it has been way too easy to come back, completely natural to get into the day to day routines, effortless to be busy with life and work. I am not sure why I thought coming back to “real-life” would feel shocking, the reality is that it’s been quite the opposite. So comfortable that the last 15 months sometimes feel like a dream. A truly lovely dream.

Where are we now?

We are home, in Tulum Mexico, where we will be until end of November. I am happy to be home, to be in a familiar place, to speak and be spoken to in Spanish, to be surrounded by lush jungle, to hear birds chirp every morning, to sweat every time I move (from the humidity), to swim in the Caribbean, to have my kitchen, to play beach racket and paddle tennis, to see friends, and in general to occupy a magical space I designed and love. But, I am also stressed, managing dozens of fixes to the house, making some difficult decisions, applying and interviewing for (remote) jobs, and planning for all our upcoming travels. But, Tulum beach is at its most beautiful and the town at its most chill, so I am not complaining :).

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I'm writing this from Treviso Italy while in the middle of packing for our first flight in a while. Our trusty car, the one we picked up in Bulgaria, has been on quite the adventure with us. We drove it for over 7,000 kilometers all around the beautiful Balkan Peninsula. Before leaving it behind for a while, we pulled the plug on its battery to keep it fresh, and put a flimsy cover on it to protect it from whatever the winter throws at it.

And speaking of changes, I've got a job interview lined up for tomorrow, and we're landing in Mexico this Friday. When you receive this post on Monday, Alan will be starting his new job. Phew!

Basically, a lot is happening, a whirlwind of stuff, and my brain's in overdrive trying to make sense of it all. Our epic 15+ month sabbatical is coming to an end, and we're gearing up for the next chapter in our lives. The one we're hoping will eventually lead us to the pinnacle of all sabbaticals: early retirement. But that is a story for another day.

Amidst all these changes, we have also been planning where to be after mid-November, when we basically have to leave our home in Mexico to rent it out for the high season. Ultimately, we decided to stick around Mexico and discover a portion of the Pacific Coast, which I have never been to (think Puerto Vallarta, Sayulita, San Pancho, etc). So, we have solid plans until end of February, when we will head back to the USA for a couple months.

I share all of this because people often ask us how we are able to travel so much, and apart from the obvious answer - we have prioritized it above anything else and by now it’s simply our lifestyle - the reality is that it’s because we fully commit to things way in advance. What I mean is, we pick a general destination about 4-6 months before we want to go, keep an eye on flight prices, and snatch up tickets when they're a good deal. Then, we take our time finding places to stay – generally Airbnbs because we need work spaces and a kitchen – usually booking a couple of months ahead, sometimes even more. This way, our travel plans come together smoothly and stress-free. On the last 15 months of traveling to almost 30 countries we literally had zero issues with all our plans, I am still (very happily) surprised by this.

As an example, we know today - September 18th - that starting around mid-April we will spend 3 months in the south of Italy. We don’t have plane tickets yet nor anything else booked, but we are monitoring ticket prices and will likely start planning - deciding which specific towns to visit and how long to stay in each - in the next couple of months. By January we will likely have our entire 3-month itinerary booked. So, I might not have any idea what my job will be at that point, but I know where I will be taking zoom calls from! (note: a fully remote position is a a non-negotiable for me, so I’d only apply and be willing to take positions that are fully remote).

Of course there is more than one way to travel. We've got many friends with similar lifestyles who approach things quite differently; they're the spontaneous, last-minute type, and it all falls into place for them. But, that is just not us, we like to minimize potential stress, and I truly believe that committing to go places months in advanced has been a key reason why we have been able to see so much in the last decade. This is even when we had on-site jobs and could only squeeze in vacations here and there. Besides, you get to be excited for longer! starting from the initial spark of an idea to the moment your feet touch foreign soil.

If you, like us, work remotely, then committing in advanced should be even easier. You can travel slowly, stay in places longer, and don’t have to worry (much) about vacation time, etc. In the end, all you need is a reliable internet connection, and thanks to the growing number of remote workers like us, hotels, Airbnbs, and the like are becoming increasingly transparent about their internet speeds (plus reading reviews can tell you a lot).

Now, you might argue that going with the flow and planning last-minute offers more flexibility, and it can. However, it often comes at a cost – fewer flight options, limited lodging choices, potential budget overruns. Besides, planning in advanced doesn’t have to be inflexible, most places we book can be cancelled until just a few days before arrival so if we decide to follow a different route we can do it without loosing a penny, and there are also flexible options for plane tickets. Although the truth is that we almost always stick to plan :).

If you desire to travel more our advice is simply: COMMIT! Decide on a place, buy that plane ticket, and book a place to stay. Things will work out, or rather you will make them work out.

So, as we wrap up our car for its winter slumber, embark on new job opportunities, enjoy our stay in Tulum, and anticipate the magic of the Mexican Pacific Coast, one thing remains constant: our commitment to planning these adventures in advance!

For more travel tips check out: Where to Go, What to Do, Where to Eat

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Recently I have seen a lot of mentions of the word “expat”; in news articles, blogs, facebook groups, etc etc. The exclusivity of the word - who gets to claim the title versus who doesn’t - has always bothered me. This is why I consciously try to avoid using it, and writing about it is my attempt to appeal to you to stop using it too.

To start, let’s do a little exercise. Picture an expat in your mind. Who are they? How do they look?

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I am going to guess you pictured someone… white and wealthy! Maybe a young man working for a transnational corporation in Hong Kong? or an older couple having margaritas under palm trees in Puerto Vallarta? Or a woman working out of her laptop in Medellin?

But, who cares about the actual definition? Colloquially, the word has become associated with wealth and whiteness, regardless of the reason or length of the stay in the foreign country.

I know people who have built their entire careers outside of their birth country, people that have married, bought houses, and have been for decades somewhere else, people who have no intention to return to their country of origin, and they would still call themselves expats. Of course they are all white, wealthy, and living in a “poorer” country that their own. In reality, they are simply immigrants.

But, being an immigrant also has a meaning outside of its definition. Expat is sophisticated, classy, associated with wealth and status. Immigrant is stagnant, without a choice, in search of better opportunities. So it’s no wonder people want to be expats, not immigrants.

Even when people fit the “official” definition of an expat - someone who left their country temporarily for a job - they will be called differently depending on how they look (race and social class), how much they make (economic status), and which country they are coming from (poor versus rich).

And of course we know a job really has nothing to do with how the word is used today. The retired German couple in Chiang Mai are expats while the Nigerian man working in high-tech in Amsterdam is an immigrant.

The truth is that formal definitions are irrelevant. What matters is how the words are used today. And the word expat is loaded, hierarchical, and used to impose an outdated social order. Language is powerful, the words we use matter.

Perhaps a more accurate and less outdated definition of expat is simply “an immigrant who has privilege”. The privilege of a top notch education, the privilege of freedom of movement, the privilege of a specific skin color, the privilege of being born in a rich country, the privilege of choice.

In a world where words carry immense power, we need scrutinize the language we employ and the connotations it carries. The term "expat" may seem innocuous at first glance, but its implications are far from neutral. It's a label that has been burdened with privilege, linked to wealth, and often intertwined with notions of race and social class.

In the end, we are all immigrants, so perhaps it's time to acknowledge that the term “expat” may need retirement.

Together, let’s bid adieu to "expat", shall we?

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Where are we now?

We arrived to Treviso today! A town very close to Venice and where my mom’s family is from. It’s our last destination in our 15-month full-time travel trip, and I still can’t believe it. We will be hanging out with some of my family, dropping the car here (to be picked up next year for a roadtrip through the south of Italy!), and taking a flight to Cancun in a few days. Although we are sad the sabbatical is officially coming to an end, we are extremely excited to go home to Tulum Mexico (read: tacos, mezcal, tropical food, and the Caribbean, how could we not?) and we have some really cool (slower) travel plans for the next few months! Stay tuned!

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As we're nearing the end of our three-and-a-half-month road trip in the Balkans, I can't help but reflect on all that we've discovered about the region. One of the most intriguing aspects of our journey has been delving into the story of Yugoslavia, and understanding how in many ways the union and what it represented is still present in the hearts and minds of many to this day.

By now we have spent time in *all* ex-Yugoslav countries: Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia, and North Macedonia. The one thing that has been a constant throughout all of them? Yugo-nostalgia. Or rather, Tito-nostalgia, because the Yugoslavia they long for is the one under Tito, not what came after. But let’s keep it simple.

Before our travels through all these ex-Yugoslav countries we expected there would be some people who looked back at the days under the socialist republic with a sigh and mutter under their breath “those good old days”. But we didn’t expect a lot people to feel this way. We were wrong.

In some ex-Yugoslav countries this feeling is a lot more pronounced that in others - in Serbia versus Croatia, for instance - but without fail it has been present in all. The reality is that lots and lots of people miss Yugoslavia, particularly those who actually lived through the years under the union, but also many that didn’t.

A Gallup Poll conducted in 2016 found that more than 80% of Serbians see the breakup as hurting their country. Yugoslavia was, after-all, majority Serb, so the nostalgia there seems to be in overdrive. Even to this day, on Tito’s birthday, many visit his fancy mausoleum in Belgrade to pay tribute. Side note: Tito’s funeral is, to this day, one of the world’s largest ever state funerals, attended by delegations from most of the world. Many of our tour guides all over ex-Yugoslavia told us that when Tito died they cried, no because it was politically appropriate, but because they were fond of him.

But, even in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the country that endured the most horrific of the separation wars, almost 80% of the population still hold deep affection regarding Yugoslavia. Maybe it is exactly because of how bad things ended, how bad things continue to be, that they long to return to a more united country.

In Croatia and Slovenia people are more likely to perceive the collapse of Yugoslavia as beneficial, specially the younger generations. This is not surprising, as the two countries were historically the richest in Yugoslavia and today are the only ones that are part of the European Union. Basically, they are much better off economically and politically than the rest. Our (young) tour guides in those countries told us that people live much better today that they did before they joined the EU, but not necessarily better than when their countries were part of Yugoslavia. A big portion of the older generations still consider Yugoslavia the “good old days”.

Shockingly, we also found Yugo-nostalgia in Kosovo, though it’s important to note that feeling is specific to when Tito was in charge, because what came afterwards for Kosovo was a long, bloody, and recent fight for independence. So, unsurprisingly, that Gallup poll I mentioned before found that most Kosovans see the ultimate breakup in a positive light.

Still, all the Kosovans we spoke to told us that under Tito there was peace and unity, everyone had jobs, people lived well; now Kosovo is small and struggling, with high corruption and unemployment levels, in a limbo, unrecognized by a large part of the world. For more on Kosovo’s story check out this previous post.

My point is that Yugo-nostalgia is present everywhere, even in the countries you would expect it the least.

As a Venezuelan who fled a “communist” regime with many parallels with past regimes across the Balkan regions, it has been specially enlightening to travel through the region. We are all fed different narratives about the good and the evil in this world, so depending on where you are from and where you live, you hold certain believes about communism. Think for a minute about what you associate with it. Is it shortages and poverty, is it education and health care, is it control and populism, is it equality and prosperity, is it a cult to a personality or a benevolent leader?

The truth is that communism can be all of those things and many more. One thing about traveling is that, as long as you’ll let it, it will help you expand whatever narrative you have in your head about anything. Specially the narratives you hold tightly.

But let’s rewind.

Yugoslavia was first born as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, following the end of the First World War in 1918, when four major empires - Ottoman, Russian, Austro-Hungary, and German - disintegrated and opened up space for other unions. Not long after, it officially got a re-brand as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the land of the South Slavs, and during the inter-war period it was, as many other kingdoms, ruled by dynasties that eventually fled as the Axis powers invaded their countries prior to World War II.

The Second World War in Yugoslavia was messy and bloody. The country was split among Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, as well as internal fascists regimes such as the Croatian Ustaše. An important and effective resistance movement also sprung, the Yugoslav Partisans, led by no other than Tito, who would become the leader of the new Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia right after the war.

Although from afar it’s easy to paint all countries in communist Eastern Europe - the “Eastern Block” - with the same brush, the truth is that Yugoslavia was far from the same.

Although initially aligned with the Soviet Union, Tito bravely broke up with Stalin early on. After all, his partisan army was the one who liberated Yugoslavia from the Nazis, not the Soviet army, so he owed them nothing. This decision proved decisive in the future of Yugoslavia. He was a skilled diplomat and founded the non-aligned movement, an alliance of countries that didn’t want to formally align with the East-West/Soviet-American divide. This put Yugoslavia in a very unique position as a sort of broker between the two major power blocks.

Side note: The non-aligned countries came to be referred to as the “third-world”, the Eastern Block as the “second-world” and the Western Block as the “first-world”. These terms were a political grouping, not an economic one, but because many of the countries in the “third-world” were economically poor and non-industrialized, it became linked to the colloquial term most known today.

The non aligned movement was very meaningful during the Cold War and made Tito an extremely popular politician. By then Stalin had died, the new Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev stablished relationships with Tito once again, and the US, wanting to avoid Yugoslavia joining the Eastern Block, kept Tito happy at all costs. Let’s just say Tito was in a good position.

Even more importantly, at that point Yugoslavia was the fastest growing socialist economy in the post-WWII era and one of the fastest growing countries in Europe during the 1950s and 1960s. Tito heavily industrialized the country, built hundreds of factories, and created millions of jobs. There were no major social disparities, education and health services were available to everybody. Tito prioritized education and gender equality. There was impressive economic growth and vast improvements in the standards of living during his 30 years in power. The undeniable fact is that Yugoslavia was not communist Albania, or Romania, or Bulgaria, or even the Soviet Union. Yugoslavia was prosperous, equal, and open.

A Yugoslav passport was an excellent passport to have, as it was one of the few that allowed someone to travel freely through both the East and the West. In contrast, nowadays unless you are Croatian or Slovenian (and part of the EU), you need a visa to enter many countries around the world. This is a fact that many are quick to point out when talking about the subject.

Perhaps most crucially, Tito preached “unity and brotherhood”, a peace & love philosophy that was celebrated and embraced by Yugoslavs. “We were all Yugoslavs, and we used to live in peace” is a common phrase we heard throughout our travels. Given all the wars that came after the dissolution of the state, and all the hate present to this day, it’s not hard to understand this sentiment.

We have met many people that have parents and grandparents who were from different parts of Yugoslavia; ethnically different, yet Yugoslavian in the end. A grandmother from Slovenia, a mother from Montenegro, a grandfather from Bosnia-Herzegovina, a father from Croatia. “It was a different time, nowadays you will not find this unity anywhere”, they told us. And sadly, this is true, as most countries around the region are ethnically homogenous, and those that aren’t are extremely segregated.

But, although Yugoslavia was a prosperous society, free in many ways, equal in most, and open to the world, it was certainly not democratic. Tito was a dictator, and although not a truly malevolent one, he suffered from the maladies of all dictators. He suppressed freedom of speech, persecuted political dissidents, and perhaps most damaging, he instilled an intense cult to his personality. As a tour guide in Croatia told us, “there was no Yugoslavia without Tito”.

Tito died in 1980 when the union was already struggling, but his death accelerated the collapse. Yugoslavia had become very indebted, Western economies went into a recession which decreased demand from Yugoslav imports and this fed the already large debt problem. What followed was what set the stage to the breakup; hyperinflation, shortages, high unemployment, and the collapse of social programs. All of this in addition to Serb nationalist Slobodan Milošević coming to power and pushing a “Greater Serbia” agenda was a recipe for disaster. Skeletons started to come out of the closet; basically all the ethnic tensions that had been swept under the rug during the years under Tito came to light in full force, and the Yugoslav wars erupted.

What followed was a series of horrific conflicts plagued with war crimes including the Bosnian genocide, and which resulted in the death of 140,000 people and in a major refugee and humanitarian crisis of millions of displaced people. (For more on that check some of my previous posts, like this one about what happened in Bosnia-Herzegovina).

Ex-Yugoslav states suffered greatly from the breakdown, and not only due to the lost of lives and general trauma, but there was also huge economic decline, a staggering brain-drain as many people left to Western Europe, and high levels of corruption and nepotism that are still present in most of the region to this day. Even those countries that have successfully joined the EU bloc, although immensely better economically that the rest, also struggle with some of these conditions.

After traveling extensively through the region and talking to many locals, it’s easy to understand why many look back nostalgically at Yugoslavia and the decades under Tito. Obviously the union didn’t work, it collapsed dramatically and shamefully, but that doesn’t mean there is nothing worth salvaging from it, worth learning from.

No political system is perfect, and it would do societies good to free themselves from the rigid dichotomy of labeling one system as inherently superior to another. There is no one-size-fits-all system of governance that is universally "good" or "bad." By recognizing that no political or economic model is perfect, we can foster a more open and nuanced dialogue about the complex challenges we are facing today.

As we say goodbye to the Balkans and their multifaceted history, I will strive to always carry with me the lesson that the world is a nuanced place, that things are not always what they seem, and that I should always question my tightly held believes. I hope you do too.

Look back into the future! And see the paradise!

It is the moment of the construction of a collective idea of economic redistribution.

It is the moment of imagining the importance of one's own defense.

It is the moment of the idea of trust and non-trust.

It is a question of how to enter into dialogue with different economic ideological views.

How to have the potency to create the moment of resonance.

It is the story of a state that embraced socialism and established a nonaligned movement with countries in Africa, America, Asia and Europe.

A state that wanted to practice a form of free market economy under socialism.

And it's the state of my childhood.

We live in a not too big but perfect flat, with lots of light on both sides of the flat, with lots of green between and around the buildings, next to the boulevard and the river.

We studied Latin for a week, and Cyrillic for a week.

We eat a lot of vegetables that our mothers bought after their work at the main market in town.

In winter, we enjoy the tastiest mandarines and oranges coming from the south.

In winter we visited workers’ hotels in the mountains. And the summers were mainly reserved for the seaside.

You can meet children and adults from different Yugoslavian cities, but also from Germany, West and East, from Italy, Hungary, Portugal, Czechoslovakia, Spain, Poland, France etc. It is a time of meeting, relaxation and of course swimming.

Some guests stayed in local guesthouses, while others were residents of workers' hotels, or other types of hotels. Some owned summer houses.

Many of them were workers, all of them were workers. Some had more decisions to make, or rather, they were allowed to make decisions. They were mostly the ones with more education. And some were politically active.

- An excerpt from an exposition in Sarajevo titled “Fragmented Memories”

Where are we now?

A couple of days ago we arrived to the capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana! And wow, what a cute little city this is, I am in love with it! It’s colorful, it’s cultural, there is a river and a castle, lots of green, and fun people. Culturally, it feels quite distinct from the rest of the Balkans and also ex-Yugoslav countries, but the more we learn about its history the more this makes sense. Check out IG stories for more on this place!

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Arriving to Montenegro last week meant many wonderful and exciting things, like seeing the ocean for the first time in months, and most importantly swimming in it, floating in it, being one with it, right until my fingers were all wrinkled. I missed that so much, and the truth is that I still miss it, because a European sea is not a Caribbean sea. But I digress.

Arriving to Montenegro also meant that our full-time travels are coming to an end. Our time here marks one month until we are back in Mexico and “back to work”. To be clear, this is not a pity post. We are extremely fortunate that our “going back” will simply mean we will be working *while* we travel, rather than *just* traveling.

But still, it will be a big change in our day to day lives.

And you see, I love change, crave it, wish it, always find ways to materialize it. I love the anticipation of change. I love what change does to me, how my senses sharpen in a new environment, how a new challenge always brings out a bit of a new me. I love the evolution (of me) inherent to change.

And this year has been an onslaught of change. On a monthly, weekly, daily, and even hourly basis. New countries, new experiences, new people, new feelings, all the freaking time. Constant change. It has been like jumping in a freezing body of water over and over again. I am without breath and exhilarated at all times.

I have learned more this year than I have in the decade prior; about the world, about others, and about myself. It’s been enriching in ways I didn’t expect, and also exhausting, but in a good way. Like how you feel when you finish a solid workout, or spend hours cooking something for someone you love.

I guess what I am trying to say is that this year I have been in my element, and have appreciated every second of it, even the stressful ones - which have been many - and the sad ones - which have been few. And so I’d love for it not to end.

But I am also trying to say that it coming to an end means change, so that in itself is exciting to me. I am genuinely looking forward to what the future is going to bring.

It’s complicated, as life usually is.

So that made me think deeper about mourning, and what we get and not get to mourn and why. Because as with everything in this life, there are society expectations surrounding it. You are supposed to mourn the loss of a loved one (but not indefinitely, as if grief had a schedule), you are supposed to mourn a serious illness or an accident, a large financial lost, etc.

But in its basic form mourning is simply “to feel sadness about the loss of something”.

So why shouldn’t we mourn losses even in the face of positive changes? You can be excited about all the good things ahead and also mourn what you are leaving behind.

You can mourn not longer living alone even if the reason is that you will be moving in with your partner

You can mourn losing some independence even if the reason is that a baby is on the way

You can mourn no longer spending time with your coworkers even if the reason is that you are quitting a terrible boss

You can mourn moving out of a place you have called home for years even if the reason is that you just bought your first house

You can mourn leaving a city you love even if the reason is that you are moving for your dream job

You can mourn no longer being with your partner even if the reason is that you finally left an abusive relationship

You don’t need my permission for absolutely anything, but just in case I want to tell you that it’s okay to mourn the end of ANYTHING! You can hold multiple emotions at the same time, we are humans. Nothing is black and white.

Today, with a year of intense experiences (almost) behind us, big changes looming ahead, and lots of unknowns, I can say that I am both happy and sad, both confident and reticent, both unafraid and terrified. I am mourning and I am excited. I am human.

Besides, as Alan likes to say, I have never taken a month-long vacation, so there is still much to enjoy!”.

Where are now?

We arrived to the darling of the Balkans a couple days ago, Croatia! Certainly the most popular country in the region and this is obvious by the amount of people… and the prices. That said, we are excited to be here! It’s beautiful. We arrived to Dubrovnik and we are staying in a lovely apartment a bit outside of town with gorgeous views of the bay, and there is no denying the old town is impressive. After Dubrovnik we will visit a small town near Split and then spend a few beach days in Hvar Island, before heading to the famous Plitvice Lakes National Park and then to Zagreb, the capital.

In Montenegro we not only visited the coast but also went inland to hike in several of its national parks. We spent the last few days there in Durmitor National Park and wow! that place is incredible. Definitely add it to your list if you are into hiking!

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How to even begin to tell the heartbreaking story of the Bosnian War and its aftermath? A story that has been told a thousand times already, from all possible angles. A story that captured the attention of so many around the world, and at the same time invoked ineffective action from the international community until it was too late. A story that very likely happened when you, my reader, were alive and growing up in a suburb in the United States, going to college in the capital of a Latin American country, or just living a war-free life anywhere else in the world. A story that was quickly forgotten by the world, even though another kind of war is still unfolding here today.

I was four when the war started and eight when it finished. The entire time I was completely oblivious to what was happening across the pond. Even after I grew up I learnt little about the Balkan peninsula, about its rich history and recent conflicts, about its kind people and ethnic divides. Not until I walked the streets of Sarajevo did I realize that thirty years after the war, there is still no peace in this country.

But let’s rewind.

Before I traveled through the region, everything I had read about it called out ethnic divides between Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks, but that was always somewhat confusing to me. Don’t people living there have a ton in common? Don’t they share their history, ancestry, and language? The reality is that they do. It has been scientifically proven that the genetic differences between these ethnicities is practically nonexistent, all being a mix between indigenous Balkan (mainly Illyrians and Thracians) and Slavic people. Their languages, besides using different alphabets (Latin and/or Cyrillic), are nearly identical in vocabulary and grammar, just like American and British are both English.

So, what do they mean by ethnicity? The more I travel through the region the more it’s clear that religion is the main divider. At some point the different groups converted into different religions, either because they were forced to or because they were promised better lives if they did, and then through time have become culturally and otherwise different too. Bosniaks are Muslim, Serbs are Orthodox, and Croats are Catholic.

These religion and cultural divisions sort of blurred when they were all part of Yugoslavia and atheism was encouraged. Religions were still allowed, but it was not socially acceptable to discriminate based on it. Mix-religion marriages were common and everyone lived in peace. Tito preached peaceful coexistence and the truth is that he achieved it, even if that simply meant grievances were hidden under the carpet for a few decades.

But then Tito died, Yugoslavia started struggling economically for a variety of reasons, the Berlin wall fell and communism regimes started falling apart. Yugoslavia followed, with several republics in the union voting to secede and become independent, including Bosnia & Herzegovina. This uncovered everything hidden under the carpet, particularly in areas with big Serb communities, mainly in Bosnia & Herzegovina and Croatia. You see, Yugoslavia was always a majority-Serb union, and the nationalist Yugoslav government of Milošević wanted to unite the Serbs spread across the union and make a “Greater Serbia”. When you look at where large Serbs communities lived in Yugoslavia, it’s clear that war was inevitable if that was his goal.

[Note: This is not a post about the war per se, but if you would like to understand the basics I have included some simplified facts at the end of the post.]

Today, if you look across the Balkan region most countries have become their own islands, with very homogenous populations. Croatia is 80% Croat Catholic, Serbia is 80% Serb Orthodox, Kosovo is 95% Albanian Muslim, and the list goes on.

One official exception: Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is roughly 50% Bosniak, 30% Serb, and 15% Croat. But, in reality, the country is split up and the populations are almost entirely segregated. Not only by neighborhood or towns, but by an actual border. The land is divided, the outcome of the war was to literally make sub-countries within the country.

You see, Bosnia-Herzegovina might officially be one country but in reality it’s two. There is Republika Srpsk, the autonomous Serb region of the country, and there is the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the other autonomous region which is shared between Bosniaks and Croats (each in its own area). There is also a small and very diverse area called the Brcko District which was created later out of land from the two main entities and kind of functions like the other two.

When we crossed the border from Serbia we went into Republika Srpsk, and during the many kilometers we drove inside the country on our way to Sarajevo we didn’t see a single Bosnian flag, it was a if we had never left Serbia, the distinctive red blue and white flag waved throughout our path (although officially the flag of Republika Srpsk is a bit different than the Serbia one, it’s very very similar).

This segregation wasn’t always the case though, at least not in the cities and certainly not in Sarajevo, which was nicknamed the “Jerusalem of Europe” for a reason. But, the war changed cities, and the country, for the worst. It transformed what before were diverse cities in which mix-ethnicity marriages and friendships could flourish into fully homogenous cities or strictly divided ones.

Our tour guide in Mostar, a city in the southern part of the country, told us we could easily meet Croat and Bosniak kids in town that had never crossed into “the other” side of town. This is even though prior to the war Mostar was one of the most ethnically diverse cities in Yugoslavia, with a large proportion of mixed marriages, and a much larger Serb population that today’s 4%. Nowadays, the town is clearly divided into two main communities, on one side Bosniaks and on the other side Croats. As we entered the town from the Croat side we saw dozens of Croatian flags waving in the light poles, the bells ringing on Catholic churches, and only Croatian beer in supermarkets.

This separation between Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs is not merely about where people live, it’s embedded in their institutions. The government classifies people into one of four categories: Muslim Bosniak, Orthodox Serb, Catholic Croat, or Other. Government jobs for these specific buckets - not including the “Other” category - have quotas, so if you want a job you *have* to identify with one of the religious buckets. Most people identify with a category regardless of their jobs.

The only shared elements between these three communities is a constitution, a central bank, and an army (which was recently united). Each of the communities has their own police force and health system, and even their money notes are different! Most worrisome of all, they have three different education systems, each teaching their own versions of history, including shockingly misleading statements of what happened during the war, like this excerpt from a college-age Serb textbook regarding the siege of Sarajevo:

"Sarajevo was under a partial blockade by Serb forces, and many Serbs remained imprisoned in the city, as Muslim military forces did not allow them to leave. Fighting was constantly taking place around the city, and war crimes against Serbs were committed in the city itself, as confirmed in 2021 by an independent international commission."

Even more surprisingly, denial of the Srebenica genocide, the worst massacre of the war, is still a widely held believe in Republika Srpska. Even though by federal law it’s illegal to deny it, no-one there is prosecuted for it. In fact, even politicians are still quite vocal about this believe.

When we visited the country a recent incident had happened in which two young women from Republika Srpska posted the image of Ratko Mladic, a convicted war criminal, and called him their hero. Because they were studying in Sarajevo, which is a short drive away from the “border” with Republika Srpska, the University there expelled them since they broke the law, but soon after they were rewarded by the authorities in Republika Srpska and told they would get their education paid elsewhere. Serbia gladly took them under their wing in the University of Belgrade. Sadly, this is just an example, as the government rhetoric on what happened during the war is clearly one-sided and echoed by the population of the Republika. People there, and in the country at large, are not coming to terms with what happened because no one is helping them reconcile, and perhaps never will.

The division runs so deeply that the country has three presidents, literally: one Croat, one Serb, and one Bosniak, elected for a 4-year term and rotating leadership every 8 months. There is also a Prime Minister, and then each entity has its own president. The Federation (the shared land between Bosniaks and Croats) not only has one president but two vice presidents as well! In addition (!!!) there is a High Representative, which is basically a viceroy due to its vast powers, and was put in place to oversee the implementation of the agreement after the war, called the Dayton Agreement. The system in incredibly complex, and I am probably butchering it (sorry).

So, how the heck do they get anything done? Well, they mostly don’t. Bosnia is one of the most corrupt countries in Europe. A complex system is not good for the people, but politicians - everywhere - benefit from them. Each level of government preaches their own victimhood, brewing hate and division, which also benefits them. Even more depressing, every single person we asked about the current situation and how to solve this deep division answered with a version of “there is no solution”.

It’s important to note that there are exceptions to the hateful divisions and people that genuinely want reconciliation. One of our tour guide in Sarajevo told us he doesn’t want to be put into an ethnic box, “I am not Muslim, I am not Bosniak, I am just a Sarajevan, a citizen of Bosnian and Herzegovina”. In a country in which most of its citizens identify with an ethnic group rather that the state, saying this is a revolution it itself. We had dinner with a kind and open family that just wish for their kids to live in peace with their neighbors. Our tour guide in Republika Srpska, where we spent a few days in Trebinje, told us repeatedly that the key was education, but also acknowledge that the system is broken, adding that the best outcome is maybe a slightly better situation that what they have today, “we can be neighbors, you can come to my home for dinner, but then you can go back home. Maybe that is the best we can hope for”.

Visiting Bosnia and Herzegovina was a wild ride. It was humbling and inspiring in many ways, but it was also a sad reminder of what humans are capable to do to one another, even long after an active conflict.

I often think about how after WWII there wasn’t a big reckoning in Germany right away, there wasn’t reconciliation and atonement for the pain the country had inflicted on so many. It actually took decade for this to happen, for a new generation to say enough is enough. So maybe more time is needed here too? I don’t know, it’s hard to see a solution to what seems like an intractable problem. Echoing the words of many in the country, “I am an optimist, but I am also a realist”.

I wanted to come to the country to learn about its past, and was blissfully ignorant of how that past is still very present in the day to day lives of Bosnians. This was a loud reminder of why I travel, because no matter how much I read about a place, I never really “get it” until I walk its streets and talk to its people. We left the country a couple of days ago and now I am more certain than ever that I know very little about it still, but my heart knows more than my head, and it’s loudly claiming to love it.

A bit about the war

• The war started because there was a split in support for independence, favored by the majority of Bosniaks and Croats, and remaining in Yugoslavia, favored by the majority of Serbs. There was a referendum for independence in which 63% of people participated in and more than 90% voted in favor of independence (the majority of Serbs, which made up of 34% of the population, boycotted it)

• Following the results the country declared its independence and received international recognization. Almost immediately the war started, in April 1992

• There were three main groups fighting, the Yugoslav Army which later transformed into the Army of Republika Srpska (majority Serb), the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (majority Bosniak), and the Croatian Defence Council (majority Croat).

• The Army of Republika Srpska was heavily supported by Yugoslavia (and then Serbia), and as such had a big military advantage.

  • Side note: in Serbia not a single person mentioned the War in Bosnia to us unless we brought it up first (even in history tours) and after visiting both countries and talking to many people I believe it’s because they don’t see it as their war. They didn’t officially go fight there, it was Bosnian Serbs who were doing most of the fighting, and only paramilitary groups from Serbia were on the ground. The fact that the Serbian government directly supported them with basically everything they needed to fight is apparently not enough to take some responsibility

• Also, the Croatian Defence Council was supported by the Croatian government. Both Serbia and Croatia tried to hide their involvement in a variety of ways so it wouldn’t be seen as an international conflict, but rather just as a civil war, and other nations wouldn’t intervene. Their objective was to basically create a “Greater Croatia” and a “Greater Serbia”. Note that the Croatian War for Independence (first directly against  Yugoslavia and then against Croatian Serbs) was happening at the same time

  

• Although initially the Bosnian army and the croats were fighting together, this changed early on and they started to fight against each other in some parts of the country in what is known as the Croat-Bosniak war.

• Many cities were sieged, including Sarajevo, which spent almost 4 years - the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare - completely surrounded by Bosnian Serb forces in a terrifying situation in which people were killed every day by bombs and snipers. More than 11,000 people were killed in the city, and 50,000 were injured. Approximately 329 mortar shells were fired on Sarajevo every day, with more than 500,000 bombs dropped in total. The videos and images that exist of what was happening then will stay with me forever.

• The war lasted for almost 4 years during which a lot of war crimes were committed. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted 62 Serbs, 18 Croats, and 5 Bosniaks of war crimes. Including genocide against the Bosniak population. Estimates suggest at least 100,000 people were killed during the war, 40% of those were civilians and 80% of those civilians were Bosniak. Over 2.2 million people were displaced. An estimated 12,000–50,000 women were raped, mainly carried out by Bosnian Serb forces, with most of the victims being Bosniak women.

• The most shocking and depressing aspect of the war is how much the international community failed to protect civilians, specifically the UN peacekeeping force. In the largest and most devastating mass crime of the war -  the genocide in Srebenica - people had literally gone there because it was designated a UN "safe zone", and then families were separated and 8,000 men and boys were slaughtered, including 600 children. They were all dumped in mass graves and then many were dug up afterwards and drop in other graves to try to hide what had happened. Still today not all missing people have been identified. 400 UN Dutch soldiers were stationed there when it happened.

• The war ended when NATO, finally, got directly involved with airstrikes targeting the positions of the Army of the Republika Srpska. And then the Dayton agreement was signed in 1995, which is what divided the country. The agreement has been criticized for creating ineffective political systems and entrenching the ethnic divisions.

  • Side note: the Kosovo war was fought some years later, in 1999, by the same Yugoslav government, led by Milošević, that was in power during the Bosnian War, but this time against Kosovo Albanians. In this case NATO intervened rather quickly, even without full approval. I think what happened in Bosnia, or rather what the international community let happen there, was certainly on people’s mind then. On one of Clinton’s speech about the decision to intervene he said, “NATO stopped deliberate, systematic efforts at ethnic cleansing and genocide." Later on Milošević faced 66 counts of crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes committed during the Bosnian and Kosovo war.

One of the war museums in Sarajevo was playing a movie that stayed with me, it was set in 1994 when the war was in full swing and Sarajevo under siege. The film shows a tourist walking the streets of Rome talking pictures, he stumbled into a little store that is able to reveal his film in 10mins, so he drops it and goes wait outside. Then the movie cuts to the streets of Sarajevo and a kid going to fetch water from one of the water stations near his home, he finds his friends and plays ball for a minute, then a whistle and a loud explosion, he ducks and runs back home, where he finds his family has been killed by the bomb. Back in Rome, the tourist is getting his pictures back, one of them shows a happy family shot in the coliseum. Same world, same time, different realities. It’s an important reminder, specially right now.

Where are we now?

We are in Montenegro!!! Specifically in the Bay of Kotor, a beautiful aquamarine bay surrounded by big tall limestone mountains and dotted with cute medieval towns. Yesterday was the first time in months that we saw the ocean, and the first time in six months (!!) that we swam in it. It was magical! Arriving to Montenegro also means our full-time travel year+ is coming to an end, only one month left before we head to Mexico. *covers ears and sings loudly to try to ignore reality*. More on this next week!

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Last week we spent some time visiting Saxon villages in Romania, a collection of very quaint towns founded by Saxons who settled the area in the 12th century invited by the Hungarian king. Transylvania - today about 1/3 of Romania but its own region until 1918 - was then under the Hungary Empire. These Transylvania Saxons, as they were later deemed, were mostly of Germanic origins and came from the northwestern territories of the Roman Empire, such as Flanders, Lorraine, and Luxembourg.

This Romanian area where Saxons settled, and its mountains, served as a natural border for hundreds of years; the border between West and East, between Christianity and Islam. The Saxons protected that border by building charming towns surrounded by high walls and defensive towers, with massive fortified churches overlooking it all. These towns still stand today, but most of the Transylvania Saxons who built them are long gone, having left after WWII and then in subsequent migrant waves.

Still, their picturesque architecture and impressive fortified churches remain, drawing locals and tourists alike, making the area unique and interesting, and in many ways defining this part of Romania.

This reminded me of the many towns we have visited across the Balkans in which big and impressive mosques and synagogues still stand, but today no one prays in them and instead are used as concert halls or museums. In some cases the mosques are so many and so imposing that they define the skyline of the Christian Orthodox towns, such as in Bitola North Macedonia.

All of this made me reflect on how much of our present is shaped by the past, even when we don’t fully realize it, and even when we are not very fond of that past.

As an outsider it’s easy to see this when you travel, and in the Balkans it’s specially obvious as there are so many similarities across the region. As much as each country considers themselves extremely different from its neighbors, there are undeniable common threads tying them all together. After-all, their long histories are extremely intertwined, from the Roman and Byzantine Empires, to the Ottomans 500-year reign over the region, to the wave of communism that swept over them for half a century, to their ethnic nationalism and newfound democracies, they have a lot in common.

Today many people in the Balkans won’t have much good to say about the Ottoman Empire - who they saw as invaders - or the communists - who they saw as repressive - but so much of what the region is today is because of those eras.

Food is a clear example of this influence. Peppers were brought to the area by the Ottoman Empire and are now central to the Balkans cuisine, such as in Ajvar, a delicious spread made with roasted peppers and eaten basically everywhere in the region. Bureks, a crispy phyllo pie filled with cheese, meats, or veggies, are sold absolutely everywhere for breakfast and there is little doubt this was brought over by the Ottomans. Juicy kebabs, stuffed cabbage leaves, crispy baklava, the list goes on and on. Even the region’s love for pork has roots in the Ottoman Empire, since due to Islamic prohibition on pork the rulers couldn’t tax or take pigs from farmers, so its trade among locals flourish.

There is no way to erase 500 years of being part of something, anything! But of course you don’t even need that long of a time to be influenced. Balkans cuisine is also Austrian, Greek, Persian, Hungarian, German, etc etc - think goulash, breaded meats, pickled veggies, yogurt in meat dishes, moussaka, feta, and all those yummy things.

Even the communism regimes left their mark on the food, with for example the famous Shopska salad, which was invented by the Bulgarian national tourism company as part of a “local menu” to promote tourism (mostly targeted to Czechoslovakia tourists). The ingredients - tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and cheese - were chosen because they resemble the Bulgarian flag. Today, the Shopska salad is Bulgaria’s national dish and found in restaurants all across the Balkans.

Balkans cuisine is even, if you can believe it, a bit Latin American! When we were in Albania and asked for a local dessert they brought us “trilece”, which was suspiciously similar to “tres leches” both in name and taste, a rich and moist sponge cake soaked in three milks (evaporated, condensed, and whole) that is eaten throughout Latin America. Turns out Mexican soap operas were extremely popular in Albania back in the 90s and an Albanian chef curious about the dessert shown on the TV reverse-engineered the recipe and made it a thing in Albania and beyond! *mind-blown*

In another unexpected twist, we also learned that American involvement in Nicaragua is what gave birth to our dear tres leches, which is today Nicaragua’s national dessert and widely eaten throughout Latin America. Colonial periods everywhere have transformed societies and what they eat, and this wasn’t different in Nicaragua, where Nestlé imported canned milks became a staple and eventually, through experimentation, came together as tres leches.

Language is also an obvious mark of history. Balkan languages were all influenced by similar forces, mainly Roman and Slavic, but each developed somewhat naturally on their own given the context surrounding it. Alphabets were being developed all over the place around the 10th century, including Cyrillic, which was born in Bulgaria and is today used in Russia, Serbia, North Macedonia, and many other countries. The Ottoman Empire didn’t force a language, but their influence left thousands of words still used today.

In the 19th century nationalism hit hard across the region and ethnic groups started modifying alphabets to suit their way of speaking. Then, Yugoslavia was formed and a big chunk of the area became a single country, but still many different languages were spoken. Confused much? me too. Today each country in the Balkans officially has its own language; many are entirely different, others share features, and some speak essentially the same language but with regional differences or using different alphabets.

It's been very interesting to travel across the region and hear and read the different languages, all connected in some way. The most shocking of all was arriving to Romania, as for the first time in a while we could read and somewhat understand what was being written; Romanian is a Romance language, just like Spanish, and it shares many similarities with Italian!

And then we arrive at the forbidden topic: religion! Much of what countries fervently believe in today was forced on them - or promoted with promises of better lives - back in the day, but no one like to tell that story. Latin America is a great example of this, which is mostly Roman Catholic simply because the Spaniards colonized that land and forced their religion onto the native population. Today that religion is an integral part of our culture, as religion is in so much of the world.

The Balkans region has a unique intersection of Orthodox Christianity, Islam, and Roman Catholic communities. A mix and match that in combination with the many ethnicities present in the region has led to countless violent conflicts. This religion mosaic came to develop based on who was ruling which piece of land back in the day, which benefits were granted to which believers, which Empire had more influence in which areas, and which ruler tried harder to squash any other believes but their own, among many many other factors.

The region is even more unique because they also had half a century of communist rule, which preached atheism; sometimes forced - as in Albania - and sometimes a strong suggestion - as in Bulgaria. But, either way, atheism influenced society profoundly and this is obvious in two, somewhat contradictory, ways: a big chunk of people are either atheists or very “light” believers (they would say they believe in God but never pray, for instance), and the other are fervent believers, as if to get back all those those decades they could’t be. This split is interestingly not a young versus old divide, such as in much of the world, mostly because the older generation lived through communism and many were, and still are, atheists.

During the Ottomans rule many people converted to Islam and today there are muslim communities spread throughout the region, and also majority-muslim countries such as Albania, Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. We are yet to visit Bosnia and Herzegovina but we spent time in the other two, and as someone who has visited many other majority muslim countries and has come to expect some restrictions, I was very surprised by how liberally they practice the religion. Think women not wearing hijabs and alcohol and pork being sold almost everywhere, as an example. It has been refreshing to travel throughout the region and go from Orthodox Christian countries to Muslim ones, with the only clear difference being how many churches versus mosques there are, nothing else highlighting a change in the majority religion.

As I reflect on our journey through the Balkans, I am struck by the undeniable influence of history on the present. The past has left an indelible mark on these lands; on what they eat, what they speak, what they believe in, and much much more. Amongst all the complexities and conflicts that shape the region, there is so much that unites them. The past may shape us, but it is our choices in the present that determine the path ahead.

Where are we now?

We have spent about a week in Serbia and what a ride it has been. We started in Novi Sad, a beautiful town known for being one of the most liberal places in Serbia, and it delivered. Then we made our way to the capital, Belgrade, where we are at right now. A big graffiti welcomed us to the city, “Kosovo is Serbia”, and the truth is that those words have set the tone for our time here. We have made it a point - in a more direct way than usual - to interact with locals and have, sometimes pretty tense, conversations about Serbia’s past, how it’s perceived by outsiders like us, and how they view it. So far it has been both enlightening and depressing. In a couple of days we are headed to Bosnia and Herzegovina so more on all of this next week.

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“Tapar el sol con un dedo” or “to cover the sun with a finger”, is a commonly used phrase in Spanish, and it means to attempt to hide something that is too conspicuous, to pretend that something obvious is not actually there.

We spent about two weeks in Bulgaria and the country was memorable in many ways - the food has been our favorite in the Balkans, we stumbled into many enriching cultural events, the people are super kind and welcoming, and it’s naturally gifted. But, unfortunately, one of those memorable ways was the amount of swastikas graffitied on the walls of every city we visited in the country.

Why, we kept wondering, don’t they scrub them off? This is what happens in many cities around the world. A swastika will appear in the streets of a city and just as quickly be cleaned off. In many cases there will even be an investigation, as it’s considered a hate crime.

In Bulgaria? Well, the policy seems to be to ignore.

When we asked a tour guide he simply shrugged, “sure, graffitis are illegal, but no one cares too much about them”

“But… these are not just any graffitis, these are swastikas”, I answered dumbfounded

“It’s just some rebellious kids, a few hooligans, they don’t mean much by it”

Speechless, I thought but didn’t say: do you honestly think this is a meaningless symbol? are you telling me these “kids” are so dumb they don’t know what it means? what about the other symbols surrounding the swastika: the Celtic cross, the number 88 and the year 1914? These are all well-known neo-Nazi symbols.

No, it’s not meaningless, the message is clear for anyone who cares to pay attention

We found this blaze attitude towards their swastikas-covered cities in most conversation we had with locals. This really caught our attention and made us want to dig more, so throughout our time in the country we were very deliberate in asking and probing (and scanning every wall) to try to understand this perspective.

Just as soon as we noticed the swastikas we also noticed locals tip toeing around Bulgaria’s role during WWII. Some would talk at length about Bulgaria’s old history -which goes back 6,000 years! - but then simply skip over the war period. Nothing to see here, it felt they were saying. So of course we wanted to see.

When the topic of WWII came up, either because we directly asked about it or it was necessary context for something that was being said, it was framed as if Bulgaria was a victim, “we were forced to join the Axis powers”, “we didn’t want anything to do with the war!”, “we actually saved our Jewish population”, etc.

All of it felt a little forced, a little too convenient to be totally true.

So off we went into the internets 😉 and the story is, as expected, a lot more complicated.

A few basics to start. Bulgaria was for a very brief period neutral during the war, but soon after they joined the Axis powers, thirsty for territorial gains. Many countries joined the war for this reason: Germany promised them land. Bulgaria had actually lost a lot of it at the end of WWI, so they were eager to retake it. The Bulgarian military didn’t actively participate in some of the Nazi’s nearby invasions, but they eagerly occupied (or liberated depending on who you ask) those territories once the governments surrendered, such as in Northern Greece and Eastern Yugoslavia.

One of the reasons I love seeing a region, such as the Balkans, rather than a single country is because we get to hear many overlapping histories told in widely different ways. We arrived to Bulgaria from what is today North Macedonia, and was then part of Yugoslavia. North Macedonia was occupied by the Bulgarian military during the war, and although most of the population living there actually welcomed the Bulgarians for various reasons, it’s also a fact that the Bulgarian military deported more than 11,000 Jews - almost the entire Jewish population of the regions they occupied - to their deaths in the Treblinka concentration camp. Bulgaria even financed the deportation, an agreement that happen nowhere else.

I’d bet you will not hear this fact while traveling in Bulgaria, certainly not without a caveat regarding how they were forced to deport them. But, the one thing you will be told is that Bulgaria “saved the Jews from the Holocaust”. And it’s absolutely true that that the Jewish population living in Bulgaria at that time - not the ones living in occupied territories - were not deported. This is a source of immense national pride, as it should be. But, when you understand the full history, it kinda feels like a get-out-of-jail-free card.

So, surprise! it’s complicated. Bulgaria seems to be so many things at once, and aren’t we all?

(side note: there is a lot of contention between North Macedonia and Bulgaria regarding the events surrounding WWII and how each country portrays them today, but that is story for another day.)

Back to the present and the swastikas on walls that no one seems to pay much attention to. Although I don’t know for certain what leads to this indifference, my guess would be that it has something to do with confronting uncomfortable pieces of their past.

In one of the tours we took, our guide told us indignantly and in reference to the communism regime that took power after the war,“the communists even called our leader a fascist!”. Again, I thought but didn’t say, because he probably was, as many other European leaders during that time.

In most places around the Balkans region (Albania has been an exception), we have found the commentary towards WWII pretty muted. The topic is either entirely avoided by tour guides or simply discounted with comments that suggest there wasn’t wide support for fascism, such as “there was *a single* general that led us to war!”. This is a naive viewpoint.

It’s also obvious that the motivation for this deliberate blindspot is their communal hate for communism, and the fact that fascism and the war had a lot to do with communism raising to power. And about their hate for communism they will talk endlessly, and honestly I can’t blame them for this. I can only hope we Venezuelans can speak about our current horrific “communist” regime in the past tense someday, and I also hope we will acknowledge the valid reasons why it came to power. But, I was still shocked when one Romanian tour guide referred to their country’s late switch in WWII to join the Allies, and Russia, as “a bad decision”. Because I’d take Russia over the Nazis any day, and I know that is a lot to say today, but still.

During that tour in Bulgaria in which the swastikas were dismissed as being done by “just a few hooligans”, Alan asked if there was a far-right party and who was voting for them; “yeah, those same hooligans vote for them, and they won some seats in the last election”, the tour guide replied nonchalantly. Turns out the ultranationalist Vazrazhdane party got 14% of the vote in Bulgaria’’s most recent parliamentary election, which made it the third largest party in the parliament. These are certainly not just some powerless hooligans.

So, it feels that Bulgaria - but not only Bulgaria - is happy to block the sun with a finger and pretend that there was no fascist support then, and that there is no far-right support now.

As it often is, the lesson in this case is a sobering one. Europe’s far right is winning more and more seats and elections, from Italy to France to Sweden, and some are still naive about what this might mean.

Why don’t we just face the sun? Let it shine on your face, let it remind you there is darkness too.

Where are we now?

We just spent a few days in Brașov, a town located north of Bucharest in the historic region of Transylvania in Romania. I am completely smitten by it! The architecture, the nature surrounding it, the pastel colors, the weather (so much cooler!!), everything about it is just *chef’s kiss*. We are leaving today to what I am sure will be another very cute town, called Sighișoara, but before we head there we are driving a portion of the famous Transfăgărășan mountain road! More on that later (check IG for real time pics!). Alan’s mom left this morning to visit Alan’s brother and his family in England, so it’s back to us two for a while.

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I recently had a birthday (36!!!). The following day I opened Facebook for my annual visit to check the birthday messages from the dwindling amount of people who are still using it - thank you, btw, for all the beautiful wishes I got that day! Facebook showed me one of those “check the silly things you posted and how you looked a long time ago” pic (above).

I stared at the collage from a long ago birthday; Alan’s and my face smooched in the center, surrounded by pics of the food we ate to celebrate - I guess some things haven’t changed. In the caption I wrote a sentence about the celebration and ended it with: “I am so blessed!”.

That sentence struck me because the night before, after a celebratory dinner, I had written something very similar: “Entirely and absolutely blessed”.

The similar messages made me reflect on the last two decades of my life and made me realize that the underlining feeling for most of that time has been a deep feeling of gratitude.

The more I thought about the past couple decades the more it was clear that even when I had felt depressed or lost, I had also felt fortunate. Gratitude can be layered - I guess all feelings can - and even in my darkest hours gratitude has always accompanied me. Sometimes it’s the background soundtrack, playing softly and easy to forget, but clear as day if you pay the tiniest bit of attention. Sometimes it’s so loud I can barely hear anything else. But it’s present, always.

When I first arrived in Texas more than 15 years ago as a 20-year old Venezuelan immigrant, I felt a deep sense of loss. Loss of friends and family, loss of love, loss of community and language, loss of day to day routines and comfort, loss of a warm culture, loss for all the “what ifs”. This feeling of sorrow stayed with me for a long time. I know now that I was depressed, but back then I attributed my mental state and physical sickness to simply having to get used to the new life I never asked for or wanted. But, surprising to me even to this day, right next to the feeling of hopelessness there was gratitude. And the truth is that there were many reasons to feel fortunate; we had been able to emigrate from a struggling country, my father had a job, I would be able to transfer credits and finish College, we were doing okay.

There have been other times too, when life was complicated and stressful, tiring and confusing. Still, I can clearly see gratitude around, floating like a cloud around me, present but unobtrusive.

I think feeling grateful - to me - has been the secret to a fulfilling and happy life.

The fact that gratitude is good for you is not particularly insightful - there is a ton of research about it - but realizing how much of a part it has played in my life has been a revelation. Now that it’s as clear as day, I want to hold on to it, cultivate it, water it, sing to it, make it an altar.

Because gratefulness grounds me and lifts me up at the same time, and what more could I ask for?

A couple nights ago we stumbled into a Latin concert. Mind you, we were in the small town of Veliko Tarnovo in the north of Bulgaria. The moment I stepped into the low-ceiling cavernous little room the concert was at, the band was playing “Soledad y el Mar” by Natalia Lafourcade. The shock of listening to this moving song by a Mexican artist I love deeply in a small room of a Bulgarian bar was like jumping into freezing water, at first confusing and then absolutely exhilarating. The band of two Argentinians, a Peruvian, and a Polish played Latin songs the entire night, and we sang and danced to Salsa and Cumbia, even when the electricity went out for a few minutes.

It was a beautiful night, and also very sentimental. It had been a very long time since I felt as nostalgic. It’s hard to explain the longing I feel for the country I was born and raised in and how the knot in me often comes untangled when listening and dancing to Latin music. But that is a post for another day. My point is that I was both joyous and sorrowful, but above all, I was so very grateful. Grateful for the magical coincidence of stumbling into the concert, for the pleasure of singing out loud in my native language while in a far away country, for the release of moving my hips to the rhythm, for being a proud Latina.

I feel very blessed today, but I have the sense that whatever happens in my life, I will always find a way to feel that way. And for that, I am forever grateful.

Where are we now?

We arrived to Bucharest Romania yesterday, as did Alan’s mom who is visiting us for about a week (from Mexico City)! We are excited to start exploring this new-to-us country, starting with its capital! Bucharest is actually the first place in the Balkans we are staying for five nights, so I am excited about taking it easy, although we have been good about this lately :). It’s oppressively hot over here, so that will certainly dictate some of what we end up doing. The plan is a couple of walking tours, many museums, and of course, good food! Let me know if you have any recommendations for the city!