what should i read before i visit paris?

I signed up for a cheap flight list this past fall, and I watched the deals arrive in my inbox every week: a mistake fare from Toronto to Italy here, an incredible deal from San Francisco to Shanghai there. It didn’t feel like I would ever find that elusive combo of timing, price, and departure and destination cities that would work for me.  Then one day it happened.  A trip from New York (easily accessible from DC) to Paris, for less than the cost of my annual trips home to Seattle.  I picked my dates and booked a late-September trip to Paris! 

It hit me a couple of days later: I don’t know anything about Paris (or France!), AND I don’t speak French.  Spanish, sí.  Portuguese, sim.  French, non!  Cue: research time!  I ordered the latest Lonely Planet Paris travel guide, followed the advice on Oh Happy Day!’s guide to booking a Parisian AirBnB, and then I downloaded the Duolingo language learning app to my phone.  So I’m working on the language, and I’ve got my lodging and the general logistics figured out. 

BUT.  I want to be a little more prepared than that.  I want to have some vivid images in my mind’s eye to compare to the real thing. I read A Tale of Two Cities in high school, but I couldn’t think of another Paris-set book that had made a lasting impression.  So, I needed to construct a Paris-centric reading list.  Nothing too ambitious, you understand – just enough to give me a taste and keep me excited for my trip in the months to come. I asked friends and family for recommendations and put one book on the list that I’d been meaning to read anyway.

Books on my Paris reading list:

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery – I’ve owned this book for several years, but I haven’t read it.  It was recommended with high praise.

French Milk by Lucy Knisley – I read (and loved!) Knisley’s graphic memoir Relish, but I don’t know if I would have ever picked up this earlier comic if I hadn’t been planning my trip.

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway – I’ve only ever read Hemingway’s short stories, but my friend (and all-things-French expert!) Lauren suggested this one.

Paris Buildings and Monuments by Michel Poisson – My uncles are architects, gourmets and world travelers.  They lent me this out-of-print book so that I can get up to speed on the visual environment I’ll be experiencing.

Well friends, I want to open the floor to you.  What else MUST I read before I go to Paris?

my paris kitchen

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get all excited about a book, and then it arrives and I won’t touch it.  Am I intimidated?  Procrastinating?  Saving it for the perfect day and mood?  I haven’t figured out that part of my psyche yet.  The latest victim of this “waiting game” was David Lebovitz’s cookbook My Paris Kitchen: Recipes and Stories.  Visually, it’s a gorgeous volume, and Lebovitz has a way with words.  So why did it sit on the side table untouched for almost 5 months?  That’s a mystery for another day.  I’d better get back to telling you how great it is!

A collection of stories and 100 sweet and savory French-inspired recipes from popular food blogger David Lebovitz, reflecting the way Parisians eat today and featuring lush photography taken around Paris and in David's Parisian kitchen.

It’s been ten years since David Lebovitz packed up his most treasured cookbooks, a well-worn cast-iron skillet, and his laptop and moved to Paris. In that time, the culinary culture of France has shifted as a new generation of chefs and home cooks—most notably in Paris—incorporates ingredients and techniques from around the world into traditional French dishes.

 In My Paris Kitchen, David remasters the classics, introduces lesser-known fare, and presents 100 sweet and savory recipes that reflect the way modern Parisians eat today. You’ll find Soupe à l’oignon, Cassoulet, Coq au vin, and Croque-monsieur, as well as Smoky barbecue-style pork, Lamb shank tagine, Dukkah-roasted cauliflower, Salt cod fritters with tartar sauce, and Wheat berry salad with radicchio, root vegetables, and pomegranate. And of course, there’s dessert: Warm chocolate cake with salted butter caramel sauce, Duck fat cookies, Bay leaf poundcake with orange glaze, French cheesecake...and the list goes on. David also shares stories told with his trademark wit and humor, and lush photography taken on location around Paris and in David’s kitchen reveals the quirks, trials, beauty, and joys of life in the culinary capital of the world.

In My Paris Kitchen, blogger/chef/celebrated food writer David Lebovitz invites the reader into his own kitchen.  As is evident from the cookbook’s title, Lebovitz makes his home in Paris, France, and has adapted his cooking (and baking!) to his surroundings.  He visits local markets and shops and is dedicated to making regional dishes with the best ingredients, and then to telling the world about it.  His particular fusion of American and French food sensibility (and the stories that go with them) is fascinating, mouth-watering, and inspiring by turns.  This book may well spark a desire within the reader to pack up and make an Atlantic crossing.  That French market rotisserie chicken sounds divine.

With most cookbooks I can tell pretty quickly that either the food or the writing is the chef’s sweet spot.  I mean, if they’ve gotten to the point of writing a cookbook, I assume that they’re freakishly talented in both areas, but usually I can tell if they’re a writer who happens to be a great cook/photographer, or a professional cook with a good story or restaurant to rep. David Lebovitz is an equally brilliant writer and chef.  His writing put me right in the midst of the modern Paris cooking scene, and his recipes sent me to foodie heaven.  Color me impressed!

I firmly believe that no cookbook review is complete without a recipe test.  I had the ingredients on hand to make the individual chocolate cakes with salted dulce de leche, so I made those first.  Verdict?  Very rich, and a tad too salty.  The salt was toned down when they were served with vanilla ice cream, as the recipe suggested.  But I had 6 little pots of extremely rich chocolate dessert, and I was NOT going to go into a sugar coma for a cookbook review, so I pawned them off on the roommates and scrapped the rest. 

I decided to host a dinner party for my next taste test, and prepared chicken with mustard (the photo on the cookbook cover!), celery root puree, and winter salad.  HOLY GOODNESS, Batman!  Like, 5 stars across the board.  All of it was amazing, and I impressed both my guests and myself.  Just… so good.  I’m going all gooey and happy just remembering it.  David Lebovitz, you and your Paris kitchen win all the things.

So, I hosted a successful dinner party, loved the food, and was all-around awed by the writing.  BUT… (+10 points if you knew there was a qualifier coming)  I am not a fussy cook.  Baking is more my thing, and while I’m happy to follow arcane instructions for a pastry payoff, I’m less likely to put in hours of prep work (and $$) while cooking.  It comes down to the fact that I can’t see myself pulling this book down off the shelf more than once a year.  And a cookbook should be loved and used more often than that. 

What does that mean in real terms?  I can recommend it whole-heartedly to intermediate cooks, especially those with a yen for international cuisine.  And I can appreciate its brilliance.  That said, My Paris Kitchen won’t live on my shelf.  I’m not ready for it yet.  Maybe in 10 more years.  In the meantime, I can honestly recommend it for really marvelous food, great writing, and an authentic French experience.  I can see why it was on so many best cookbook of the year lists.  It’s excellent.

Recommended for: intermediate-level cooks (and above), anyone interested in the modern Parisian food scene, and those who appreciate superb writing.

Interested in other food-related posts?  Check out Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking!

Fine print: I received a copy of this book from Blogging for Books for review consideration.

the whole fromage (+ giveaway!)

We all have to eat to live.  Eating well is an art form and, for the French, a necessity.  After all, France is the birthplace of some of the most recognizable foods and food traditions in the world.  One of those time-honored gustatory categories is cheese.  Kathe Lison’s The Whole Fromage: Adventures in the Delectable World of French Cheese is an American’s take on French cheese – from basic history of the major French varieties to cheesemaking techniques to tastings to serendipitous encounters with cheese producers.

The French, sans doute, love their fromages. And there’s much to love: hundreds of gloriously pungent varieties—crumbly, creamy, buttery, even shot through with bottle-green mold. So many varieties, in fact, that the aspiring gourmand may wonder: How does one make sense of it all?

In The Whole Fromage, Kathe Lison sets out to learn what makes French cheese so remarkable—why France is the “Cheese Mother Ship,” in the words of one American expert. Her journey takes her to cheese caves tucked within the craggy volcanic rock of Auvergne, to a centuries-old monastery in the French Alps, and to the farmlands that keep cheesemaking traditions alive. She meets the dairy scientists, shepherds, and affineurs who make up the world of modern French cheese, and whose lifestyles and philosophies are as varied and flavorful as the delicacies they produce. Most delicious of all, she meets the cheeses themselves—from spruce-wrapped Mont d’Or, so gooey it’s best eaten with a spoon; to luminous Beaufort, redolent of Alpine grasses and wildflowers, a single round of which can weigh as much as a Saint Bernard; to Camembert, invented in Normandy but beloved and imitated across the world.

With writing as piquant and rich as a well-aged Roquefort, as charming as a tender springtime chèvre, and yet as unsentimental as a stinky Maroilles, The Whole Fromage is a tasty exploration of one of the great culinary treasures of France.

Lison introduces herself as a native of Wisconsin with dairy running in her family line.  That doesn’t exclude her from having early, beloved memories of Kraft macaroni and cheese, but it does provide a starting point for her adventures in French cheese knowledge: ground zero. Lison’s subsequent lessons in cheesemaking and eating are varied, but her main aim is to discover the history and methods behind some of the most well-known of French cheeses, and break down the processes, locales and people involved in making this delicious dairy product.

Each chapter is arranged roughly around a type of cheese, and anecdotes and history related to its development and modern (or not-so-modern) methods of making it.  Lison focuses on Salers, Maroilles, goat cheese, Camembert, Beaufort, Comté, Roquefort and Brebis and Langres, though she does wander at times into disquisitions on other cheeses (including my own all-time favorite, Brie).  The strongest chapter was that on Camembert, called ‘Cheese Is a Battlefield.’  Lison described the struggles of modern methods (science) versus tradition in the cheese landscape and the affect this has on production, community and the consumer. 

Unfortunately, not all of the chapters were as robust.  Lison succeeds in describing intricate cheesemaking methods, the historical provenance of these processes, and her own brief adventure in cheese making.  Her writing falters somewhat in portrayals of individuals and depictions of the countryside, with odd word choice breaking the narrative into pieces rather than bringing it together as a whole.  She also relies fairly heavily on quotes from Patrick Rance, eponymous author of the French Cheese Book (understandable, but sometimes more tedious than helpful).

Nevertheless, The Whole Fromage would be a perfect starting point for American Francophiles who savor food on their trips abroad (or plan to do so in the future), and who want a bit of irreverent back story on the special rituals and effort that go into making that delicious cheese at the end of a chic Parisian meal.

Recommended for: new cheese-lovers, aspiring gourmands, food magazine subscribers, and as a solid selection for food and travel book clubs.

Does The Whole Fromage sound like your kind of read?  Enter the giveaway - simply fill out the FORM for a chance to win one trade paperback copy.  Giveaway open to US addresses only, will end on August 4, 2013 at 11:59pm EST.  Winner will be selected randomly and notified via email.  Giveaway book will be provided and mailed directly by publisher.  Good luck!

Interested in other food-related posts?  Check out Beth Fish Reads’ Weekend Cooking!

Fine print: I received a copy of The Whole Fromage for review from Broadway (Penguin Random House).  Giveaway prize provided by Broadway.  I received no compensation for this post.

top ten books that feature travel

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we all get to exercise our OCD tendencies and come up with bookish lists.  If you’d like to play along, check out this post.

This week’s topic is open for interpretation.  There’s the straight version: contemporary nonfiction travel monologue.  And then there are the more liberal interpretations: travel into other worlds, or across space, or in the past (fictional and not).  My list has a little bit of each of those, and it also has books for all ages.  I’m pretty sure that’s because the thrill and strangeness of travel appeal to every generation.  You know the drill: pick up one of these books and travel miles with your imagination.

Top Ten Books That Feature Travel

1. Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan trilogy – This series features a round-the-globe adventure in an alternate history where the Great War (WWI) has just broken out.  Clever beasties, strange machinery, and plots and adventures in far-flung locales abound.

2. Inés of My Soul by Isabel Allende – Allende writes lyrical historical fiction about the first European woman to settle in Chile, and her personal odyssey from Spain to the New World.

3. The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien – Epic fantasy is often about a quest, and this classic series is no different.  Frodo Baggins’ journey from the Shire to Mordor is pretty serious travel. 

4. The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner – I read this travelogue/investigative tome while moving across the country, and found it an interesting take on various cultures’ attitudes about the concepts of happiness and contentment.

5.  Catherynne M. Valente’s Fairyland books – September, the heroine of Valente’s gorgeous middle grade fantasies, travels to Fairyland. And then she travels around, above and below it, too.  What that description doesn’t tell you is that the trip will break your heart, make you laugh, and leave you longing for just a bit more magic.

6.  Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce – Liam is 12 years old, but he’s so tall that he’s constantly being mistaken for an adult.  But even that doesn’t explain how he’s ended up in space, and making it home again might not be the biggest challenge he faces.

7.  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain – Quintessential American literature, yes.  Also?  An homage to Mississippi waterways, growing up, and independence.

8.  The Travels of Ibn Battutah by Ibn Battutah – Ibn Battutah is one of the most famous travelers of all time – he traversed much of the known (and unknown) world in the 14^th century, including Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East (he certainly surpassed Marco Polo).  However, I’d never heard of him until I took a class on Byzantium and Islam in college.  His travel accounts are extremely interesting and valuable, and surprisingly accessible.

9.  The Chronicles of Narnia, but especially The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis – Narnia’s presence on this list was a forgone conclusion, really.  Several of the books in Lewis’ series are based on a journey, but perhaps the most celebrated is that of the ship the Dawn Treader, on which two of the Pevensie children and their cousin Eustace are headed for The Lone Islands (and the end of the world).

10.  Relish by Lucy Knisley – Knisley’s graphic novel memoir revolves around food, family and travel, and the travel portions are funny, heartfelt and charming.  That alone would make this a worthy addition, but then there’s also FOOD.  Yum!

What books are on your list?

bea: what i saw and how i conquered

I’ve been blogging for over three years.  Until this week, I had never been to Book Expo America.  I feel lucky to have been able to attend – it wouldn’t have been possible without a bonus at the start of the year and several vacation days from work.  For me, this trip was a luxury, one I wouldn’t let myself stress over (because those are VACATION days, dude!), and one that I wanted to do from ‘outside the box.’  Know what?  It was fun.

I’m going to lay out the elements of my BEA 2012 experience below, in case you want to borrow them for future planning.  And also because I met some great people and ate some delicious food, and those experiences bear recording.

1.  Take the bus, not the train (and if you have to fly, i apologize in advance, this is useless advice).  Even though I like trains best, the itinerary I would have chosen was just too expensive.  But it was okay – largely because of item 2.

2.  Bring a friend.  One of my non-blogging, real life friends joined me for the first few days of the trip.  She wanted to get out and see things and go to cool places and wouldn’t let me sit indoors and obsess about what author would be where and when.   We could also commiserate if we picked a bad table at the restaurant and ended up overhearing a bizarre conversation (it happened. little italy.).  That’s how memories are made.

3.  Get to NYC early.  We got to NYC on Friday night.  We went out that night and slept in the next morning, by which time we were ready for some Saturday sight-seeing – nothing too ambitious, mind you – we just checked out the Egyptian and American wings of the Met.  But while waiting for dinner that night we walked into an open artist studio night.  And the next day we dropped by the Brooklyn Flea and went to a Mets baseball game.  Going in without an epic master plan can work to your advantage.

me, freaking out over a sphinx at the Met

4.  Think about staying somewhere other than Manhattan central.  Like…Brooklyn.  You knew I was going to say that!  But seriously, I would attribute the majority of my ‘good times’ during BEA to having a cool place to go back to in Brooklyn.  I stayed with cousins, but you could consider renting an apartment for a week, and even the hotels themselves are a bit cheaper in the outer boroughs.  It does mean you have to take the subway to and from the Javits each day, but the distance was very freeing – I didn’t feel like I was locked into the madhouse 24/7.

5.  Plan your meals – with an eye towards quality.  You’ll be in New. York. City.  The place is teeming with great restaurants, and not all of them will break the bank.  Do your research and find great places to eat – that way you won’t have any regrets later about settling for something subpar.  If a restaurant meal isn’t in your budget?  Make sure you have plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables!  A couple of places we tried this trip: Nights and Weekends (for brunch in Greenpoint), Pok Pok (thai dinner in Red Hook), Roberta’s (pizza plus in Bushwick), Ample Hills Creamery (ice cream! in Prospect Heights), & Shake Shack.

6.  Have a signing schedule/plan for BEA, but be reasonable.  Prep yourself for changes, for being tired, and for the idea that things may not work out.  You won’t get every book you want.  But you will find that there are so many things on offer that you’ll end up happy.  Oh, and expert tip: go to one of the author breakfasts.  I heard they were all good, and Lois Lowry’s speech made me cry at the children’s one.

7.  If you have publishing contacts, reach out and see if they’d like to meet.  I don’t regularly correspond with many publishers – but I did email in advance and ended up having a lovely meeting with one publicist (it totally made my day).

8.  Check out social media for news about BEA and outside events.  I found out about the Teen Author Carnival and a NYPL Science Fiction, Fantasy & Music evening through twitter links.  And someone tweeted another link to a Facebook contest to attend a Carolrhoda Lab-sponsored author/blogger breakfast.  I entered and won – and it was fabulous.  I was invited to one other morning event that I couldn’t make, but KIDS, here’s the deal: I wasn’t invited to publisher parties.  And I still had a really good time.

left to right: me, Tessa Gratton, Brenna Yovanoff, Jen (A Book and a Latte) & Maggie Stiefvater

9.  Make sure to meet up with your internet friends in real life.  If you correspond on twitter or via blog comments, you probably have something in common.  Take the extra step and ask them to meet you for lunch, or simply introduce yourself prior to a panel.  I was surprised that anyone recognized me – but it was so lovely when they did (or when I did the same thing to them).  

10.  Mail yourself books from the USPS during lunch breaks, take advantage of bag check the rest of the time, and follow other great BEA advice you can find in preparatory blog posts. 

I enjoyed myself most when I was wandering around people-watching, not putting limits my time and not worrying about the people ahead of me in line.  Thanks to all of the authors, bloggers, publishing contacts (shout-out to college friend Whitney!), my friend Lauren and especially my cousins Isaac and Jess for making BEA and New York a fun time.  I heart you.

(my) most embarrassing moment

You know you have one. It’s the kind of thing that you drag out and show old friends, or reminisce about with your family, or try to forget and NEVER bring up again. Sort of like baby photos, actually. I’m an easily embarrassed person, but I also have the lucky ability to forget most everything mortifying that I’ve ever done. With one major, story-worthy exception.

In 2004 I spent the second half the year abroad doing college exchange programs. I traveled to Chile and Spain, and by the end I was getting pretty good at Spanish. I thought so, at any rate. And to cap off all that studying my sister came to visit – she met me in Madrid and we did a little whirlwind European Christmas vacation. To start it off, though, she missed her connection in Philly, and had to meet me there a day late.

So to keep to my master schedule, we had to fit it all in during ONE grueling day in Madrid. And we certainly tried. I took her to the Palacio Real (the royal family’s official residence in the city), on a plaza tour ending at the Plaza Mayor, and to the Prado (only one of the most famous art museums EVER, don’t you know). We were seriously tired by Prado time. I was also starved for a little bit of Americana, so when I spotted a Starbucks across the street, I was able to convince Ginny to stop there to rest our feet and so we could write postcards. Because you know that postcards are the best and cheapest souvenirs, aside from a Latin lover. But that’s a whole different story…

We got our drinks (oh, the bliss!), I chatted and flirted with the barista, and we lounged for a bit (and scribbled to friends and family, after all). Ginny convinced me to go and try to charm another drink out of the guy at the counter. So I did. Grande mocha! After a sufficient revival period, we decided to move on to the next tourist attraction.

We got up to leave. I was reveling in my newfound ‘skills’ and turned to say goodbye to cute Mr. Barista.

And walked straight into the sliding glass door.

SPLAT.

Before you ask, yes, it was functioning perfectly. I just came at it at an angle, so it didn’t have the time to sense me before I engaged it in a full frontal assault.

Pretty sure a blush covered my entire body.

The most humiliating thing? I could hear the barista LAUGHING behind me.

I hauled Ginny the rest of the way out of the store in utter mortification,

and almost MOWED OVER an innocent little old lady on the sidewalk.

After that I slowed down and tried to breathe. In and out. Ginny was laughing and exclaiming and generally trying not to die of excess amusement. I, of course, was actively trying to melt into the sidewalk.

Eventually I recovered enough to act like a normal human being. Or as close an approximation as I will ever get to normal or human being. But see if I ever visit that Starbucks again (well, I might if I ever make it back to Madrid)!

roadtrip status: legendary

I’m known for starting off jokes or stories with “There was this one time…at band camp…,” stolen from the gross-out comedy American Pie. I’m going to tell you right now, I’ve never seen American Pie. Oh, I think I watched about half of it once (the second half, if you were wondering) while on a water polo road trip, because our options were that or a VH1 dating show repeat. Television programming in hotels at 2am in the heartland of America isn’t the most, how shall we say this?, edifying of experiences. I’ve also never been to band camp. But I stick by the “there was this one time…” beginning, precisely because it sets you up for the kinds of zany adventures that are my life. Otherwise known as the reason that this blog is subtitled “a series of un-lucky events.”

So there was this one time…

When I was going to study abroad for a semester in Sevilla, Spain. I had two days to get a Schengen Visa on my passport. This is the sticker that lets you get around most of Europe as a student, and to stay for over 3 months. What, you say? There are MONTHS to apply for those things! How did you let time slip past you?! All shall be explained, grasshopper.

Here’s what happened: I decided to study abroad TWICE. In the same year. Yep. My college didn’t have a study abroad coordinator or anything official like that, so I was doing all the research about programs by myself. And I couldn’t decide between a summer program in Viña del Mar, Chile, and a semester in Sevilla, Spain (where my high school Spanish teacher had studied). I related this to my mother, and she asked, “Why don’t you do both?” What a novel idea! So that’s how I found myself with plans to travel to Chile for May, June and July, and then to take off to Spain in August.

Dilemma time. You can’t (or couldn’t, at that juncture) send off your passport for the European Visa certification more than three months ahead of travel. But I was going to be GONE, and needing my passport (in my possession at all times, thankyouverymuch!), for that entire time period! So I called and emailed and cajoled the people at the Spanish consulate in San Francisco, and finally someone said: “Come next Tuesday. I will do it for you that day.” Hurrah! But wait… Turns out that next Tuesday is just 48 hours before my flight to Chile. And turning up in person meant traveling 800 miles each way. We pondered. We conferenced. We compared options. Plan A) I book a flight to San Francisco and navigate the city by myself, getting to consulate at 7am, then hop on plane back home. Plan B) My mother and I team-drive our way to California and back.

We chose Plan B. Mapquest says the drive is 13 hours. Realistically, it’s more like 16. Driving through mountains in southern Oregon and northern California is treacherous, and no matter what they say, sometimes you can’t avoid getting stuck behind a semi-truck doing a steady 40 mph. We set off in the late afternoon, leaving enough time to take short breaks and make it to the consulate (to wait in line) by 6am. We were NOT going to miss our appointment.

Night driving and mother-daughter road-tripping commenced. It actually wasn’t too terrible on the drive down. We both of us guzzled coffee like it was going out of style, and were at the ‘barely keeping our eyes open’ stage by the time we hit San Fran. At 5am. My mother suggested we find the consulate and then get more coffee. It sounded like a decent plan to my sleep-deprived senses. We walked by the office, found a little coffee place on the corner (open!), sat down…and I fell asleep over my book. My mother shook me awake an hour later, and we went to stand in line (second! Not bad.). Three hours later, I had handed over my precious passport and an exorbitant amount of money, and been assured that I would have my it back in time for my flight.

Now for the trip home! Ha ha. We were on a bit of a high at the success of the mission, and my mom suggested a short jaunt down to Fisherman’s Wharf and (maybe) food before the drive home. So we got on a trolley car and set off. I saw my first publicly-smoked joint on the ride over, and then we had a lovely lunch on a patio overlooking the Bay. Well, what you could see of the Bay. It was foggy and a bit damp, but I was used to that as a Seattlelite.

THEN we set off. Bad decision. We should have used that extra bit of energy and adrenaline to start off the endurance test that was the drive home. Oh, it was torture. Each of us would drive for about an hour at a time, just barely keeping our eyes open and our wits about us, tumbling into a doze as soon as we got out of the driver’s seat. At one point, in far northern California, we were both so tired that we pulled off to the side of the highway and slept for three hours in the shade of olive trees. The sun eventually woke us when the car became too warm. And on it went…driving until bleary-eyed, then an all-to-brief reprieve. Repeat until home.

We got home with twelve hours to spare, and wonder of wonders! the passport was ready. I can’t remember what we talked about on that trip, although I do vaguely recall some admonitions about staying safe in South America. I’m just amazed we didn’t scream at each other or drive off the road from pure exhaustion. I later got on the plane safely, and study abroad was amazing and untroubled as far as travel went (Sort of. That story’s for another time.).

Why, perchance, do I mention this several-years-past feat of mother-daughter driving? Because we’re doing it again. Extreme version. I move from Atlanta to Seattle in mid-August, and my mom and I are driving it together. Should be…interesting. 2700 miles of interesting. I welcome any suggestions of silly and fun places to stop along the way. After all, we’ll need something to talk about!