Tag Archives: Travel

My Dish on Puerto Rico: Easy, Breezy, with Mojitos on the Side

15 Friday Mar 2013

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License Plate. Photo by Julie Seyler

License Plate. All photos by Julie Seyler.

BY JULIE SEYLER

It is sometimes hard to swallow that I am approaching 60.  On the other hand, it is always great to know that I have had some friends for over 40 years.  We still manage to look like we are 13 years old to each other.  So I decided to see if I could entice one of these old-time buddies to come with me on a four-day getaway. (Yes, like Lois, I too, am a fan of the four-day trip.) I dangled Cardiff, Wales and Sofia, Bulgaria in front of her, and she jumped at all of them, but ultimately we opted for ease, which meant San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Beach and sea, San Juan.

Beach and sea, San Juan.

I have never been, but it is the perfect destination from New York City. It’s a four-hour flight. There is sun, sand and sea. And minimal time change. I did some research, found decent flights, a cute boutique hotel on the beach, and sent my girlfriend an e-mail with the info. Her reply: “Book it Dan-O.”

Our flight was scheduled to depart from JFK on March 6 at 7:00 p.m. Until it didn’t. When I got to work that morning American Airlines had graciously left me a voice mail that that flight had been canceled due to the coming snowstorm. I frantically got on the horn with them, and after an hour on hold, a lovely rep answered, and offered us the opportunity to fly out on the 3:50 flight. She was so nice. She waited while I called my friend, who was in the middle of a meeting, to see if she could scramble her fully-booked schedule so we could rendezvous three hours earlier than originally planned. So we found each other on the front end of the West 4th subway station at 1:00 pm to follow through with our plan of taking the train to the plane. It’s a great deal for $7.50.

We sailed onto that plane five minutes before the doors shut behind us. We were on our way to the land of mojitos!

Mojito 3.6.13

Mojito.

It was a perfect four-day trip, despite a weather pattern of sun every morning, with clouds rolling in religiously by 2 p.m. We were totally indolent on day one – never leaving the beach at the Water Beach Club Hotel; semi-indolent day two – taking a walk for massages, and heading into Old San Juan for dinner; and downright ambitious on day three, with renting a car from Charlie’s so we could check out the rain forest at El Yunque, the beach at Luquillo, and then a drive into Old San Juan for our final dinner. We even managed to change out of our bathing suits and into our clothes in the car.

Water Beach Club

Water Beach Club

A street in Old San Juan

A street in Old San Juan.

Sunday morning we were on the beach at 7:30 in the morning to max out on our last few hours before the 2:15 flight home.

a morning beer

A morning beer.

I Have a Doppelganger in Denmark

04 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by in Men, Travel

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Frank Copehnagen 2

My cousin Frank.

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

Thanks to an invitation to lecture in Copenhagen, I recently was reunited with my first cousin for the first time in 40 years. And here’s the kicker – his name is exactly the same as mine. Now, there are many people who have common names, and some with less common ones. I have a rare name. I don’t know of another person in the world alive today with the name Frank Terranella, except my cousin in Copenhagen. It was the name of our common grandfather, who died many years ago. I’m sure there are others, but I have never crossed paths with one.

Frank - Denmark

The Gang.

So how did my doppelganger end up in Copenhagen for the last 40 years? Well it’s a wonderful love story. My cousin went on his college junior year abroad in Copenhagen in 1970. There he met and fell in love with a beautiful blonde Danish girl named Karin, who stole his heart. They were married soon afterward. My cousin finished his education in Denmark, and then found a job as a teacher. Their daughter, Anna, came along a year later. Frank never saw a reason to go home much after that. Of course, that’s because he was home. And Copenhagen has been his home for the last 40 years.

Frank would visit the United States occasionally, but those visits were never in the New York area, so we never connected. As time passed, Frank’s daughter Anna grew up and gave him a granddaughter, Lea. She’s a teenager now, and I’ll swear that the 25 percent of her that’s American is dominant. Or maybe that’s just a function of the Internet, or American television on European youth.

So all this was going on a continent away, while I resolved year after year, decade after decade, to get to Copenhagen to visit the other Frank Terranella. Finally, I was asked to lecture in Copenhagen on United States trademark law. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse (even though lecturing is not something I’ve ever done). I knew it would give me the chance to see my cousin.
So my wife and I flew over to Copenhagen, and I gave my lecture. All went well. As soon as I was done, I called Frank. He came over to our hotel, and there we had the historic 40-year reunion. Both of us have a lot less hair than the last time we saw each other, but the ties of family are strong. It wasn’t long before we were telling stories of our youth, and bringing each other up to date on our lives for the last 40 years. It made us both smile – a lot.

Frank walked us back to his apartment where we met Karin. Now, when Frank’s daughter, Anna, was about a year old, he and Karin came to New Jersey to visit my grandfather, and I met Karin and Anna there. Seeing her 40 years later, her eyes and smile were just as bright as they were all those years ago, despite the fact that multiple sclerosis has now taken away her ability to walk. I recognized her immediately. She’s like a ray of sunshine, a grown-up flower child. It’s not hard to see why Frank gave up his home country for her.

Seeing my cousin with his wife was a testament to the fact that true love conquers all – including multiple sclerosis. I know that it sounds corny, but Frank and Karin are as much in love in their 60s as they were in their 20s. All that’s changed is that Karin requires a little more assistance than she used to, and Frank is more than happy to provide it.

The next day, I got to meet the now grown-up Anna and her daughter Lea. As do most Danes, they both speak flawless English. I am so sorry I didn’t get to see Anna grow up, but maybe now I’ll get to see Lea from time to time. We invited her to stay with us if she comes to America. Family reunions can sometimes be dreadful, but my recent trip to Copenhagen couldn’t have been a better experience. Reconnecting with Frank and his family made us forget the cold and often-dreary Copenhagen weather. We all resolved that we won’t wait another 40 years to connect again.

The Long, and the Short, of the Four-Day Trip

01 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by in Travel

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Durham- C and A heads

Heading out on day one.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

I’ve just returned from a four-day trip to England and Scotland. My older son and I went to visit my younger son, who is studying and working at Durham University, just a stone’s throw from Edinburgh, Scotland, in Northeast England. But this is not about the flowing-amber-infused congeniality of the English pubs, nor the 1000-year-old castle that crowns the cobble-stoned city of Durham. It’s not about the massive, Romanesque, Durham Cathedral (it’s bigger than the castle), considered by Brits to be the “greatest Norman building in all of England.” (And was Hogwarts for the first two Harry Potter films.) Or the cool, kilted, Scotsmen of Edinburgh. No going on here about the bloody black pudding (oatmeal with pig’s blood), the sketchy haggis (oatmeal with sheep innards), the foot-long, fried fish, and the accompanying super-fried chips.

Fish and chips

I am not going to carry on about this amazing fish and its chips.

Nope – I won’t but mention how much fun it was to glom on to, throw back some pints with, and be on holiday alongside, my two most favorite people.

This is about the beauty of the four-day trip. Especially a four-day trip across the Atlantic. This is my second one in almost as many years (Julie and I traveled to Madrid, Spain last year for four days), and it’s shaping up to be my new way to go.

Both times, friends questioned:”Only four days?” And offered:”Fourteen makes more sense.”

I’ve also seen their heads tilt in a way that ponders the sanity of flying so far to spend only four days in one place. Therein lies the appeal: Only one place. Only four days.

This older me has come to love travel more than ever, but also loves staying home. So here’s the fix: Only four days. Only one place.

It’s long enough to be called a “trip.” There’s less heavy lifting (one suitcase, no checking), less groundwork (one hotel, one check-in). And numbers are crunched (that overnight flight to Europe gives you your fly-time back when you get there).

And perhaps best of all – the preplanning is simpler and bodes well for us 50-somethings, especially if, as I did, you spent decades arranging all the family vacations. (That was often a four-day commitment in itself.) To indulge in all things about one place affords no obligations to make the next train, plane, or inn. And the pre-prep is fun! There are less days packing, less list checking, so brain power is better spent on that anticipatory joy of counting the days until take-off. Actually, the planning becomes half the fun, because a four-day trip is half the planning. There’s little intrusion from that pre-trip dance around all the stress that comes from planning, planning, planning, and then hoping all goes as planned. And out of respect for our boomer-brain’s cognitive wind down, there’s less to remember.

And then there’s my fellow travelers’ assurance – my kids wanted to go. It was short. Because as much as my boys love their mom – a getaway with the 58 year old, who has boundless energy to do every little thing, only partly melds with a 23 year old, and a 27 year old, who are happy to do just some things, including sleeping through breakfast. Said my older son: “Actually a three day trip would have been fine.”

Blogs We Like

28 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in Art, Concepts, Food, Men, News, Opinion, Travel

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BLOGS WE LIKE Photo

By Julie Seyler.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

According to the most recent stats, there are 156 million blogs, and counting, on the Internet. A good chunk of the pile seems to be geared to us baby boomers. Apparently, we like to read, talk, and write about ourselves. Here are some age-appropriate (and a couple not), that are worth mentioning:

The big guys, Booming from The New York Times and Huffington Post’s Huff/Post50, will give you news, commentary, debate, celebrity bloggers – basically all the good, the bad and the ugly that comes with the “middle ages.”

There’s gutsy girls:

A read of The Feisty Side of 50, BOOM! By Cindy Joseph, and Almost 60? Really?, will help us women feel good being gray, and naked; make us want to climb the biggest mountain out there, and then maybe kick up our heels at the summit, and scream “Yay Menopause!;” and then come down to earth – in that order.

Wordly men:

Award-winning writer, and our new contributor, Anthony Buccino, writes about history, travel, even N.J. Transit. And there’s David V. Mitchell’s, Sparsely Sage and Timley, a West Coast, post-boomer blogger, who had us with his title.

A cool spot for a little bit of everything, including some tech advice, is boomspeak.

There are others that we like because, even though the bloggers are over 50, they manage to write about something else. Annalena’s Kitchen has everything to do with the fun, the passion and the science behind food. Blogger Norman Hanson, is “just an over the hill gay guy who likes to cook.” And no doubt you’ve noticed that we tend to be madly appreciative of the visual image and the craft that comes with being a highly-skilled artist. Barbara Rachko’s barbararachkoscoloreddust delivers.

No 50-year-old bloggers in sight on The Five O’Clock Cocktail, but it is right on time with us.

And Stilettos Stuck in Snow (full disclosure – we know her mother), and Everyday is a Holiday must be mentioned, because although these bloggers are nowhere near 50, they’ve managed to produce some visually appealing, artsy, fashion-focused blogs. It’s important for us boomers to remember it’s not all about us, and they offer us a fun way to check in and keep up the with the times.