jackie travels

Jackie Hits a Quarter

June 7, 2013 4:29 pm / 2 Comments /

“Those who find growing old terrible are people who haven’t done what they wanted with their lives.”
- Martha Gellhorn

israel travel

24 was a pretty good year. It was the year I went to Israel with the term “journalist” designated on my plane ticket. It was the year I met blogging friends in Mexico, Canada, and even at home in Los Angeles. It was the year I went to Central America on somewhat of a last-minute whim with a friend I made during year 23, and the year I drove from Chicago to Los Angeles by myself to rekindle a one-sided relationship with my cat (I love her, she loves nothing).

It was the year I ended a serious relationship and watched several of my friends either end or advance theirs. It was the year I tried several new things that I wasn’t very good at:  volcano-boarding, spelunking, digging for artifacts on an actual archeological site, fishing, vomiting while fishing, riding on a cargo ship, innertubing, exploring two caves, getting lost in the forest, staying at a yoga resort, taking a ghost tour, exploring America by bus (well…only two buses and three cities), attending a blogging conference, riding the Los Angeles metro, getting pick-pocketed (not so much something I tried as something that was bound to happen eventually).

It was the year I started work at a photography studio and began to enact a [hopefully] lasting change on my photography “skills,” and the year I finally settled on the type of writing career that I want to pursue. It was the year I watched my father kick pneumonia in the face and the year my uncle left us for good. It was the year my car cost me 3409343 dollars and made me cry on more than one occasion, and the year I realized that I will probably never have a lot of money, just the occasional stroke of good luck.

24 was challenging, rewarding, heartbreaking, and probably more fun than it should have been. Today is the start of year 25. It’s also National Doughnut Day — which, let’s be honest, is probably the best omen I could have ever hoped for.

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Posted in: los angeles / Tagged: , ,

Jackie Pays for It (Bigtime)

May 27, 2013 8:28 pm / 3 Comments /

Last weekend I was in Washington, DC for my little sister’s graduation (pictures to come once I get my act together and edit them), and I got to meet all of her college friends and their parents for the first time. She’s mentioned my travel blogging to them and so it was the first thing everyone asked me about. One mother was particularly enthused: “That must be a dream,” she said. “To get to travel and then write about it!”

Every time I have this conversation, it progresses in the same way: the person asks me what types of things I write and who I write for, and I mention Rail Europe first and then talk a little about my blog. The person goes, “So they send you to Europe to write about these things for them?” and I have explain to them that no, despite the occasional free train ride, I’ve pretty much paid for everything by myself.

There is always a pause, and the person’s facial expression always changes in exactly the same way, and they go, “…oh. Well that’s still cool,” somewhat unconvincingly. I can tell they’re trying to figure out if there is a polite way to ask me how I can afford to travel and write for fun, since expensive hobbies and non-lucrative jobs don’t tend to mix very well with buying groceries and surviving.

I remember the first official travel essay I ever read. I was taking a survey course on women’s literature my sophomore year of college, and on the first day I noticed we would be reading something called Letters by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

And I was disappointed. I imagined it would be a play-by-play account of this woman’s experience: “I saw this, ate that, went here, met this person, took a ship somewhere.” Who cares? I thought. At the time, I wasn’t that big on non-fiction.

When I read it and realized that there was an art to this type of writing, that it was almost as fantastical as the fiction that usually occupied my bookshelves, I couldn’t believe that it had taken me so long to find out about it. It was one of the things that prompted me to apply for my study abroad program in France that summer and to hang a map on my wall with pins showing all the places I wanted to visit someday, like every single other person has also done at some point in his or her life.

When I write about the places I’ve been, I want to write about them honestly. This isn’t surprising or revolutionary, because I’m pretty sure that’s what every other  travel writer wants, too. But for me, part of the honesty comes from getting myself to these places on my own dollar. Or, if someone is helping me get there, I want it to be for some reason beyond tourism. I don’t want my blog to become one of those sites that exists solely on press trips and free gifts. I don’t always want to have a disclaimer at the bottom saying, “So-and-so funded this trip, but the views here are entirely my own.” I want to pay for my own views.

I understand that a lot of the “glamour” of the travel writer job comes from the notion that travel writers get to enjoy the luxuries of travel for free. The “free” part seems really important to a lot of people. And I agree that that does seem like a pretty sweet deal — but it isn’t how I want to make my living. If a tourism board decides that it wants to toss a free press trip my way every now and then, I’m totally game. Even travelers need a straight-up vacation. I participated in one of these trips — to Israel — last fall, and it was absolutely incredible. It offered me the chance to visit a country that I might not otherwise have gotten to see in my lifetime — and I got to do it in style, to boot.

But my main goal, above all else, is to write. Travel is secondary. It offers me plenty of awesome stories and currently it’s one of my favorite things to write about, but I don’t need it in order to write. If I had to choose between the free press trips and the integrity of the writing — and often, you do have to make that choice when free things are involved — I will choose the writing every time.

And I worry that if I don’t pay for it now — the plane tickets, the international credit card fees, the insurance, the shitty 25 bed hostel dorm — I’ll pay for it later, in less monetary but more expensive ways. I’ll have cheated myself out of doing this in exactly the way that I wanted to do it.

Here’s to hoping I’ve made a smart choice (I am cheersing you with iced tea from my bed at two in the morning, so… good omen?) and that I’m able to pay off my collection of airline credit cards before 2050. If we even still use credit cards in 2050.

 

**Photos can be viewed and purchased from the Atlas Travel Arts shop by clicking here.

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Posted in: los angeles, writing / Tagged: , , ,

Jackie Does (or will do, at some point) Los Angeles

April 30, 2013 2:27 am / 2 Comments /

I never really gave this city a chance when I was growing up here. “It’s a monster,” I always tell people whenever they ask me to describe it. I do maintain that — Los Angeles is a unique, sprawling, overwhelming, occasionally irritating monster — but, like any villain ought to, it’s also got some sass.

I hate to say this, I hate it, I HATE it, because it’s the thing that everyone always says first and it’s such a cliche — but guys, the weather. Or lack thereof, really. I mean, Jesus:

Los Angeles palm trees

Driving home from work early on Fridays. Sorry.

The weather makes it so easy to do things. You can go outside without having to think twice about whether or not you remembered to put on your wool socks, and you never have to shovel your car out of anything while your fingers slowly go numb, knuckle by knuckle. It’s so easy to move in this city, provided you avoid certain stretches of freeway during rush hour. It’s so easy to be outside, or to move from one indoor place to the next, or to get anywhere once you accept that it will take you 45 minutes in current traffic to do so.

I think one of the reasons I hated Los Angeles so much when I was younger (aside from the fact that I was a brat) is that I didn’t really experience all that much of it when I was growing up. Having convinced myself that parts of the city were “unsafe” (I mean, I guess there are unsafe parts) or “too touristy” (again, pretty valid) or “too far away” (so much traffic, always), I operated almost entirely in this little bubble I’d created for myself, one that didn’t really encourage any exploration, danger, or discomfort.

melrose avenue

Shopping after I get off work early on Fridays. Sorry.

But then again, you could say the exact same things about Chicago — overall, it’s a much more dangerous city than Los Angeles, and it has its share of traffic and touristy draws — but that didn’t stop me from exploring the city and giving everything a chance. Probably because I’m so worldly and adult now.

Since I moved back here almost two months ago, I’ve really enjoyed getting to know my favorite parts of Los Angeles again and exploring all of the other parts for the first time. I’ve spent hours on unfamiliar freeways and even ridden the metro once (who knew it actually covered a decent amount of ground? “Decent” being a generous term, but still), and I’ve been to new bars and restaurants, and even a movie screening.

los angeles architecture

Cue Temper Trap from that scene in “500 Days of Summer” when he’s showing her the architecture. Sorry.

I’m not much of a believer in bucket lists, so that isn’t what I want to call this — but I have developed a list of things I’ve never done in Los Angeles that I want to try. I started this list shortly after moving back, and I’ve already accomplished a few of these goals. I’m leaving them on the list now as I post it because a.) I enjoy using the cross-out-a-word feature, and b.) I’m proud of my progress.

Los Angeles Delights

Drink on a rooftop bar

Ride the metro

Hang out at the various piers (Manhattan Beach)

Hang out at Griffith Park Observatory

Do a touristy bus tour. Bonus points for using a fake accent. Bonus points for using a fake accent that actually sounds like a real accent, unlike most of your fake accent attempts*.

See a celebrity eating brunch

Do the beaches

Take a dancing class (in honor of your new [not so]guilty pleasure: Dancing with the Stars)

Visit the Central Library downtown with every free second of downtime that you have

Drive your dad’s convertible along PCH

Visit Joshua Tree

Beach camping in Malibu

Attend street events/festivals (Grilled Cheese Fest: check. St. Patrick’s Day street festival: check.)

Buy art from a local artist

Get a tattoo (not really, Mom)**

Visit The Last Bookstore

DODGER DOGS

Museums that you haven’t been to yet (or haven’t seen in a while)

Movies at the Hollywood Forever cemetery 

Taco restaurant that Jason Segel’s character from I Love You Man proclaims is the best taco in LA (Jenn-approved)

Go see comedy shows

Watch a live taping of a TV show

Roller Derby!

Stage a taste test of all the classic hole-in-the-wall doughnut shops 

hollywood

Extremely hipster picture of somewhere in/near Hollywood. Genuinely sorry.

Ok fine, I apparently haven’t done as much as I thought I did. I’ve ridden the metro. It’s a start.

 

*generally, at a certain point in any given bucket list, I begin to address myself directly.
**Really, guys.

 

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Posted in: los angeles / Tagged: , , ,

Jackie Makes Friends on the Internet

April 21, 2013 10:57 pm / 6 Comments /

I am probably 20% social and 80% hermit. Many of my closest friends are people I’ve known since I was very young, and the others are mostly from college (where I was forced to make new friends since none of my old ones followed me to UC Davis, to their great detriment). The Internet was made for people like me, people who enjoy the company of others in relatively small doses, who feel most comfortable when they can end a conversation as easily as they can close a browser window.

uc davis graduation

College friends.

Ever since my 12 or 13 year old self discovered e-mail and instant messaging, I’ve made several friends on the Internet. Some of these people are still my friends, some have become strangers again, some I’ve met in person once or twice, and some I still hear from every once in a while. All of the Internet friends I’ve made recently have been bloggers.

There is Sarah, who was probably my first blogger friend. Either she or I tweeted something about David Duchovny, I think, and we’ve been tweeting love notes ever since. The fact that we both got hired on at Vagabundo a few months after our meeting was pure coincidence (although it smells suspiciously of Fate to me, personally.)

Traveling friends.

Much of the Vagabundo staff have become my good friends. I met up with Ash and Luis in Mexico last November, and we’ve been harassing each other on Facebook chat ever since. Colleen is my fellow cat lady and you can blame her entirely for encouraging the Instagrams of my furry little sidekick. Audrey is a backpacking extraordinaire who shares my [impeccable] taste in adorable teal shoes. Jenn is my most recent friend — aside from being an incredible writer, she also happens to send the most heartfelt, amusing, will-cheer-you-up-in-two-seconds-flat e-mails.

There are the ladies I don’t speak with that often but whose blogs I always read, and I feel like I’ve come to know them simply because they are such vivid, adept writers: Megan, Daryl, Brenna, Caroline, and George. There are many other bloggers I admire and interact with, and this is just a very short list of them. I’ll probably do a round two blog post in the future to mention even more of them. (If you are reading this and I’ve forgotten you, please yell at me in the comments. Whenever I do a list of people like this, I always inevitably forget someone. I am the worst.)

Internet friends.

These friendships are unique because they rely almost entirely on conversation. I can’t call any of them up for a cup of coffee or a drink after work. I can’t invite them over to watch Mad Men with me on Sundays, or convince one of them that they should cook me something delicious and extravagant for dinner one night, just because. Sometimes I can’t even talk to a few of a them at certain times of day, depending on the time difference.

I’m not distinguishing them here because they are in any way better than my “real life” friends, the ones with whom I do watch Mad Men and get drinks and laugh until we are crying during a game of Taboo. These real-life friends are, as the ultimate girlfriend Carrie Bradshaw so accurately puts it, “my family… my insides,” and being reunited with many of them in Los Angeles has been a much needed relief.

“Real life” friends.

But I do have a special love for my Internet friends, and for the Internet in general. As someone who has been moving around a lot for the past couple years, the Internet has been my primary means of keeping in touch. Sometimes I still feel weird when I talk about my Internet friends, just like I know some people still feel weird when they say that they met someone they’re dating on the Internet. It’s definitely come a long way since the times when people assumed that everyone you met online was a serial killer (The X-Files has a great episode about this, being the connoisseur of pop culture that it was), but sometimes there’s still a little weirdness surrounding Internet relationships.

Then again, maybe that’s why I love these people. I love the weird. I get the weird.

“Surreal life” friends.

If there’s one thing that my Central America trip with B has taught me, it’s that maybe certain friendships can only work under specific circumstances, the same way that certain writers can only write poetry or certain artists can only work in pastel. Would I be friends with any of these people if we’d met in “real life” rather than on the Internet? Would our relationships look entirely different if the circumstances were different, or is the sign of a true friendship when you can get along with someone anytime, anywhere, online, and over lunch?

I mean, all of these Internet friends are pretty cool. Our conversations alone lead me to believe that I would probably love them anytime, anywhere, online, and over lunch.

But God Bless the Internet for bringing me to them, anyway.

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Posted in: los angeles / Tagged: , , ,

Jackie and the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Ride

April 9, 2013 2:20 am / 14 Comments /

durango narrow gauge railroad

I rode my first train when I was twenty one, traveling from Cannes to Paris via Nice. I had barely slept the night before — a good friend, one very absorbing chat, and a large bottle of champagne had kept me awake about four hours longer than I should have been — but I refused to sleep on the train. Exhausted though I was, this was my first European train ride, and I would be damned if I was going to miss it.

I spent that whole ride leaning face-first against the window listening to music, too tired to take any pictures but too stubborn to close my eyes.

Almost four years later and I still think trains are the most romantic form of transport. I realize that this is partially because I grew up in a country that is probably too large to ever have an efficient cross-country railway service (and we always want what we can’t have), and also partially due to the fact that I’ve never ridden a train in a non-western country (so I’ve still only seen a very small portion of the world’s railway systems).

I’d always thought that scenic trains were a strictly European thing, but shortly before my recent road trip my dad told me about the Narrow Gauge Railroad in Durango, Colorado. It took me a maximum of about three seconds to decide that this railroad was something that I, as a loyal nerd of all things train-tastic, needed to experience.

As it turns out, a very specific demographic within the realm of train nerds (the 55-years-old-and-over demographic) decided that they needed to experience this train ride, too.

So there we were, just me and America’s finest retirees, headed off into the mountains at 9am on a Thursday via the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.

durango coloradodurango and silverton narrow gauge railroaddurango and silverton narrow gauge railroaddurango and silverton narrow gauge railroaddurango and silverton narrow gauge railroaddurango and silverton narrow gauge railroad

Pretty cool, right? There’s a picture of myself that I could have posted — there were two elderly couples sitting next to me who claimed I was “so adorable!” and one of the women insisted on taking my picture — but I’d been on the road traversing blizzards by myself for a few days at this point, so in the picture I look kind of bewildered and unkempt. At least, more so than usual.

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Posted in: chicago, trains / Tagged: , , , ,

Cleveland in my Heart

April 6, 2013 12:56 pm / 14 Comments /

There are certain trips you hope you never have to take. My parents leave this morning on one of those trips. A few days ago my dad’s younger brother suffered from a stroke and, to our extreme sadness, he never woke up. My parents will be spending time with my dad’s family in Cleveland, Ohio while I stay behind to watch the house and feed my cat.

I wish a lot of different things. I wish I could go and see my family. I wish I could go and see my family for literally any other reason than the one that’s brought my parents there now. Part of me wishes I was still in Chicago, because at least that would get me a little closer than I am at the moment.

cleveland architecture

“Buildings on Euclid Avenue.”

My dad grew up in Cleveland and so we used to visit his family every summer when I was young, up until my grandma died when I was about 12. We would always stay at my grandma’s little condo when we went — my sister and I would inevitably find chocolates waiting on our pillows, and we’d chase each other up and down the spiral staircase, running our hands along the metallic floral wallpaper, until our parents told us to stop. The carpet was sort of a shag-style, her furniture was as ornamental as her costume jewelry, and there were always stacks of tabloids sitting in the corner by the couch. Her apartment looked like it came straight out of the sixties, but in a good way.

Cleveland was my introduction to the concept of a basement — something that was missing from most Los Angeles homes. Before this, I had associated basements with two things:  the movies (having grown up in “Hollywood”) and tornadoes (having watched too many movies). A basement was a place where you hid when the world was going to end. My aunt and uncle had a basement in their little house, and I remember being simultaneously fascinated that basements actually existed in real life and terrified that a tornado was suddenly going to strike at any moment.

My cousin taught me what “hard lemon-ade” was in that basement. I think my family might have played a game of Taboo while we were down there one evening, but I might have just imagined the basement part since it clearly had such an impact on me at the time. The game of Taboo definitely happened, basement or no basement, and my uncle has always been famous for his Taboo-isms — namely his use of “the bad fireman!” as a clue to get us to guess “arsonist.” I just gave him a shout out for this in my recent Grand Canyon captions post, actually.

cleveland

“Steel City.”

My uncle was also an incredible artist. As I write this I am looking at his Humphrey Bogart portrait, which is hanging in our living room. My dad told me once that my uncle was taking a spelling test in third grade and he didn’t know how to spell a lot of the words, so he just drew pictures of them instead.

To me, all of these things are Cleveland — the metallic wallpaper, the mysterious basement, the stifled laughter as we all sat around the table and listened to my uncle read us every single one of the directions for Taboo even though we’d already played the game together dozens of times.

Up until he died, my aunt and uncle had a joint Facebook account, and I think they were two of the first people to start commenting on my blog posts and following my travels voluntarily (most of my other family members were forced against their wills). Even though I haven’t seen them in person in years and even though they’ve probably thought that half the things I write on here are ridiculous (as I’m sure most of you do), they’ve always taken the time to read along and tell me how much they enjoy my stories, and they even posted a picture of my teal shoes for me right after I wrote that one post bemoaning the loss of them.

cleveland west side market

“West Side Market.”

When my grandma died it took me a while to realize the enormity of it, the fact that we wouldn’t be going to Cleveland so often anymore. There would be no more metallic wallpaper and no more basement. Right now I feel even further away from Cleveland, which is ironic — I moved back to Los Angeles from Chicago partly to be closer to my family again, but now my family is gathering in the midwest and I’m back out here on the west coast, away from everything.

I imagine that this is what it must feel like to be locked in your basement when a tornado strikes — small and stuck and helpless, but hopeful that the storm will pass.

 

(the artwork in this post comes from the Mason Milani shop on Etsy, and can be purchased here.)

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Posted in: los angeles / Tagged: , ,
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