This originally appeared in the Huffington Post The sailing course “Those are Cumulonimbus clouds. A squall is coming. In a second the wind can go to 30 knots.” Captain Alessandro says with a tad bit of urgency in his voice. “We are going to heave to and you guys need to put a reef in the sail.” Heave to? My mind races through the jumble of sail terms I’ve
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The Progress: An Innovative San Francisco Restaurant
A hot new San Francisco restaurant that defies categorization You guys know about State Bird Provisions right? That San Francisco restaurant with the odd name and all the awards? (Best new restaurant by James Beard Foundation and in Zagat's top ten best restaurants in the world.) This place may have generated more buzz than any other restaurant in San Francisco's history,
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Why we think differently in California
One day this year in Qatar I found myself in the odd position of explaining aspects of our host country to a group of expats--explaining things I'd only recently figured out myself. I had decided to try dragon boating and afterwards I went with the crew to a gelateria at Katara. None of these expats had jobs that provided interaction with Qataris. So they turned to me for
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The Best of Southern Sri Lanka
Neither Rosa or I had been to Sri Lanka before. We had seven days and seven nights. And while Sri Lanka may appear small if you're looking at a globe, the distances are big. We did not want to spend massive amounts of hours in a car, so we narrowed down to the south, accepting that the mountains and tea plantations would have to wait for another time. Seeing the best of
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Mayan Adventures with my 77-year-old Mother
By Chandi Wyant Published by Wanderlust and Lipstick On the Mayan Riviera an enthusiastic mother-daughter duo stay in beach-cabanas and drive through thick sand to Punta Allen The little panga slaps wildly on the waves but Baltazar, undaunted, continues on full throttle. Salt water douses our faces and I fling an arm around my 77-year-old mother. “I’m only afraid
Read MoreJackpot! Teaching college in Qatar
By the end of my first semester teaching college in Qatar I felt I’d won the Professor’s Jackpot. But most of that first semester was full of adjustments; from driving on Doha’s roads, to the separation of the sexes, to the level of the students. I learned to navigate through what one of my students told me were the most badly designed roundabouts in the world— three lanes
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Istanbul: Then and Now
By Chandi J. Wyant I hadn't been to Istanbul since a night bus ride there from northern Greece in 1984. On a recent trip I found some significant changes but what had not changed was the loveliness of the Turkish people. Back in 1984 on my first vagabonding around Europe trip, I crossed the border from Northern Greece into Turkey by bus in the middle of the night in a
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