Reflection aside, 2017 was a great year for travel. We had the opportunity to experience 10 countries, 2 new to us: Colombia and Slovenia. We got to eat great food, stay at gorgeous hotels, and see breathtaking landscapes. We had the privilege to witness the magic of two beautiful weddings. We met inspiring chefs, artists, hoteliers, and entrepreneurs.

Here are some of the highlights of our travels…

Southern Road Trip

I haven’t had the opportunity to write about this experience but will do so soon. Given the current political climate in the United States, many people, especially people of color like me, may be hesitant to travel down south. However, we did not want our lives to be dictated by fear. We drove from Washington, DC to Savannah, Georgia with stops in Atlanta and Charlotte. We fell in love with all three cities and can’t say enough about the level of customer service and hospitality. Bonus: we got to take la Piccola to her first NBA game thanks to a good friend who works for the Hawks.

One of the highlights of the trip was stopping in a tiny town in North Carolina on our way to Charlotte. To be honest, I don’t even remember the name. We (Dutchman, Piccola and I) stopped by for lunch at this nondescript barbecue place. It did not get more southern than that: the scent of the BBQ, the southern drawl of the staff, and generous helpings of mac ‘n cheese. However, what we witnessed was what makes me hopeful. People of different races eating and working together in a common environment. I truly believe that food has a unifying effect.

Colombia

Colombia is a place I’ve been longing to visit since I used to listen to Carlos Vives and Shakira in high school. Everybody that I know who has visited Colombia has raved about it. Now I know why! Cartagena is simply magical. The colors of the colonial homes, the bright smiles, the freshness of the ceviche are all reasons to return.

Bogota was a different world than Cartagena but just as special. Now we know how Gabriel Garcia Marquez drew his inspiration. The diversity and depth from one city to another is astounding. The view from the mountains, the hip cafes, the beautifully spoken Spanish makes it one of my favorite cities in the new world. The only mistake we made on our trip to Colombia was not staying longer.

Slovenia

Slovenia has been on my list for the last few years. Our friends were getting married in Bavaria, Germany and Triglav National Park is just a four-hour drive. The Slovenian Alps are breathtaking. We went for a long drive along the winding mountain roads simply in awe. The snow-capped mountains, the icy blue streams, the majestic waterfalls are still vivid in my mind.

Rotterdam

We were fortunate enough to visit Rotterdam twice this year. It’s great to become more and more familiar with this city as the years go by. Rotterdamers say there’s always something new being built in Rotterdam. They are so right! As a lover of modern architecture, I loved taking a ride on the Rotterdam Water Taxi and admiring all the interestingly designed buildings. One of my favorite posts of 2017 is about locally owned hotels in Rotterdam. Being able to appreciate local owned business is something I try to do during my travels. I will be writing more about locally owned hotels in 2018.

Food

There were no shortages of great culinary experiences this year so will narrow it down to a few. So hard to pick favorites! In terms of my international travels, we loved Carmen in Cartagena, Astrid y Gaston in Bogota, and Carina in Brussels. From our domestic travels, The Grey in Savannah, Local Roots in Roanoke, and Raymi in NYC take the prize. In DC, Tiger Fork, Sushiko, La Puerta Verde, and Kyirisan are places that I recommend repeatedly.

Hotels

We’ve stayed in dozens of hotels but there are a few that stand out in 2017. The Four Seasons Casa Medina was spectacular. Their dining room is an object of my design fantasies. In Rotterdam, Hotel Stroom’s unique design made me want to live there. The coziness and smart design of Made in Louise in Brussels was a favorite as well. Made in Louise is also located in the neighborhood where my Dutchman and I met so that’s a bonus! As for staycations, we enjoyed exploring Virginia horse country at Salamander Resort & Spa.

What can we say? There are so many great trips we made this year that we can keep going on and on. From our weekend in Antwerp to our staycation at National Harbor to a Bavarian wedding, 2017 has plenty of travel memories to cherish. Most of all, our daughter got to experience all of these places with us. Hopefully, 2018 will show us more new and interesting places. Where do you want to go next year?

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Local: “Where are you from?

Me:  “I’m American”

Local:  “Yes, but where are you REALLY from? Where are your parents from?

Me:  “I grew up between Puerto Rico and New York, both part of the United States of America. No, really I am American”

I don’t think people do it with ill will, they’re  just fueled with curiosity on how this brown girl that doesn’t look like anything they’ve seen in imported American television ended up in their part of the world. My circle of friends from college are mostly children of immigrants.  I travel a lot with my Chinese-American best friend, Jaime.  When some folks saw us walking together in Brussels, Paris or Cologne,  speaking plain, non-accented English… they looked puzzled.

My most recent trip was to Sicily last week.  On my way back to Amsterdam, I had to make a stopover in Rome.  The ladies sitting next to me on the flight were Moroccan.  The lady next to me gave me that “I wonder where she’s from” look and started small talk with me, telling me that she’s Moroccan and headed back home to visit family.   She asked me where I was from. I said New York because I truly had no energy to break down my ethnic origins, she looked kinda dissapointed. I know she was digging deeper to know if I had Northern African background and perhaps to start a conversation in order to make the flight go faster…

When I chat with my other friends who are Asian or Latino in the USA, many encounter the same experiences abroad.  It starts with a simple “Where are you from” and Queens or Florida doesn’t cut it if you look “other”.  Like I said before, I don’t see these questions in a negative light, people are just naturally curious.   For many outside the United States, America is black and white – this is what they see in TV shows, magazines, and other imported entertainment. The interesting part is that as more culturally diverse we become in our society, our media (especially travel media) becomes less reflective of what the reality on the ground is, especially in my current home city of Washington, DC.

This year, given the current political climate there has been a discussion of what’s really considered to be “American”.  Every country I have visited, locals have an opinion, some positive, some negative of what being “American” means. In many ways I feel I am an informal ambassador to a side of America that many people outside of the country don’t get to see.  I usually tell them that America is many things, most importantly, it’s a land of 300 million people who have a wide spectrum of customs, beliefs, and origins.  Those are some of the things that makes me feel the proudest of being an American: the diversity.  Although it takes a little explaining sometimes, it is fun to share that English is not my first language, that I think both in English and Spanish, I speak both languages without an accent, my parents, although born in Puerto Rico (a US territory) have been US Citizens since birth, and I grew up on a little tropical island called Puerto Rico.  Despite the fact that people don’t get to see that side of America abroad because the media doesn’t care much about it, I am American.

More about my experiences living and working abroad, read my “Latina Abroad” story.

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As I prepare my book, Dining Traveler Guide to Puerto Rico, I get a lot of questions about the crisis of Puerto Rico (both financial and Zika) and how it affects, if any, the travelers. I’ve traveled to Puerto Rico several times this past year in preparation of my book, and I’m here to tell you that the situation on the ground is much different than it is depicted on the media. On my last trip, I spent a month traveling across the island, exploring everything from luxury resorts to family-run inns. I spent most of my time during photoshoots talking to local business owners, travelers, locals about their impressions. These are my observations:

I recall telling my mom about my intentions of writing a book about Puerto Rico and the first thing she said was “cuidado, las cosas estan malas por alla” (be careful, things are bad over there). Those are her impressions because although she was born and raised in Puerto Rico, she doesn’t spend that much time on the island these days, her opinions are formed on what she sees in the news. I live in NE Washington, DC and I know it’s not a good idea to hang out in New York Ave NE at 3am. I’ve lived in Brussels for six years, I know it’s not a good idea to walk alone in Schaerbeek at 11pm. Same rules apply in Puerto Rico. Don’t go joyriding in Santurce at 3am or take your $4k camera down to La Perla at night… I find it ironic that I’ve been robbed FIVE times in the capital of Europe (Brussels) and I’ve never had an incident in my numerous travels to Puerto Rico.

When I spoke to business owners about the crisis, the theme was the same. Their business with tourists remained relatively constant whereas they are hurting in the low season, when locals vacation with their family in the summer. We were at the Kiokos of Luquillo, a string of small food restaurants/shacks along the popular Luquillo Beach, talking to one of the owners and she said the toughest for her was last summer, when locals usually travel around the island. She said the drop was such that she had to let go of one of her employees. Unlike many other Caribbean destinations, in Puerto Rico you see locals consuming at the same restaurants, beaches, and hotels as tourists. To me, that’s the beauty of the island, there are no parallel lives between tourists, locals, and expats. That is what I fear may go away as locals leave to mainland or see their disposable income disappearing.

During my travels this past year, I’ve traveled with friends who are not Puerto Rican and knew very little of the crisis. As my friend Carla and I spent a Saturday beach hopping around Cabo Rojo on the southwest coast of the island, I ask her “did you know there’s a financial crisis in Puerto Rico?”. She responds: “really? We’re at the beach, there are tons of locals out, restaurants are packed.” My Dutch husband had the same impression as a traveler in Puerto Rico. He says: “when I think of a country on a financial crisis, I think of homeless people roaming the streets, which I saw very little of that in Puerto Rico, we see way more homeless people in Washington, DC. When we traveled deep into the country side, I did see some run down homes and roads, however, all the services I needed when traveling were working up to par like in the United States.”

When I talk to my friends and family in Puerto Rico, which range from bankers to college professors, impressions are far from the grim perception seen in the media in the mainland. Some have reluctantly casted their job prospect net beyond Puerto Rico, while others have started businesses due to the crisis, but the common theme is that they all find creative ways to survive, all with a smile on their face. Many business owners I met on the road talked about reinventing themselves due to the financial situation in Puerto Rico. For example, Ivan from Sail San Juan Bay. He’s an engineer by trade who worked in the construction and IT industry. When job prospects dwindled he decided to put his hobby to work: a skilled sailor, he started Sail San Juan bay in which he shares the best views of San Juan on his sailboat. He says that although it was a big change for him, he enjoys his business and all the different people he meets through his business.

The one common theme I did hear from many of the local business owners in the island is how they see people from the mainland come to Puerto Rico, especially to towns like Rincon and Vieques and curb the process of getting permits from the local government or refuse to hire locals and the government does nothing to enforce it. I was appalled when I was in Vieques and several restaurants I went to had no Spanish speaking wait staff. I bet these are the same people who get incensed when people in the mainland “don’t speak English”. There’s an unemployment crisis, however, people come from Long Island to Boston to escape the cold and they can find a job… there’s something wrong with that picture. When you visit Puerto Rico, make sure you go on tours owned by locals and endorsed by the Puerto Rico Tourism Board as these businesses go through a lengthy vetting process to get their permits.

Yes, this thousand-word essay is to tell you that as a traveler, that the Puerto Rico budget crisis  has nothing to do with your vacation. Head to the beach, have a Medalla beer (no container laws, yeay), enjoy your trip, and most importantly support LOCAL owned restaurants, tours, and hotels. In terms of Zika, here’s some great advice from the Center for Disease Control, CDC on how to stay safe. If you forget your OFF, don’t worry, there are plenty of Walgreens, Wal-Marts, and CVS on the island.

All photography Copyright Italo Morales for Dining Traveler Guide to Puerto Rico. 

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When I woke up the morning of March 22nd it was like any other morning-….until I reached for my phone.  I suddenly saw 45 of my friends have marked themselves “safe” on Facebook.  Then I noticed the notification on my BBC app:  Brussels had been a victim of a terrorist attack.  There was this uneasy feeling on the pit of my stomach.  I started to check my Facebook and What’s App for my friends.  All the memories of living in Brussels started to flash: dinners at my home in Ixelles, late nights sipping Duvel at Delirium, impromptu picnics at Bois de la Cambre, many trips taken from Zaventem Airport, and most importantly, the night I met my husband at Place du Chatelain.  I felt this deep feeling of pain, sorrow, and sadness.  However, I am sad to say I wasn’t surprised.

With those memories also came flashbacks from my deployment in Baghdad in 2005 where attacks of this nature were the norm.  Suicide attacks at weddings to markets were a daily occurrence in 2005 across Iraq. After seven months analyzing improvised explosive devices (that was my job), I learned how easy is to create terror, even in an area with such limited supplies.  At that time, my fear was that one day these actions will hit too close to home, and they most certainly have.  It doesn’t take much to create something that can create multiple casualties, and most of all, create terror.  Sadly, mass casualties are not needed in order to create chaos and uncertainty.  At the end of it all, that’s what a terrorist wants to achieve. Create a world in which we live in fear and give up the way of life we’ve sacrificed so much to achieve.

As much as I enjoyed living in Brussels, there was the negative underbelly of  a disenfranchised youth who were responsible for my unsavory memories of living in the city.  They carry the same profile of those who have committed these attacks, the type who call women “whore” if they are running by themselves and don’t entertain their advances (it happened to me several times, watch documentary Femme de la Rue), try to vandalize your car when you take the wrong turn and end up in Schaarbeek, or try to rob you at knifepoint (it happened to several people I knew).  Those are the topics that are difficult to discuss as it is better to talk about the good times, but one I feel that should be addressed.  I recall being a security manager at NATO focusing on industrial security.  At one of agency wide meetings, I asked about the threat of terrorism as the briefing focused more on cold-war type topics (mind you, this was 2011).  I was the only woman at that briefing.  The briefer looked at me like I was crazy, then scoffed at me by saying “that’s the job of the Belgian police” (in a tone of “how dare this woman ask me that question?”).  Sadly, this apathy for the state of world affairs is not uncommon in some security communities.

In my opinion, another more important question remains: how does a person who was born and raised in a city still hate it so much that it provokes them to cause such heinous crimes?  I truly don’t have an answer, however, I feel that this is something the authorities should address more in depth.  Apathy must stop.  Not only in Belgium but in the rest of the world.  How do we make all citizens, regardless or race or religion feel vested in the community they live in?  How do we make everyone feel a deep sense of citizenship?

I may not have the answers to the questions above, but one thing I am certain of:  these cowardly acts will not prevent me from continuing my yearly travels to Brussels or even living there again.  Because for every negative experience I had in Brussels, there are 100 memories to counter.  When we stop living, traveling, enjoying the lifestyle we’ve earned, that’s when they win.  Je Suis Bruxelles.

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