• Cinephilia,  Travel Tales

    Food, Travel and a Whole ‘Lotta Heart

    After my trip to Paris last year (a city which I’d only visited previously for a whirlwind 48 hours in 2005), I returned home a bit perplexed about where to go next. I’ve always had someplace in mind, a next destination to save for and dream of; I spent nearly five years anticipating my trip to India! Enter Somebody Feed Phil, the Netflix food and travel show featuring Phil Rosenthal as he dad-jokes his way through some of the world’s most amazing cities, eating their most amazing food. Rosenthal’s claim to fame is being the creator of the turn-of-the-millenium sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. Apparently, set as he is with those syndication…

  • Travel Tales

    Four Days in Lisbon

    After four wonderful days exploring Madrid, I boarded an overnight train to Lisbon, eager to get to the city I fell in love with from a travel show. Arriving in Portugal, I was tired but energized, anxious to soak up another new location and culture for four days before heading back to Madrid and then back to the states. Day One My train pulled into Lisbon at just around 8a on Sunday morning, and I emerged from the train station to a city unlike anything I anticipated. From the first few moments, walking out into a massive traffic circle with a statue at the center surrounded by generations-old buildings, I…

  • Travel Tales

    Next Stop: Madrid and Lisbon

    I haven’t traveled solo since I spent a month in India in 2013. I’ve been plenty of places since then—London, Reykjavik, Dublin, Paris—but they’ve been trips shared with friends or family. Which are lovely in their own way, of course. Traveling alone, though…there’s something wonderful about the solo trip, and I’ve been itching for another one recently. I’d been mulling on where I might go next for ages. Australia still ranks high up there. And Japan is starting to creep up my list, too. But then a few months ago, I spent a weekend on a Netflix binge, enjoying the hell out of every episode of Somebody Feed Phil, the…