Live Like a Local. Go to a {Greek} wedding.

Going to a wedding is always a cultural reflection; it’s even more so when you travel half-way around the world to attend one. Weddings in Cyprus are quite a production as an all day - and night - affair, leaving ample time to get to know the cast of characters involved. And as the only American representative at this particular wedding, they got to know me too (particularly by the time for the dance floor).

In attending the wedding as a good friend of the bride, it meant that she was too busy with wedding stuff to feel the need to tour me around in typical tourist fashion. The perks? How often do you get to spend time sipping frappes in a local hair salon, or snack on specialty Greek wedding treats? And a hamam experience is always fabulous, but its way better when you experience it with 10 new friends.

My home for the week in Cyprus was on the floor of the bride's mother's TV room (who can't believe I just wrote that), which I would have not changed. I woke up in the mornings, and everything - literally - was Greek to me. Before I knew it I was shuffled into the cousin's apartment across the hall and was force fed amazing foods. There was so much going on that no one had to worry or fuss about me - instead, even though we didn't always speak the same language, I became part of the family.

{Photo - During the ceremony. Those aren't the lights of god, but part of the paparazzi-worthy recording of the memories of the day).

This post has been entered into the Grantourismo HomeAway Holiday-Rentals travel blogging competition.

Boarding Pass - Rachel Khoo

Most people see travel as going somewhere, but food creative Rachel Khoo's creations prove that food can transport you to any place (Morocco or Australia) or time (through a MadMen dinner). Her food not only transports people, but also takes her to work to interesting places make culinary creations (so cool!). Rachel's second book Pâtes à Tartiner came out this year, and she's about to embark on a brand new and very exciting project, so be sure to keep your eye on her! Thanks, Rachel!

last trip taken:
Wolfsburg, Germany - business trip to the headquarters of VW.

{Wolfsburg, Germany: Volkswagen's Car city ('Autostadt' = VW version of Eurodisney) during December}

next trip on deck:
London followed by Wolfsburg, all for business. For pleasure, fingers crossed NYC and Buenos Aires in 2011 but nothing definite yet.

one place you would go back to again and again:
Feldkirch, Austria - small mountain town where my mum's family live.

{Melbourne}

place you'd most likely recommend a friend go visit:
Melbourne, Australia

preferred method of transportation:
Train

place you've never been but dying to go:
Tokyo, Japan

{role reversal: taking a cooking class in Morocco}

place you'd never go back:
Le Havre

{Edible Tapestry Tales, Australia}

most memorable trip in 2 sentences or less:
My trip to this year where I was working on culinary events in Melbourne and Sydney but also having some fun. I love Sydney for it's stunning beaches and Melbourne for it's cosmopolitan creative vibe and cool hidden bars.

{Edible Tales menu and sketches}

how do you prepare for a trip?
Write a list of things to do/need

{Sydney}

how do you record your travels when you're traveling?
With my SLR film camera and digital camera and I write letters to friends.

{watching a tajine being prepared in Marrakech}

what is your favorite thing to photograph in a new place?
Food and random objects

{from Edible Tales project, Australia}

on an average, how many pictures to you take on a trip?
I use a film camera so depending on the trip anything from a roll (36 pics) to several rolls.

what's in your "designer travel kit" ?
My old skool SLR film camera a Pentax K-1000 and old fashioned air mail writing paper.

{Marrakech medina}

what do you do after a trip? how long after a trip does this happen?
Develop my pictures from my camera, as quick as possible. It usually takes a couple of days and then if I have time I post it on khookie.com.

favorite souvenir/thing to bring back?
Food, cooking gadgets, writing paper and useless but beautiful knick-knacks.

LINKS

• website: rachelkhoo.com
• culinary compilation 2010
  
• blog: rkhooks.net
  
• bips & bops: khookie.com
• @rkhooks on Twitter

Click HERE for more editions of BOARDING PASS!

Fall Interlude {Luxembourg Gardens}

It's amazing how fast time is flying. Normally I wouldn't notice, but as I've been spending time every week in the Luxembourg Gardens for the past 3 months, where you can't help but notice the seasons changing before your eyes (and if it's not nature changing, the gardeners are!). These photos (all shot on my iPhone) were taken over the past two weeks. There's something soothing, calm and just fall about them.

Going Places {OpenIDEO}

You may remember this post I wrote about my disillusionment I experienced in Morocco (namely I couldn't believe that whenever I asked someone for directions on the street, they expected to be paid) and this post I wrote about OpenIDEO, a new platform for sharing ideas to make the world better. Well, I decided to put the two together and created a new "inspiration" on OpenIDEO whose current challenge asks the question: What global challenge do you think innovation leaders should work to solve right now? My latest response asks how tourism can be used to empower local communities, while at the same time helping to improve visitor experience (come on, let's move past mass tours on big buses). Check out the post here, and please share your thoughts, inspirations and examples that can be used throughout the process (its amazing how themes emerge and ideas are built upon).

P.S. Other ideas I've been exploring are how to reduce hunger by reducing waste, third generation humanitarian aid, and cross-cultural collaboration through design. The challenge is still in the inspiration phase. Click here to see all 70+ inspirations, and think about how you can contribute or add your own.

Boarding Pass - Kate Lydon

There are people in the world that it seems like you've known forever, but haven't ever met. Kate Lydon is one of those. I think our online communication and connection all started when I first contacted her about a "sneak peek" into her lovely home for Design*Sponge, and just grew from there. Kate keeps busy as a designer at IDEO (with a background in graphics and architecture - maybe we bond that way too), and is principal at Civil Twilight, a collective of wonderfully creative projects, and Saturate, her own card line - yet still has time to travel! I've been hearing about - rather than seeing - her travels, so I'm so excited to have this brand new BOARDING PASS to share with you today! Thanks, Kate!

{Kate in India}

home town:
Hard to say—my family lived around India for much of my childhood, and then settled in Berkeley by way of Washington, DC
.

{India}

current residence:
Oakland, CA


{Portugal}

last trip taken:
Portugal. My boyfriend Anton and I spent a leisurely ramble in Lisbon with family and then road tripped through the Alentejo, which was magical.

{Portugal}

next trip on deck:
Oaxaca! I’m excited, I’ve never been to Mexico.

{Ireland}

one place you would go back to again and again:
I always love visiting my extended family in the Irish countryside—the area is beautiful and my family always has a ton of projects going on!


{Portugal}

place you'd most likely recommend a friend go visit:
Japan. Tokyo and beyond… I think this is because I really want to explore more of Japan myself!

{Portugal}

preferred method of transportation:
I love the train, for staring out the window and daydreaming and sketching. Also, walking. I like the pace of day-long wanders around cities—spotting beautifully-lit courtyards, looking at cool signage, peering into doorways. Anton is also an architect so of course we love just checking out buildings and urban fabric in different places. I had a professor, Paul Groth, at Berkeley, who taught walking tours about the cultural geography of areas—I always think of him while roaming around getting to know cities. I also love walking around forests.

{Eames House}

place you've never been but dying to go:
Angkor Wat, Cartagena.


{Jaipur, India}

place you'd never go back:
New Delhi. Just too much sensory overload for me all at once. It was overwhelming.


{Marvao, Portugal}

most memorable trip in 2 sentences or less:
So hard to pick! I think I have a few—Portugal, since we just got back, is so fresh in my mind—we went from mountaintop castle town to mountaintop castle town—many times you could see one from the next—Castelo de Vide from Marvao, etc., and the Alentejo was full of beautiful fields of olive and cork trees. Ten years ago I hiked to Machu Pichu—it was my first long hiking trip, full of foggy jungles and beautiful snowy mountain views. Arriving at the city high up in the mountains was more amazing that I could have imagined. A surfari in Australia with friends was also pretty great.

{Alentejo, Portugal}

how do you prepare for a trip?
I look around online; I love the NYT travel section. I check Design*Sponge for city guides and shops and good neighborhood recommendations. We download Lonely Planet chapters to read on the plane.


{Merci - Paris}

how do you record your travels when you're traveling?
Photos and sketches. I like travel sketching because its helps me see things in a different way, and often, more carefully. And, it is fun to sketch in the beautiful sketchbooks that my mom makes for me. I also feel like there’s less pressure to sketch nicely, its more just quick notes.
what is your favorite thing to photograph in a new place?
I can’t get enough of signage, piles of produce at markets, and peculiar building details. And random small vernacular bits here and there, like lunch tiffins and lunch baskets in India.


{India}

{India}

on an average, how many pictures to you take on a trip?
I don’t know. A couple hundreds? Not thousands.

{Louisiana Museum, Copenhagen}

what's in your "designer travel kit" ?
An old Canon digital camera that’s somewhere in between a point and shoot and an SLR, iPhone camera, beautiful sketchbooks my mom makes for me. Muji .38 black pens! Best pens ever for drawing; I stock up every single time I’m at Muji. A good travel bag that adds style to wearing the same travel clothes every day. Right now it’s a dotted Orla Kiely tote.

{Jaipur, India - Copenhagen}

what do you do after a trip? how long after a trip does this happen?
I add to my sketchbook if I haven’t kept it up well during the trip (often!), download photos and pull out the scraps and bits of ephemera that have made their way into my pockets and bags. Sift and throw away most of it and keep the rest and add them into my sketchbook.
favorite souvenir/thing to bring back?
Packaging! Orange-wrapping papers from Spain. Labels in the perfect Deyrolle blue-green from Paris.

{Utah}

what was your most unexpectedly wonderful trip?

Anton and I went camping in the mountains outside of Salt Lake City—and I had no idea it would be so gorgeous—we hiked between mountain lakes large and small, interspersed with tiny wildflowers and waterfalls.

LINKS

• Civil Twilight Collective
• Saturate
• on Flickr
  

Find more from the archives of BOARDING PASS here, or listed on the column on the right!

The Art of the French Cliché

Seeing as it still hasn't stopped raining and Paris is starting to feel a bit more like Seattle, I thought it the perfect time to revisit some fabulously french stereotypes as presented in this delightful little film, Cliché!, by illustrator Cedric Villain.

What are your favorite French stereotypes? What did he miss?

P.S. Don't miss the special bonus making of - I always love a little look into the creative process.

La Vie Parisienne

My Little Paris sort son livre from mylittleparis

After the end of a gray, rainy and overall dreary week in Paris, I thought these two videos would be the perfect way to remind me to take full advantage of la vie parisienne and get out of the house. My Little Paris is a great site devoted to finding stylish gems around the city (a la DailyCandy in the US). And now, with the help of this awesomely adorable video created by monsieur et mademoiselle, they are releasing their first book, My Little Paris - Le Paris Secret des Parisiennes.

A Day in the Life of Je Ne Sais Quoi from SHOPJNSQ.

And speaking of living the Parisian life, check out a behind the scenes look at a day in the life of the e-boutique Shop Je Ne Sais Quoi. It happens to [co]star the lovely Lindsey of Lost in Cheeseland, and was directed by the incredibly talented Elena Rossini (check out her other projects!). I may have these videos on repeat all day just to hear the great soundtracks too!

Kickstarter {South Africa}

There are millions of great ideas floating out in the world which are limited not only by hours in the day, but more often by finances. Kickstarter is a site that hopes to break down some of those barriers and encourages creative endeavors by providing a platform where anyone can upload a project and share their stories which unfold through videos, pictures and blogs in order to entice you to donate to their cause. Any individual is welcome to make a pledge to a project, but projects only receive the money if the entire goal is met within a given time frame. This not only means less risk for everyone involved, but acts as a great testing ground, a way to get others involved, and motivates the project to come to life in creative ways.


In honor of my friends Lauren and Kyle who just got married (I introduced them!), major bike lovers who are currently on their honeymoon in South Africa, I thought the Bicycle Portraits Book would be a highly appropriate project to share. Pledges for this project reaped rewards for ($) contributors, and allowed the two creators - Stan Engelbrecht and Nic Grobler - to go on a bicycle journey across South Africa to meet and document everyday South Africans and fellow cyclists to understand the cycling culture (and lack of cycle commuters) for a photographic book. After two successful Kickstarter campaigns, Bicycle Portraits are no longer accepting pledges through the site, however project updates are posted and they are planning on launching a third campaign in early 2011. You can see more of their bicycle portraits here.


P.S. For another great/successful Kickstarter project, check out The Understanding Campaign - which seeks to teach everyone one word in Arabic, Fhm, "understanding" in order to help break taboos and bridge communication with the Arab world - that my friends at Posttypography became involved with.

P.S.S. For more great stuff on South Africa, check out what Lara and Terence are up to on their Grantourismo! adventures, including a beautiful time-lapse video of clouds over Table Mountain.

The United Plates of America

Being back in the States for a couple weeks was just the refresher I needed to return to my glamorous life in Paris. While I love both countries, space is the biggest difference (as evidenced by my 12m2/129sf apt that is smaller than many American bathrooms!). While I was home I got plenty of messages from my American friends in Paris jealous of my trips to Trader Joe's, Target, and telling me to eat a bagel for them. I haven't even been back in Paris for a week yet, and the few American treats I did manage to cram in my bag have almost all been devoured. In any case, as soon as I saw these wonderful food-inspired state shaped prints by John Holcomb of Shorthand Studio I felt that tinge of Americana all over again. The series features all 50 states + DC and are for sale in his shop. I've selected all the places I've lived, but click HERE to find your favorite state/food.

{Top image Washington, DC; Minnesota above}

{Kansas}

{Idaho}

{Virginia}

{Maryland}

P.S. No, I didn't move around a lot because of the military, but rather my Pop-Tart loving father's job in transportation/railroads. . . psst. Dad, keep an eye on the mailbox ;)