Road School is Now Christina’s Travels
Posted on April 23, 2023 Leave a Comment
April 23, 2023
Thank you everyone for subscribing to and reading my Road School blog for nearly three years!
I have decided to re-name my blog to more accurately reflect its content, and to host it on the Substack platform. My blog is now called Christina’s Travels” and I ask my readers to “Put your mind in curious mode, pack your sense of humor, and join me on my adventures throughout New England and beyond.”
Want to come along? Go to: Christina’s Travels | Christina Gagliano | Substack and enter your email to subscribe. I just posted “Walden, and What I Found There.” Hope you enjoy!
Snow Much Fun Not Skiing at Sunday River
Posted on March 9, 2023 2 Comments
POST 56: March 9, 2023
I’d like to state for the record that I had some intention of snowshoeing during our long weekend in Maine.
Many forces conspired against this plan, however, including: dark, wind, a kick-ass hot tub, King Domino, two good books, an abundance of red wine, and my preference to spend time (inside) with similar-minded family members.
Let me set the stage. There is a zero percent chance that, if left to my own devices, I would have booked a nice Airbnb (or a crappy one, for that matter) a couple of miles from what many feel is the East Coast’s best ski resort: Sunday River. My sister, though, is ski-crazed, and she and my son had been talking about skiing together. Since he’s a high school senior and may never again agree to join us on a family vacation, and her 50th birthday was on March 6, the stars aligned for this particular getaway.
Fast skis on fresh powder, heated lifts, and Cinnabons halfway down the mountain: could a birthday, from my sister’s viewpoint, get any better?
Why yes, yes it could, as my nieces, brother-in-law, and I proved by gifting her with surprise visits from both of her daughters.
Coordinating the suprise part was no easy task. My sis and bro-in-law were flying to Boston from Santa Fe. My niece Quincy lives and works in Edinburgh, while Daphne is a student at Kent State University in Ohio. But we pulled it off successfully–twice.
Quincy’s plane arrived an hour early from the UK, so she and I decided we had ample time to high-tail it to Harvard Square, indulge our bibliophilia at Harvard Bookstore, eat at Bon Me,and make it back to the airport in time to surprise Diana. We may have miscalculated–it was difficult to tear ourselves away from books and food–and we ended up running from some remote airport parking area that I hadn’t even known existed over to closer parking and into Terminal B with our bellies full of pulled pork sandwiches and JP Licks Kowlua ice cream.
It wasn’t pretty.
What was beautiful was my sister’s reaction to seeing her eldest baby approaching from the other side of an empty baggage carousel. Let’s just say there were tears of joy all around.
Picking up Daphne the next day was slightly trickier. In fact, it would’ve been impossible if my sister wasn’t The Most Gullible Person Alive. Quincy, my daughter Lucia, and I had to stall my sister until 2:15 p.m., when Daphne’s plane was due to arrive. After lingering at two coffee shops (much to Diana’s irritation, although she tried to hide it) and binge buying at Trader Joe’s, we finally prepared to leave for the airport. I texted Daphne the location where we’d pick her up, along with “She has NO idea you’re flying out here!”
Only, as I realized the second my finger hit that damn blue arrow, I had accidentally texted my sister and brother-in-law, not my niece.
My survival instincts took over. I grabbed my sister’s phone out of her hands and flung it into the back seat, where it may have hit Lucia or Quincy.
“What are you doing, lunatic?” my sister demanded.
“I–uh, that umm–text was supposed to be for Gabe.” I have no idea how I managed to come up with that tall tale under pressure but I was pretty impressed with myself. Maybe I should’ve been a CIA operative.
“What? Were you–” my sister looked disgusted, as she had every right to, thinking that I’d been sexting my husband with her, my daughter, and my niece surrounding me in a Mini-Cooper.
I gave a “yeah, I’m pathetic” half-smile and shrugged.
“Ewww.” She remained stunned for just enough time for tech-savvy Quincy to delete the text from my sister’s phone before handing it back to her.
“Now,” I announced, “we are taking a shortcut to Maine.”
The “shortcut” involved driving south on Interstate 93 (Maine is decidedly north of Massachusetts. Fun fact: Maine was actually part of Massachusetts until 1820, following a politically motivated vote for separation that the New England Historical Society amusingly refers to as “The Mexit from Massachusetts.”), then going to Logan Airport. As we wended our way around the airport access road, I commented that I sure was glad the secret shortcut still existed despite all the construction (Fun fact: Logan Airport is ALWAYS under construction.)
Only when I pulled up to the curb at Terminal C did my sister get an inkling of what was going on. I will protect her privacy and dignity by not quoting her or sharing all of her reactions. I will say simply that Diana was beyond thrilled to see Daphne, and that those of us who remained in the car were sure she was going to die when she bolted across the bus lane to greet her daughter.
Fortunately, nobody was injured, and we arrived at our Airbnb a few hours later. It was one of those shiny, happy vacation arrivals, when you realize the place you rented looks even better than it does in the pictures. Which was especially good in this instance since three of us only left the house twice: to shovel snow, and to hunt and gather non-snack food since that’s all we’d tossed into the cart at Trader Joes.
The skiers in our group claimed they had so much fun. And good on them for living their best shivery, exercisey, surrounded-by-seas-of-humanity-and-scents-of-sweaty-snow-boots lives.
I’ll just refer you back to the opening paragraph–i.e., the bit about the kick-ass hot tub–along with the awesomeness of pulling off that Double Daughter Surprise birthday gift for my sister, and I think you’ll understand how I managed to have a spectacular time at Sunday River without hitting the slopes.
Las Terrenas 2023: Of Whales, Wooziness, and Walls
Posted on February 15, 2023 2 Comments
POST 55: February 15, 2023
I should’ve known better than to accept drugs from someone I didn’t know.
But, everyone else on our whale watch was doing the dramamine the guide handed out, and I didn’t want to get seasick, so I tossed back the pill. After our boat zoomed to the outer reaches of Samana Bay, we observed numerous humpback whales, including a mother and her calf and a jumper whose twist-and-plunge I spotted about halfway through. I was suitably awestruck but fortunately managed to avoid falling off the bow while gaping.
As our craft returned to the dock, I started feeling soooo sleepy, a condition I chalked up to being in the sun for a couple of hours. I would’ve passed out as soon as I slid into the van transporting us from Samana back to Las Terrenas except I really had to pee. Since the majority of my fellow whale watchers shared this need, the driver stopped at a shiny new rest area, only to discover that the water wasn’t working. We’re in the Dominican Republic, so this not an entirely surprising circumstance, just an uncomfortable one. After our driver sped–and I do mean sped–through the mountains to a less elegant but operational baño, all I remember for the rest of Monday is: walking to the first restaurant we saw after returning to Las Terrenas; eating a gourmet Italian meal in a sunscreen-stained t-shirt and shorts; and, back at our villa, watching Dog the Bounty Hunter in Spanish. Oh, and listening to an Audible book about the Bloody Benders, who were 1870s Kansas serial killers.
Let’s just say I had some interesting dreams.
The next morning, I looked up dramamine and discovered that it’s an antihistamine. Well, duh, I wish I would’ve known that pre-whale watch. I studiously avoid Benadryl, another antihistamine, because it makes me feel simultaneously revved up, exhausted, and wrapped in thick clouds of cotton for many hours.
I felt sort of like that on Saturday evening, after a couple of rum and chinolas. In case you’re wondering, chinola is both “passion fruit” (yuk) and the passion fruit liqueur (yum) that is popular here. Having partaken in the the 2-for-1 happy hour special and returned to our villa, I told Gabe that no, I didn’t feel like going out in the dark in search of dinner when I was a bit fuzzy and we had Nutella and crackers in the house. He didn’t share my opinion that Nutella and crackers would make a fine meal, so he went to the closest pizza place.
(Aside: for unknown reasons, the “plain” pizza my husband returned with had anchovies and capers on it. Was this due to a miscommunication, like when our Dominican waiter heard our attempts at saying the French “amande” for an almond croissant at Boulangerie Francaise as “jamon” and we received a croissant with ham on it? This happened twice, so poor language skills on our part are highly probable. Or does an anchovy and capers pizza pass for “plain” in Las Terrenas?).
Back to the actual story: Gabe told me the place had an odd vibe and he was glad to get out of there.
Walking back from the beach the next afternoon, Gabe and I saw a fire engine and what may have been the entire Dominican police force in front of that pizzeria. We learned that a concrete wall had fallen in, crushing both the staircase up to the pizzeria and the restaurant’s owner. We were horrified to hear that the man will likely lose his legs, if not his life. We also were spooked by the fact that Gabe had been on those very stairs, next to that very wall, just hours before both had collapsed.
The poem “For the Anniversary of My Death” came to mind. Gabe and I strolled solemnly along the beach, disconcerted by the contrast of the rubble we’d seen with the the boundless beauty and life surrounding us: laughing people, frolicking dogs, kite surfers skimming the waves, sunshine warming our skin (and, perhaps, giving us skin cancer at the same time). We wondered how many other near-death anniversaries we have unknowingly survived: a truck driver waking just in time to swerve away from our car? A random killer deciding to stop for a pack of cigarettes instead of jumping us? Selecting the non-tainted head of lettuce instead of the one next to it?
But all–in fact, most–is not doom and gloom here in Las Terrenas. I’ll end this post with a much happier wall tale.
We decided yesterday morning to branch out from Boulangerie Francaise and the Italian cafe whose name I don’t know to try a different coffee shop. Having noted it the other evening during an outdoor Superbowl party (that’s another story entirely), we went to Jojo’s Java House. I enjoyed a mug of plain old drip coffee, which I needed after days of cappuccinos and/or crappy coffee I made at our rental villa using something called a “Greca,” and Gabe said Jojo’s cappuccino, made by the newly-minted barista Every, was quite good. Every also pulled off some pretty impressive heart cappuccino art for Valentine’s Day.
We met the owners, Mary and Jeff. They are doctors from Alabama who visited Las Terrenas in 2019, bought a house and moved here with their five children in 2020, and opened the coffee shop last year. Mary is also doing some life coaching. These people aren’t just planning the next phase of their lives, they are living it. Inspired by their enthusiasm and the welcoming atmosphere of their coffee shop, I feel like I too may find the courage to follow a few dreams of my own.
But, first, more caffeine.
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