Category Archives: Travel

Catching up…

Well… It’s been six years.

A lot has changed in the last six years… Including a move overseas to what is now three different destinations outside of the USA.

So… here’s the quick version… We all left Denver and went to Amsterdam just in time for Covid. Spent three years in the Netherlands (developed a taste for mayo with fries) and traveled to Belgium, France, Luxembourg, & Germany. The wife went to the Isle of Jersey with her mom, a trip she took while I was with my mom in Maryland. We then jetted off to Qatar just in time for the World Cup 2022. I was at an English language radio station, QBS Radio 97.5 doing mainly mornings. My mom joined my dad in heaven in January of 2024 and my sister, who tirelessly looked after her often multiple times a day, and I have become closer. Then we all pulled up stakes and are back in our beloved Cayman. I can’t express enough how blessed we both are to be back in our adopted home country. We’re both working very hard at our jobs; I’m at Compass Media – the new name for Cayman Free Press where I was before leaving Cayman in 2013 – doing the breakfast show on Gold (Classic Hits) and the afternoon show on Rooster (Country). Life is settling in so I figured it would be a good time to get back into blogging/journaling.

I’m still on the Slow Carb Diet as illustrated by Tim Ferriss in his book, The Four Hour Body and I’ve keep the weight off for over 12 or so years. I’m still obsessive as ever with my nutrition.

There’s tons of things I could say at this point, and maybe I’ll do some history snapshots over the coming days and weeks of various blasts from the past that you may not know about. Until then… Bring on Cheat Day and Chicken & Waffles!

Oh, Colorado

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Well, it’s been a long, long, time.

Short version: We did not choose to go to Morocco as planned in September. Instead we headed west to Denver. We emptied the storage space and got rid of 90% of the items in there and put the rest in a pod.

We bought at car, loaded the dogs up and drove cross country.

And now we’re here.

Then we went to New York to meet John Oliver.

Spent Thanksgiving in Aspen

Saw some cool sunrises & snow from the apartment

And life goes on…

French Canada

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We left Vermont on the 25th and headed up to meet another Cayman friend in Montreal. She was coming from Toronto and we both managed to park our cars on the street on the one specific hour out of the one specific day of the week where parking is prohibited due to street cleaning. One would say, “What are the chances?” but really, it was inevitable.

After a lovely night of searching up and down Avenue du Mont-Royal E, we feasted at Le Sieur D’Iberville which included, of course, poutine…

Le Sieur D’Iberville poutine

Not the best, but not the worst we’ve had. The burgers were okay as well. A little later that evening, we had cocktails at La Distillerie where I experienced a Flyé coffee on tap… Fermented coffee. Delicious.

Flyé coffee on tap

There were other wonders to behold in old Montreal, mostly food and drink related.

: Separated sangria

: Polpetto

: Nutella calzone

: Poutineville

: Poutineville custom poutine

And some not…

: Alicia & Jenn

: Bachlorette Party

: Ben & Alicia

Summer Break, Makes Me Feel Fine

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After Firefly, the rest of this summer so far has seemed to have simultaneously flew by and stood still.

It seems that we aren’t quite able to catch our breaths even though we are on holiday. It’s not in a bad way, it’s exciting and awesome to be traveling the east coast and catching up with old friends, there’s just a lot of sorting out stuff that needed to/still needs to happen.

So, in keeping with that, let’s go as much as possible up to now to do what needs to be done…

Thank you to New York area rest stops for having these machines:

Kosher Snacks

and to Pancho’s Mexican Restaurant in Clifton Park, NY for the linguistic assist.

Pancho’s Food Guide

Finally arriving in Vermont to rejoin up with old Cayman friends, John & Mandy, we strolled around Winooski Falls and saw a rainbow, drank some good wine along with a nice chocolate truffle, went on a tour of Ben & Jerry’s, and tried to keep Vermont weird.

: Winooksi Falls Rainbow

: Wine & Chocolate

: Ben & Jerry’s Tour Tix

: Keep Vermont Weird

A few days later, we headed to Montreal, where fate decreed that we were to park in a spot, where parking is prohibited during the one hour of the one day per week that the city does street cleaning, Merci beaucoup.

At least the street trash was pretty.

Montreal street trash

Coming next, Poutine, Sangria, Charcuterie, Bagels and more…

Vermont, Day 2

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Waking up in Vermont at John & Mandy’s place found me checking the Fitbit and seeing it was past 7:30am. The latest I’ve slept in a long time…

Magical.

Now begins the task of going back in time to catch up on the rest of the journaling of this trip back to the USA and on to Morocco in August.
Last night we walked around Winooski. Weather was supposed to be bad but no storms made it up here.

One year ago…

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As the sun rises half a world away in the West (Eastern Daylight Time zone), Jennifer and I recall that one year ago we left the Cayman Islands.

It’s not lost on us that we were fortunate to leave somewhat on our own terms as I was three days away from being in violation of the Immigration Policy at the time, she landed a job, and that was that.

Given the ever-changing climate when it comes to expats in the territory, we were not confident that we would have been safe to stay much longer and at least we were getting out with an opportunity, albeit physically halfway around the world (and in almost every other way light years) from those things that make up the kind of life we enjoy.

We left our home, our friends and de facto family and almost none of the advice and things we were told about Korea applied to our situation. Even the information we received about life under the umbrella of working for an international school was complete. Maybe that’s just how it is.

But we continue to make the most of the situation; I did land an amazing job in my field that pays well and both of us are growing and adding to our lives and gaining valuable professional experience. We are challenged possibly more than others who have never tried to make a go of it this far from home, and if nothing else, the stories we can now tell will surely entertain.

Oh, and we added the sweetest little Korean dog in the world to our brood.

So we got that going for us…

Coffeesurfing

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Y’all know what a big fan of illy coffee I am…

A few months ago, the illy Coffeesurfer, aka world renowned photographer Gabriele Galimberti, came to Seoul and I was excited to share my story with him & have him snap my picture in one of my oases of small pleasures.

Now you can read all about it here.

It was a pretty cool experience just to talk to someone who’s couchsurfed his way around the world multiple times and even made his way to Cayman as part of his ‘Delicatessen with love’ series. His work is impressive, but I was more impressed with his stories of how he’s married his love of travel with this love of photography. Check out his work here.

Safe travels, my friend. The next time we meet, the illy’s on me.

Airplanes

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Hayley Williams once asked “Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars? I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now…”

And then B.O.B. and Eminem chimed in with some stuff, but for this post I think I’ll just stick with the airplane thing.

For as long as I can remember, seeing airplanes take off has been a thing for me. It represents excitement, adventure… and for some reason that I’m trying to figure out, the greener grass.

No matter how good I feel I have it (and trust me, all things considered I have it really good right now) seeing an airplane flying over the Han River last night on the bus home from work got to me like it always does.

Even when we lived in the Caribbean, with the sun, warmth, and all that stuff, I felt that way.

I love the idea of travel, but in practice it’s not so glam. Probably like most people, I hate traveling on planes nowadays. It’s always a hassle more than an adventure, but I was still envious of those folks as they made their way to cruising altitude last night. And I wondered if the sun had set enough for me to mistake the jet for a shooting star…

Back in the swing of things

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This post is very overdue in coming. Apologies. Between an active holiday season and slow jumping off into 2014, I’ve been neglecting my writings.

Not that this is really any kind of earth shattering stuff, but some of you have decided that it’s somewhat amusing and/or entertaining.

Quick catchup:

Went to Bali for Xmas and New Year’s. First time we’ve traveled to a ‘foreign country’ during fall/winter since Paris in 2005. Was in Cayman for six out of seven ‘festive seasons’ and I don’t count that as a foreign country. We had a good time that keeps getting better as time goes by.

Meaning that while we were there there were some challenges that made it tough for us to reconcile our expectations with the reality of what we were experiencing. It was like this:

Know what I mean?

In any event, we got back to Seoul in one piece and have had a kind of shaky start to the new year. A few funds have been delayed in getting to us, and hopefully all of that will be rectified in short order and we’ll be able to move forward in a few ways we’ve been counting on.

We went to a place in Pangyo this past weekend called Avenue France. For the record, it is completely (and not unexpectedly) inappropriately named as it is neither anything like an Avenue or anything like France.

At least the “Paradise Pie” a la mode at Tartine was good.

After we devoured half of it, we realized it should be warm and scraped the remaining ice cream off the top and had the gal nuke it for 90 seconds… Then it was great.

I finished off the weekend this morning with the Super Bowl. Quite a change from last year.

But whaddya gonna do?

In the meantime, time marches on and the continued quest for satisfaction is underway…

FriendSurfing

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Ultimately it’s probably a good thing that I have a couple of hours each day where I’m on the bus into Seoul with my thoughts and no distractions. I try to avoid the internet and disconnect for a while and either listen to some music or finish playing Words With Friends.

As a result of this me time I’ve been thinking about people and things Jennifer and I have left behind in Cayman and how much we miss not necessarily the place itself, which we do, of course, but we also miss the strange and wonderful people a place like a small island in the Caribbean attracts.

Not to say that after a few years in Asia wouldn’t be a similar thing, but it will never completely replace the close friendships created in Cayman… Nor should it. We only hope we’ll be able to forge similar relationships; those that will last.

And then I wonder if Korea will be the last stop before going back to the USA. Or if we’re fated to spend more time either in Europe or somewhere else and how we never really know where the road will go and that we should try to keep our eyes off our miniture pocket display screens and watch the scenery go by… because nothing lasts forever.

Oh yeah, it snowed here today. Joy.

Ben Maxwell

Website of Ben Maxwell.

Category Archives: Travel

Catching up…

Oh, Colorado

French Canada

Summer Break, Makes Me Feel Fine

Vermont, Day 2

One year ago…

Coffeesurfing

Airplanes

Back in the swing of things

FriendSurfing