Since it is June, it is also time for more questions from Luzia Pimpinella‘s five-questions-each-month-project. This month it is all about summer and vacation.
1. Where do you prefer to be?
I would say my favorite place is at or close to the sea. Some years I travel so much that I am glad when I finally spend some time at home. This year for instance I am very much looking forward to the start of July when we will have moved and I have a place I call home again. The studio I have lived in since last summer is nice, but I spent so much time away, esp. all the weekends that I visited my boyfriend, and by now it is not very homely with moving boxes standing around. I have already looked up that if we get the apartment we have applied for in Midtown (yep, still no news from the coop board), it will be a ten minute walk to the East River, which is actually an estuary, i.e. I’ll live very close to the sea. And that’s what I have always wanted. Reminds me a little bit of Istanbul.
Saying this, I always enjoy traveling. But to me there needs to be a balance and if I continue to move once a year (I really wouldn’t mind to slow down here though), I will feel to stressed out to do so.
2. What do you always bring on vacation?
My first thought was my camera, but thinking about it I realized that I love my electric toothbrush even more. So definitely my amazing toothbrush (this one* btw) (I mean come on, I also love going to the dentist) and most of the time my DSLR camera plus its equipment. Although sometimes I just use my phone (a Samsung Galaxy S9+*), which, thanks to its dual camera, takes high quality photos as well. I usually also bring my selfie stick, but don’t use it much because I feel people judge me – I know that it’s stupid and it shouldn’t matter, but while in Turkey so many people used it all the time, it feels like a rather rare sight in America.
Besides, I always pack too many clothes and beauty products. But at least I am prepared for all situations.
3. What is your favorite food in summer?
When it is really warm, I have a lot less appetite. I love water melons and icecream. Or in general more cold dishes. The rest depends a bit on where I go to. In Turkey I always loved the cold meze during summer, in Greece grilled octopus. In Germany I just eat everything I can’t have abroad like kassler, leberkäse and döner. In the U.S. there is so much variety in food that I find it hard to pin that down. Here in New England I love lobsters and lobster rolls; in New York City this summer I’ll definitely try food from different cultures.
Besides eating raw watermelon, I also like it in cakes [recipe here] or in a cold tomato watermelon soup [here].
4. Which team are you on: team sweltering heat or team North European cold?
I like to advertise myself to my boyfriend as his personal A.C. because my feet are always freezing. All year round. So … I obviously prefer high temperatures. I am not so much a fan of big humidity, but hey, I can’t have everything as, unfortunately, summers esp. in New York City can turn pretty humid. Normally though I am much more awake as soon as the season turns warmer, maybe I am a mutant and cold-blooded. But seriously, I enjoy being in warmer climes like Turkey, Greece, the Caribbean, which is why living in Boston with its miserable winters was such an ordeal for me.
Sometimes I even go on road trips in wintery weather – although we had actually expected much warmer and sunnier days when we explored the Grand Canyon this February.
5. How do you best relax on vacation?
Once a year I don’t mind being in an all-inclusive resort where I don’t have to do anything. Else, I manage to organize vacation myself. In general it depends a little bit on the time of the year to define what kind of vacation I need most of all. Towards the end of the school year and right at the start of summer vacation I enjoy lying at a pool or on a beach much more because I need a lot of quiet and sleep. I read one book after another and only get up to either get a drink, a snack or to go into the water to cool off a little. During all other times, I also enjoy exploring new places. I love road trips because I am very flexible and see many new things. Just being outside, looking at and thinking about other stuff than lesson plans, class tests, etc. immediately takes my mind of work and relaxes me.
© janavar
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