Queenstown, located on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand,  is a small, hyperactive, adrenalin-fuelled town. It’s boundaries have been determined by the terrain,  the  sinister looking  peaks of the Remarkable and Eyre mountains which often cast a shadow over the town,  and Lake Wakatipu whose glacier waters constantly lap the shores of the town (Maori legend has it that this constant water movement is caused by the breathing giant that lives under the surface).

But it’s this terrain which also what makes Queenstown a town tailor-made for adventurers and adrenalin junkies. Here, there are white water rivers to raft, canyons and caves to explore, and mountains to ski, snowboard, bike down, or even jump off. This was once gold rush country but these days the streets are not paved with gold. They are, instead, covered with signs and placards aimed at enticing tourists and visitors to expand their horizons and find their ‘inner adventurer’.

Queenstown, however, is not just about adventure. It does have a quieter, more refined side.

There’s plenty of  places to walk and explore without having to suit up in climbing gear, get wet, or throw yourself off a bridge. It has numerous cafes, restaurants, and surrounding wineries, so there is always somewhere to sit, eat, drink and watch the world go by. The TTS Earnslaw, a vintage coal burning steamship that was once the lifeline for farming communities living around the mountain ringed Lake Wakatipu, offers regularly scheduled cruises. And for more spectacular views of Queenstown and it’s surrounds, nothing beats a trip up Bob’s Peak on the Gondola.

So when my partner and I couldn’t agree on where for the weekend – he wanted action and adventure, I wanted to be wined and dined – Queenstown was an easy choice. 

Arriving late Friday night, we hopped into a waiting rental car and hightailed it for Millbrook Resort twenty minutes outside of Queenstown. Formerly a 19th century wheat farm, Millbrook Resort is located in the historic gold mining settlement of Arrowtown and is an oasis of peace and tranquillity, a refreshing contrast to adrenalin high Queenstown.

Settling in, I fell asleep dreaming of a day of pure indulgence, lazing around the resort and booking into a spa treatment or two. But these dreams were quickly shattered the next morning. Turned out that, unknown to me, my partner, aka ‘the serial jumper’, had bought tickets for a bungy jump. Handing me the brochure during breakfast, he launched into a running commentary.

 “After breakfast, we’ll head down to Kawarau Bridge. That’s the oldest and smallest of the jumps – a place to get your feet wet, so to speak.” Gulping my coffee, I weakly nodded.

At this stage, I was ready to jump. Jump into the car and headed back to the airport. But instead, I simply sit, too stunned to say anything, thinking that I should have taken seeing Susan Jeffers’ book ‘Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway’  prominently featured in the airport bookstore as an omen. Here in Queenstown, anyone who didn’t know better probably thought it was an instruction manual for adventure sports.

But mostly, I sit cursing AJ Hackett.  It’s all his fault really.

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2009 marks the year when the Hudson River Valley celebrates the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s historic journey up the Hudson River. This voyage was arguably the most important event for European involvement in North America since Columbus stumbled upon the continent on his way to China.

That’s about as old as white-man history gets in America. Ever since then, the Hudson River and its surrounding valley have quietly shaped the history of America far more than flashier and louder claimants on the Eastern Seaboard. While the Revolutionary War’s first shots were fired near Boston, it was the chain of forts along the Hudson River that hosted the most pivotal battles of America’s claim to independence.

Revisionist history might cast Henry Hudson as the usual European invading colonizer, and simply be snootily certain that he got what he deserved when his crew mutinied and set him adrift in the Canadian Arctic (bet that’s never happened to a Rough Guide writer) to freeze to death. But good or bad, it happened, and the Hudson Valley’s role in America’s history was determined long before the Dutch sold New Amsterdam to the English, who turned a little island called Manhatta into a city-state that continues to shape the prism of American existence.

There have been a number of newspaper and travel articles this year detailing celebrations and events all up and down the Hudson River, from Manhatten all the way up to Albany and beyond. I’ve spent a lot of time looking for good resources of history and events and travel plans, and finally, last week, came across the best, most comprehensive review of the Hudson Valley’s historic roles, its present attractions, and its future direction: WAMC, the public radio station out of Albany.

All last week WAMC took its morning show up and down the Hudson Valley to interview historians, writers, artists, civil rights activists, environmentalists, musicians, politicians, and professors, all with some involvement in an area of this unique valley.

It was a fantastic show because it gave listeners a comprehensive understanding of how important the Hudson has been to all aspects of American life — Revolutionary War history, sure, but it has also been home to some of the country’s greatest entrepreneurs, has engendered some of its most influential art movements, and either birthed, nurtured, or inspired some of its most well-known musicians and writers. It is also where the country’s environmental movement began, back with philanthropic industrialists in the early 1900s.

Luckily for those who don’t live within the listening area of the radio station, you can still listen to all of the fascinating interviews and panel shows by following this link to the show, New York’s Hudson River: An Audio Portrait of 400 Years of History. There, you can access individual interviews with the New York Historical Society, or learn to build a native canoe, or listen to a discussion with Pete Seeger, the monumentally influential 1960s musician who has devoted much of his life to the health and welfare of the Hudson River.

America has more storied rivers than the Hudson — the Mississippi, with its attraction for richly imaginative writers; or the Colorado, with its role in California’s growth and possible crash as the river is overtaxed — but none of them have the actual impact on the shaping of this country’s history as great waterway whose quiet valley is so often in the shadow of New York City.

Two professional conferences, two different climates (Seattle WA and Tulsa OK) for six full days.

I’ve written here before about how my husband was a Suitcase Swami by getting everything into a carry-on for one of his conferences – could I do it myself?

You bet, because these days, it’s me versus the airlines.

No way will I pay American Airlines to check my luggage, only to have it possibly lost or abused when I really need to look well-dressed (and I was giving a keynote presentation and workshop at the second conference.)

The video below was filmed with my Flip camera as I unpacked the suitcase from the trip. Here’s what I took:

• 3 pair of trousers
• 2 skirts
• 6 tops
• 4 cardigan sweaters (rather than stiffer, hard-to-pack suit jackets)
• 1 jersey knit blazer-style jacket
• 3 pair of shoes
• 1 lined windbreaker
• 1 T-shirt to sleep in
• scarves, jewelry, spare glasses, toiletries kit, quart-sized bag for liquids

Light, light, light. Pare down the shoes.  Pay for a light, well-constructed suitcase (I use a Travelpro Rollaboard.)

Here’s the URL of the how to pack video if you’re an RSS reader or can’t see the box below.

The hills of Lisbon, stuttering with red-tiled roofs and church bells, swept down to an expansive estuary that came as a surprise when I walked out of the older districts, through the old town and across the shopping street and up to the castle-turned-public-gardens where, thankfully, vinho verde wine was served, sparkling and light and refreshing on a hot day.

The huge, calm water, spanned by busy bridges that seemed insignificant from a high distance, although their traffic was overwhelming up close, surprised because the older, picturesque parts of the city were hemmed in by close-knit, chipped multi-story buildings that shut out the light and provided convenient distance for slinging laundry lines across. The streets of LIsbon weren’t claustrophobically narrow, just closed in and hivelike enough to make me feel just a little lost in a different world, or the worlds of many different lives, as each cobbled turning seemed to lead to an entirely different neighborhood with its own families and cafes and flowered balconies and laundry lines.

My second day-long walk through the city was meant to show me the sights, but, except for making it up to the hilltop Castelo de Sao Jorge, I didn’t take note of any particular churches, or historical monuments, or even the odd wrought-iron lift that linked the Baixa quarter with the Largo do Carmo (it looked an awful lot to me like a storage house for Inquisition victims, although I’m sure that wasn’t its intention when it was built to save people a hike less than 100 years ago). Instead, I got repeatedly lost, taking turning after turning to chase after the repetitive, delightful tile work that is one of Lisbon’s last remnants of its long-past Moorish invaders. I’d seen tile work like it in Turkey, although of a very different style, and found it ridiculously entrancing, as if it were a high art form akin to classical music, mesmerizing.

Mostly, it was just very pretty, and fitting for a city that wasn’t ashamed to flaunt superfluous flourishes, either in its architecture or its hospitality. As I hunted down tiled door after tiled window, I punctuated the day with coffee: um galao, um garoto escuro, uma italian, uma bica. I wanted to try all the varieties Lisbon could bring itself to make. Each request, with a halting por favor, brought a big smile and huge rush of friendly words from the waiter. Clean and beautiful and awash in EU money that sank a noisy road underground and modernized the subway, Lisbon residents seemed to have no expectation that visitors would attempt to learn their language, even though pride in their wine, their cheese, their culture, and their city, was more than evident, and rightfully so. I made myself almost sick on those soft cheeses, and, four months pregnant, could hardly do the wine justice.

But the kindness of the people and the beauty of the city was easy to drink in.

Worn out from hours walking the streets of the Bairro Alto, I crossed the wide tree-lined thoroughfare leading toward the water and splitting the Bairro Alto from castle-hosting Alfama, the street just a touristy sunken valley between two hills buzzing with local life.

A tram line took a steep road up to the Castelo de Sao Jorge, once the residence of Lisbon’s nobility, now public gardens. I caught the tram at the bottom of the hill and hung onto a strap, swaying as it pitched itself up an ever more precipitous grade. An old man watched me from his seat, his eyes focused at the level of my belly. He narrowed his eyes and gesticulated with hands and voice. “Sit,” he said, the demand clear even if I couldn’t understand the words. “No,” I said, smiling, “I’m fine. You sit. I’m okay.” Exasperated, he gathered his three plastic bags and two canes together and stood up, a hand that could almost be described as ancient pushing me into his seat. “You’ll fall, you’ll hurt your baby, you’ll end up in the hospital,” and, blushing, I sat, as the old man with the three full plastic bags used his canes to balance and got off at the next stop. I stared after him, wondering. In America, none of my friends could yet tell that I was pregnant.

I got off at the top, the Castelo de Sao Jorge, a Moorish castle that had once hosted Portuguese royalty. Sitting on the ramparts, contemplating a glass of vinho verde with crusty bread and soft cheese, overlooking a tumbling city that seemed to rush like a red-tiled waterfall to the estuary, falling over itself with kindness. When I left, I walked down a tiny street where every house had a caged canary singing next to its front door.

One of the things that everyone said I must do when I arrived in Mexico City was visit Casa Azul, the home of the artist Frida Kahlo, now transformed into a remarkable museum.

It was advice I was happy to take, because although I actually didn’t see the 2002 biopic Frida, starring Salma Hayek, I’ve been interested in Kahlo ever since her knotted eyebrowed self portraits showed up in my early social studies classes in high school.

Besides, it’s hard to visit Mexico without getting interested in murals, the muralists that made them, and the world they inhabited in the 1930s and 40s, whether its Jose Clemente Orozco in Guadalajara, David Alfaro Siqueiros in San Miguel de Allende, or Diego Rivera in Mexico City. While Kahlo wasn’t a muralist, but she was married and deeply enmeshed with Rivera, had an affair with Leon Trotsky (who was almost killed in an assassination plot that included Siqueiros) and is indisputably a part of the woof and weft of the era.

After checking out the murals in the historic district including at Antiguo Convento San Idelfonso and the Palacio de Bellas Artes, I headed a bit further a field to San Angel, and visited

Diego Rivera’s studio/home that he shared with Frida Kahlo for a time. The studio is packed with art objects that served as inspiration, as well as the tools of the trade, paint brushes and palettes. (And check out the bride and groom sculpture he kept within sight of his bed!)  Although Rivera died in 1957 there was still an undercurrent of artistic energy.

San Angel is not far from Casa Azul, which is in Coyoacán — where Frida Kahlo was born, and died, and where the two also lived for a time. It’s now fantastic museum, including a formal gallery of Frida’s works (with a few by Diego Rivera) and then her preserved living quarters, where you can observe the corsets that she decorated, the wheelchair pulled up to an easel in her studio, to a poster depicting the stages of pregnancy, to the art supplies next to her bed.

Frida Kahlo is quoted throughout the museum, on placards in the garden, and painted on the exhibit walls, in an approximation of her hand. Almost all of them were about Diego Rivera, their tormented relationship, her inability to control him, his work as an artist  — his drive, she said “breaks clocks and calendars.”

I have to say, all the “Diego, Diego, Diego” got on my nerves. I know that her relationship with Diego was a major theme in her art and in her life, and that everyone loves a love story, and particularly one as wracked with scandal as this one was – it would make any telenovela seem tame. But it seems to me that Kahlo was more than her relationship with Rivera, and I know that she had interesting things to say on other subjects.  I came to Casa Azul to be inspired by the presence of an artist and not to worship at the cathedral of twisted love.

I’m willing to concede that I’m being cantankerous here. So I’m going to revisit a few books on Kahlo and Rivera and see if my opinion changes. But I wonder if any one else has felt the same?

From Perceptive Travel webzine: Unbalanced in the Sinking City