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July 21, 2014
in New York, North America, Round the World, travel, United States

I didn't know Amber until I showed up on her doorstep three years ago to crash on her air mattress in Brooklyn for a few nights. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and I was moving in again (this time upgraded to a pull out couch). In the three years in between, I've read every last word of her blog. Seriously, it's one of very few blogs I read cover to cover. She's always up to something interesting. Her photography is amazing. And she's incredibly honest, even when it's something difficult to write about. And I like that...

July 18, 2014
in New York, North America, Round the World, travel, United States

It was my sixth time in New York but the first time I stepped back and thought, time and time again, "I could live here." I could live in New York. I really think it had to do with the advent of the smartphone, allowing me to be anywhere in the city and figure out anywhere I wanted to go. Or maybe that I didn't walk through Times Square once. Or maybe that everyone I saw was up to something awesome: kite clubs, sideshow performing, backyard s'mores, launching a new company in a day. It's the kind of place where I think...

July 16, 2014
in Life List, New York, North America, Round the World, travel, United States

The one touristy thing I had on my New York to-do list was to take a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. I was planning to go solo, but, when my friend Kristin told me that she'd never done it before either, we decided to meet up one afternoon for the trek across the East River. We met on the Brooklyn side of the bridge (you can start and end on either side) and made our way to Manhattan, stopping to take photos of the scenery, the skyline, the river, the other walkers, and, of course, the bridge itself along the way. It...

July 14, 2014
in competitive eating, New York, North America, Round the World, travel, United States

Every time Molly Schuyler does something, I can count on at least five people sending me a link to it. Which probably says something about both my reputation and hers. There was that time she ate 363 chicken wings in 30 minutes. And that time she ate a 72-oz steak in just under 5 minutes. And then ate another one. The woman is a phenomenon. A few days before my hot dog eating contest I went to Coney Island to watch her eat 5.5 pounds of brains to win Glutton Force 5 and the NYC Zombie Crawl's Brain Bash at the Beach brain eating...

July 10, 2014
in competitive eating, Life List, New York, North America, Round the World, travel, United States

I was a celebrity. Being approached on the street for photos. Getting asked for an autograph at a bar. Receiving random high fives from the crowd. Being told by a mass of self-proclaimed groupies that they were rooting for me. For me. A self-proclaimed groupie myself. I told that group of guys that they picked the wrong girl to cheer for. I told them I came in dead last, far behind all the other totals. I told them I only had qualified by default. But no one cared. "But you did it," they'd say. They'd all say, when I'd sheepishly tell anyone who asked...

July 3, 2014
in New York, North America, Round the World, travel, travel news, United States

Where I stood to watch 3 years ago. Where I will eat on Friday. Three years ago today I boarded a one-way flight to New York to attend the July Fourth Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest and begin my 'round the world trip. At the time I thought, "There's no way I would ever want to travel for more than a year," and I'm pretty sure everyone else thought, "She's not going to make it three months." But things chance. People change. Yesterday I again boarded a one-way flight to New York. This time to compete in the July Fourth Nathan's...

June 27, 2014
in Round the World, travel

Booking plane tickets makes me nervous. I can spend hours searching Kayak and Skyscanner for the perfect place, the perfect price, but, even if I find a great deal, can never bring myself to book. Even if I know that I have to be somewhere for something at a specific date and time I hem and haw over whether I should get there an extra day early or what time of day I should leave and arrive. The longer I travel, the harder making travel plans gets. It seems like it would be the opposite: I'd get so comfortable picking...

February 13, 2014
in Bad Decisions, England, Europe, London, relationships, Round the World, travel, United Kingdom

"Fuck the future. It would've been nice to have you in my present for a little while." A heart in my hot chocolate at Little Goat. If I'm going to be alone, I'm going to need chocolate.   I had been drunk the night before receiving that message, sitting outside a hostel in Laos at god knows what hour, after dodging another backpacker who kept trying to kiss me and take me back to his hotel room. Instead I broke free and walked home, alone, got out my laptop, and wrote to a boy I'd met at a hostel in Vietnam a few...

January 17, 2014
in Life List, New York, North America, travel, United States

I've been so busy working a temp job the past two weeks that all I want to do when I get home is curl up with Food Network. So I haven't had much time to write. And I'm certainly not traveling at the moment. But, since I'm traveling to New York this summer, it's on my mind. I went to New York City for the first time in 1999, the summer between graduating high school and starting college. I wrote this years ago, 2005 maybe, before I had a blog, for a travel writing class I took in grad school. At...

December 27, 2013
in food, Life List, North America, Round the World, Tennessee, travel, United States

I'm pretty sure I first heard about Dyer's Burgers while reading Hamburger America (a roadtripper's bible of road food stops) some years ago. The restaurant on Memphis's Beale Street is known for it's deep fried hamburgers. But the patties aren't just cooked in any old grease: they're cooked in really old grease. Each burger is fried up in the same grease they've been using for 100 years, since the restaurant first opened in 1912....

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© Choosing Figs / Val Bromann
2006 –
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