My Favorite & Most Popular Travel Posts of 2016

In case you missed any, here is a list (and links) to my favorite and most read blog posts of 2016.

My Favorite Blog Posts

Arusha, Tanzania: Four Days on Safari in Wild Africa
"In the coming decades and centuries, men will not travel to view marvels of engineering, but they will leave the dusty towns in order to behold the last places on earth where God's creatures are ..."

The Nameless Women Who Shaped My Travel Perspective
As I sat staring out the airplane window, I heard the thud of a large backpack landing in the overhead bin. A woman with short dark hair shoved into the seat next to me. She sighed ...

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii: A Civilian "Lost" in the Pacific
Guest Blogger: Stephanie Anderson. I'm on a boat. And while I may not have found myself lost in any foreign countries on my most recent vacation, I did get the chance to get lost on an aircraft carrier ...

Bratsk, Siberia: A Country of Contrast
"Everybody's like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece. Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash. We don't care, we aren't caught up in your love affair." Lorde's song "Royals" is bellowing ...

Thimphu, Bhutan: Stumbling Upon or Selling Shangri-La?
Shangri-La: a mystical, harmonious valley; an earthly paradise; a mythical Himalayan utopia where people are chronically happy and isolated from the outside world. For years many have touted ...

Cinque Terre, Italy: The Italian Riviera by Sea
Nothing is more breath-taking than admiring the Italian Riviera by sea. As we cruised down the Ligurian coast in our private taxi boat, we gazed at rolling green hillsides dotted with colorful ...

Most Popular Blog Posts (Based on Page Views)

Imatra, Finland: Fifteen Efficient Facts about the Finnish
Why didn't we think of that? Reflecting upon our two years living in Finland, we've discovered several items the locals have enlisted to make life easier ...

St. Petersburg, Russia: First Fifteen Days of #Fails
In my 36 years I have moved 19 times. While I've been fortunate to experience different places and make friends all over the world, the process of moving is stressful ...

Istanbul, Turkey: The Truth about the Traditional Turkish Bath
For me the thought of a massage conjures up reflections of gentle kneading and peaceful relaxation with the light aroma of lavender swirling ...

Ivalo, Finland: Scouting the Northern Lights from a Glass Igloo
A short drive from the northernmost commercial airport in Finland and tucked well within the Arctic Circle, sits the new world-famous Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort ...

Novi Skomorokhy, Ukraine: Unearthing Treasures in Old Country
"Even if you have to put some in your shoes or the pockets of your suitcase," my mom told me, "bring back as much as you can." Most mothers discourage their children from playing in the dirt ...

Novi Skomorokhy, Ukraine: Unearthing Treasures in Old Country - July 2016

"Even if you have to put some in your shoes or the pockets of your suitcase," my mom told me, "bring back as much as you can." Most mothers discourage their children from playing in the dirt, mine specifically instructed me to smuggle home as much as I could.

It was Saturday morning and my husband and I just landed in Kraków, Poland. Looking at a map we realized we were only about a pinky finger's length away from the region in the Ukraine that my mother's family was from. Not knowing when we would be this close again, we set out to devise a plan to visit the "Old Country" that I'd heard stories about all of my life.


I phoned my uncle back in the States to learn the name of the village my grandmother's parents were from. He sent me a photograph of an old map in which my grandmother had penciled in a dot and hand written the name but only a few letters were now readable. I also emailed my grandmother's cousin living in Massachusetts to see if she could provide additional details. After studying the map for a while and rehashing a few of the verbal interpretations we had heard of the village name, we located Novi Skomorokhy on the map. Moments later we received an email back from my grandmother's cousin and learned that she was currently on vacation in Europe, only a couple hours from us in Poland, and was considering visiting the Ukraine herself tomorrow. The stars were aligned.

The next morning at 3 a.m. we set out on our adventure. We had no family names or contact information in Old Country; we only had a dot on a map. Our plan was to look at names on mailboxes, knock on a few doors and hopefully find a local cemetery.

Nine hours later, including a three-hour border crossing, we finally arrived in Novi Skomorokhy, Ukraine. Greeted by a Cyrillic lettered sign, the tiny village of 500 people had one dirt road flanked with houses and fields. We stopped to take a few photographs of Orthodox churches and flagged down a couple of locals to chat. After about the third conversation my grandmother's cousin initiated in broken Polish, we struck pay dirt.

A woman with possibly the same family name as my great grandfather, Baley/ Belej, smiled and led us down the road just a few yards away. We came to the Kaspruk family house where my great grandmother Paulina's sister, Marinka's daughter now lives.

Having never seen us before or met my grandmother or mother in person, Nadia opened the door and invited us in with a warm hug. Her husband directed us all to the dining room where he broke out all of the family's finest liquors.

Over the next several hours the family invited over more relatives, cooked us a delicious spread, and we all tried our best to communicate. At one point Nadia brought out a pile of photographs spanning over the last 80 years most of which were sent from the U.S. back to the Old Country; I saw pictures of my great grandparents wedding in New York, family reunions and even my mom's high school class photo.

The afternoon was spent smiling and hugging, and thankfully after some time Nadia's granddaughter, Oksana Grushetsky arrived.

Oksana, my second cousin, knew English and helped to translate. We learned that the house Nadia lives in now, prior to it being redone, was previously lived in by Zoinka and two of Paulina's other sisters at some point, and before that the same piece of land was the site of the original home of Ilko and Paranka Kaspruk, my grandmother's maternal grandparents.

The hours passed quickly and before long we were hugging goodbye to begin our long drive back to Poland. Before leaving though, Oksana's father, Bogdon, helped James and I collect dirt from the fields behind the house to bring back to our family in the U.S.

Our final stop was at the large hillside cemetery not far from the house. We were shown a number of family plots including the headstones of my grandmother's maternal grandparents.

The day was long but incredibly rewarding. I now know family in the Old Country and plan to return bearing gifts. Along with new friendships and photos, we also successfully were able to smuggle four bags of soil from the Ukraine that day.

The dirt represents a home and the memories of Old Country that most of my family in the U.S. has never seen. My mom was right: a scoop of Ukrainian soil, however I got it home, would mean more to my family than anything else I could bring back, and it would also be the perfect addition to my grandmother's burial service next month.  

 

Kiev, Ukraine: Pavlo & Pawlina - April 2015

"допоможіть! допоможіть!"

It was a foggy spring morning when eight-year-old Pawlina wandered the roadside leading her family cow with a rope to graze the dew-covered grass. She was caught up in day dream when she accidentally lost hold of the rope. The excited cow barreled down the road faster than little Pawlina could follow.

“Help! Help!” she cried out in Ukrainian. Tears flooded her eyes. It was her family’s only cow and now she, the oldest of four children, had let it run away.

Moments later, a young man appeared out of the fog leading Pawlina’s family cow behind him. Pawlina screamed in joy and ran to give the man a hug. Pavlo lived in the same small village of Skomorokh, but this was the first time Pawlina had ever seen the handsome 17-year-old.

Quite possibly that same cow was what brought the couple together twelve years later. Pawlina’s father graciously sold their family cow to purchase a ticket for Pawlina to travel to America. Pawlina was reunited with Pavlo in New York City where they married on July 16, 1916.

Pavlo Belej and Pawlina Kaspruk were my great grandparents born in then Austria-Hungary, which is now western Ukraine. The village of Skomorokh was destroyed in World War I, but rebuilt, and sits about 100 miles east of the Poland border, near the country of Moldova.


Pictured above: Pavlo Belej and Pawlina Kaspruk with their children Steve and Olga.

James and I were fortunate to visit the country of Ukraine this past week. While we were unable to reach the village of Skomorokh, we did have the opportunity to explore Kiev and experience the rich Ukrainian culture and history.

Kiev is a pleasant city with strong religious overtones. Ten miles walking took us over the cobblestone streets, through Independence Square, above the river Dnieper and near all of the decorated cathedrals. We pocketed a few hand-blown, painted eggs from a local craftsman and completed our visit by sampling various types of pierogies and feasting on Chicken Kiev.