Summer Travel Advice

For some lucky students, graduation is around the corner. For me it's almost that good too--it's summer vacation! The question is: where's the best place to travel to? I would usually answer that with "Any place!" I enjoy living in Tucson, but when I have free time, my vagabond feet yearn for uncharted territory. The problem is this: we don't have unlimited time or resources, so how can we decide where to travel to?

Dun Laoghaire, Ireland

For some of my friends, vacation means lying on the beach. There are lots of good places for this. There are plenty of good beaches in Florida, the Caribbean, the East Coast, the West Coast, Hawaii, France, Italy, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Ireland, and Greece--and those are only the ones I know about!

What are your own beach suggestions?

I'm partial to Greece because the scenery is so striking. Many of the beaches are rocky. The blue waters are deep and clear (although sometimes they come complete with jellyfish). One of the many advantages to "beaching" around Greece is that you can base yourself in one town on one island and explore different beaches every day. Instead of moving around a lot, you can appreciate all the beauty that you can imagine. There's a wonderful pleasure in getting up in the morning and having no goal more strenuous than heading to the beach!

Phuket, Thailand

In ISLAND CASUALTY, my new Andy Veracruz mystery that will be published next month, Andy goes to Greece for that reason--to have a chance to relax. He wants to visit Rachel as well, so he's hoping to have some flirty fun, but what he really needs to do is simply sit on the beach and have peaceful ocean swims. As you might guess, things won't work out so well for him, but his intentions are good!

In the book, the island Andy visits is called Amiros, but while I was composing, I had Kalymnos, a small island in the Dodecanese, in the back of my mind. He erroneously thinks he's going to an island paradise.

What would be your own favorite paradise?

South Coast, Sri Lanka

Tucson Reads MARIACHI MURDER

One of the charms of living in Tucson includes listening to live mariachi music. This style of Mexican folk music has evolved over the past century. The instrumentation includes a guitarrón, which is a kind of string bass and provides the downbeats, a vihuela, which provides the upbeats, trumpets, and violins. Typically, the players take turns singing. Favorite songs include “Jesucita en Chihuahua” and “Mariachi loco” or romantic songs such as “Cerca del mar” or “Spanish Eyes.”  The musicians play at restaurants, parties, civic functions, weddings, baptisms, quinceñeras (birthday parties for 15-year-olds), and even funerals. The players most often wear black outfits that have, at least for this player, a welcome slimming effect. The trajes, as they are called, are decorated with plata, which are silver-plated decorations that run up and down the legs and across the chest. When the musicians walk, they jingle. This makes it hard to come home quietly late at night!

When you hear mariachi music, what’s the song you most want to hear?

However, not all Tucsonans want to spend their free time listening to mariachi music. Many are graduates of the University of Arizona. When they have free time, they might well make use of the wonderful warm spring weather to read outside in their rock gardens. They are so concentrated that they don’t accept interruptions!

(Check out youtube video for Tucson Reads MArIACHI MUrDER)

Coming next time: Orvieto, Italy.

A Rare Tucson Snow, University of Arizona, 2/20/13

North of the Modern Language Building, University of Arizona, Tucson AZ

Outside the Student Union

Across from the Student Union

Outside the theatre, even Hamlet was cold!

I wasn't cold. I had on five layers of winter clothes!

Tucson itself seemed like some crazy travel destination today. I was giving a second-language workshop when it started to snow, at which time all my teachers turned into five-year-olds and wanted to go outside and take pictures on their Iphones. I couldn't blame them! It was spectacular.

It was very funny to notice which students knew about the winter forecast and which didn't. Some were wearing shorts and sandals while others had umbrellas and boots! (Guess which camp I was in......)

Then I went to the Rec Center for a swim. The poor lifeguards! Unfortunately, they don't get paid extra if it's cold out! (I was not the only crazy person swimming. There was another gal too.)