January 19, 2025

My favorite grandma, my second mom, my ‘maia’ loved the beach. It was her happy place and she didn’t stop going to it every year till she got really, really sick, right before she died. Romania doesn’t have palm trees though, but she lived for almost 75 years dreaming about seeing one, one day. I remember her buying fabric with palm tree patterns for summer dresses. 

When I landed in America, 27 years ago today, life or fate, or some happenstance brought me to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. This is not where you dream of migrating when you dream about moving to America. You usually are told America is New York and Miami and Los Angeles, and anyone you know who moves here shoots for one of these places. Well, my story brought me to Myrtle Beach. My first home was on the beach - I thought I literally won the lottery. 

Every day, I would look at nothing but palm trees and think of ‘maia’. It kept me going, knowing she would never say ‘no’ to living on this new planet where it was so easy to take every tree for granted. 

Then (1998) and today (2025). A lifetime and the same shore at the same time. 

I had nothing but a head full of dreams and absolutely no idea how I would make them come true. Those who know my story know by now that dad had one dream for us: to make America our home. I went out into the world on his specific promise that America is the only place where our character, our education, our upbringing, our talents will not go to waste. This was our pie-in-the-sky. The possibility of failure was never factored in. That was not a chance in the world that would happen.  

Over the years, I have looked back, and realized every time that I did make those dreams come true. I was lucky enough to learn how, and I was even luckier to know people who helped me out to facilitate them. Those who did all that know who they are and they also know (I hope) that I will forever be grateful to them. 

This immigrant girl didn’t know how to put gas in a car, or how to write a check, much less how to get and pay for a mortgage or a car loan. I didn’t know how to pay taxes or how to navigate the complex and disorderly, a-logical dark alleys of health insurance companies. I learned everything from scratch, at the age of 23: how to get and keep a job with no credentials or history in one of the most competitive places on the planet, how to survive an abusive marriage, how to keep a household, how to make friends who had no cultural common ground with me, and so much more ... 

When I look back and think of the past 27 years, I literally shiver. It’s more than half my life! Where has it all gone and who am I today?! 

People have asked me over the years if I ever regretted coming here - if I ever got scared when I landed here, amongst strangers, in a foreign land, and wanted to run back. Are you freakin’ kidding me? Look where I landed! Palm trees, pools, and the roaring Atlantic Ocean in my backyard. I was 23! Do you think any 23 year old would say no to that? I knew I had to work hard to make all that my own (and I learned over the years that the beach is really not my jam), but I wanted nothing but to make this land my true home. 

America held such promise in 1998! Back then, I never even thought about the politics in America because its reputation preceded it. I knew politics-wise, America’s got it figured out. They would always offer the best place to live anywhere in the world, I was sure of it. From my small Romanian town, it was heaven on earth and things just “worked” here because everyone is responsible and everyone pulls together. Someone reaching out a hand to give you help to move here, in this blessed land was the type of fortune that movies are made of. That’s how you know what a dreamer I was ... 

I was a literature and music buff and America offered a never-ending playground for both. 

I came to walk in Jim Morrison’s steps on Venice Beach, California, and breathe in the chilly, piney breezes of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks magnificent Douglas firs in the Pacific Northwest. For me, New York and Los Angeles presented no pull. But I wanted more than anything to live in the desert of Arizona or the mountains of Montana. I wanted to live in and to understand the complicated South which I grew to love after reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Gone With the Wind, among other things.

I came here to drive on Route 66 and chase Elvis’s Tennessee-born music; I came here to be “on the road again” like Willie Nelson promised and take the vastness of this land in, to learn it like the back of my hand; I came here to see if the stories told by Mark Twain and the criticism of Henry James towards Americans bear any truth. I came here to see Hemingway’s hangouts, homes and learn where his kitties spent their days. I came here to hear the blues in Chicago and the zydeco in New Orleans. I came to make the land of original blue jeans and bandanas (some of my favorite pieces of clothing growing up) my own. 

More than anything in the world, I came here for freedom. True, unbridled freedom, the kind of which no nation under the sun promised to know how to make. As I found out later through knowing the work and activism of Martin Luther King, Jr. "the goal of America is freedom." I thought that and to some extent still do, to my core. I figured then as I figure it now, 27 years later, America't got what I am after, and I have what she needs to give her, too. How could it go wrong?!

In the past 27 years, I did all these and so much more. In the process of slowly making America my home, I have learned that there are few things in the world as decadently delicious as hushpuppies, or fresh backyard bar-b-que. I also learned that the worst thing you can ever put in your mouth is without a doubt a peanut butter sandwich. Now, this one is one of the things that America got wrong. 

It was not until recently that I doubted the freedom part, but that is now the saddest realization yet. As Bill Clinton was saying in an interview "no victory is ever eternal" (or something similar).

Happiness is a basket full of crispy fresh hushpuppies at Sea Captain's House

I lived in Myrtle Beach only for about 10 months after I came over. Life and my new family moved me around to North Carolina, to Utah and back to North Carolina. While I was living close still, I used to go to Myrtle Beach every year after 1998 on my “off the boat” anniversary, which is today - January 19. After moving away for some time and during the pandemic the tradition went stale, but I felt the strong pull to start it again today. 

We went to some new places that I had never visited before (who would have known that after visiting my first American home for almost 12 years after I came here, every year, there would be any “new” places to see?), and I recreated the journey from my first home to my old beach and further to my office back when I made it here, and to one of my favorite places for food - a little old place called Sea Captain’s House that is still there and still offers delicious food and quirky Southern hospitality. Walking around my old neighborhood felt so familiar and welcoming. Like time never washed over anything ... Just like the waves washing on the same shore - the wave, always different, the shore permanent and steadfast ... 

In front of my former home. Look at all the those palm trees.

We booked an ocean-front room when we got here. I woke up this morning yearning for a gorgeous sunrise. But it was so overcast I did not even see one ray of sunshine. It was so windy that all the birds were flying backwards. I thought to myself: what an interesting coincidence that the weather, and the general mood of the beach matches the world of today, January 19, 2025: not a ray of hope is left for so many of us today, on this day; and just like the birds going backwards, some of us want to go back for better times, some of us are taking all of us back from ignorance. But we’re all looking back, for one reason or another.

When they pushed me out of my home country and into America, they told me that this is the land of opportunity; that there is nothing you cannot achieve here if you set your mind to it and work hard. The one thing they didn’t mention is that the land of all opportunity also includes the opportunity to fail. The opportunity to lose sense of who you are and what right and wrong is and how to tell the difference. 

I didn’t fail, or at least I didn’t fail me, but at times this country that held so much promise and that I cherished, has failed me. 

But if I were given the opportunity to come here again, knowing what I know now, I would do it again in a heart-beat! Even if one day, I can say that I came to witness the fall of the greatest empire of my generation, that, too, is a (strange) privilege and a chance of a lifetime. So, I would do it again. 

I used to sit like the picture shows on my patio and look at the ocean in front of our condo, thinking that at the other end of all that water are the people I love but that I am here, in this safe boat and if I steer it right, I could make my own and their lives better, fuller, more meaningful.

Nowadays, I don’t feel like I’m on that safe boat anymore. I feel like not just me, the whole country is on The Titanic. The people who see the iceberg have no power, nor authority to steer the boat away and avoid hitting it. The people who have the authority and the power cannot see the iceberg and are heading straight for it, and they are so ignorant or controlling they are not listening to the people on the same boat to go around it. 

In the end, I feel like we’re all headed for peril. But only one half will know why and that it could have been avoided. The other half will blame the iceberg. 

As we were walking out of Barefoot Landing in North Myrtle Beach, the speakers were shouting as a sad reminder: "Bye, bye, Miss American pie ...".

Blowing Rock, NC. Mountain Charm. Timeless Flair.

When I lived in North Carolina my first time around, before 2010, because I lived closer to it, Blowing Rock used to be my favorite day-trip destination. I would drive up there for the day from Greensboro, have lunch at The Speckled Trout, then walk about the town, up and down the main street, pop in and out of all the cute little stores, check out the newest local art, try to spot the newest China merchandise that traps any tourist in any American town that sees themselves as a destination, get an ice cream at Kilwins, then head on down the mountain come dinner time. 

A little spot for peace in downtown Blowing Rock: a children's prayer garden

Now, living about an hour  further away, we visit The Crown of the Blue Ridge, as it’s known, much less often. But it still beckons us back from time to time, like it did this weekend. 

These are some of the observations I have made of  an old friend, and of the world as we see it today as we’re travelers through it ... In no particular order ... 

This had to be the least busy holiday weekend I have ever experienced anywhere, but definitely in the North Carolina mountains. We could not figure it out, but all restaurants had open seats (we’re used to driving up there for the holiday weekend and ending up eating fast food or bar food at a bar that still wants people to drink but doesn’t have much to offer by way of food). We hardly needed a reservation anywhere. 

The scenic ride slope at Beech Mountain was almost empty. No lines at all. When we pulled into the parking lot, we counted no more than 20 cars, I’d say. They have three parking lots, but even the one closest to the slope seemed completely empty ... I was sure the resort would be  closed. 

Riding a scenic chairlift in the summer in the mountains is the one activity I look forward to every year. This year, we finally managed to get to it at the very end of summer. It was worth the wait ...

Beech Mountain was open, in fact, but the tavern at the bottom of the slope seemed totally empty, outside of the few occupied tables on their patio. The pub at the top of the mountain had most tables full but the fact that we found a table to sit at at all should tell you they were not very busy. Last time we went, on a non-holiday, summer weekend it was standing-room only both inside and out. There was no one inside this time around. No music playing either, which made it seem even more grim and lonely than the slim crowd. 

Back in the olden, olden days of my trips up the mountain, if I went for an overnight trip, I would equally patronize both Cheeseburgers in Paradise, a hole-in-the-wall burger joint that made a great chicken salad, and The Speckled Trout that made the best trout anywhere on the Parkway. Cheeseburgers in Paradise closed what seems to be a century ago, with the place sitting there, in the heart of downtown, in the busiest intersection of Blowing Rock, empty, falling in disrepair, hurting my soul with every visit, year after year after year. 

But on this trip, it was nice to see that the place took on a brand-new life, and someone loved and cared for the old spot, along other adjacent plots downtown as they now constructed the brand-new and very welcoming hotel Embers. It is where we hung our hats and it was a beautiful experience. The place is clean, welcoming, laid back and full of little gems in the shape of good food, delicious cocktails, and an extremely friendly staff. It was so nice to see history evolving and the town stepping into its next chapter with this new venture downtown. 

The Embers Hotel in downtown Blowing Rock

The Speckled Trout is still as happening as ever - probably the only place where you did still need reservations during this not-so-busy weekend. The wait is still North of an hour for a table and they can only seat you outside with no reservations, and people were taking the outside tables, even when it was pouring out. The trout itself is not what it used to be here - you don’t get a full trout anymore, like in the olden days, and the sides are not just simple baked potatoes, corn on the cob, or steamed veggies ... You have more ‘fancy’ offerings now, like vegan fennel and potato salad, smoked gouda grits, or summer succotash salad. I still visit the place with every visit, just for the good ol’ time’s sake and just because they still serve trout (you’d think they should forever. It’s in their name, after all.) and trout is hard to find, surprisingly, even in mountain towns. 

The cornmeal crusted trout dish at Speckled Trout

Outside The Speckled Trout, the busiest place in Blowing Rock is Camp Coffee Roasters - the line is flowing out into the street at any given time of the day, but those kids who work there know what they’re doing - I thought for sure it would take us an hour to get in and out. It took a bit less than 20 minutes. I guess they time it since you can only park in front of their store for 30 minutes at a time. 

The view from Camp Coffee Roasters towards The Speckled Trout and Embers hotel - across the street

Before we got up the mountain, we toured a couple of wineries in the Yadkin Valley, and then visited another one in the mountains on our second day. 

The gorgeous furnishings at Castello Barone Vineyards and Winery in Yadkin Valley

We love finding little places that do so much to (almost literally) squeeze the sweetness and the richness out of the North Carolina soil to make good products that illustrate the uniqueness or our landscape and climate ... We love talking to the winemakers who, so proudly, showcase their elixirs. It’s always an experience to be shared. Midnight Magdalena, Castello Barone in the Yadkin Valley and Eagles Nest Winery outside Beech Mountain were new findings for us. Featuring mostly dry wines (North Carolina is humid and wet which typically yields dryer varieties, we learned), they were oases of hospitality and good taste. Eagles Nest is hidden deep into the woods of The Smokies. There is no highway sign for it, and you have to kinda trust your maps to take you there. Once you get there, though, the log cabin feel and the gorgeous landscape will render you shocked, mouth-agape. It’s like coming home. You feel the mountains around you just casting a great, warm hug around you, and welcoming you in. 

The beautiful setting at the Eagles Nest Winery, outside Beech Mountain

The wines here, though, are hardly local, being all raised in California, and just mixed and bottled on site, so they’re  a little bit of a fraud, you can say, but they are good wines, and the place is still worth visiting for a moment of respite, a slice of fresh pizza and a cold glass of wine, even semi-imported/ local ... 

There were some low notes during our trip, too. 

The beauty of the setting at Timberlake Restaurant in the Chetola resort is in stark contrast to the poor service and the lesser quality of the food served there, I am sad to say. Kids working in hospitality nowadays need to learn how to use proper words anymore (doesn’t everyone in today’s age of AI when anything we read or write is filled-out for us?). When I tell a young waitress that my order got screwed up and I list at least three things wrong with it and the answer I get is a friendly, chipper, uplifting “Oh, perfect!” followed by a smile - it makes one wonder if anything is being processed on the other end ... 

The serene and peaceful setting of The Timberlake restaurant

We always notice people with kids, and as childless folks, we notice how from day to day, from year to year, kids are more and more close to monkeys and parents are further and further disconnected from any responsibility of raising them. I always say: stop having them or learn how to parent. Filling up the world with screaming, entitled brats is hardly optimistic for our future. Don’t know. Maybe it’s my aging, ornery self, who knows?! 

Although the whole experience was wonderful, as we partook in good foods, good drinks, and great conversations with strangers everywhere, I think the highlight for me was just being in the mountains. Driving on an empty Blue Ridge was my favorite pastime - just seeing no one coming around the curve, and not being rushed by anyone behind us, looking over the (still) bright, green mountains, half in a smoky mist and half clear, breathing in the strong mountain air from our room’s patio were what we drive three and a half hours for - just to take in the mountains and recharge the batteries for the next season. 

Some things will linger for a while: the new-place smell at The Embers, the sticky floors from busy wear and tear at The Speckled Trout, the inexperience of the staff at The Timberlake, the easy-go-lucky staff at Beech Mountain, the super friendly and jack-of-all-trades bartender, Everett, at The Embers bar, the timelessness of the stores that line the Blowing Rock sidewalks year after year, the smell of pines after the rain, the warm cups of coffee at Camp Coffee Roasters, the friendliest hotel receptionist, Stacy, at The Embers ... and all the screaming kids of the world, too ...

Some things are new, some thing are timeless. The world is a mixed bag of nuts; you take the salt with the sugar and you make a nice snack; but whatever you do, don’t stop getting out there and getting your life going, seeing and learning new things. 

The view from the top of Beech Mountain, after the chairlift ride

A Bit of Everything: St. Petersburg, FL

St. Petersburg, FL is a city on water. It sits on the Pinellas peninsula between Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, and is connected to mainland Florida to the north.

I finally managed to string a few thoughts together after our trip there about a month ago. 

• On our first morning in St. Pete (as we have learned that everyone calls it), we went to The Hangar restaurant for breakfast. Appropriately named, it is perched above a small private airport, where planes take off right from under your plates. I actually know someone who lives in Florida and not only owns their small private plane, but they built it themselves (former airline pilots, now retired). Yeah, Florida does seem sometimes like the land of all possibilities, until you check out their politics (I could not help but notice that there is even a “Fox” car rental place in the Tampa airport. No joking!). I was just fascinated how much traffic that small airport displayed in just less than an hour while we were eating our fresh fruit. And Florida does have really good fresh fruit! 

• At the restaurant, we had a very cranky waitress. She was fine and all till the hostess placed two small children with their grandmas (who reminded me of Grace and Frankie: one, in a posh pair of pressed pants, and the other in a Dali “surrealist” shirt and a flower-pattern Hawaiian pair of baggy pants) in her section, right next to our table. She hurried to get the kids’ order ready first, saying that “She tried to be fast so they have something to keep them busy for a bit.” One of the grandmas is impressed and says “Wow! You must have kids of your own. You know how to handle them!” to which the waitress says with a frown: “No, I don’t have any. I actually very much dislike kids.” Mic drop! I have been accused of being bluntly honest myself, but dang! 

• The cranky was everywhere in Florida, I might add: the hotel receptionist was flustered when someone came to grab a drink from the fridge at the front desk and asked them to add it to their room tab (why? isn’t this how it works?!). Then, the receptionist told us that to get our valet to drive our car around, we should text this number (showing it to us on a piece of paper), and “they sometimes answer it.” I was confused. So, sometimes we won’t get our car back (the parking was valet only). Another hotel guest confirmed in the elevator that “yeah, you need to call and then come down and wait for at least 20-30 minutes and sometimes they need reminders even after that. But they will eventually get your car.  Good times!” - she added. I was beginning to wonder where the “Southern hospitality” lives in Florida?! Definitely not in the ... umm ... “hospitality” industry. 

• We did run into this sweet hostess at the Dali museum, right after we stepped in. She advised us, unsolicited, where we could go and start the guided tour through the museum with a docent. This proved to be a really nice experience as the docent walked the galleries with us, sharing real-life stories about Dali and explaining the paintings through that realistic frame. This docent was one of the most memorable parts of the trip: she could not have been more than 4ft 11in in height, with a voice as quiet as a whisper, and she must have been at least 100 years of age! And this is no exaggeration. She was using a walker and her small frame was bent over by age and osteoporosis. Her fingers crooked and gnarly. She was frail in stature and physique, but so sharp in mind and humor. At times, she made the stories about Dali eating cheese on the Parisian sidewalks and watching the bull fights so real that we were thinking she must have been there and witnessed these moments herself. 

There are details like these that make travels unforgettable. The museum was everything I was looking forward to: originality, breathlessness to be in the same room with some of the most amazing works of art of all centuries. But the docent, the Avant-garden where we had a small pastry snack on the persistence of memory bench, were details that punctuated it with uniqueness and gave it a vivid contour, all ours.

Various scenes from The Dali Museum. Standing in front of "The Ecumenical Council" (and so many others) was a "bucket list" moment for me

I could not peel myself away from the trompe-l'œil of the "Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln" painting. I just could not figure out "how he did that" ...

(For full effect, click the picture to enlarge it, then look carefully at it by squinting your eyes. After a while you will see that the window becomes Lincoln's portrait.)

• If in Arizona, we had the best experience with foods - availability and diversity everywhere - in St. Petersburg we had some spotty encounters.
  We were hard pressed to find a breakfast place on Sunday morning (which was also my birthday as well as Easter). After striking out on several places that could not place us or offered to place us after a minimum of two hours, we ended up having breakfast at Starbucks! And what do you know: even Starbucks was out of bagels. 

• We wanted to try out what seemed to be a more off-the-beaten-path breakfast place called Bacon Bitch. Seriously - who would not want to eat in a place by this name?! But as we were waiting to be seated, I saw one of the waitresses smoking in the kitchen as she was rearranging her shorts and ponytail while she cleaned out the edges of the plates with her spare hand before taking them to the customers in the dining room. I was hungry, but umm ... Nope ... Sorry, Bacon Bitch: clever name, but you lost me! Literally.  

• We did find a couple of good food places. Frenchy’s Outpost in Dunedin had the fresh seafood you expect from a seashore town. The Teak restaurant is a show stopper: it is at the very end of the St. Pete Pier and a feat of architectural design. It looks like a spaceship waiting for lift-off. Although the food was remarkable (they had replaced their regular seafood menu with “Easter”-inspired dishes, so it was more mashed potatoes and ham and less seafood gumbo), the view is why it’s worth the trek. Best views of the water and of the bay towards the city that we could find. The sunset over St. Pete was stunning, even on a cloudy day. 

Scrumptious claws at Frenchy's Outpost

Various views of and from The Teak restaurant, on the St. Pete Pier

• We visited the Chihuly Collection at the Morean Arts Center on one of the days. The Chihuly pieces were amazing, as we expected, but what was truly memorable was the glass-blowing demonstration we watched after visiting the museum. Glass blowing is not only an amazing feat of human skill and ingenuity, but there is also so much science - particularly chemistry, physics and biology that goes into it - and those were explained in detail. Made me want to call my nephews and ask them to make sure they stay in school and won’t skip their science classes ever. They will be useful for something. One day! 

Glass blowing demonstration at the Morean Arts Center

Ceiling in the hallway at the Chihuly Collection

• I am glad to see more and more mural art in many of the towns and cities we visit. I have always liked murals and even tasteful graffiti art - it’s always surprising the amount of talent and thought that goes into creating them and really gives the flavor and tone of a particular city. And St. Pete is another one of these “mural cities”. 

Just a small sample of the much mural art adorning the walls of St. Pete's buildings

• St. Petersburg seemed like a mish-mash of a variety of styles, really: I would say that here, modern meets art deco meets traditional Southern charm. In terms of vegetation, palm trees, live oak and Spanish moss dress up the avenues. A bit of the tropics line up the St. Pete Pier parks. If you really want to take in the tropics, the Sunken Gardens has them on display! You get lost in the tropical forest there, with no hope of finding your way back. 

Small glimpses of Eden at the Sunken Gardens

• We had a lunch snack at the Doc Ford’s Rum Bar and Grille right at the pier. The place was an absolute zoo on a holiday (there is definitely no Covid19 anymore, folks!), but The Eagles (who we had just seen in concert in Greensboro only 4 days before our trip) music was blasting and our waiter, Patrick, knew how to serve up pina coladas and yummy crab cake appetizers. 

Beach fare at Doc Ford's Rum

• Not sure if this is all of Florida, but at least St. Petersburg on a busy, warm afternoon in the blazing sun is a pure stench cocktail:  the smells of the ocean, salt, sewage, and sweat mix together in the most distinctive odor. 

• The area around the St. Pete Pier reminded me of so many other public touristy piazzas where jokers, dancers, mimes, religious orators trying to save your soul merge to remind you that this world is nothing but Babylon redone: we saw  people walking a tightrope as they were practicing yoga in a park, people stringing hammocks from palm trees on the bay, and a crowd of people dancing on club techno music, as if in a reinvented version of the 1990’s MTV’s Spring Break shows. 

• You know you’re in Florida when you drive on what seems to be a highway but you see nothing but water all around you, not a lick of civilization, for miles on end. Only in Florida do you drive endlessly on ... water. We saw this sign while getting ready to drive on one of the many bridges that read: “Long bridge ahead. Check gas.” And I thought running out of gas in the middle of the desert in Utah would be bad ... 

This was a weekend of strange coincidences. As coincidences go, you never know what they mean. You just notice, if barely: we went to St. Petersburg for my birthday which is 4/9 - or 9/4 in Europe. The entire weekend, these two numbers kept popping up everywhere:

• The Starbucks we finally had a small breakfast at on 4/9 was at the corner of 4th St N and 9th Ave N. Its address was 900A 9th Ave N. 

• When I woke up that morning, I had 9 tabs open on my google app.

• Chihuly’s Macchia Forest collection has 9 pieces in it.

• At the end of the day, I had walked 4.09 miles, according to my watch.

• Our departure gate was number 90. The very last one. 

Chihuly’s Macchia Forest with the 9 pieces

Seeing the Dali museum was the purpose of this trip and that did not disappoint. Everything else was just the cherries on top. 

Sunset over St. Pete, as seen from The Teak restaurant on the St. Pete Pier