—among other things, have kept me occupied these long months working on a book proposal for a travel memoir about the around-the-world trip the TravelJen blog documented. Hopefully you’ll have a book in your hand someday—that is, my book, not just any old book. (I know you already have other books, being the literate sorts […]

For those of you still reading the TravelJen Blog (anyone? anyone? Bueller? Bueller?), my apologies for the long delay since the last posting. I’ve now been back in NYC as long as I was overseas and have been stressfully busy as all hell. While the trip abroad seemed to last much longer than four months—more […]

Monika’s mom is trying to tell a joke about Lech Walesa and Bill Clinton. It’s not going well, because she can’t stop laughing. To contain the giggles, she tries ducking her chin towards her beer, which she has clutched to her sternum. To her left is her sister, whose house in Augustow Monika, her mom, […]

he Hungarian Anesthesiologist is having trouble focusing. His eyes strain to settle somewhere between my apparently impressive breasts and the Great Beyond.
But he’s focused, all right.
“I’d like to have sexual relations with you,” he slurs, eyelids bobbing up and down like a drowning man in rapids.
I raise my eyebrows. I haven’t been within 5,000 miles […]

Hidirellez is an annual Spring holiday celebrated on May 5. In Istanbul, it’s a five-day street festival that rocks Ahirkapi, an area near Sultanahmet, where several of the city’s most famous sites cluster, including Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Archaeological Museum (including the Museum of the Ancient Orient), and the Main Bazaar. […]