Jorge Quinteros

Home Away From Home

I love cruise ships and I blame and thank my wife for the infatuation. We’ve been on a total of 7 and the longest we’ve been on one has been 12 days which we flew out to Barcelona to catch as part of our honeymoon. We generally don’t book anything less than 7-days because the highlight of the adventure for us is docking on as many ports as possible and by booking any less than 7-days, you’re unlikely to see as much in 2 or 3.

We have friends that won’t even examine the thought of boarding a cruise, even more so with the most recent tragedy in Italy but my response to them has always been that the only danger of going on a cruise is that you’ll become addicted after your first experience and it’ll be a matter of days right after you’ve disembarked that you’ll find yourself scanning itineraries, making plans as to where to go next.

Photograph was taken as we reluctantly marched back from a 8hr day of touring Costa Maya, Mexico. In some ports, the cruise ship docks intensely far from land for a good reason and this happen to be one of those instances.

Pulling into Venice

I couldn’t be the hit and run type of traveler even if I wanted to. The type of traveling most celebrities are put through when they’re promoting a release. The type of travel where the only detail they have to validate they’ve been to a country is the faded stamp on their passport or the endless photographs published thereafter on tabloids highlighting who they were seen with.

The mere thought of traveling to unfamiliar territory instills this curiosity towards certain aspects of a place that most people would deem inconsequential based on their own level of interest. Do I need to know what the local beer is? Do I need to know what specific things characterizes a place or how people live or what they generally think about or what they care about and maybe even uncover things that are typically kept secret by locals? Perhaps you could respond “no” to all those random questions but for me, walking away knowing the answers to at least a few of them makes me feel like I may know a place more than someone who may just care to brag about where they’ve been based on the numbers of refrigerator magnets they’ve collected.

It’s easy to get a superficial handle of a place but it’s something totally different when you’ve chosen to become part of a community and have been granted access and given a better understanding of wherever you’ve chosen to visit. I can’t say I’ve had the privilege of exploring all those questions I’ve mentioned with regard to the cities we’ve been to but just thinking about it sure as heck embarks you on this mental journey of realizing what it make take to truly say that you know a place. I may not know that much about Venice but as long as there remains a level of curiosity towards the place is all that matters.

Venetian Canals

It may seem rather bold to say but when visiting Venice, don’t anticipate taking any photograph that other countless tourist haven’t thought of already. For uncommon photographic opportunities, local ambience and quite frankly even affordable meals, I recommend you wander through the back alleys of neighborhoods that you might have no idea where they’ll ultimately take you but just realize that the ratio of people who have chosen to do something similar is far less and so anything that stems from this excursion is likely to result with a unique experience of the place. It’s what Vanessa and I did during the whole 2 days that we walked aimlessly around the city.

Also, during our honeymoon, as we traveled from one European city to another, I quickly picked up this habit of browsing gift shops for the sake of scrutinizing their collection of postcards and get an idea for the type of shots I wanted to veer from taking. Consider this act as your time for doing research. There’s nothing worse than finding out after the fact that you’ve missed the opportunity to photograph something amazing because you didn’t know what to look for.

A prevalent element of the city that I rarely saw in postcards were photographs highlighting the narrowness of the canals and the intensity of the sun light that seemed to beam everyday. A lot of people talk about all the unnecessary materialist things that would buy if they won the lottery one day and yet actual things would be the last thought on my mind because I rather invest on experiences such as visiting Venice once again.

From Inside the Louvre

Rummaging through some photographs from when my wife and I vacationed in Paris 3 years ago has convinced me more that viewing art was not just limited to the narrow confines of the museum walls we were in. To visit Paris in itself is more than an opportunity to admire art even if pieces like the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory or the ever-so-stylish Mona Lisa is not your thing.

By the time we got home, we needed a vacation from our vacation because the amount of sightseeing through endless walking we experience was exhausting yet rewarding at the same time. According to guide books and from first hand experience, it’s nearly impossible to see every piece of art inside the Louvre in one day and we certainly didn’t try to but it was one of those recognizable landmarks in the world that you cannot go without seeing for less than 3hrs.