It’s time to start packing for Australia. Each year when I go through the process of packing for Australia when it’s clearly cold and miserable here in New York, I always look at all the clothes I lay out on my bed to pack and wonder if I am going to be warm enough… only because when I look outside my window here, all I see is the cold and grey, which is especially true today since it’s absolutely freezing outside with nonstop frigid rain. I didn’t even go outside the apartment today.

But Melbourne is a funny place. It’s the type of city where it can be 60 degrees F one day and then 100 degrees the next. I still vividly remember the very first morning Chris took me back to Melbourne for Christmas in December 2012. I kept thinking about summer, so I ended up wearing the lightest jacket for our airport transfers. When we landed and were waiting for his parents to pick us up curbside, I was absolutely freezing in the little bits that I was wearing and was really unhappy with myself. The sky was grey and it looked like it was threatening to rain. Is this what an Australian summer is in Melbourne…?!

Fast forward to a few days later when the thermostat was over 110 degrees F and his parents were warning us to stay indoors and not wander around the city… which of course, we did, because Chris never likes being told what to do. I was being burned alive.

Unpredictable Melbourne, we’re a comin’ for you.

I was reviewing my book of business at work a couple of weeks ago while planning my series of meetings in Miami this week, and it suddenly dawned on me that despite being in a customer facing role, which is oftentimes looked at with a lot of disdain given how many headaches you can deal with when you have unrelenting and demanding customers, I’m actually pretty happy with my customer list. I look forward to spending time with them, to helping them, and to visiting them and having lunch with them, even discussing things that are completely unrelated to work. The vast majority of them I actually like as people and think are genuinely smart, well-meaning, fun people. And frankly, before I came to this company and took on this role, I could never say that in any other customer facing role I’ve had in the last 11.5 years of full-time work. Especially when I worked at an agency doing search engine marketing or social media, I really thought my customers were the ditziest with the least amount of common sense.

I’m really lucky in this sense because I know that most of my counterparts do NOT feel this way about their books of business. They really envy me with my customer relationships and my customer travel to see them. I’m in an enviable role with an enviable book. I do have it pretty good and have little to complain about on the customer front.

I took some customers out for lunch today, and they were lamenting to me that even though they love the weather in Miami at this time of year given that it’s always warm and sunny (when the rest of the East Coast is freezing and enduring snow), they actually miss the seasons and seeing things like autumn colors changing and having a real spring. “Snow around Christmas time is so pretty!” Yet, in the same breath, they also shared that they only go see their parents or other relatives for a few days around Christmas or New Year’s out of obligation, but they would hibernate at home, refusing to go outside to deal with the cold. “It’s just so depressing at this time of year up there!” One of them exclaimed.

So, in other words, you say you miss having all four seasons, but the reality is that you actually do not. Plus, you never want to move to a place that had snow ever again. And, you never want to leave Miami ever again unless it’s for a sunny-all-year-round city. Interesting.

When I come to Miami for work, there are usually two things I always like to get: 1) Cuban food, and 2) food from Pura Vida, which is a healthy all-day cafe that does really delicious juices, smoothies, and well-rounded, large grain bowls that vary from vegan options to salmon with endless varieties of vegetables so that you know you are pretty much enjoying a rainbow in a bowl. I come to Pura Vida at least once every work trip, and the food has always been reliable. They have an all-day breakfast menu, and I’d never ordered from it before and decided to order the smoked salmon avocado toast from there today.

That was a bit disappointing because when they brought the plate out to me, it was literally one slice of toast with avocado and smoked salmon… for $13? Usually when places say that they will give you “toast,” it means two slices of bread. Here, it was… one? Granted, that one slice was thick, toasted, and was delicious, but it just looked so sad and lonely on my plate. They sprinkled the top of the mashed avocado with black and white toasted sesame seeds. I had two large slices of smoked salmon. And that was it. This would need to tide me over. until dinner time, and other than the banana I ate for breakfast, this is all I would have eaten today.

The other thing that irked me was that you have the option to pay $3 for two soft boiled/poached eggs. If that’s the case, there needs to be one egg per slice of toast. You absolutely cannot serve two eggs with ONE PIECE OF TOAST. That is so cheap!!!

I’m never ordering from their breakfast menu ever again.

After coming back from JFK yesterday afternoon, I had to head back to the airport, this time LGA, for my work flight down to Miami this afternoon. I wasn’t so sure that my flight would even take off given I could actually see snow falling late morning, yet my flight status still said on time. So I headed to the airport to see hour after hour of delayed messages for my flight. It got me worried, especially since when I checked with the airline, they told me that every flight out to Miami for tomorrow was already fully sold out, so if all the flights today were to get cancelled, the earliest they could get me out was Wednesday evening. I had a Tuesday afternoon meeting scheduled that I couldn’t miss.

Eventually, we finally took off 3.5 hours later, so it could have been a lot worse. But it made me feel even more annoyed given that if they had just been open with us about the situation, I could have spent far less time agonizing this at the airport, where everyone was antsy and nervous, and instead been in the comfort of my own home. But, not like the airlines care.

Today, we connected in Madrid en route back from Brussels to New York, and while exiting the plane at JFK airport this afternoon, Chris realized that Tucker Carlson (that disgusting Fox News host who is partly responsible for chipping away at American media integrity and reducing overall American IQ) and his family were sitting in our cabin on our flight back. I didn’t notice this until Chris pointed out a man in the baggage claim area after we went through Customs, and he asked, “Do you recognize him?” Unfortunately, I immediately did: this racist, immigrant-hating, sexist, bigoted white man was standing within 50 feet of us with his wife and children. And just the sight of him soured the end of our trip.

I immediately messaged two of my most anti-Trump friends, who both responded with disgust. One of them exclaimed, “How un-American of him to spend Thanksgiving abroad!”

If there were fewer people like him in this country, we’d be far better off.

We were so lucky with our trip timing to be in Brussels right when their annual Christmas markets begin — they were just as magical as we imagined. While they weren’t as intensely put together as the ones we’d seen in Germany or Austria, they had all the usual hallmarks we looked for: plenty of delicious food being freshly cooked in front of you, arts and crafts and vendors selling locally made goods, as well as gluhwein and other alcoholic seasonal Christmas delights. The vibe is always fun and festive: local friends and colleagues gathering for a night out to enjoy the Christmas spirit and entertainment, and tourists such as ourselves mingling into all of it. Alcohol is always consumed, but responsibly. It’s one of those aspects that is severely and sadly missing in wannabe Christmas markets in the U.S., whether that is the small ones in San Francisco or the Holiday Market at Union Square or Bryant Park in New York. There are always large signs everywhere noting “alcohol may not be consumed beyond this point” as though you are corrupting all the people who are under age around you simply by having mulled wine behind a certain rope. It’s so silly and ridiculous.

We also did a day trip from Brussels this week to Bruges, a beautiful little medieval town, which also had started its Christmas markets, as well, and we got to enjoy the daytime vibes there, enjoying freshly made waffles, Turkish food, and gluhwein. We also chanced upon a local vendor who was selling handmade Christmas homes, and we purchased a little pink one to add to our Christmas house and village collection at home. I was so excited to have another one to add to our collection: each one documents a different country that we’ve traveled to during our European Thanksgiving trips, and it’s always a beautiful memory to be able to look at our book shelf of European houses and reminisce on our adventures there during the beginning of the most wonderful time of the year. We don’t buy much (that isn’t edible, anyway) during our travels, but these houses are an exception to that. They make me so happy every time I see them in our apartment.

Belgium is a country known for a number of things. Brussels, its capital, is also the capital of the EU, a major government city that people oftentimes think is boring and “skippable” on a tourist trek through Benelux. What I realized after my research is that Belgium, for those truly in the know, is known for a number of things other than beer, waffles, chocolate, and being the home of the EU capital — it’s also known as having quite a peculiar sense of humor, given famous statues such as the Manneken Pis (the peeing boy) and being the origin of many famous international comics, such as The Adventures of Tintin and the Smurfs. Ed would have been so excited to hear that I was visiting the birth country of the Smurfs. Belgians don’t take themselves too seriously. Americans could learn a thing or two from them.

However, I will say that chocolate was very high on the list for me to learn and discover more about while in Belgium. We visited the Choco-story museum here in Brussels (they apparently have other locations, including in Brugges), and learned so much about the chocolate production process, how it’s grown and fermented, and ultimately made into the beautiful bars, truffles, pralines, and drinks we so love today. What was most surprising to me, as I’ve read quite a bit about chocolate production before this visit, was that different cacao fruits have many varieties in the same way that you can have different varieties of apples or mangoes; each of them has a very nuanced taste. So, sometimes, it’s not just the percentage of cacao in your chocolate that is the actual determinant of the difference in taste, nor is it the amount or type of milk, but rather the type of cacao used in the bar. I would LOVE to have a side by side taste of different types of cacao from different countries to see what the actual difference is and if I could notice it!

While planning our trip to Holland, I was already prepared for all the Indonesian restaurants because I was aware that the Dutch had colonized Indonesia. What I had forgotten about was that the Dutch had also colonized other areas of the world, including Suriname, so when my food research revealed that I could also expect Surinamese food, I got even more excited. So, while white-people colonization has clearly had deleterious effects both on people in their native lands as well as ongoing racism against people of color that sadly persists today, the one happy takeaway from all of this awful colonization and pillaging is that these cultures’ foods have fused, creating lots of delicious food to eat across the world. And I get to benefit from eating Surinamese food for the very first time in Amsterdam!

I wasn’t sure what to expect until I took a look at the menu of a spot we chose today. We tried to go to Roopram Roti, but it was unfortunately closed on our last full day in Amsterdam, so instead, we went to Warung Spang Makandra. The service was very friendly, fast, and efficient. We ordered the spang makandra special, which came with fried rice, noodle, chicken fillets, chicken satay, fried egg, potato sambel (almost like a latke), brekedel, and krupuk, a lamb curry with roti, and a large bowl of chicken soup. What all this food conjured up for me was a mix of Indian, African, and Asian cuisine. The curries were like Malaysian-Indian, and the rices and noodles were certainly a fusion of Asian cuisines.

What was very surprising was the chicken soup: it had large pieces of shredded chicken, but what was most notable about it was the broth itself: it was almost smokey, a bit savory, sweet, salty, and umami. It was likely the closest match to Vietnamese pho that I’ve ever had that wasn’t actually pho. It definitely tasted like there were charred or smoked spices and onions used to flavor and sweeten this broth. It was piping hot and so delicious and comforting.

In addition, I was also very surprised by the roti. Surinamese roti, as I later discovered, initially appears to look just like the roti you get in Indian or Malaysian restaurants. Upon touching it and breaking it apart with your hands, though, it seems drier, and then these surprising yellow flakes start falling out of the center of it. Those yellow flakes are ground lentils that are used as filling to make the roti more substantial. They taste very dry, almost buttery when you are chewing them, and they are such a great surprise and touch to roti. It was addictive and a great complement to the lamb curry we had, which had strong similarities with Malaysian curries we’ve eaten before. This whole meal was so surprising and ultimately a learning experience.

Traveling and eating, I’ve learned so much about cultures and fusions and tastes. The overlap of all these cuisines and spices has been so amazing and delicious during this trip.

I first heard of a stroopwafel in my early twenties when a colleague of mine went to The Netherlands for a work trip, and as a treat to bring back for the office, she presented us with bags and bags of these little flat waffle-like sandwich cookies with caramel filling. “Stroopwafels are the best!” she said. “You haven’t lived until you have eaten one of these!” I had one of them, and while I enjoyed it and how soft it was, I wasn’t particularly impressed. They were tasty, yes, caramelly, a bit gooey, soft and with a hint of crunch. But I didn’t find this life changing at all, nor did I think it was anything I would want to haul back to the U.S. with me after visiting Europe.

That was about 9-10 years ago. Now that the world is becoming more cosmopolitan and well, worldly, stroopwafels have already landed right here stateside. Gourmet and on-trend food vendors sourcing stroopwafel-like cookies are eagerly distributing to many American stores, so now, we can easily find these same stroopwafels in our local Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods Markets — heck, some airport stand are even selling these individually packaged.

Fast forward to today, when I finally got to have a freshly made stroopwafel, and yes, this time, my life kind of was changed. Let’s just say right now that a freshly made stroopwafel CANNOT be compared to any old packaged stroopwafel We were at the Albert Cuyp Market in Amsterdam during our last morning before taking a train to Brussels, and we went to the cart that was marked as the original stroopwafel – Rudi’s Original Stroopwafels.

Stroopwafels (this literally means “syrup waffle” in Dutch) originated in Gouda (“HOW-da” the town, yes, of the same name as the famous and delectable cheese) around the late 18th century. They are made with a thick dough flatted in a waffle-like iron, cooked until crispy, then deftly sliced in half. A half is spread with a warm caramel-like filling made from syrup, brown sugar, butter, and a mixture of spices. Then, the caramel begins to cool and set, ultimately binding these two delicious halves together again. According to legend, bakers in Gouda didn’t know what to do with leftover cookie crumbs from their baking, so they would mix together leftover cookie crumbs to form a dough and then shape this mixture into waffles. To sweeten these treats, bakers glued the waffles together with sugar syrup, forming a sweet snack out of ingredients that would have otherwise been thrown away. Eventually, other bakers in the Netherlands jumped on the bandwagon, turning stroopwafels into a national staple.

This freshly made stroopwafel, literally right in front of my eyes, was amazing. Our vendor nearly burned his fingers slicing the thin waffle in half, and in goes the oozing gooey deliciousness that is the golden caramel filling. Served piping hot, the edges are slightly crisp and the wafers are super chewy. And the caramel filling is a true delight: it oozes and sticks and stretches like crazy. It was so much fun to eat and film. And to add to the overall experience, our vendor who sold it to us was so friendly and even agreed to be filmed for our vlog. He discussed his family recipe and business, which his dad started, and he talked about how he continues the family tradition. Others try to copy, but theirs is the original and the best. We were lucky to come during the current month when it’s not as busy because during the summer months, which of course, is high season in Amsterdam, the queues can become quite long.

I don’t have any other fresh stroopwafels to compare this one to, but this was certainly the best stroopwafel I’ve ever had. I’m ruined for the packaged ones forever… not that I ever really cared for them to begin with, especially back home.