United States

Eating America #1 – Menudo (Homemade Mexican)

Julio Moreno Eating America , 0 Comment
Eating America #1 – Menudo (Homemade Mexican)

Besides friends and family, the thing expats like myself miss the most about our home countries is the food. Prior to returning, I made a huge list of foods I missed that I hope to showcase as I systematically eat my way through America. Some are homemade Mexican meals, some are from my favorite chain restaurants, and hopefully, I’ll have an In-N-Out burger or some very greasy American Chinese food along the way. Enjoy!

#1 – Menudo

Menudo is a very well known dish among Mexicans, but it’s usually reserved for special occasions such as a birthday party or a holiday. For this reason, it is probably not something you are very familiar with unless you have Mexican friends. Restaurants might have it on weekends, since you really need to make  big pot to make it worthwhile. Read more →

Top 5 Things I Miss about America (an expat’s view)

Julio Moreno Top 10 Style Lists, United States , 2 Comments
Top 5 Things I Miss about America (an expat’s view)

As I sit here, my room is almost empty…

I finished a deep cleaning of my bathroom yesterday night and took out the kitchen today…

More than a week away from going back home for the first time in three years, but from the looks of this place, you’d think I’d be gone by tomorrow.

 “Your mind must already be checked out” is something I have gotten about a dozen times this week, and quite frankly, they have every right to assume so given the evidence.

The only problem? I am hardly homesick at all!

Living abroad for the last four years has given me some perspective into what really matters to me (more on this soon). While I miss my friends and family as much as anyone else in my position, I am trying to understand the psyche of people who would give up their entire lives for the chance to live in the so called “land of the free.” No, I don’t miss ‘freedom’ or the ‘right to speak my mind.’ Contrary to popular belief, you have both of these in plenty of countries. Here is, however, a short list of things that I do miss about America, and more importantly, Southern California:

5) The Weather

Weather - miss about america
I seriously just Googled “five day forecast Los Angeles” and this is what I got.

If you moved to Korea from…oh, say… Maine, Read more →

UNESCO Monday #5:Sunrise Over Yellowstone Lake

Julio Moreno UNESCO Picture of the Week, United States , , 0 Comment
UNESCO Monday #5:Sunrise Over Yellowstone Lake
Yellowstone
Totally worth it.

After finishing college, my friend Nate, his friend Tomac, and I drove for 18 non-stop hours from Los Angeles to Yellowstone, a place that we had hoped to visit for years. As advertised, the park was gorgeous, with its serene lake taking center stage.

We came in pretty late, so we didn’t do much the first day except pitch our tent, make our fire, cook some dinner, and go to sleep. I did manage to overhear someone at the office talk about the sunrise over Yellowstone. “It’s amazing! Too bad it is so early.” Early? I could do that, considering how early we were sleeping. I grabbed a map of the campground and took it to our tent.

I woke up early in the morning determined to see this sunrise, but my friends didn’t share my 5:00 am enthusiasm. As the sunrise was at 5:30, I had awoken a bit late and it was decision time. I had no time to go around the entire camp as I would miss it for sure. Looking at the map though, I thought I could devise a short-cut. Read more →

UNESCO Monday #3: The Everglades

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UNESCO Monday #3: The Everglades

Everglades

Officially: Everglades National Park

Taken: June 23, 2013

Place: Florida, USA

As I sat in a large dorm room in Mexico next to my temporary roommates, I caught the ear of a French guy who seemed irate as soon as he heard my American accent. Thus far, he had assumed I was a local of Yucatan since I spoke Spanish.

“American?” he asked, with a scoff.

As he cooled it a bit, we began to talk about travel when he brought up that he had never been to the US, nor had any desire to. This was fine, I thought, as I have always known we aren’t exactly held on a pedestal in France, and anti-American sentiment is sometimes valid. I too have gone on rants calling LA overrated, and to be fair, I don’t exactly dream about France either. The following however, took me completely by surprise! Read more →

Travel Tales #1: My First Traveling Trip!

Julio Moreno Travel Tales, United States , , , 0 Comment

Introduction:

Catch-22…that’s what travel blogs are. They’re unfair!

Before you have been anywhere, why start a blog? What will you write about? Have you even experienced anything worth blogging about? If you waited until you traveled a while, what happens to all of those past stories? Will people really want to read about something you did years ago? Will you even remember? I am starting this “Travel Tales” section of my blog in an attempt to recall past travel adventures. My regular WHS posts are impersonal, and while I am okay with that, it is only part of me. I want to teach people about World Heritage Sites and while I love the growth of TravelWorldHeritage so far, I also want to share a more personal side of me. These “Travel Tales” will hopefully share what happened, beyond the monuments.

Travel Tales #1: My First Travel Experience Ever – The Grand Canyon with Abraham

If you look at my list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites I have visited, you will find that I started traveling later than most. Many other bloggers have stories of how their family was huge on travel and how they went on trips all the time. I didn’t. I never went anywhere. Besides a single trip to Mexico, which was mostly to see family, I didn’t even leave my home state of California until I was nineteen!

Me at nineteen, evident by how much hair I have.

It was my sophomore year of college and I wanted to have an adventure. Something in me had suddenly triggered, and I kept pushing my best friend Abraham to go with me. I was not yet the type to do anything by myself, and like most people that age, I had conversations with my friends about pseudo trips we would “take some day.” While I still have such a list of trips to take, I never imagined that I would actually, “do that too.” We were all talk. Even when I had the money, spring break came and went and I was satisfied with visiting the town bowling alley. Yeah, yeah, maybe I was lame.
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