Hi. My name is Meenakshi (ME-KNOCK-SHE).
When I travel, what I love most are the people I meet and the time—however short—we share. It’s from these encounters that I develop a connection to wherever I’m visiting. I follow their recommendations about food, walks, art, shows, and so on. On this site, I’ll share all of these. Maybe you’ll love it and it can enrich your life and make you smile too. (Maybe not).
I did once have a “real” job. I think I have to write that so you can put me in the right box, so you know that I am (or was) successful and trustworthy or whatever. So, very quickly, I used to work in communications for both the United Nations and the U.S. Government. I quit when my soul crumpled under my experience of all the bureaucracy and questionable ethics.
Now, I’m traveling and enjoying unadulterated freedom. I’m learning to take photos, some of which I’ll put here too. Count on several of them being blurry or imperfectly exposed.
Without further ado, here’s a cringe-worthy paragraph, in which I try to establish my credibility as a traveler you should trust. As I learn about search engine optimization and income from ads, I understand the latter is really important. But, oiiish! That’s hard. The moment I meet someone who recites the number of continents they’ve lived on or countries they’ve visited, I run. Even if I’m wearing flip-flops, I’m sprinting away at the speed of a decorated Olympian.
Wow. I actually don’t think I can bring myself to do it. I can’t make a list bragging about how lucky I’ve been to travel where I have in hopes it’ll make someone who’s stumbled across my site trust me. That’s not who I am. (I won’t lie, I will try to make a little extra money from this site. I’m not independently wealthy enough to pretend like it doesn’t matter and to not give it a go. But it’s not my primary purpose).
Instead of trying to convince you to stay on my site because of where I’ve been: here’s what to know about me, what I think is more important. I like people. I like exploring. I like languages. I want to really feel wherever I am and be exposed to everything. I reject the idea that there’s anywhere that’s truly boring.
This is basically an account of my journey and the people who brighten it as I continue on what’s a become a multi-year process of smoothing out the scrunched up spirit I’d been carrying around while I tried to become conventionally accomplished. Let’s get very basic for a second, because I love that too. This is my Eat, Pray, Love year. And if, in sharing any of this, it’s nice for you too: then yay.
With love,
Meenakshi
P.S. Did I already kind of say some of that last bit earlier? Yeah, I guess so. But. It’s my blog and I’ll be redundant if I want to 😉