OO ROO, ULURU
The Australian saying "see ya later" is often "Oo Roo."

My hair looks different, my backpack is always open, and I have a medium brown complexion. I'm sun-kissed. I am kissed by the sun. Now, if you live in Boston or in Medford, where I go to Tufts, and you saw me walking down the street, you'd probably make nothing of it. 

I was waiting for the ferry from Montevideo to Buenos Aires with my friends a few weeks ago. A long way from Boston. I was charging my phone when a kid walked up to me and asked in Spanish "Why are you brown?"

"You're brown all over. You look like soil."

In this world of continual distractions, those with the ability to be present enough to notice things have an unfair advantage. My drive from Utah to Minnesota has taught me that I can have that advantage, too. All I have to do is remember to breathe, pause, and focus on one thing at a time. A long road trip is the perfect place to practice this sort of thinking. 

Traveling is an amazing experience that will more likely than not leave you with stories to share in the future, but sometimes things don’t go quite as planned. Behind the photos of picturesque landscapes, white sandy beaches, exotic street scenes, or quaint European towns, every traveller has their share of travel mishaps. 

I caught the bus to Sydney, one morning last week. Canberra to Sydney. A taxi pick up at 5 AM. I have a penchant for being early. Although it is only a five minute ride to the bus depot, I bring a book and make sure I am there on time. Well, before time actually, but it gives me time for that pre-journey "P" (there are three Ps in Peppinck, and that is about right for the journey!). Perhaps one aboard the swaying bus, and as the terminus for our journey is Central station, there are plenty of facilities there!

It’s the smell that hits you first: a ureic stench so thick it feels like something solid is foraging up your nostrils. Tourists are given sprigs of mint or rosemary, like the nosegays carried by Renaissance gentlefolk. But if you want to be accepted by the tanners, you have to go unprotected. I’m turning up for my first day as an apprentice tanner, in the old city of Fez, with nothing to filter out the odours. 

So, you think you had a busy day? Consider what a typical working day might be like for composer Megan Cavallari. Start with the fact that Cavallari is one of only a very small handful of women who have established themselves as major creative artists in the professional music industry. But not even most of the men can point to a resume as diverse, eclectic, and impressive as this diminutive Jewish-Italian Philadelphia native: more than a 100 film scores as performer, arranger, conductor, or composer; the official composer of the L.A.