There have been times during my travels when I’ve compromised my personal safety — unknowingly and deliberately — just to get where I wanted to go. When I think back on these moments I shiver. Yes I was naive and possibly insane.

The idea of riding through backwater roads in rural China with no one but a non-English speaking driver or clambering down a muddy mosquito infested path in an unknown part of Myanmar may sound adventurous but I had to rely on the people around me and my wits.

Yet no matter where I was during the day, it was the nights that made me incredibly uncomfortable. Left alone in a unlisted hotel or  hostel with people who not only looked different but spoke differently from me, I was largely viewed as a crazy foreign woman travelling around with no friends and worse — no man to protect me. I was also seen as wealthy in their eyes because I could travel.

Little did they know that I was nervous about being alone not knowing who might force their way into my room. These nights were often spent in a restless state of sleep waking at the slightest noise, keeping a makeshift weapon within close distance for that “just in case” moment and trying whatever I could to fortify the doors and windows.

Back then — and it was only a few years ago — there was little in the way of practical personal safety gadgets that women could use.  Now thanks to advances in technology and companies like Ila, personal security has evolved. No longer do women have to compromise their personal security in their home or when travelling.

Using the doorstop concept Ila has created the Wedge with a built-in alarm that emits a piercing siren should someone try to open the door. The siren is loud enough to scare off any hearing able intruder as well as freak out your neighbours and dogs within metres of your home.

Ila has kept the Wedge design simple but stylish constructing the product out of a hard plastic and adding a feminine touch to keep the product from looking drab. It is inexpensive considering the added sense of security it offers: $19.95 for the US market and £14.50 for the UK.

Anyone who takes their travel and personal safety seriously should add this product to their travel list or their friend’s travel list.Detailed information on the Wedge and other security gadgets is available at Ila Security.

Ila Wedge

Caffeinated Traveller

It was a quiet celebration more of a huge sigh of relief than a cork popping champagne sipping party. I knew there was still a part of the hill to climb and it was going to be slow going clambering over rocks and crags. Despite having legal permission to work, I still had to find a job.

I was mentally prepared to slug it out with the mass of intelligent professionals also seeking work around me. What I wasn’t prepared for nor expected was to find myself signing an employment contract within weeks of receiving my green card.

So here I am, employed, legal, able to leave the US and come back without visa hassles, able to earn after months of not doing so and able to recognise and appreciate my good fortune. On the downside (short-term) I have found I am trying to find a routine that lets me sit down for an hour or two, respond to the countless email requests and wonderful comments left on my blog site, as well as stay consistent with posts. It’s a work in progress that needs fine tuning but I’m getting there.

I do have a few things I’d like to say:

• My heartfelt sympathy and thoughts go out to the New Zealand miners who died this week  and their families and friends; and the people of New Zealand working their way through this national tragedy while I write this.
• Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate this special day.
• Thank you Homeland Security for the smooth processing of my permanent residency application.
• Thank you Joe for being understanding and loving during the times I drove you crazy.
• And, thanks to all the wonderful insightful, humorous bloggers and readers I have met on this journey, you have been inspirational.

The plan is to continue this blog but move it from twice weekly to once a week until my holidays when I plan on annoying you all as often as I can. The travel plans are being dusted off but the problem is how to choose only one place instead of several.

Happy holidays and stay safe.

by Cate

Caffeinated Traveller

In 1947, many lights were switched on around the US including a momentous one from the founders of a company called Intel who thought it would be cool to do something with the transistor.

But this post isn’t about technology as such nor computers, it’s about one man and his love for a bean called Cacao. In 1947 Jimmie Vonglis along with his beloved wife Gussie had an idea about chocolate in a place called Dania Beach.

by Cate

It began with chocolate: dark, milk and white, before moving into candy production further down the road. Jimmie’s business was a small family owned place but locals knew it as a chocolate haven; a place where tempered gems were innovative and delicious with a capital D.

Some time later — 1997 — Jimmie’s went outside the family but still kept the small business operational thing. The original premises were changed to include a café (closed when I visited) and the new owners opened a second shop further down the road in Wilton Manors.

Truffles are large in size and taste big enough for you the chocoholic to share with someone you love.  I opted to try some traditional liqueur flavours Grand Marnier and Crème de Menthe plus an espresso treat which tasted more like orange than coffee.

by Cate

The shop in Dania Beach is located just off the main road, in a old house amongst a cool garden setting. This is a place that needs to visited and often.

by Cate

All that’s needed to compliment this scene is a shot of caffeine or a wee dram of whisky.

Getting to Jimmie’s Chocolatier is easy if you happen to be around Miami perferably Fort Lauderdale:

148 N Federal Hwy (US-1), Dania Beach, Florida.

Open each weekday @ 11:30am, Saturdays @ 12p, and Sundays @ 1p.

Call (954) 922-0441 for more details

Caffeinated Traveller

by Cate

Sabal Palmetto or Cabbage Palmetto may mean nothing to ordinary visitor or local living here, but this name refers to the Floridian native that contended for the prize of state tree kicking out fellow competitors as the Long Leaf pine. Officials in 1953,  passed a statute giving the Palm the recognition and protection it deserved.

I never knew there was so much involved in being a tree.

Of course this tree is no ordinary tree, ask a botanist who specialises in palms and you will likely be informed that the Sabal Palmetto is in fact a weed — a grass — with a number of edible parts: leaves, roots, seeds.

by Cate

If you like palm trees then Florida is your place. Beside it being a flat, sandy, humid peninsula, there are around 27 palm varieties — native and exotic flourishing in the wild with six receiving full state protection. Hundreds upon hundreds of palms grow around the beaches, in gardens, line streets and affluent avenues and parking lots. Yet despite the near perfect growing conditions there is not one palm oil production unit in sight.

Royal, Lady, Saw and Windmill are some of the palms around the Palm Beaches, my favourite one comes under the romantic name: Travelers Palm with its fan like leaves, I think this tree warrants recognition as being more picturesque than others.

by Cate

I always thought this tree belonged to the Banana family.

Looking onto the garden complex where I live, there are countless varieties of Palms, of which I know nothing. They are striking in their evening silhouettes softening urban settings between a frame of drooping leaves.

by Cate

Palms offer up a lot to photographers: lines, angles, contrasts, spiders, sticky webs…

Coconuts grow on some varieties around South Florida and yes, these do come crashing down on heads, cars and the roads. As for Date Palms? I haven’t seen any as yet, and when I do I’ll be the first one hanging around underneath eating the fresh juicy fruits.

Caffeinated Traveller

My friend was in this picture along with a bag of freshly baked muffins in her left hand and her car keys and purse in her right hand. She had on a thick woollen coat, a long homespun muffler and matching pumpkin coloured beanie, but  I couldn’t put my finger in the thing that was missing. And then it clicked. On her feet she had nothing.

“What happened to your shoes?” I asked her as I opened the door. She smiled holding up a bag of muffins unfazed by the temperature and her barefeet.

“I dunno.” she replied “No worries eh.”

That was the end of the discussion. I had forgotten my friend had a dislike for shoes, excluding jandals (flipflops) opting to go around unshod and free whenever she could.

I, on the other hand, prefer my feet well shod when walking outside on the pavement, road, icy cold grass, sopping paddocks, animal defecated pastures and sunburnt sands.

Many New Zealander’s — bless them — also prefer their feet shoeless: 24/7.

Inside department stores, discount stores and supermarkets unshod feet trod over dirty grimy floors, concrete pock marked with gum, and tar stained roads. All I can say to this a part from “eeeewwwwww”, is that I don’t associated myself with this part of the kiwi psyche. In fact I cannot understand it. Never have and never will.

Like Hobbits, Kiwis who trudge around without shoes have a common ailment known in the shoeless fraternity as “Kiwi Feet.” Here the sole is likened to rhinoceros skin and the foot’s width foot has broadened due to years of being outside a constricting shoe.  Another unique fact is the amazing tolerance Kiwi Feet have in subzero temperatures or high heat after standing on a discarded cigarette stub.

It used to be that shoeless feet could be seen everywhere throughout the country’s urban and rural centres, but over the generations as more New Zealander’s travel the globe bringing back etiquette and style (kind of) with them, the shoeless foot has succumbed to ruralisation with feet seeking out fresher and cleaner grounds to wander on.

Shoeless feet can still be found kicking back in rural schools, rural pubs and medical clinics, pushing down on acceleration pedals when driving, running across paddocks and running into the surf.

I cannot guess when going barefoot first entered the New Zealand culture. New Zealand Maori and Pacific Islanders may have introduced this to early European settlers when their footware fell apart, or surfers who lost their sandals and thought “why not?”. The list is endless.

If you want to know more about this oddity in Kiwi Culture, simply Google it and see why tourists are as baffled about it as I am.

Caffeinated Traveller