About Me

Born in Puerto Rico, I moved to Redmond, WA in 2006 after I married my husband in the wedding of my dreams. We lived in Washington for almost 7 years and recently moved to San Jose, CA. We have 2 four-legged kids, Diego & Valentina. We are a couple in our 30s, that enjoy running, camping, hiking and of course, traveling. I consider myself a planner. I'm always planning something, but the things that I enjoy to plan the most are our trips. My husband used to get mad at me because I tend to plan our next vacation while we are actually on a vacation. He's like "you need to enjoy this trip, before planning the next one". Now he understands that is not because I'm not enjoying myself that I'm planning a new trip, it's simply because I'm passionate about it and simply can't stop thinking about where I want to go next. When we are not traveling, I work as a Human Resources professional and my husband is in the software industry. We have other passions, like doing wine tasting, and believe me when I say we are taking full advantage of living just an hour away from Napa. 

I would describe our traveling style as very down to earth. We don't believe in luxury travel. We prefer to backpack, although I don't like to put ourselves in just that category, because every once in a while we like to indulge in a nice meal or hotel, but most of the time we eat at local food stands and sleep in hostels. We believe that the simpler we travel the easiest is to get inmerse in the culture and meet wonderful people.  I like to plan the trips myself without the help of a travel agent, because I believe that the process of planning is as fun as the trip itself. I buy 2-3 guidebooks for each coutry we visit. My favorites are the ones from Lonely Planet, "Rough" guides and Rick Steves (for Europe). I also visit Trip Advisor and Lonely Planet's website. Everything else I find thanks to Google.

For our travels we take a backpack and/or a 20" carry on. We pack light (or so I prefer to believe). As a girl, packing light is hard, very hard! For me is hard to not bring 2-3 pairs of high heels, my collection of make up, my hair dryer, flat iron, laptop, etc, etc, etc. But the more we travel the more I realize I can leave my hair "au naturel" . I learned to love my curls (OK, only when necessary and always when I'm abroad) so I don't have to bring my flat iron all the time. I also created a basic make up kit, I take only 2 pair of shoes (I leave wearing one of them) and my husband and I share a laptop (to store our photos). We still have a lot to learn because I know we can do way better, but it's a slow process and we are getting there.

Another thing is that I don't go crazy shopping everywhere we go. I purchase the very minimal (a book as a souvenier for my nieces, a toy for my nephews and a Christmas tree ornament for ourselves), so we don't have to worry about our stuff not fitting back in the luggage. We love food and love to try local dishes of the countries we visit. In preparation for our trip to Argentina, I started eating vegetarian 2 weeks before just so I didn't get tired of eating meat there. A friend told me that all Argentinians eat is meat, so I took it very seriously and wanted to make sure I was eating meat during the entire trip, so I did. Also, I will always remember the most amazing dinner I've had which was in Paris. But it was not at the top of the Eiffel Tower or in a fancy restaurant. We purchased 2 crepes from a food stand close to Champ de Mars and we sat in one of the benches that looked right at the Eiffel Tower. It was January, and as you can imagine it was freaking cold, but we didn't care. We were in Paris and were having dinner with the most beautiful view of the city and the best part, it cost us less than 10 euros. So that's how we roll. Trying to keep it simple and bring home with us an imaginary bag filled with unforgettable experiences. Experiences I hope to share with you in this blog.

About the blog

I'm just an ordinary girl with a passion for exploring the world. I debated for a long time if I should create a blog or not. I'm not a journalist and I don't consider myself an expert writer. I realized the importance of documentation. The day I leave the earth, I would like someone to come accross my stories and hopefully be inspired by them.

I don't remember exactly when I discovered my passion for traveling, but it probably has a lot to do wiith when I was in college and I had the opportunity to study Italian in Perugia, Italy. I fell in love with the language, the culture and definitely the food! I really wanted to stay there forever, but I had family and a boyfriend (now my husband) waiting for me back home. If you ask me why I like traveling so much, I would say that travel, at least for me, is the best form of education. When I am in a different country, meeting new people, experiencing new adventures, trying new food, I am in peace. It's my "comfort zone". I don't know what is about it, but I simply enjoy it. There are so many places to go and explore and life is simply too short. We live consumed by the busy corporate life, that we sometimes forget to take a time to appreciate the simple things in life. I hope one day I can convince my husband to take a long break to be on the road exploring the world, but in the meantime we are trying to see as much as we can with the limited vacation that Corporate America offers.

So far we've been good in hitting at least two countries a year. We have visited Mexico, Canada, Dominican Republic, France, Argentina, Uruguay, Spain and Morrocco. This year (2013) we are planning a visit to India and one of our biggest adventures (so far): trekking the tallest peak in Africa, Mt. Kilimanjaro. We also try to see as much as we can in the US, and we've visited Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, Arizona, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Hawaii, Idaho, Virginia, Washington DC, and counting... and lived in Washington State and California. I hope to share my experiences with those who are as passionate to know the world as I am. 

Why Mond-Civitano? It means "world citizen" in Esperanto. According to Wikipedia, Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto("Esperanto" translates as "one who hopes"), the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, on July 26, 1887. Zamenhof's goal was to create an easy-to-learn and politically neutral language that transcends nationality and would foster peace and international understanding between people with different regional and/or national languages. Nowadays Esperanto is seen by Esperantists as an alternative to the all-in-English spreading the world. Esperanto is found as an ethical solution (for the threat about the cultural and linguistic diversity related to the expansion of English) as well as an economical alternative (for foreigners the learning of Esperanto is much easier than the learning of English). Hope you enjoy my blog.