The World According To

Mitzie Mee & FriendsIssue 2 • December 2014

Welcome back!Yes, it’s been a while, and I’m happy that you’re still

around. Thank you so much for your patience!

This issue was supposed to be the September issue,

but now it has turned into the December issue, and

it’s a very skinny one.

Ever wondered what it’s like to travel solo? Do you

dare? I’ve asked Pinay Flying High to share some

of her solo travel experiences. Are you visiting Los

Angeles? Susie from Relentless Writings provides

her suggestions for Los Angeles daytrips. Last, but

not least, I’ve asked my friend Tina to tell me about

her first impression of Dubai.

And now to some big news. The last few months

have been really busy. I went to Florida to renew my

commercial pilot license, and hopefully, if everything

goes my way, I will be back up in the skies within the

next couple of months.

However, this means that I will not have as much

time for the blog and for this e-mag as I’m used to.

And trust me, transcribing interviews takes A LOT of

time.

Therefore, I’ve decided to turn this e-mag into a

v-mag instead. It will still be about friends and fellow

bloggers in the cities featured in my guides, but

instead of writing it all down, I’ll record it on video.

The videos will be uploaded on my YouTube chan-

nel continuously, along with small movie snippets

from my life and my trips, so please, check in, fasten

your seatbelts and enjoy your ride!

Mitzie Mee (Sanne Overgaard Møller) mitziemee@mitziemee.com

www.mitziemeeblog.com

www.mitziemee.com

3 years in Dubai has made me immune to skyscrapers and bling-bling, and nowdays, it takes a lot more than a gold-plated Bent-ley to make me turn my head. Instead of reading about my ”seen-it-all, been-the-re-done-that”-observations, I therefore thought it would be fun to have a chat with my friend Tina, who visited Dubai for the very first time last month. Read about her impressions of my home city here:

From the moment I stepped out of the pla-ne, I was greeted by luxurious surroundings and friendly and serviceminded individu-als. Walking through the terminal building felt like walking through a desert castle! I must say that Emirates are really doing a great job regarding the branding of the city.

Dubai is exactly as I pictured it, before I came here. Over the top and way too much in so many ways, but yet fascinating and lavish. The buildings are too high, the cars are too fast: It’s just such an overwhelming expe-rience! Regarding the buildings, my first thought was ”What are all these skyscrapers doing in the middle of the desert?”

My best experience down here was our vi-sit to the ice rink in Dubai Mall. It was fun and surreal, going ice skating in the de-

Tina:Mitzie Mee:

Burj al Arab

sert. I also enjoyed just walking around in the mall and looking at all the expensive goods displayed in the windows of the luxury boutiques. I didn’t dare to go insi-de though, my shoes were way too ugly:)

If I were living down here, I think one of the major annoyances would be the traf-fic. People are driving like crazy and the city isn’t really built for pedestrians. I also think I would miss the change of seasons. It would be weird to wake up to sunshine every day.

The nightlife in Dubai is very posh and se-gregated, at least some of the places we went to. I found it quite disturbing that I couldn’t just sit down, should I wish to. I would have to buy a bottle of alcohol or be prepared to stand up all night. I real-ly didn’t like that, and it reminded me of USA. I prefer more casual places. Next time I come to Dubai, I would love to go on one of those desert safaris and see more of what’s outside the city. I would also like to rent a boat and spent more time out on the sea. I was only here for 3 days, and I didn’t get the chance to re-ally work on my tan, so next time, I also hope to be able to spend more time on the beach.

Ice skating in the desert.

A selfie by the creek

On the Creek.

Sand castles on The Beach, JBR

I live about 2.5h north of LA, so I’m actually clo-ser to Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara is about 2.5 h drive north of LA and it’s a very nice area. Beaches are nice, there’s a lot of shopping, a lot of food outlets and it’s also a college town.

UCSB (University of California Santa Barbara is located in the city, and it attracts many young people. The nightlife is good and there are

Mitzie Mee:

California is made for roadtrips and after a week in Los Angeles, you are probably eager to see what’s beyond La-La Land. Renting a car is easy and affordable, and there is so much to see. Below, Susie from Relentless Wrirings will pro-vide you with her suggestions for Los Angeles roadtrips.

plenty of places to go out. Everytime I host ex-change students, I take them to The Habit in Santa Barbara. It’s a very popular place to eat, and it’s not very expensive. Another very Cali-fornian place to eat is In-N-Out Burger. As we’re speaking, I’m only 3 blocks from one right now.

Further north there’s San Luis Obispo, which is also a college town. They have an open air mar-ket on Thursdays nights, where they close off the streets. It’s a farmers market and they have vendors selling cooked foods, locally grown organic fruit, loacal made honey and jam. The-re are also street performers, and when you get tired of walking in the streets you can go into the shops.

I saw that Pinay Flying High recently posted a blog post about driving down Highway 1 and San Luis and Santa Barbara are both along that way. I saw her pictures and I was ”Oh, you’re in my area!”.

If you drive south of LA, there’s San Diego. It’s not that far from LA, only 1.5-2 hours south of Los Angeles. It’s a beach town and Sea World is there. San Diego is also the home of Qual-

Los Angeles:

ROAD TRIP!

Susie:

comm Stadium and San Diego Chargers. The city is right at the border to Mexico, so if you have your passport with you, you can go down to Baja California. However, I wouldn’t recom-mend crossing the border alone. I would go with a tour group or someone familiar with the area. Tijuana, which is just across the border is in fact a bit scary. There’s a lot of pollution and you’re not quite sure who’s to be trusted and who’s not to be trusted. In the news there’s a lot of drug traffic problems and cartels.

Another really cool thing to do, if you are spen-ding some time in Los Angeles, is to take a cru-ise down the Mexican riviera. I’ll be on a 7-day cruise soon. I’ll write about it later on my blog.

Mitzie Mee:

Thanks a lot for the advice. Now I would like you to tell me a little about your blog. Why did you start blogging? And what’s your blog about?

I actually started writing a long time ago back on LiveJournal. It was just a way for me to put down my thoughts. Shortly after, I started using blogspot, and I started taking down records on things that I’ve done, and interesting things that I see.

Then I moved over to the Tumblr platform, but I didn’t find it as good a platform for blogging. I found that there were a lot of re-blogs and re-posts and it seems like it’s not necessarily a plat-

Susie:

form that people spend reading, as opposed to spending time looking at pictures and ani-mated stuff, so I went back to Blogspot.

My grandfather passed away several years ago. He had Alzheimer’s, and he started for-getting. I want to be able to look back and re-member things as they were. Even for me, I start forgetting little details about my trip to Germany, but then I look at the pictures, and it will bring back the mem-ories. I will remember how it smelled, or how it felt and it helps taking me back.

I’m on my second marriage, I have a stepson and it’s been a challenge as he’s quite a hand-ful. I never saw myself as a parent, but now I am. I’m creative and I do ceramics. I use to post pictures of what I do on Instagram, but I haven’t blogged much about it recently.

I never saw myself as a artsy person but th-rough ceramics I feel that I’m able to express myself and how I feel. I also like to contribute to charity. I’ve contributed some of my bowls to charity, and I’ve done charity walks.

There are people in the world, who don’t have what I have. I want to share what I have or at least be able to alleviate their situation.

If I’m driving down the street and stop by a fast food place and I notice somebody who is hungry, I might get them a cheeseburger and a bottle of water and let them have that for the day.

I work for a high school district as a computer technician.

It wasn’t what I wanted to do, when I grew up but it just turned out that way. I’ve always wanted to be a writer and through blogging I guess that you are a writer.

Though, originally I decided that I wanted to become a psychologist and then I started fixing computers and doing tech work to put myself through college. Though I soon realized that I didn’t want to be a psychologist anyway, so then I thought I would just stick with the com-puters. I enjoyed the work, and now that’s what I do.

I didn’t start traveling until later in life. I did go on road trips and down to Mexico, but it wasn’t until 3 years ago, I had my first planeride ever.

My sister and I decided to go backpacking in Germany and after that, I was stuck with the bug. Of course there are places here in the Uni-ted States that I would still like to visit such as Carslbad Caverns, but most of all, I would like to travel abroad. You know how they tell you that if you get one tatoo, you’ll get an itch from it. I’ve given up that habit of mine. I don’t even want tatoos, I just want to save all my money and go trave-ling. I love it!

www.xanaxjunkee.blogspot.com

Click the image below to visit Susie’s blog:

Ridin’ solo: Do you dare?

Isn´t solo travel just for people without friends? What are the pros and cons of traveling all by yourself?

Whoever said that solo travel is just for people without friends probably doesn’t have friends. Traveling solo doesn’t make you anti-social. In fact, it made me realize that I’m actually a very sociable person.

I was able to make friends with an instagramer while in Ho Chi Minh, I’m still in touch with my bus-mate during a day tour in London, and the owner of the hotel, where I stayed in Lyon, was my personal tour guide while in the city. If anything, I’d say that solo travel is for people with a lot of friends as you gain them as you travel.

Pros of traveling by yourself is basically doing what you want without relying on someone or thinking about anybody else.

Whenever I travel alone, I can do my own itinera-ry without having to consult with someone else if the itinerary is acceptable for him/her. I can also decide when to have a break whenever I’m tired - it’s basically the freedom that you have as you go on your journey, which is what I love about solo traveling.

The cons, well let’s face it - it’s a dangerous world out there, and it is of course one of the most con-troversial downside of traveling by yourself - your safety.

I haven’t really been in crazy, exotic places but

Pinay Flying High tells all about the ups and downs she’s had, traveling on her own.

Visit:www.pinayflyinghigh.com

MY SOLO TRAVEL CVParis - 2008

Rome - 2008

Florence - 2008

Munich - 2008

Ho Chi Minh City - 2012

London - 2012

Cotswolds 2012

Paris - 2013

Strasbourg - 2013

Lyon - 2013

Bruges - 2013

I sure have been to big cities such as Paris and London where pickpockets are rampant. I may be lucky but when traveling alone, I always make sure that I am aware of my surroundings.

Another con of being a solo traveler is you don’t have someone to take a photo of yourself in front of an iconic place. Every single photo will end up as a selfie, which I hate. :p

Dining alone doesn´t sound like too much fun. How do you spend your evenings, when trave-ling solo?

I have dined alone several times while traveling which is actually fine with me. I mostly spend my evenings within the vicinity of my hotel, due, of course, to safety issues.

Most of the hotels that I book for myself are in the city center so it is really easy to go around and find something to do. I like sitting in cafes in the evenings mostly, preferably with a wifi for obvious reasons. :)

Have you ever been afraid when traveling alone?

Yes in Paris. The pickpockets in Paris do their bu-siness in broad daylight in front of everyone but as mentioned before, you just need to be vigilant and aware of your surroundings.

Tell me about your worst/best/funniest/scariest/strangest solo travel experiences?

Scariest will probably be when I was in a London subway. I started my day quite early, 6am to be exact, as I wanted to make use of that one last day that I had in London before heading back to Dubai. I was in the last cabin of the train when one drunk guy got in.

We were the only ones inside that carriage and I was fully aware that he was looking at me during the whole trip. It was the longest 4 minutes of my life. When the train stopped, I got out of the cabin even if it wasn’t my stop yet.

The guy followed me and because it was still early, the station was empty as well. I was wal-king on a normal pace hiding my fear and I can hear the uneven footsteps of the guy walking behind me, probably about 10 steps away from me. At that point I have no idea what to do as I can’t see anyone in the train nor anywhere in the station, and I have to think fast.

The train doors beeped and started closing and at the very last minute, I decided to go in one of the cabins. I saw the guy tried to do the same but was too late to do so. That’s de-finitely the scariest solo travel experience I’ve ever had.

The best solo travel experience was when I went for the first time to Rome. I was walking along the narrow streets trying to figure out how to get to the Trevi Fountain. I passed by a small church along the way when a priest came out and greeted me.

I took the opportunity to ask him for directions since he was being friendly, so I said: ”Bon-journo! Sir, can you help me how to go to Trevi Fountain from here?” to which he replied in a joking way: ”My child, it’s not sir. It’s FATHER”. I’m not so sure how in the world I was able to come up with my reply but what comes from me next was: ”Oh! Forgive me Father for I have sinned” which is what Catholics would say when they’re doing their confessions.

I said that with my head bowed down and my hands clasped together. The priest laughed and laughed and laughed. He laughed so hard that I thought he was going to have a heart attack right in front of me.

When he finally regained his composure, he asked me where I’m from and walked with me towards the Trevi Fountain, which was actually just minutes away from where we were.

We had a gelato together, his treat, and he stayed with me for quite some time showing me some other hidden gems in the area. To have a priest as my tour guide while in Rome is definitely the best travel experience for me. :)

To all the readers considering going on a one-man-wolf-pack trip: what´s your best advice?

Don’t be afraid, just do it. :)

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