Musings about Smashrun, travel, good food, and great beer.
by jacklyn
Talking to Chris the other night, I asked him what his New Year’s Resolutions were for 2018. I always assumed that most people set year-long goals at the start of each year. I never considered that that’s not always the case. Sometimes, we might already be doing all the things we care about and as …
by jacklyn
Everything appeared lush and green. Every shade of turquoise or blue under the sun seemed even more dramatic along the Montenegrin coast. Is that a snowcapped mountain facing the Bay of Kotor? This bay is huge! The bus driver isn’t exactly taking his time. He’s zooming around the Bay of Kotor. There’s large puddles from …
by jacklyn
We were chasing clouds on our way to Montenegro. They just sort of sat along the road like spectators to a show of travelers passing through. As if to say you think Croatia’s beautiful when it sunny? Wait til’ you see this. After Arcos, Split felt more like a home to my running. There’s no …
by jacklyn
It was sheer luck that Smashrun recently ended up in Spain. We needed the change. Something about living in suburbia for the past year and a half felt wrong. We hadn’t seen most of our friends, we rarely went out, we spoke to only two other people on a regular basis and the highlight of …
Continue reading “What It’s Like to Move A Startup to Spain”
by jacklyn
If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story. –Orson Welles After a year and three months at Virginia Beach, I find myself surrounded, once again, with a thoroughly packed suitcase, an overnight backpack, and about two week’s worth of clothing. I took a quick inventory of what …
by jacklyn
Chris has a theory. The reason we only go to Asian restaurants in Virginia Beach is because the best food in Virginia Beach are probably made by people, not from Virginia Beach. We’ve got a new ritual. When we want spicy food, we go to “the Thai place.” When we want sushi, it’s “Volcano.” Friday night …
Continue reading “In Virginia Beach: big fish, not-your-average drinks, and history 101”
by jacklyn
There’s a lot of Catholics in South America. The 29 churches alone in the city of La Serena is somewhat of a testament to that fact. I imagined La Serena would look, feel, and smell like a seaside town. It didn’t. I did actually think it would be pretty serene and, it wasn’t. But it had …
Continue reading “La Serena and Valle de Elqui: not quite serene, not quite the birthplace of pisco”
by jacklyn
When I turned 21, I celebrated with my friend, Guy, in a French-Japanese restaurant in the East Village of Manhattan. There was a blizzard that night, so no one wanted to go out and everyone else that normally wouldn’t care about crap weather were out of town. It’s probably worth a mention that I was …
Continue reading “a year about drinking, running, travel, and startup culture”
by jacklyn
Puerto Varas – “a city of roses and volcanoes”. This town is one of those places you’re just meant to fall in love with. A city bounded by lakes and national parks, near grand canyons and waterfalls. There are signs everywhere hinting that you’re at the gateway to Patagonia, and there’s no shortage of stores for …
by jacklyn
Arriving at the bus terminal on a cloudy day, you wouldn’t guess that Valparaíso is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Once nicknamed the “jewel of the Pacific,” much of the city’s architecture still firmly holds on to the Victorian era and many of its hills boasts of unmatched vistas overlooking an incongruous sea of colorful homes …
Continue reading “Valparaíso and Viña del Mar: lleno de carácter, lleno de vida”
