Last week I attended a the three-day orientation in Washington, D.C. hosted by the organization giving me a scholarship to go to Estonia. One of the things I learned was that I need this disclaimer on future posts concerning the grant: The views and information presented here are my own and do not represent the Fulbright Program or the Department of State. And now…on to diabetes. The purpose of the orientation was to prepare all of the grantees for the experience of living abroad next year. We had information sessions on...

I’m mildly agoraphobic and it’s not easy for me to plan long trips.  And while I like looking at travel guides for places like Ecuador or Tanzania and imagining what it would be like to go there, I know that I’m not brave enough to go through with the trip.  So what inevitably happens when I read these sort of  guides is that I end up with a feeling of slight longing for adventure, and a strong feeling of regret.  But now – finally- Catherine Price has written the perfect travel book for me- 101 Places...

Now out from HarperPaperbacks, 101 Places Not To See Before You Die — by ASweetLife contributor Catherine Price — is a guide to some of the least appealing destinations and experiences in the world. But 101 Places Not To See Before You Die is also a backhanded tribute to what makes travel great: its tendency to put us in situations that we otherwise never would have experienced. With guest entries from writers like Michael Pollan, Nick Kristof, Mary Roach and A.J. Jacobs, 101 Places Not To See Before You Die is filled...

As I wrote in a previous post, I recently found out that I received a scholarship to study in Estonia for a year. Once my initial excitement at learning this abated, I realized that I hadn’t been given a confirmation postcard to send back or a telephone number to call. The only thing in the envelope besides the letter was a medical form to be filled out by my doctor. Did the organization just assume that anyone lucky enough to get the grant would accept it? Well…maybe. But, as wonderful as the grant is, that seemed a little...

On Monday two things happened to me: 1. I had an appointment with my endocrinologist. 2. I found out that I received a grant to live in Estonia for a year starting in September (!) They had more to do with each other than one might think. Part of this was the timing: I was leaving my house for the appointment just as a postman was walking up to my door, so I took the letter right from his hands. The thrill of the good news overshadowed my anxiety about the doctor’s appointment, at least for the duration of the car ride there....

Right now, as I type, I have a knot in my stomach. It’s a familiar feeling, often accompanied by an inability to take deep breaths, that is my body’s way of telling me that I am very stressed out. The reason, in this particular case, is that my husband and I have decided to move back to the east coast, and are going to be leaving our lovely Oakland home in a matter of weeks. Before we settle in, we’re going to be going on a big trip — stay tuned to the blog for details — that’s going to include...

I’m still having difficulty accepting Twitter as a source of news, but nonetheless, I was interested by the tweets of Elliott Yamin, the Type 1 diabetic and former American Idol contestant who was in Chile during this weekend’s devastating earthquake. If you’d like to read the full text of some of his tweets, check out Access Hollywood – my 160-character limit doesn’t allow me to fully express his creative use of abbreviations. But what interested me is his perspective on the disaster as a Type 1 diabetic....

I was nervous about the second week of my trip, which I spent in Estonia. For the first time since being diagnosed with diabetes, I was completely on my own. I took a plane from Riga to Tallinn, Estonia’s capital. From Tallinn, I took a bus and a ferry to Saaremaa, an island off the western Estonian coast. Saaremaa is Estonia’s largest island. The land is mostly flat, punctuated by meteorite craters; the largest crater, known as Kaali Lake, is almost circular and filled with water. The one town on Saaremaa is Kuressaare, which...

A few weeks ago I received a notice from the organizers of the Tel Aviv marathon announcing that the marathon had been postponed from March 26th to May 13th .The postponement is due to a disagreement between the police, the sponsors (Adidas) and the city regarding the course of the race. Only someone with absolutely no understanding of the kind of training that goes in to marathon running could decide to postpone a marathon six weeks before it is set to take place. Last year the Tel Aviv marathon took place on April 24th, on a relatively...

I really enjoyed reading Elizabeth Snouffer’s article “Eating Abroad with Diabetes–Hong Kong,” Catherine Price’s interview with world traveller Bridget McNulty, and Catherine’s posts  describing her own trips to Tokyo and Hawaii. So I thought I would follow the trend and write about my own first experience traveling with diabetes. This summer, I went on a two-week trip to Estonia and Latvia to do research about my grandfather’s family. I had originally been given a grant to do this last summer, right after I had...