To the One Who Never Will

Our story is never-ending. That to say, I will always love you.  Aware of this dream state which is my tendency to romanticize the past.

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Where Are You Going? An Interview with Quo Vadis: On Journaling, Travel, and Memoir.

On the art of journaling, note taking, and recording the world around you. These are my favorite notebooks for daily musings and painting.

Interview with Maria Rochelle

What an immense pleasure it was joining fellow author Maria Rochelle in what became quite a revealing conversation… A discussion on travel, literature, writing, life, love and losing oneself in the beautiful madness of all things.

New York City and the Hunt for Turkish Shoes.

It was during my long and dusty sojourn in the Middle East, wandering collapsed,  ruined villages, haggling through ancient markets that I first encountered the yemeni, or Turkish slipper. Now, i'm not the most fashion-driven or even fashionable guy, but the effortless, dare I say, timeless cool. Travelblogger and Novelist, Nicholas Andriani takes on fashion and time honored crafts from the ancient villages of Istanbul to Manhattan New York.

El Violin: Valencia ( A Love Poem to the Spanish City of Oranges

Bohemian nights in Valencia where the gypsies shred violins into the coming dark "Rhythmic swells reverberate trough my lungs. The back streets of Valencia. Back street Europe. Romani enclaves and gypsy parts of town. We'll sit here in the Plaça de la Virgen with our stiff sangria, smartly bashful in red-faced delerium. For it is Spring and the blossoms have begun to sing.  A nod to blanco nerium" A poem to the City of Oranges. An Open Love Letter to the City of Valencia, Spain.

On the Road Less Traveled : A Personal Essay on the Path of Most Resistance and the Adventure That is Life.

Don't be victimized by the culture of fear. Our planet is waiting to be explored, to reveal it's secrets to you, to me, to any who dare ask, it will expose you to the raw truths of life. To the quarks of distant cultures and alien tongues. To disgusting foods and delicious cuisines, to dangerous and countless blessings. Nicholas Andriani's personal essay on travel, adventure, and taking the Road Less Traveled whether that means hitting the Sahara or striking up a conversation in a coffee shop. It's all an adventure.

Sketching Sights: Istanbul, City on the Edge (Art. Travel. Writing. Islam. Architecture)

The Bosphorus splits Istanbul in two parts. A rift in the madness of Europe and Asia, drifting between bodies of fresh and salt water cooling the heated passion of a most ancient urban jungle. The hot, hot, heat of human movement generates organized chaos as this great strait, this rift, cushions the blow, keeping this …

The Holy Gorge of Agiofarago: Travel the Greek Island of Crete.

I could spend a lifetime, drunken on the sea breeze, lost among these islands of Minotaurs and Men.

Spontaneous Combustion: #1 ($99 Dollars, Almost Free: Life Coach. Copywriter. Thief)

I'm not here to pretend to be some guru or act like I know anymore than you do because, believe me, the older I get, the less I know. Funny how that works when the world is running wild with "twenty-somethings" peddling Nirvana and life-coaching: really just give me $99 and I promise you'll feel better. Go ahead, try it. 

In My Heart of Hearts, I Will Always Love You. | An Open Love Letter, Deep in Memoir: The Boy Meets World, the Conflicted Future Self.

"My sudden love of these two women came into existance upon two separate planes of thought Like a split in the multiverse that is the self. Shay. Shay is stability. Comfort. Success. Whereas Ingrid. Ingrid claims the part of me which belongs to the world. A manifestation of my desire to roam freely and simply be. But, I know in my heart of hearts these two worlds can not coexist.  For they, separately, are everything. Yet together, in the folds of life, they cancel each other out." --In Another Country

From the Rooftops of Granada — an excerpt from my manuscript for ‘The Outsider.’ A Confessional Memoir/Novel on Identity, Love, Travel and Revolution in the Arab Spring.

I mean, it's not cheating if nothing happens. Oh, but emotions run deep. Which begs the question: What’s worse, an emotional or a physical affair?

Opening lines: A Story About Identity, Revolution, and What it Means to Be a Modern Human. A Work in Progress #LiteraryFiction

Excerpt from The Outsider: A Memoir? "The sky out my window is that fiery red which makes the heart swell with life and there it is again: that sensational expanding within my chest, rising to my throat, gripping and stinging my eyes."

One: I Could Kill Myself | Two: I Could Go To Africa –scene from The Outsider, A Novel.

*unedited from rough draft (The Outsider: A Novel) I woke up one morning in a state of complete despair and found myself debating the absurdity of carrying on like this when I had options. They were clear as day and night and manifest out of who-knows-where: One, I could kill myself. Two, I could go …

Rimbaud On Sacrifice and Art

“I'm now making myself as scummy as I can. Why? I want to be a poet, and I'm working at turning myself into a seer. You won't understand any of this, and I'm almost incapable of explaining it to you. The idea is to reach the unknown by the derangement of all the senses. It …

Sketching Sights: Burma

Before the world can truly reveal itself you must take a period of meditation. A time of reflection. To pre-game, to set a cosmic course of action by stating your intentions and making them manifest. This is the driving force behind Sketching Sights. To become one with the elements of each and every environment that strikes me. […]

New York City in 24 Hours: Where to Eat. Sleep.

Experience New York City like a local. Expert tips on where to eat, what to see and do in a weekend or layover.

Morocco Travel Guide: Tangier

Travel the the bizarre world of Morocco. This multi-part travel guide discusses the top foods, sights and things to do in this wonderfully amazing Kingdom.

A Recipe for the Sun: My Affair with Spanish Wine & Salmon / Featuring wines from Ribera y Rueda

Spanish wine and a sun drenched recipe? Yes, please. My highlight from my affair with the wines of @RiberaRuedaWine #recipes #foodblog #foodwriter #wine #wino #ribera #rueda #spain #satchat #grill

NaNoWriMo : Into the Wild

Earlier this year, I set a goal to finish a solid draft of my memoir and to achieve this mission i'm going into the wild, er, offline... A MONTHLONG period away from social media, the internet, ethernet and all those nets, in an archaic approach to finish this labor of love that i'm damn excited …

The Sabah House Rules: New York City and the Hunt for Turkish Yemenis

It was nearly a year ago that I discovered the Sabah Dealer. A chance meeting on Twitter led me to this exotic, almost whimsical Instagram where I was transported to Anatolia. To the bazaars, the buskers and baksheesh and medieval villages. To a world still crafted by hand. I soon found that behind the Sabah Dealer's travels were shoes--Sabah's …