Now that Boston's literally shimmering with heat all day, this underpaid dreamer's mind has turned firmly to vacation plans. Here are a few vacations I'd love to take right now, if money were no object.

Lengthy stay in Kiev: Kiev is the exquisite hidden gem of Eastern Europe. The whole city is built on gently rolling hills, its food is a slight improvement on the salty blandness of Russian cuisine, and the people are incredibly kind to tourists. Plus, you need to ride a funicular to get from one level of the city to another. A FUNICULAR!

Working visit to a monastery: I’m not religious, strictly speaking, but isn’t religious tolerance a professional monk’s bread and butter? I think I’d have a lot to gain from the discipline and community-mindedness of the monastery setting. Unless I got kicked out for making too many Sister Act references.

Holing up to write for a few months in India: I’m not even going to pretend this one isn’t about the food. Fifteen ripe mangoes a day! Blistered naan absolutely seething with clarified butter! Coconut curries ‘til you can’t even remember home!

Madagascar: One moderate-sized island houses 5% of the world’s species of animals -- of which, 80% are exclusive to Madagascar! It boggles the mind! Although, on the negative side, I’d be constantly paranoid that one errant sneeze would end up putting a rare species of gibbon on the extinct list. My egregious bad, guys.

Taco truck tour of the Southwest: Fun fact: food sold out of a truck is approximately seventy times tastier than bourgeois wall-and-ceiling food. Double-fun fact: sweet potato tacos. Guhhh.

…so it turns out the only thing I like about vacationing is eating. And/or potentially killing whole species of mammals. That sounds about right. Where would you rather be than work right now?

Posted by TKOG from Not That Kind Of Girl