At some point, we made a little post on Instagram where we talked a little bit about ourselves. Now, we’d like to dig a little deeper into who Yuliana and Yanelia are, the Traveling Twins.

1. We were born in Venezuela. Parents of Syrian origin, many years ago they moved from Syria to Venezuela looking for a better life. There they had their five children, among whom we are, the beautiful twins.

 

2. Our traits always make us look “like from somewhere else.” In Venezuela, no one thought we were of Syrian origin. We don’t know why, because the Syrians are so pretty. Rather, they thought we were French, Spanish, Italian… and even Russians!

3. In Canada people are surprised when we speak Spanish, because they think we are Quebecoises or French… until we speak and the accent betrays us. Then they ask us D’où venez-vous? (where are you?) and they don’t believe us to be Latin American.

4. As children and to differentiate ourselves, our mother put each of us “slave”, a little chain on the arm with a plaque, with the name of each one.

5. In Dollarama (a chain of Canadian “all to dollar” stores), a young man foolishly asked in Spanish about soaps. Obviously, nobody understood him. We told him in Spanish where to find what he was looking for and he was in shock for a while because he swore we were as native to Canada as everyone in the store.

6. Frequently and because we are identical twins we were asked in Venezuela and some Latin Americans here: “How do you do with your boyfriends?” and “Does one feel the same as the other?”. Those are somewhat naïve stereotypes. Although we would have liked to have been able to communicate telepathically, especially when they ask us those things to tell us “Another fool asking the same nonsense question!”

7. As children, we were in a Catholic boarding school of nuns. At six o’clock in the afternoon, everyone had to go to bed. We, who did not want to, got into the musical group team “La estudiantina” and began to practice with the mandolin, becoming quite good. Students who were in the team were allowed to stay two hours rehearsing after six o’clock. We were learning and performing with the mandolin for five years… And all of this was for not to go to sleep at six in the afternoon!

8. After boarding school, we kept taking music lessons at the Escuela Superior de Música José Ángel Lamas in Caracas. We continued studying classical guitar, learning theory and solfege, music history and learning to read sheet music. But we were like half-deaf: we never learned to tune the guitar and the mandolin and it was very difficult for us when the teacher played a note on the piano and we had to write it on the staff.

9. As a child, we had flat feet like Peter Flintstones, so we wore super heavy orthopedic shoes. We could never wear fashion shoes as a child and that made us cry. But today we are very grateful because we have a bridge, since the flat foot is counter-productive when it comes to dancing.

10. We would have wanted to be professional classical ballet dancers and be concert pianists and be part of a major symphony orchestra. The flat foot cut our dream of dancing ballet and the prohibitiveness of piano lessons ended our aspirations as concert performers.

11. We never learned how to speak Arabic. Although we could understand our parents when they addressed us in Arabic, we could never articulate a complete sentence in that language. Later in life, we regret not having learned this language.

12. We detest injustice, fanaticism, intolerance. We are especially against cruelty and mistreatment of animals in all its forms: sport hunting, bullfighting, cockfights, dogfights, “bullfights”. We hate crimes against nature, perpetrated by people so ignorant that they do not realize that they are acts against themselves.

13. We love to travel, exploring to exotic and unfamiliar environments. We love dancing tango, theater, and in general, salsa dancing, belly dance, bachata… even break-dance! We really enjoy learning languages, studying math, finance, and computer related things. We love studying and are constantly researching and improving our intellectuals.

14. We are very open to tasting exotic and not so common dishes. We have thus discovered real hidden delicacies. It is incredible that many people, especially in the big cities with so many options, they just decide to have burgers and fried chicken being able to taste the typical delicious dishes form Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Arabic, Mexican, Peruvian, French, Thai, Mediterranean and a long etcetera.

15. We love animals! Cats and dogs, so much so that we have set ourselves the mission one day to create a Foundation to help, welcome and feed dogs and cats in street situations.

16. One of the things that fills us with emotion and gratitude the most is when people tell us that we are somehow an inspiration to them. When they tell us they would like to travel like us. That’s why the idea of running this blog came about, where we share our thoughts, tips and ideas for those who want to start a life of travel.

17. As teenagers we were called… “nerds!”. We didn’t like it very much, until we accepted the reality: We’re nerds. As children we ate books on almost any subject and that habit has accompanied us to the present time. And as good nerds, we consider ourselves shy girls. Sometimes, that shyness could be mistaken for antipathy. But the truth is that we are very nice, very very friendly, but shy nerds.

18. Our greatest reasons to thank: life itself, our kitten Tommy who is no longer with us, our brothers to whom we are very close even though we live in different countries and our parents, who are no longer with us either.

Although there are a few more things and some things that one likes and not the other, these 18 points describe us quite well.

We’ve had fun compiling that list, because we’ve realized that the resemblance between us isn’t limited to the physical alone. It has also made us remember fun and endearing things about our childhood and youth in our remembered Venezuela.

If you have any questions about us, feel free to leave a comment below!