I do not know her name or even where she lives, although I was there. On my birthday. What makes her special is that she is not… really. That is not fair. She is special, although not the only person in her circumstance. The simple fact that she speaks English, rather well, while neither of her parents do, at all, makes her special. She left elementary school six years ago, and has…
Karen and I had never heard of Meknes. No reason we would have unless we were students of Morrocco and its history. You likely have never heard of Moulay Isma’il, either. Neither had we until our guide in Meknes started talking to us about him as if he were Franklin Roosevelt or someone famous like that. However, if you lived in Morocco in the late 17th century, which was a century before…
Several years ago, while living and working in Germany, friends invited me to visit Paris with them over a weekend. They had been; I had not. On the drive over from Wiesbaden we talked about many things. Somehow the best pecan pie came up in conversation. For me it was on a Delta airlines flight out of Atlanta. The secret was bourbon. Anyway, Gwen suggested I needed a new challenge. Bill, who…
A friend told us about a restaurant in the lower level of the Balmoral Hotel on Prince’s Street in the new old part of Edinburgh. We found it interesting that parts of Edinburgh, as a city, can be traced back to around 1100. About the time William the Conqueror came across the English Channel (1088). We stayed in the Old City on the Royal Mile, which runs between Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood,…
The Tiber River flows through Rome. Has for as long as men can remember. The Tiber served as a defensive barrier during the Roman Empire. It kept the undesirables out. It also kept those who supported the city and its inhabitants living on the other side. That was true until recently, when tourists suddenly found good food, good wine, and interesting history that had been ignored. We had the opportunity to visit…