“Are we there yet?” pleads my three-year-old son from the rear of the car. I’ve returned to the Lake District for the first time since my school trip to Patterdale, back in the early eighties. I’m curious as to what I can recall of the place after all these years, however, the sands of time […]
Category Archives: Lifestyle & Traveling
Just a short bus ride, 25 miles north of Milan, is one of the most scenic spots in all of Italy – Lake Como. Its shores are circled with charming little towns and fabulous century-old villas; one larger, and more ornate than the next. The glistening water beckons one to sit, and take time to […]
Thailand is a land of enchanting and exotic tastes for foreign visitors as I was to learn when I experienced the Water Festival of Loi Kathong on the island of Ko Chang. Ko Chang In October 2003, the travel bug seriously bit me. The symptoms led me to sell my business, pack a small backpack […]
Most travel stories are of the happy-go-lucky variety. Every once in a while, however, one visits a place that evidences the vicious, dark side of mankind. Khmer Rouge Prison 21, known as Tuol Seng, is one such place. It is a stark reminder of the cruelties humanity can visit upon itself. Tuol Sleng In 1962, […]
Do difficult relatives ruin your holidays year after year? I had a colleague, Traci, who proclaimed a few weeks before Thanksgiving that the family gathering would be ruined as usual because of her sister-in-law, husband, and meddlesome nephew. She had a defeatist attitude plus she figuratively put on full battle gear ready to go to […]
Many historians and anthropologists agree that the history of christmas trees begins in post-primeval times, just as agricultural societies were developing across the globe. Christmas did not exist. It was simply, in one culture or another, a pagan celebration of the winter solstice. The winter solstice marks the shortest day of the year which usually […]