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Articles Tagged ‘Europe’

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British Humor

Monday, March 6th, 2006

Ending the BBC news report today on the Oscar winners, the anchor noticed that the Icelandic singer Bjork was nowhere to be seen. “She was wearing the white feathered swan dress she wore her Oscar year,” he said, “and Dick Cheney shot her!”

Royal Wedding

Saturday, April 9th, 2005

I have both CNN and BBC on my television in my apartment so I often switch back and forth. It was interesting to notice after the nuptual blessing that the Royal couple was barely out of the church when BBC announced it was resuming it’s normal programming and we haven’t heard a word since.

CNN on the other hand has been running and re-running it; all enhanced by various gossip commentators. One commentator wanted to know what’s up with all the English lady’s big hats all gussied up with feathers, flowers, birds and whatever! So I watched an in-depth analysis on BBC of the power grab by President Putin and the government “mafia” that supports him instead.

End of a Disastrous Experiment

Saturday, October 2nd, 2004
7yBXvp82X2gVlMeZe25DiM-2006198051115673.gif I want to emphatically state (and I think Bob would concur) that I have nothing but admiration for this proud and resilient people who have survived 70 years of this "ideological tidal wave that ... [Continue reading this entry]

Traki, Karaites & Kibini Pastry

Sunday, September 5th, 2004
Trakai, on the outskirts of Vilnius, Lithuania, is a small settlement placed in the middle of five large lakes that is home to about 350 members of the Keraites, a minority community originally from Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) who later ... [Continue reading this entry]

Life Becomes More of Adventure

Sunday, September 5th, 2004
Old Town Vilnius is now on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sights. Some graffiti seems significant in this country where a staggering 91% of the 64% of the population who turned out to vote gave a resounding yes ... [Continue reading this entry]

Exact Center of Europe

Sunday, September 5th, 2004
On the outskirts of Vilnius is European Park where The French National Geographic Institute places the center of Europe at 54 degrees North Latitude, 25 degrees 19' East Longitude. Recently a monument was erected that is topped with golden stars ... [Continue reading this entry]

Bob & The Europeans

Wednesday, September 1st, 2004
There is something in the European demeaner/attitude that brings out my anti-establishment posturing. On the flight from the U.S. to Frankfurt (Lufthansa Air) my seat was broken. "No problem," said the sweet little blond frauline in braids. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Who Would Have Thought…?

Monday, August 30th, 2004
Who would have thought that Poland in 1995 would have chosen the former communist bureaucrat, Aleksander Kwasniewski, over the former hero Lech Walesa, who, along with the Solidarity movement, led Central and Eastern Europe out of Communism? Poland still has a ... [Continue reading this entry]

Warsaw

Sunday, August 29th, 2004
Ancestral Poland.gif In re-built Warsaw we view public art memorializing the Warsaw Uprising...Nazis destroyed the city while Russia watched on the other side of the Vistula River...then moved in and occupied the city for the ... [Continue reading this entry]

Auschwitz-Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945)

Friday, August 27th, 2004
Ancestral Poland.gif Photos The Germans changed the name to Auschwitz but the Polish still call it Oswiecim. We hire an English speaking guide to drive us to Auschwitz and Birkenau for the day and ... [Continue reading this entry]

Krakow Poland

Tuesday, August 24th, 2004
EHcDvLBEX5UlHHY96lAFi0-2006185062720933.gif We are out of the unusually hot and humid Czech Republic. After an all night train we are in cool Krakow Poland. We accept an offer by a young English speaking man ... [Continue reading this entry]

I’m A Gypsy?

Monday, August 23rd, 2004
NikaFEAe66TwIiJDaeZZ7w-2006198180634090.gif Back in Prague, doors open...a gypsy girl sits down beside me at a bus stop...flirting...wanting me to listen to lively music in her cell phone. I smile and she is encouraged...she smiles widely...waving ... [Continue reading this entry]

Czech Jazz in Cesky Krumlov

Friday, August 20th, 2004
NikaFEAe66TwIiJDaeZZ7w-2006198180634090.gif In Prague, we phone the Chinese embassy and they suggest coming for an interview after which they would allow a visa in one week's time to allow for the processing and paperwork. Because ... [Continue reading this entry]

Young Czech Prime Minister

Wednesday, August 18th, 2004
NikaFEAe66TwIiJDaeZZ7w-2006198180634090.gif The Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Stanislav Gross, is 32 years old and looks 20! We are realizing how little information we have gotten in the US in the last ... [Continue reading this entry]

No Chinese Visa In Germany

Wednesday, August 4th, 2004
Today we try to get our China visa in Berlin, but were refused because we weren't Germans. It was suggested by the Chinese embassy that we could get a visa in Hong Kong, but since our trans siberian tickets ... [Continue reading this entry]

Jet Lag

Friday, July 30th, 2004
After twenty hours sandwiched in a pressurized cabin in the air we drift down through darkness...time and space dissolving down long corridors and up and down escalators. We change money and language. We are different persons now. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Leaving Athens

Saturday, April 20th, 2002
On our last day in Athens as I was checking email I struck up a conversation with an American guy next to me. He had been on a U.S. city Police Force seven years when he applied for a ... [Continue reading this entry]

Bob & The Greeks Again

Wednesday, April 10th, 2002
Bob had some more adventures on the ferry the morning of April 13th. He saw big cups and little espresso cups by the coffee machine and said he wanted a big cup of coffee. The waiter said he only ... [Continue reading this entry]

Bob And The Greeks

Tuesday, April 9th, 2002
How to Develop Your Patience by Traveling On the plane to Athens the stewardess came by with a refreshment cart and Bob, who was on the inside seat and couldn't see, asked for coffee. She told him he couldn't have coffee ... [Continue reading this entry]

Athens Greece

Tuesday, April 9th, 2002
pjSwKsKjPzr5gOYYAx9PKM-2006172111649438.gif Landed in Eletherios Venizelo airport and everyone clapped as is often the custom around much of the world. Took a one hour bus ride from the airport to Monastiraki Square Station at Syntagma Square in ... [Continue reading this entry]

Last Night In Florence

Sunday, April 7th, 2002
April 24, 2002 On the last day in Florence our room was booked by someone else and we had to move a few doors up the street to the Hotel Abaci. We had the Boticelli Room-pretty fancy compared to what ... [Continue reading this entry]

Cinque Terre

Monday, April 1st, 2002
k08zEG1a840cNznVAe7p30-2006172142756225.gif Took a train to the Cinque Terre (Five Lands..or villages) area on the northern Italian Riviera. The Ligurian coast between Cinque Terre and Portovenere is a cultural landscape of great scenic and cultural value. The ... [Continue reading this entry]

Nice

Saturday, March 30th, 2002
knQlFSdvbI6pWFyrlGKiaM-2006172135618873.gif From Avignon we took a train southeast to Nice on the Mediterranean and stayed there in a virtual apartment in the Hotel Constadt a block from the water. Spent most of the two ... [Continue reading this entry]

Avignon France

Thursday, March 28th, 2002
knQlFSdvbI6pWFyrlGKiaM-2006172135618873.gif Took the train from Barcelona to Avignon in the Provence area in the south of France. Stayed at Hotel Mignon on rue Joseph-Vernet. Cute little French hotel room but the smallest loo ... [Continue reading this entry]

Lagos, Portugal

Sunday, March 10th, 2002
pjSwKsKjPzr5gOYYAx9PKM-2006172115844514.gif Bob was hell-bent on going to Lagos, a resort area on the south coast of Portugal thinking it would be a nice break from the cold wind and one and two star hotel rooms. ... [Continue reading this entry]

European Popular Culture

Saturday, March 9th, 2002
Most days in Europe you would see at least once a wonderful display of affection between two young people-playful and sensuous-mostly kissing-but never offensive. And then they walk on as if nothing had happened. Bob finds it uncomfortable...but no ... [Continue reading this entry]

Lisbon

Saturday, March 9th, 2002
pjSwKsKjPzr5gOYYAx9PKM-2006172115844514.gif Roosters are symbols of Portuguese culture so we felt that it was appropriate that after staying one night in a boring part of Lisbon, Portugal in a hotel room offered to us by a ... [Continue reading this entry]

Bayonne & Biarritz

Friday, March 1st, 2002
knQlFSdvbI6pWFyrlGKiaM-2006172134815236.gif Bayonne is a beautiful Basque town in the south of France. I would not be surprised if the movie "Chocolat" was made here. We were told that Bayonne had almost a hundred chocolate ... [Continue reading this entry]

A Good Thing

Thursday, February 21st, 2002
It's a Good Thing to take along a tour guide and in this group that will be Bob-most probably because he has the greatest need to know where he is located at all times. On the train yesterday leaving ... [Continue reading this entry]

TVG Trains Better Than Hitching

Thursday, February 21st, 2002
High speed (TVG) trains travel over 200,mph. In 1965 when a college friend and I traveled through Europe; it took all night to get from Dover to Ostergard on a roller coaster boat! But then in 1965 the Captain invited ... [Continue reading this entry]

Chunnel Tickets in London

Tuesday, February 19th, 2002
When Bob went to the train station in London to buy a train ticket through the chunnel to France, they did not bother to tell him that if he had a Eurostar ticket for travel through Europe his chunnel ticket ... [Continue reading this entry]

Hitching-Hiking Europe In 1965

Thursday, September 16th, 1965
The summer of 1965, the summer I turned 21, a friend and former roommate, Barbara Stamper and I arranged to meet in London in June. She, a teacher, found an economical route to New York going by train across ... [Continue reading this entry]