TravelinZ

Dear beloved friends, I'm in India now, to answer some of your questions, and it has very little do with what I'd like to write about today. **ENEMY TERRITORY I remember clearly the sound of a Jordanian artillery shell that landed next to my elementary school in Jerusalem, during the first few hours of the 6-days-war. I remember the sound and rumble and the vibration in my belly. I do not remember being afraid at the time, or understanding fear, but writing this now, some 40 years later, my eyes are watering. I remember vividly the crater this bomb carved out in the street and the 3/4 car that was left protruding from its edge. It was our gym teacher's car and the general consent among my classmates was ... read more

One capricious afternoon, while walking the streets of Lisbon I started “collecting” pictures of Portuguese shopkeepers and soon thereafter these inevitable 12 fictional impressions pervaded my mind. (Kindly note the intrinsic connection between each story the corresponding picture) PORTUGUESE SHOPKEEPERS - ONE DOZEN ESOTERIC SECRETS Ivone Patrocinio Furtado Ivone indulges in feeding poisoned breadcrumbs to city pigeon in the piazza, right outside Santo Antonio do Penedo church. She only uses homemade bread, a wholesome multigrain with lots of caraway seeds, she learned to bake from an old family recipe. Vasco Teixeira Coutinho In early teen-hood, Vasco received bi-weekly piano lessons, in the placid afternoons of his summer vacations, while most of the locals in the small coastal town where napping. During these harmonic hours, his attention was diverted, rh... read more

Good day to you all, So here I am. First week in back in the US starting with a visit to NYC. kindly disregard my "USSA" incidental mention - it was only a typo. Please do not connect it to the ol'USSR. There is no reason to be alarmed or to assume that I am sliding another persnickety political remark under your watchful eyes, which might direct your attention to the ever spreading and magnified control of the current regime -oooppss - I meant administration. No! It was only a typo. I do love this country. This is the perfect time to tell you this. I became a citizen of the United States by choice. I liked what this country represented - the "new world" the "freedom of speech" the "innocent till proven guilty"… or ... read more

Hi all Some notes from Morocco in January 2006 DOUBLE FEATURE IN TETOUAN The first couple of days in this frivolous small metropolis I devoted mostly to dealing with the downpour of creativity I was feeling. But on the third evening I needed a break from the computer screen and the cyber cafe noise. I strolled across the street to an old movie theater that promised some numbing affect to my mercurial brain. In my broken french I learned that the movie has just started a few minutes ago, that the sound track was in English and that I can stay for the second movie, if I like, for for the same admission price. Cool. Stumping to my hard wooden seat, I felt and heard the daunting crunching sound of sun flower seeds shells on ... read more

A few years ago I traveled to Borneo to visit an Orangutan Sanctuary, set a few miles into the rain forest. A pleasant place where they use their limited resources to rehabilitate captured Orangutans, mostly young orphans, thanks to poachers, back into the wild. I was lucky enough, at the time, to have a close and personal encounter with a nursing female Orangutan and her baby, on a path in the jungle. This image fogged my judgment as I signed for a trip to "The Giant Panda Breeding Research Ctr." of Chengdu, in Southern China. THE GIANT PANDA INCIDENT The first impression I had, coming off the bus from central Chengdu, was of Sea World. The second was the San Diego zoo. A few minutes later, together with my group of some 26 other eager tourists, ... read more