So I'm almost at the camino start, and I have some wifi so here are some very impressionistic plusses and minusses thus far: Plus: I made it with all the stuff I left home with Minus: who knew you needed a visa to transit in Vietnam? (not me) Plus: the sunset at Ho Chi Minh airport. Minus: the homeless man getting a slapping from the security guard at Charles de Gual airport. All he did was throw a bottle of urine on him. C'mon Plus: women taking their dogs on holidays. On the TGV. Plus: France doing multiculturalism. A Polynesian in a French provincial city eating at a Moroccan meall. And the look of ecstasy on the patriarchs face as he bit into a brochette. Minus: writing a blog on my iPhone... read more

In the middle of my life I found myself In the midst of a dark wood wandering... (Dante's Inferno - Canto I) In a little over a week, I will be starting on the Camino Frances. The number of factors that have to come together to ensure that this would happen are multiple and seemingly unrelated: some where made by myself and my family, many were made by people who I barely know and may never meet. So a few principals of independent schools decide to change the dates for scholarship testing, some colleagues at work decide that work has to be outsourced, I overlook a small detail in the processes... Suddenly I'm in Dante's Inferno. Well maybe not suddenly in retrospect. Six months of a downward slide are apparent from the other end. From inside, ... read more