Piranha I Caught in Peru’s Amazon. Eat ‘Em Before they Eat You, My Motto.

By Skip Kaltenheuser

Catching piranha is the ultimate fisherman’s no-brainer, though it does give one pause when taking a quick cooling-off swim in the same spot. The hardest part is hook removal. In the Amazon they use a hand-carved wooden phallus to pry open the mouth and hold the jaws open so one keeps one’s fingers.  It’s not the easiest image to get out of one’s mind. Here’s the occasion that took me there. The primary spice on my fish was a local pepper called Aji Pinguita, loosely translated to little monkey-dick, nine on the hotness schedule. The piranha were an interesting prelude to the quest that came after. We also ate varieties of catfish, of which there are a zillion species (at least over 1,300) in the Amazon, from armored ones that can waddle from one stream to another to ones big enough to swallow a small pig to the dreaded 5 mm candiru.

101 Things To Do with Cockroaches

By Ed Landry

I am thinking of a filthy, disgusting creature that wasn’t invited into your home and just won’t go away.  No, this is not a lawyer joke nor am I thinking about your uncle.  Because of the types of places I have gone, particularly third world destinations, war torn countries and disaster sites, I have come to expect cockroaches to be one of my traveling companions or at least my welcoming party. But at least let me begin with some good news. There are no cockroaches in Antarctica. If I come up with anything else I will let you know.MORE

Rattlesnake

By Richard Carroll

I was on assignment in Northern Arizona and booked at a hotel where a Native American Executive Chef was working. A confused Rattlesnake slipped into the kitchen and met his demise. A small piece of grilled rattler tasted like chewy chicken. I felt sorry for the snake and for sure that was my first and last snake tasting experience.

Fried Grasshoppers – Cooked to Perfection

By Ed Boitano

For me, traveling to a destination is to immerse myself in the local culture. This includes, of course, sampling regional cuisine. On a recent press trip to Mexico City, I stumbled upon a restaurant that specialized in pre-Columbian food items. When I saw the Aztec dish of Fried Grasshoppers on the menu, I knew it was to be a match made in happen. Yes, they were crunchy, but also a strong source of protein. Slipping them into a tortilla, slathered with guacamole (the avocado also from Mexico) and a little salsa, made my dining experience a delightful pleasure. And, of course, everyone at my table wanted a taste of the critters before their transition into the tortilla. It proved to be nice moment of bonding with my fellow travelers.

Okra Soup

By Richard Frisbie

Its base is the typical combination of pork and beef broth served to locals in Curacao, with shrimp and some fish added, then thickened to an almost mucous consistency with lots of okra. My table companions turned their noses up at the delightfully fragrant bowl of soup because it was a thick as honey and stickier. It looked most unappetizing. I learned that to eat it, the trick was to rotate my spoon in circles on the viscous surface, slowly raising it to break the bonds of the slimy, clingy liquid. Still, strings like melted mozzarella on a pizza slice stretched with the spoon to my mouth in a sticky web bursting with flavor. If the okra soup wasn’t so good I wouldn’t have worked so messily hard to finish it.

Fried Bees

By Fyllis Hockman

Fried bees are a delicacy in China but I was still surprised to find a plate of them on our banquet table. Having already tasted duck feet webbing and grimaced at some jellyfish, I figured how bad can a fried bee be. But when I picked one up with my chopsticks, I demurred. I just couldn’t bring myself to eat something with whom I had just made eye contact. I blinked first….

Bowl of Chinese Soup

By James Boitano

This is not the strangest food I’ve ever encountered on a trip. I’ve had snake in China, whale in the Faroe Islands and kangaroo and crocodile in Australia. But none of those were actually that exotic tasting. But one of the most surprising things I ate earlier this year was a simple bowl of soup noodles in Beijing. I was on a 10 hour layover there and decided to take a city tour of the Forbidden City. Arriving at 5:00 am from an overnight flight from Kazakstan, I spent the next five hours on a tour of the city. By late morning I was exhausted and most of all famished. The tour included a ‘traditional Chinese breakfast.’ I was ecstatic when I found out it was one of my favorite things: soup noodles.  I was led into a modest traditional restaurant where I was the only foreigner and the guide helped me order a traditional bowl of noodles.  Ready to savor the meaty broth and thick satisfying noodles, I tucked in… and it was tasteless. It tasted exactly as if you added boiling water to top ramen without the flavoring packet: limp noodles in hot water. I tried to add some spice to get some flavoring out of it but was admonished by the guide. No, we do not eat spicy for breakfast. I gave up after that, and thought I’d settle for tea. Oh, no, my guide told me. We do not drink tea for breakfast. So what did they have? A sprite. I know, I know: I was just another barbarian visiting the Imperial City. The city’s tastes were obviously much too refined for me.

Pickled Grasshoppers & Beetles Snack

By Raoul Pascual

When I was still in the Philippines, we had a friend who came from the Ilocus region (which is the northern most part of the Philippines). The Ilocanos (as they are called) are known for their industrious spirit and frugality. They survive even the worst drought. It is no surprise that they have this delicacy. I had never heard of it. One day our Ilocano friend received a gift from home – a jar of black juice with insects swimming inside. When I asked what it was, she readily handed me a soft, fermented grasshopper. The soup had the consistency of dirty water on its early evolutionary stage to becoming oil so it had the darkness of used motor engine oil. It smelled awful like soaked forgotten socks but my friend was excited to see me taste her favorite snack so how could I refuse? I took a bite and ripped its crunchy head off. It tasted like mowed grass dipped in a sewer. It wasn’t spicy – so there was nothing to deaden the taste. It was simply repugnant. I chewed it a couple of times hoping there would be a redeeming flavor in the mix. None came. I imagined its tiny antlers and little legs scurrying excitedly at their new home. I retched it out. My friend laughed. I had to gargle. Worst food in the planet.

Pizza Napoletana: Naples’ Gift to the World

By Ringo Boitano

My dream was about to become a reality. Based in Los Angeles, I was used to taunts from my otherwise wonderful East Coast friends, who were never shy about battering me with people in Southern California don’t know what REAL pizza is. Though I had eaten my way through New York, Boston and Philly in the past and had sampled their delicious pies – I would ask my friends countless times why it was a REAL pizza and others were not. The standard reply was It’s just better.

Now, as I stood on the shores of Naples, I was about to experience the real REAL THING. I had prepared myself with plenty of research for this sacred occasion. The word pizza was first documented in AD 997. Baker Raffaele Esposito from Naples is often given credit for creating the first such pizza pie. Unlike the wealthy minority, Neapolitans required inexpensive food that could be consumed quickly. Pizza, sold by street vendors or informal restaurants, met this need. The early pizzas (known to the world as Pizza Napoletana) consumed by Naples’ poor were prepared with simple and fresh ingredients: a basic dough, San Marzano tomatoes, grown in the volcanic soil of Mount Vesuvius, a splash of olive oil and some salt with no cheese, basil and fancy toppings. The pie was then baked in a wood-burning oven made of volcanic stones from Mount Vesuvius. MORE

Hot Goat Meat of Andhra Pradesh, India

By Ed Landry

My friend and I really love hot food. It was 1987 and we were on assignment in Southern India with a group called The Bible League. We had visited remote villages in the interior and had returned to Andhra Pradesh and needed a rest. This particular region of India has the reputation of having the spiciest and most deadly cuisine on the continent. Dog and I (yes, his nickname is “Dog”) were looking forward to a good meal. We needed a break from the village food, especially the rancid Ghee we ate sitting on dirt floors with cats crawling on our food. By the way, Ghee, when it is fresh, is clarified butter but Indian Ghee that has aged in the heat for years sitting open on a shelf has the flavor and texture of dog vomit so we were ready for a change of diet. It was good to get back into a city.

Recipe … if you dare!

The post The Good, the Bad and the Inedible: T-Boy Writers at the Table appeared first on Traveling Boy.

My friend and I really love hot food. It was 1987 and we were on assignment in Southern India with a group called The Bible League. We had visited remote villages in the interior and had returned to Andhra Pradesh and needed a rest. This particular region of India has the reputation of having the spiciest and most deadly cuisine on the continent. Dog and I (yes, his nickname is “Dog”) were looking forward to a good meal. We needed a break from the village food, especially the rancid Ghee we ate sitting on dirt floors with cats crawling on our food. By the way, Ghee, when it is fresh, is clarified butter but Indian Ghee that has aged in the heat for years sitting open on a shelf has the flavor and texture of dog vomit so we were ready for a change of diet. It was good to get back into a city.

Dog said he wanted to eat some of the famous hot goat meat of Andhra Pradesh. I told him I wasn’t sure it was a good idea. But, he asked our guide where the hottest food in the region was to be found and we were led to this dilapidated, hole-in-the-wall eatery. As we were walking in one of the customers was being dragged out either drunk or unconscious with what looked like severe facial burns. It was really disgusting. His friends were all laughing. I reminded Dog that I REALLY didn’t think this was a good idea at all.

When we sat down Dog made it quick and simple. He ordered the hottest thing on the menu. Our guide was impressed. I was scared. I was sweating before we even started to eat. There was something acidic in the air. As a former firefighter, I remember thinking as we walked in that there must have been a fire next door in a battery acid plant. My eyes were burning just sitting there and it was getting hard to breathe. The waiter smiled as he carried out the food and gave a high five to our guide. Half the restaurant stopped eating and watched us since we were Americanos and no hotter food existed. Dog said, “Wow, let’s do it.” Oh, what the heck. How bad can it be? We dove in.

I want to try to describe the experience without scaring off potential travelers. But first, something needs some explanation. There is a pepper grown in India which is called Bhut Jolokia. In 1987 it was the hottest known pepper in the world. We call that pepper the Ghost Pepper in America. OK, back to our story. He ordered the hottest Ghost pepper, goat meat dish that they made. If you ever travel with a man named “Dog” don’t let him order lunch!

We began. By the time the first bite of the hot goat meat reached my stomach, I felt like I had just gargled Drano. You could actually feel the skin peeling off the throat and falling in sheets into the stomach. My bowels started cramping just for practice knowing they would be called on big time shortly. It soon developed into a rebellion of the entire body. I kept eating. Macho Ed was not going to wimp out. It wasn’t long before salty sweat stains covered my shirt and pants.

Limca soft drinkLet me introduce a very important word at this time – Limca. Limca is an Italian soft drink similar to a lemon-lime soda. Since they don’t often have refrigeration in the interior of India the bottles are kept covered in cow dung to keep them cooler. I gulped down the entire bottle in one breath. Chunks of dried cow dung flaked off onto my sweaty shirt. I restrained myself from drinking another Limca and decided to try some of the rice to calm my gurgling stomach. I like rice. This wasn’t rice. This was chunky style paint remover. There were pock marks on the ceramic plate. I went back to the goat meat. But before I started again I ordered another Limca.

I looked over at Dog and he was looking pale and his smile was gone. “You OK, Dog?” He looked kind of scared and then in a quick, manly recovery said, “Sure no problem.” But his voice broke and he sort of squeaked the words out.

I took another bite of the goat stew. At the table next to us a man had fallen to the ground unconscious and his friends were pouring beer all over him. I made a mental note. I don’t drink alcohol but somehow, I could see this happening to me. I kept eating…

I think it was the next bite that melted my lips off. If you have eaten extremely hot food you learn it is wise to observe how the locals do it. They never let the food touch their lips. Anyway, it didn’t matter now, I had no lips. My biggest concern began to be brain damage. I finished my next Limca without taking a breath. Our guide said he had never seen a Limca consumed that quickly. It was also the first time he had seen someone shake the carbonated beverage and hold his thumb over the bottle while spraying it all over his face. I was able to buy an ice cube and just wiped it over and over on my throbbing, missing lips while moaning. The pain and insanity increased for the rest of the meal.

It was then I noticed that Dog was not looking very good. He was bent over in pain with a horrible gas attack. His intestinal track resembled Mount St. Helens and when it erupted three minutes later he literally cleared the table. Two people eating nearby moved to another table.

Then my intestines started to send an equally urgent message. I excused myself to pay a visit to the local comfort room. As I stumbled past the table where the two had moved I grabbed an unfinished Limca from their table and poured it on top of my head. I barely had time to reach the bathroom and sit down when steaming lava erupted from the heart of the earth. We are talking about a Richter 10 caustic explosion. I needed another Limca to wash off but I had none. I wanted to sit on an ice cream cone. My eyesight was almost gone. I barely recognized Dog when I went out. He was leaning over the table waiting for something else bad to happen. His chin looked like he had been drooling paint remover. I think his mouth was totally paralyzed. The entire front of his shirt and pants looked like he had fallen into a restaurant grease trap. He asked where the Limca was and I just told him I was going outside to die in the alley. He said, “OK.” Both our brains were now gone. We had no lips, brains, bowels, or shirts left. We looked like we had been beaten senseless by a herd of rabid monkeys and dumped into a pig trough.

I went to see Dog the next morning in his hotel room. He was half conscious sitting on the floor in the fetal position. I noticed three empty cases of Limca scattered around the room. We both had trouble talking. We ate yogurt the rest of the week. Our lips did grow back and our bowels returned to normal pre-volcanic activity. I have never been normal since. I twitch a lot when I talk. Sometimes I just slobber when I think about it.

Recipe: Hot Goat Meat of Andhra Pradesh, India

To marinate:

• 1½ pounds Goat, cleaned, washed & cut to 1 inch size pieces
• 1½ teaspoons of Red Chili Powder
• ½ teaspoon Turmeric Powder
• 1 teaspoon Lemon Juice (or 2 tablespoons thick yogurt)
• 1 teaspoon Salt

To grind:

• 1½ inch Ginger, peeled & cut into small pieces
• 8 to 10 Garlic Pods, peeled
• 2 cm Cinnamon Stick
• 6 Cloves
• 2 teaspoons Poppy Seeds
• 1 to 2 tablespoons desiccated Coconut
• ¼ cup Hot Water for grinding

To season:

• 2 tablespoons Vegetable Oil
• 2 Star anise
• 2 Kapok Buds (Marathi moggu)
• 2 cm Cinnamon Stick
• 4 Cloves
• 2 Cardamoms
• 2 Bay Leaves

Other Ingredients:

• 1 large Onion, finely chopped
• 3 to 4 Ghost Chili Peppers (Bhut Jolokia), finely chopped (wear plastic gloves)
• A sprig of Curry Leaves
• 1 to 2 teaspoons of Red Chili Powder
• ¼ teaspoon Turmeric Powder
• Required salt
• ½ cup finely chopped Coriander, divided

Directions

• Marinate Goat with red chili powder, turmeric, a teaspoon of lemon juice and salt for about a minimum of 30 minutes. Longer the better.
• Grind ginger, garlic, cinnamon, cloves, poppy seeds and desiccated coconut in a blender to a fine paste, without adding water.
• Then add slightly hot water, soak for a minute and grind to a fine paste. Soaking in hot water aids easy grinding of the poppy seeds.
• Heat oil in a pressure cooker over medium heat. Once oil is hot, season with dry spices.
• To this add chopped onions, Ghost Chili Peppers and sauté.
• Add curry leaves and stir for a minute. Be generous in using curry leaves!!
• Once onions become translucent, add in the marinated goat.
• Sauté for 3 to 4 minutes..
• Add remaining red chili powder and turmeric powder.
• Now add required water till the goat immerses. You can adjust the consistency of the gravy to suit your requirement. Adjust salt and add in some fresh coriander.
• Close the lid of the pressure cooker and cook over medium high heat for 5 to 7 whistles, then simmer and cook for 5 minutes till the goat is fully cooked, soft and tender.
• Open the lid of the pressure cooker once the pressure subsides.
• Transfer to a serving bowl and garnish with finely chopped coriander

The Hot Goat Meat of Andhra Pradesh, India Recipe is done and ready to be served with rice.

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Eight hours sounds like a lot of time, until you factor in the walk from the pier and the queue at the taxi rank, that is. There may even be an unexpected detour when someone in your group spots a nearby market stall.

Whether you’re stopping at a single Caribbean island or you’re working your way through a few Mediterranean ports on a 3-day cruise, planning before you step off the gangway is super important if you want to make the most of your time (and budget) in paradise.

Start Planning Early

To get the most out of a port day, start thinking about it a few days (or weeks) in advance. Research your port stop before you set sail, and find out where the pier is relative to the main attractions. You’ll also want to check how long it takes to reach the town center and what the port layout looks like.

While some ports have nearby attractions, others are a little further from the action and require a shuttle or water taxi to get there.

Once you know the lay of the land, you need to decide what really matters to you. A day that’s set aside for a beach trip is going to look very different from an itinerary that’s built around a local food market stop.

Committing to one or two activities will give you a more realistic schedule where you don’t need to rush.

Choose Valuable Shore Excursions

Not all excursions are created equal.

Sometimes, the cruise line’s version isn’t always the best fit for your interests, and that’s okay! Generally, the main advantage of booking through the ship is the return guarantee. If a cruise line excursion runs late, the ship waits.

On the other hand, independent tours can cost less, although they carry risks like transportation issues and unexpected fees. You always need to weigh that tradeoff for yourself before you book an activity.

Whatever route you go, read recent reviews. Look specifically for comments about times and how the operator handles unexpected problems. A low price isn’t worth the savings when it’s attached to complaints about late returns.

Stretch Your Budget Without Missing the Highlights

The easiest way to pay less for shore excursions is to book early. Booking before you board the ship can almost always guarantee lower prices and better availability for popular tours. In fact, some cruise lines even offer online discounts that disappear once you’re onboard.

Remember, popular excursions with limited capacity sell out well in advance. There are even experiences that sometimes require bookings at least 4 to 6 months ahead.

Shared tours tend to cost less than private ones while still offering a more personal experience than a large coach tour. They’re worth keeping an eye out for, particularly in busier tourist ports where excursion prices are higher because of demand.

Build an 8-Hour Port Day That Works

Transport burns time in both directions. A port-to-town transfer that looks like 10 minutes on a map can be at least 30 when traffic or queuing is involved.

The rule of thumb here is to leave at least 45 to 60 minutes before the ship departs. Getting left behind means covering your own travel to the next port, which will cost much more than any other excursion.

Pre-booking tickets saves you a ton of time at busy sites. Skipping the entry queue at a popular attraction can even reclaim an hour of your day. Just remember to pack smart so you don’t waste time trying to find your sweater once you dock, as you want to be one of the first people off the boat.

Enjoying More of Paradise for Less

A well-planned port day doesn’t mean you have to spend more. You just need to be more deliberate with where you go and how you plan.

One experience that you enjoy properly is worth more than four rushed experiences done badly. And just be sure to plan for hidden costs so you don’t get caught off guard.

The post Port-Hopping on a Budget: Making the Most of 8 Hours in Paradise appeared first on Traveling Boy.

This writing is compiled from random notes (jotting my chicken scratches, ideas, memories, etc.) on receipts, fast food wrappers, napkins and other random crap I had readily at hand over a 20 day, seven-lake excursion. I might as well have been drawing the Vitruvian Man, on loose leaf with crayon. Hopefully, to deliver to you in a format that might be worth a second of your time to read.

It’s been a long hot day (at least for me) — 9 hours of no fish biting … kicking backwards, stripping, switching flies every 5th cast. However, Bobber Boy over there has got something figured out. He’s catching fish in abundance. Every time I look over my shoulder he’s got another one on. I putter on over and ask, “Hey man, what are you using?” with a snark reply, he says “a fly.” “You don’t say?!” “Fucking asshole,” I mutter, under my breath, “what the hell has he got that I don’t?” I ask myself.

At this point I’ve exhausted hundreds of flies from my fly boxes. I’ve changed stripping tactics — slow, fast and everything in between. I’m familiar with every aquatic insect in that body of water … let alone the region. I know there’s fish down there — big fish. I’ve seen hundreds of ’em over the course of the days and weeks I’ve been out here. These fish … they just don’t want to bite what I have to offer … and its aggravating. There has to be a technique I am missing. I surmise that on his line he’s got a special bobber … a “strike indicator” — used by fly fishing elites. He’s doing something different; so I wait and I watch.

Yeah, I think I’ve got it figured out now. His bopper‘s maybe two feet off the bottom and just dangling flies off a subsurface shelf; right in the strike zone — no stripping required. But he’s using a different knot. It’s extremely hard to tell from 20 feet away, but he’s tied on his flies with a perfection loop (something that’s in my repertoire) but a loop knot is something I don’t usually do … that’s a saltwater tactic — the good ol’ “set and forget” method that many anglers are familiar with … a method I tend to avoid because it’s as mind-numbingly boring as reading the terms and conditions of the software of your favorite cell phone. The minute you take your eyes off that bobber, you know it’s going to dip. The kicker? — it won’t dip until you do! So, It’s a game of cat and mouse … a game that every angler is familiar with.

The wind’s picking up again. At least it’s just short gusts before things settle back to a glass-like state. I’m getting hungry … dinner, a fire and it’s off to the Vice. Midges. I know it’s midges … the larva size 22 hook — small little buggers. I mean you could pile 10 of them on a dime and still be able to read the text on the coin. I grab my cheap net (you know) the kind you win at the carnival with your little goldfish. With a little luck I’ll scoop a couple out of the water. Yep, this is the one. I put it in a disposable fly box (the kind they give you for free and head up to the vise).

It’s dark now. Headlamps on. A lit cigarette dangles out the corner of my mouth. Smoke thread upwards like stitching into ribbons over my shoulder — almost like the bow on a rudimentary gift (except I’d hardly call kicking around in Washington’s mountainous Northeastern Highlands and not touching a fish for 9 hours a “gift”). But I can’t think of another place I’d rather be right now. Here I am, hunched over the vise-size 22 scud hook, pinched tight between the rotary vice’s nimble little jaws. Man, I’ve come a long way! No more stripping broken headphones for copper wire to counter wrap abdomens … or picking up feathers from dead birds (because they want to charge me $15 for a single pheasant tail feather at the fly shop). At this point, the wind laments through the trees and billows off the lake (which I already coined the “Bearing Sea”). The wind could whip up white caps to a surprising 14 -18 inches high like the prior day. That may not sound that impressive until you realize you’re in a one man, inflatable, man-powered watercraft where your feet waddle in the water up to your knees while your ass is 6 inches above the surface. Then they start to look pretty gnarly. Conditions make a weak stomach decide to disregard its lunch. Most Anglers hightail to their tents or pickups; but I’m not “most anglers.” I’m about as far as you can get to a fair-weather fisherman.

As I twist up the second attempt, I begin muttering to myself “thank God I’m not twisting up any Hackle or Marabou.” A good gust of wind makes tying small feathers on smaller hooks remarkably difficult. I whip, finish, lick my fingers, wet the fly, crimp the barb (this is a gentleman’s game you see so I fish barb-less) and set it next to my little bug I caught earlier. “We’re close really close,” I’m murmuring, “it needs hackle … it needs some legs!” I let the fly dry and toss those attempts into my fly box (they’ll get used eventually). Undoubtedly, I’ll break the fly off. Its just a matter of time. I now have the confidence to connect with a fish.

The fishes are close but not close enough. I repeat the same process but when I get to the end of the fly, I take some black, Dry Fly Saddle Hackle. I only do two wraps. I think to myself: “this will suffice … not too many … otherwise I’ll crowd the eye.” Before I inevitably trap the fibers down and whip finish, I pull out a small pair of scissors and begin to sculpt and trim the fly, thus ensuring a natural profile for the legs. A small dollop of head cement on my Bodkin (a thin point piece of metal, with a handle) to add to the fly’s realism … a christening perhaps. This ensures she won’t unwind after the first couple of hungry nabs from a bow, a tiger or a hungry brown trout.

As I wait for the glue to dry, I crack a cold one. I toss another log on the sputtering hearth of a well-lit fire. I take a swig and pull another smoke out of the crush-proof box. I light it with the existing butt that’s beginning to extinguish itself. I lick my fingers and wet the fly. I almost giggle. I’m more than pleasantly surprised — I’m ecstatic! I set that fly down to the actual bug on a used paper plate and it matches color, size, profile, antennas — everything! Maybe a computer could tell me that that doesn’t look like a real bug, but a hungry bow’s not going to let this scrumptious little damsel imitation pass by. I just need to put it in the right spot. As I take a long drag of my smoke, I soliloquy: “I’ll catch you tomorrow — you picky little shits! I’ll be knocking for your room service in no time.” But now it’s time to play cards (which is the real reason I dragged my friends out here) to make them shut off their cell phones and live a little. No worries. We’ll knock them dead in the morning.

The post A Long Day of Fishing  appeared first on Traveling Boy.

ANSWER: In the South of France, the French play petanque. In the winter in the alps, many families go on holiday, especially in March, to ski and snowshoe. And the French enjoy the “art de vivre” [art of living], relax, cook, eat, spend time with family and drink wonderful French wine!

Photos courtesy: ATOUT FRANCE – France Tourism Development Agency

Photos courtesy: ATOUT FRANCE – France Tourism Development Agency

2 What’s one thing the public probably does NOT know about France?

ANSWER: That France is the size of Texas. France has 22 regions and 88 departments, and that a region could be compared to a state and a department to a county in our US system.

Photos courtesy: ATOUT FRANCE – France Tourism Development Agency

3 Share some aspect of France as regards to what it has contributed to the world.

ANSWER: The X- ray, the moving pictures, and hot air balloons were all invented in France by French citizens.

The post France People Don’t Know appeared first on Traveling Boy.

What are some of the “things” or activities that the people of Kraków do for fun?

ANSWER: Tourists: sightseeing, shopping, clubbing, eating in restaurants, walking (source: the annual research of tourist traffic in Krakow).

Inhabitants: shopping, going to day spa, eating in restaurants, going to the zoo and boulevards of the Vistula river.

What’s one thing the public probably does NOT know about Kraków?

ANSWER: Lajkonik, Hejnal z Wiezy Mariackiej, Muzeum Bursztynu, Muzeum Witrazu, Muzeum Lotnictwa, Twierdza Kraków. Also The nuclear/air-raid shelters in Nowa Huta, Crèches, The Dragon Monument and The Dog Monument (called Dzok [Jock]), the symbol of fidelity.

What has Kraków contributed to the world?

ANSWER: Pope John Paul The II, The Jagiellonian University, Poet Wislawa Szymborska, Rynek Glówny – Main Market Square – the biggest medieval square in Europe.

The post Krakow appeared first on Traveling Boy.

Debbie Roskamp: T-Boy Photographer and Writer

The Molino Stucky Hilton in Venice

When my PR team booked me a room at a Hilton Hotel, I was surprised. It seemed strange to me, a Hilton in Venice. But that all changed once I stepped into the sublime Molino Stucky Hilton, a repurposed flower mill, nestled on the shores of picturesque Giudecca Island. The hotel was accessible by a short shuttle boat, just a twenty-minute ride to Venice’s spectacular Grand Canal.

My room was one of the elegant Molino suites which evoked the timeless design of the history of Venice, featuring stylish décor embellished with fabrics and Murano glass design details, including the Murano glass chandeliers. The views were enchanting, complete with comfortable king-size Serenity Beds and separate living rooms. The Executive Lounge offered complementary beverages, snacks and meals. The roof top pool featured breathtaking views and proved the perfect way to relax and unwind after exploring the hustle-bustle of Venice.

Audrey Hart: T-Boy Food Writer

The Paul Gauguin – Tahiti

As the Paul Gauguin docked in Tahiti, the first thing I noticed was the intoxicating scent of tropical vegetation. My cabin on the vessel was spacious, but what was waiting for me outside was even better. Indigenous Tahitian cuisine features what’s available from the land and sea. With such a plethora of fresh fruit and fish, it is virtually impossible to starve on the islands. Due to presence of the French (Tahiti is part of French Polynesia) there is a delectable hybrid of French and Polynesian creations. Coconut milk and vanilla – much stronger than the vanilla found in Mexico – are incorporated in many of the dishes. Poisson Cru, tuna cured in lime juice with chopped green onions, cucumbers and tomatoes; and Fife, a chicken stew with spinach-like taro leaves are among my favorites. The taro root (more flavorful than Hawaiian poi) is boiled like potatoes and not pounded. Breadfruit, sweet potatoes, and plantains also offer typical island starch fare. Mangoes, bananas, watermelon, pineapple, papaya, guava, sour sop and pummelo are in abundance. From the lagoons come parrotfish, perch, and mullet; from the open sea the freshest of tuna, bonito, Wahoo, scad and mahi mahi. For an insightful overview of these gastronomic delights, visit the main market in downtown Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia. Bon appétit!

Fyllis Hockman: T-Boy Writer

Mohonk: Sumptuous Old-World Flavor Tastefully Wrapped in Casual Elegance

When the couple, there for their 20th visit, commented that it was the first time they had taken the house tour -– one of the staples of the Mohonk Mountain House experience — I asked what they had been doing all those years. Liz and Dan Gleason from Haddon Heights, NJ replied: “There’s just so much to do all the time, you just can’t fit it all in. Every year, there’s a new surprise. This year, it’s the Smiley family parlor.”

And therein lie two of the greatest pleasures at this glorious old resort in New Paltz, NY –- activities to keep you busy all day (but only if desired) and the connection to the Smiley family, who has owned and operated the resort for over 150 years.

That connection reverberates throughout the property, which has been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. First bought in 1869 by twins Albert and Alfred Smiley, the 10-room tavern that sat on 300 acres of lake and farm area has been expanded to encompass 266 rooms in connected buildings spanning a sixth of a mile, while the property now extends to 1200 acres, all of which is being regularly sanitized in compliance with CDC guidelines.

Which leaves you very unprepared for the grandiose creation greeting you as you drive up. The mammoth building sitting atop a hill more resembles a haunted house than a mountain resort. All jutting angles and balustrades, widows peaks and turrets, circular, angular and pointed wood, stone and rock cliffs result in a hodge-podge of architectural styles for which eclectic is an understatement. It’s an imposing mish-mosh of disparate styles, all tacked one upon the other, without thought to form or aesthetic. You don’t know whether you’ve arrived at a world-class hotel (which it is), Rapunzel’s castle or the Addams Family abode; you do know that it’s wonderful.

A walk through its many halls presents a similar adventure. A labyrinth of hallways, stairways, cubicles and cubby halls features a surprise at every turn: a library, billiard room, activity center. The life-size stuffed Basset Hound and Russell Terrier in front of the gift shop were so real I was sure I heard them bark.

Around every corner, a rocking chair, lounge chair, or settee looking out on yet another beautiful view. Long porches and outdoor alcoves everywhere lined with more rocking chairs, many facing the lake caressed by canoes, rowboats, kayaks and paddle boats beckoning for attention. The whole idea is to get guests to look at, get out in and enjoy the surrounding nature. Or not. Sitting also is good.

Some resorts boast multiple restaurants and swimming pools –- at Mohonk, it’s rocking chairs and gazebos. The connection with nature is all-encompassing. Be prepared: there are so many places -– gazebos, benches, chairs, hidden nooks, alcoves, both indoors and out — enticing you to just sit and read that you should carry a book with you at all times (or, if you’re under 18, your iPod).

Sitting on our balcony –- on yes, yet another rocking chair — overlooking the views was so peaceful we had to force ourselves to get up and start undertaking the myriad of activities awaiting us. As an incentive to get moving, the map of the building lists 59 different destinations –- and those are just indoors!

Just as the current structure is essentially unchanged since 1902, the same goes for the initial mission of the resort, as first espoused by Albert Smiley: it remains dedicated to a renewal of the mind, body and spirit in a beautiful natural setting. That vision still permeates the property, embodying an old-world ambience that adds charm and character that no modern-day hotel complex can come close to matching.
You want to do some hiking, rock-climbing or mountain biking? You’re in the right place. Want to ride a snowmobile, a Jet Ski or watch TV – you’re not. Mohonk is all about tranquility. And simplicity. This is not the kind of place where they bring you umbrella drinks by the pool.

Okay, there actually is a TV located in one of the meeting rooms but a guest survey taken several years ago in which 97% of respondents said they didn’t want them in the rooms probably assures that there won’t be many more making an appearance. And the 15-20 local Smileys still involved in day-to-day operations probably also guarantee that the same ideal will continue. But make no mistake: this is no out-dated, out-of-touch, old-fashioned resort experience; I predict an exciting, activity-laden, fun-filled time to which, like the Gleasons, you’ll want to return to year-after-year.

Now, about those outdoor activities? There’s swimming, inside and out, fitness center and spa, boating, fishing, yoga, guided nature tours, croquet, golf, disc golf, tennis and, in winter, ice skating, snowshoeing and tubing. Eighty-five miles of carriage roads and trails are available for hiking, running, biking, horseback riding and cross-country skiing.

Strolling the grounds is an activity in itself, past fish ponds, a putting green, stables, a Barn Museum chock-full of fascinating antiques and historic memorabilia, and extensive award-winning gardens. Some are laid out in a well-marked precisely structured design, an interesting antidote to the resort’s chaotic architectural structure; other less manicured foliage spill out over more trellised walkways and, yes, more gazebos, leading around, through, between, beneath and beyond an intricate maze — literally — of evergreen trees. Mohonk mellows, meditates and motivates all at the same time. For more information, call 1/800-772-6646 or visit www.mohonk.com.

Ringo Botano

Hotel Montana, Switzerland

Much of Lucerne, Switzerland, was before me from my spacious corner room at the Art Deco Hotel Montana.

Richard Carroll: T-Boy Writer

 Ballyfin, Ireland

The rhythms of time and earth and an enormous surging power of culture were hauntingly striking as we were met at the gates by Head Butler and Coachman Lionel Chadwick and his carriage pulled by two prancing horses, who led the way to BallyFin, a neoclassical, 1826, castle-like hotel in the heart of Ireland, amidst a 614-acre estate. The teeth of autumn gnawed at the weather, as the songs of unseen birds drifted in a gusty wind.

Stepping inside this historic building, guests are greeted by a warm Irish welcome. A vanished era is vividly brought back to life at BallyFin, with an unsurpassed grandeur of serenity steeped in eternal memories. The 20-room hotel with whispered secrets, is enamored by Irish hospitality, which is among the best in the world along with Mexico and Fiji. The hotel with crystal chandeliers, inland timber flooring, glorious paintings, and an ambience without a drop of pretension. BallyFin is also home to Michelin-starred chef Richard Picard-Edwards and his eight-acre walled produce garden, which assists the chef in his culinary creativity, set on a table with crystal and silver. When the capriciousness of time told us it’s time to pack our bags, we wished that instead, we were only arriving.

A hotel on the border of Mexico and Guatemala

Covering the world my entire adult life, as a working journalist, with an editorial focus south of the U.S. border, I was driving the African Queen, a VW camper, on assignment, to Panama, as the sun was slowly fading, because it’s not wise to drive at night in Mexico or Guatemala. I stopped in an unnamed village in Guatemala on the Mexico border, at something that looked like a small hotel with a bent sign with bullet holes advertising Cobro beer, and where three lazy dogs out front, not bothering to bark, were sleeping. I walked in, brushing past another sleeping dog who didn’t bother to move, to a small, sagging counter and an attractive, smiling lady with a gold tooth, and blazing black hair, who greeted me wearing a handful of green jade jewelry. I spoke to her in Spanish, and she replied in Q’anjob’al, one of 22 recognized Maya languages. An elderly man sitting on a faded Equipale chair in a corner, who looked like Zorba the Greek, spoke to me in Spanish, explaining that she didn’t speak Spanish, only Maya, and her name is Alitzel. I asked him if he would ask Alitzel if she had a room available. There were only six rooms, but by pure luck, one was available in the back with a window. Alitzel, translated from Maya to English, “Smiling girl,” wrote the number 114 on a scrap of paper, which, converted from quetzales, is just over fifteen dollars. The room had a sink, a ceiling fan, and a cot-like bed with clean bedding. The commode was just down the hall with a few lizards playing tag on the walls, and one dangling lightbulb. I fell asleep, and in about an hour or so, I was awakened by the wonderful sounds of marimba music. I looked out the window, and among the palm trees on a patio, was a colorful hammock where a gray-headed lady was lounging, and a family of four musicians, shoulder to shoulder, one maybe eleven years old, playing a custom and lengthy marimba, next to a rusted old truck that was used as a chicken coop for free-ranging chickens. The serenade lasted for hours, and it was the best night’s sleep ever. In the morning there was a knock on the door, I opened the door to find on a tray, a pot of the famed Guatemalan coffee, hot rolls, white cheese, a steaming dish with eggs, and some savory Maya specialties decorated with pungent flowers. I offered Alitzel, who was wearing an intricately embroidered traditional Maya huipil, to pay for breakfast, but with a few words in broken Spanish, she said, “It’s part of the 114 quetzales.” She also asked me if I would like to have a dog. I would return to Alitzel’s place again, if I could find it, and hopefully the marimba family would be available.    

Phil Marley

The Westin Hotel in San Francisco, California

With a spacious suite overlooking Union Square, cable cars skited up the hill. My stay would never be complete without an Irish Coffee at the lounge.

Ed Boitano: T-Boy Writer

The towering Star Clipper

The Star Clipper is one of the largest and fastest sailing ships on the sea today. Modeled after the clipper ships of the past, it seamlessly blends the best traditions of that legendary era with state-of-the-art amenities of today. With a maximum of just 170 guests, accommodations are spacious and life aboard is relaxed. Morning begins with the hoisting of the sails to the accompaniment of the title theme from the film Master and Commander. It is a moment which most passengers, who are there as much for the nautical experience as the destinations, never miss. Passengers can climb the mast to one of the Crow’s Nest for panoramic views, or quite literally hang on one of the two Widow’s Nets, a blanket-like braided net that hangs over the side of the vessel. Creature comforts include elegant dining room, Tropical Bar and Piano Bar and swimming pools. Snorkeling, sailing, waterskiing and windsurfing are also available. What I liked best was that you could get to know your traveling companions in a casual atmosphere. I think I even made some life-long friends.

Raoul Pascual: T-Boy writer

No particular hotel

I am not easily impressed. I would say the most plush hotel I’ve been to was in Florida when I accompanied my wife to one of her conferences but I can’t remember the hotel. As for me, one hotel is the same as another as long as it covers the basic — a place to sleep and refresh. In Manila I slept overnight at a travel pod and that was good enough for me. Simple and practical — that’s just fine with me. I don’t go out of town to enjoy a hotel. I go for the location. I’m too much of a cowboy I guess. But if there’s a hotel out there that’s willing to change my mind, I’m open to that too.

Perhaps the most fun I’ve had is the Time Share we went to in Angels Camp, CA because that was the first real adventure we had with the kids. But it wasn’t the place that made it enjoyable but the family I got to enjoy it with.

The post Favorite Hotels appeared first on Traveling Boy.

Prologue

It is my intention to help readers to understand the plight of the poor, the homeless and the ‘mentally ill.’ With special attention; never showing your power over another with bullying. The people in the article are real, but their names are fictitious.

Color this cathartic: It is my story which will never change.

CHAPTER ONE

The back story begins seven months ago when I woke up to the sound of my wife’s scream. Her name is Laura. From that morning on, I knew I would never be the same again and take Laura, my wife for 42 years, for granted. I must become a REAL husband who loves his spouse more than himself. And I will now do everything in my power to help her, easing her from the physical and emotional pain.

Laura was experiencing intense pain in her spinal cord. The groans and muffled screams continued for five long months. She would wander around the house, bumping into the walls, sometimes saying that she thought she was dying.

We went to the hospital many times and had many different examinations. It was determined that she had a pinched nerve in the base of her spine, but no specialists could determine why the relentless pain would not subside without triggered shots of steroids. Once the triggered shots had run their course, the excruciating pain would continue. But later, a bone density examination revealed seven cracked ribs and a broken one. Since then, Laura decided not to have further trigger shots, and through diligent stretching, exercise, and prayer; the pain has almost dissipated.

Laura is very private and not an exhibitionist; in particular, she did not want her siblings to know about her spinal pain. Some of her siblings live in small farming areas in Central Washington State, and some are religious cultists. As Laura and I have completely different values; we attempt to approach a person with equality, regardless of race, career, and religion, we are despised. Often a U.S. Hispanic person would be simply dismissed as a Mexican of the migrant variety by some of Laura’s relatives.

These relatives – two siblings and the cyber bullying brother-in-law – view Laura as an anti-Christian, a wayward liberal urban elitist who moved to the big godless city of Los Angeles. Even worse, she is married to me, Jim Smith; a native Seattleite, who was trying to ‘make it’ in Hollywood. When we visit them in Central Washington they pray loudly. Laura privately prays, aware that praying out loud is more of a performance, seeking praise as an actor, rather than expressing true words of thanks to God.

The debacle

As Laura did not want anyone besides me and her doctors/specialists to know about this ordeal. I broke my oath to her. I needed support and prayers from close friends and family who really do love her and even those who don’t. It was a heavy load for me to carry on my own.

Against my best intentions, I also informed each of her four Christian siblings and three in-laws of her unrelenting pain, begging them to privately pray for Laura. This was difficult, requesting that they pray without her knowing it.

Laura’s immediate relatives live under a code of silence, where nothing negative is ever said. Occasionally we do overhear whispers about us, but generally just eyerolls and silence when we express an opinion. It is well understood that we are not considered true Christians or even humanitarians.

The siblings have a family app called PRAISE THE LORD. It is a thread for anyone in need of ‘Christian’ support. The PTL chain can range from the serious – Covid and cancer to a bad cold and even praying for a kitchen appliance to be healed. Yes, faith healing a dish washer out of repair.
Laura’s oldest sister is named, Delila. Her husband of 40 years is Joshua, an unrepentant bully and a narcissist. He took exception to my requests for everyone to pray for Laura’s spinal pain to heal. I was stealing his thunder by informing ever. He believed that he was head of this new adoptive family, and all attention should go to him. Everyone who meets him is aware of his narcissism and self-worship. His long tirades at the family tale are overbearing, how he changed someone’s life, how many pushups he did at the gym, glorified by self-videos and memes sent to us via FB or on the family PTL app.

A Nation of Elvis impersonators

Joshua’s two favorites: dressing in a costume of a fierce Chinese warlord, and a video of him waving a U.S. flag, while charging up a hill, inspiring citizens to follow him in battle. It was an unintentional emulation of the Aryian Übermensch, an example of the master race, climbing an Alpine Mountain with Nazi with swastika imagery. It proved to be effective with the Nazis, but for this man of ignorance who had never been in a battle, the absurdity provoked annoyance and irritation for many who have been in battle.

My father dropped out of high school at 17, joined the Marines, and participated in D-Day the Battle of Iwo Jima and D-Day Battle of Okinawa, often said flag-wavers are jingoists, not patriots. If you’d been in a battle, it is the last thing you would ever want to talk about, Just as worse, my father was a devout Roman-Catholic, not considered a real Christian by some of Laura’s religious cultists siblings and in-laws.

We all felt pity for the bully, Joshua

But everyone is afraid to say anything negative about Joshua because it might hurt the feelings of the oldest sister, Delila. She is regarded to be weak, sweet, and kind, but it’s easy to notice her short comments and side-glances to Joshua in condescension of Laura and me. A farewell back to Southern California generally closed with; “Will pray for you, Jim.” But, strangely never to Laura; only to me, a non-blood relative.

For Joshua, silence meant free reign for more boasting. Sure, this has been happening for 42 years, since the marriage to the oldest sister, Delila. This has been the main problem; silence so it doesn’t cause hurt feeling to the sister, Delila, even though she brought him into ‘the family’ – a family who offered unconditional love. The only love he had experienced prior to that was self-love and self-admiration. Delilia offered that to him more than any other person, but he would humiliate her too in front of her family with bad hygiene, table etiquette, interrupting her when she spoke.

So, as my prayer requests came in for Laura, the bullying brother-in-law, Joshua, posted a photo of himself, bare-chested, staring with vengeance and with threats of rage on Laura’s FB page.

I believe what set him off, his banishment from my wife’s family’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Day family tables in Central Washington. This is where he generally holds court as the de facto head of Laura’s Washington family. After living three and a half years without paying rent and utilities living with Laura’s demented and then departed mother, he and Delilia moved to a rental home in Idaho. As much as the family supported and tried to protect Delilia’s sensitive feelings, maybe the message of his ill repute was beginning to unravel.

Without Mercy

The Sunday attack happened in the evening on a Sunday night when Laura was suffering with unrelentless spinal pain. I had just helped her into bed, set her up with an ice pack, and suggested she should relax and look at her FB account. As she clicked her account on her phone, her body jolted, and her spine hit the wall behind the bed when she saw an unimaginable photograph. She quietly deleted the photo, hoping I wouldn’t notice it. She knew it would upset me more than her.

I managed a quick look and realized it was Joshua’s way to get me to stop with updates about Laura progress to her family. It was the photo of Joshua, bare-chested, staring with vengeance and with threats of rage on Laura’s FB page.

I have only seen reincarnations of the Devil in magazines, cartoons, TV and in movies. But to see someone you know such as Joshua, taking on that personification was horrific. I mean, he wanted to be the Devil. The bullying meme was pathetic, but also powerful for this person would think it would silence me from updates and pleads for everyone to pray for Laura.

I did my best not to appear upset. So, after Laura finally slept, I quietly went into our living room at 11 PM, sending messages to her siblings, demanding to know how they could allow such a terrible thing to happen. How could they admire and respect such a dubious man. His history is dreadful, almost unimaginable. But the unimaginable code of silence remained.

I called what I thought was more of a sane brother, the executor of her family’s will. He’s a busy guy, who works midnight hours. I stayed awake for 46 hours waiting for an answer that never came. I then phoned Laura’s’ youngest sister and husband, who answered my call. Once they made sense of my erratic outrage, they said they would consider flying down to Studio City to protect Laura.
I said it was not necessary; all that was, was stop the cyberbullying of Joshua, but that was not even mentioned.

During the long wait, I wrote a 40-hour narrative on my mobile phone about the recent event, exclaiming all what had happened to Laura, asking for some kind of mercy, sanity. I asked everyone to write a letter to her on how much they loved, respected and accepted her as a Christian.

But all I got back was a virus on my phone from the narcissistic bullying brother-in-law, Joshua, who had managed to cripple my phone, blocking all contact with Laura’s family; so, I could not send the testimonial and contact anyone in the PTL chain.

In the morning, I contacted Laura’s youngest brother. He said he was not about tearing anyone down and spoke with admiration of Joshua. I begged him not to tear anyone down but to help build a wall to protect Laura. The call abruptly ended.

This was crushing. As it turned out, Laura’s siblings and in-law had more sympathy for Joshua, the cyberbully, than for her. I was stunned by this. They were all raised the same way with the same values of their Christian parents. How could they side with a manipulating brother-in-law, Joshua, with his crude prose and pantomime over the honor of their true sister.

Was I going insane?

CHAPTER TWO

The Day of Wrath

The next evening, Laura noticed I was distracted and appeared to be in another world of emotional pain. I explained it was obvious and then called each of her siblings with Laura watching, asking them if it was normal for a husband to be upset by such a malicious act of cyber violence by a brother-in-law.

Each one skirted the question. and insisted I should immediately be taken to the Emergency Room. I was stunned. They chose protecting the honor of the narcissistic brother-in-law, Joshua, over the honor of Laura, their own sister. Laura agreed; I must go to the ER.

Laura was concerned that I was having a nervous breakdown and said it was most important for me to have an analysis by psychiatrists and psychologists to determine if I was dangerously facing insanity. At the same time, I was also concerned that she was having an emotional breakdown, too. I wanted her to have a session with them as well.

Laura had spoken to my clinical psychiatrist the afternoon before, and the doctor agreed with me: How could any husband not be upset when an out-of-control brother-in-law like Joshua posted threatening images of himself, as the Devil, on his wife’s Facebook page?

So, to prove a point, I went willingly and sat in solitary confinement and spoke to two psychologists and two psychiatrists at Kaiser Hospital. All four of the doctors said my rage was a normal reaction when someone posts something so repellent on a loved ones’ FB page. The interviews were recorded for posterity with a security guard looking on.

This was good for my attorney; my testimony was now legally reported. When I made my one phone call to him, he immediately said he would pay out of pocket for a high-tech security system, a 24/7 guard, and contact associate lawyers in Idaho and Washington State. It was then, he realized what a narcissist Joshua really is. And, like most narcissists, he is a wounded bully and would be too much of a coward to act on it in person. “Leave it alone,” he said. “Forget about this guy. Never contact him again.”

It was essential, though, for Laura to have her own session with the professionals. The problem, though, was that Laura left the hospital while her mobile phone was off. The pain in her spine was too much and she needed to rest, so she was unable to corroborate my testimony. It would be unfair for her to have a conference.

What it was like: 12 hours in solitary confinement

I was alone in a room with a wash basin and bed. The fourth wall was glass, with a security guard watching over me. So, I had plenty of time to lay on my back and stare at the ceiling. The matter at hand: why exactly did I end up here, when I was told that I’d simply be given a few blood samples, then an interview with a psychiatrist? The answer was obvious, I might be a threat to someone or to myself. Though this thought was absurd, apparently all bases must be covered to avoid a lawsuit if it was determined that I really was on the road to insanity.

Later, it was easy to meditate and pray. I was able to memorize a few new articles to eventually write, figure out the reason for past concerns and problems; the rest of my time I exercised with the security guard watching.

When dusk fell, the doctor approached me and said that I must spend the night, but there were no open beds at the hospital.

Two ambulance drivers arrived, positioned me onto a stretcher and away we went to a different hospital in downtown Los Angeles. I asked the name, but they remained silent, only that it was located on College Street. I remembered my wife, then a new family nurse practitioner in the mid-1990s, did volunteer work at a Mental Hospital at that address, training nurses how to appropriately evaluate the physical symptoms of new patients and (most importantly) to treat them with kindness and respect.

When I would drive her to and from the hospital, I knew the name Mental Hospital was a place that I would never want to be incarcerated. I had seen too many movies.

CHAPTER THREE

When I was wheeled into Unit Two, I was stunned to see a patient wandering down the hallway, whimpering, “‘We are all DEAD!” It reminded me of the hopeless, shrieking women in Siberia, which Dostoevsky wrote about in The Brothers Karamazov.

One of the ambulance drivers said, relax; be happy I was not in Unit One; yesterday a patient had stabbed his eye with the blunt end of a crayon.

After I checked into the main office, I was led into a room where there were two beds, basically foam pads, resting on firm plastic foundations, with just one short blanket and a pillowcase with a flat pillow. Every 15 minutes, a nurse flashed a commuter light on us, as we were all on a modern-day equivalent of a suicide watch.

I was lucky with my cellmate, Jerry. He seemed more like a polite boy of 20, as opposed to an adult male. His face was marked with burns. Why? You never ask, only listen. His speaking style was often erratic, but you could always feel the depth of forgiveness and kindness in his verse. He never left his covers, only constantly apologizing that he was keeping me awake.

It would take much effort by nurses and assistants to get him to leave the covers of his bed, just so that he may eat in the main dining room. As a veteran of the dining room, I understood his reluctance.

I got to know him better two nights earlier. It was a usual night while I struggled to sleep, but the 15-minute suicide lights would not allow me to. One of the patients had secretly given me a hard copy of the Old Testament. But why secretly? It was not the content; the Old Testament cover had sharp edges, which could be used as a tool for violence.

I was raised as a New Testament Christian and wanted to learn more about our Hebrew God’s Commandments to Moses, 6,000 years ago. But there was no way I was going to disturb my roommate with harsh overhead lights. So, I did my best to sleep.

My first night, I woke up on the floor, surrounded by nurses with cell phone flashlights. I had had a back operation a year before, which damaged it more. At this point, though it hardly mattered, I was given a ‘walker’ to use.

The next evening, I entered the adjoining bedroom. The room was dark and the floor was wet. My roommate wept under the covers and apologized profusely: he had clogged up the toilet with vomiting, feces, and toilet tissue. Like me, he was given strong prescription medication to be calm and avoid outbursts. They were difficult to digest.

I complained to Norman, the head nurse, that the toilet must be fixed. I was informed that plumbing was not part of his job description. On the next shift, two hours later, a powerful looking man of Sudanese origin, unclogged the toilet.

Later, I left my room and asked Norman if I could sit outside in the community room to read where there was light. I was harshly ordered to return to my cell. But I pleaded that turning on the light would upset my roommate. Yet, his answer was firm: “READ IN THE BATHROOM!”

Norman said, I should sit in the starkly lit bathroom, with a lone sink and a toilet without a seat. There was a half-padded foam door, and another half foam door at a shower staff; all eyes must be kept on us.
[A cartoon of a person reading a book AI-generated content may be incorrect.]

He and the other nurse laughed as I reluctantly entered the bathroom, I removed the flimsy padded shower door, sat down on it and read the Old Testament under the harsh bathroom light. I’ve never been particularly religious and will never be regarded as a philosopher, but the light did illuminate the verses.

But, a few hours later, a kind Nigerian American nurse entered my bathroom and was appalled to see me sitting on the floor, reading. I explained to him; I was only following the protocol of the previous Anglo American male nurses.

He replied, he is now in charge of this shift, gently helped me to my feet, and led me to the main community room where there was light, crafts, games, TV, etc. I said I only wanted to read. And a few minutes later he brought me a sandwich, chips and punch. May God Bless Him.

Thanksgiving

I met with the head psychiatrist on the eve of Thanksgiving. Once again, I explained to him that Laura’s brother-in-law, Joshua, was cyberbullying her, by posting threatening photographs of himself half-naked on her FB page.

The head psychiatrist then contacted Laura, who explained it was true. He read my file which noted I was good for patient’s morale, never missing any of the communal events: meals, stretching, craft classes, etc. How to deal with stress in the most edifying way? Relax, assess the situation and remember that patience is a virtue (I think Ben Franklin said that).

The head psychiatrist determined that I could depart, to enjoy Thanksgiving with family and friends. But I decided to stay for a few more days to see if I could help the other patients. After the cyberbullying of Laura’s brother-in-law, Joshua, could handle almost anything. He was pleased to hear that I had encouraged eight patients to write about their experiences on the Traveling Boy website.

Laura never missed a daily visitation – covertly bringing in fresh clothes, food and flowers hidden in books. It’s better to give than receive – and I continued with that mandate, giving three stems of carnations to an underappreciated janitor and then to a young woman of 20 years. They both received the gift with tears, grace, and gratitude.

A Communion among patients

Chuck, one of the veteran patients proved to be my role model. The nurses wanted him to be gone because he was always standing up for patients’ rights, annoying the mandate that some of the nurses followed. I sensed that (either due to large numbers or too much work) the head psychiatrist was a little out of contact with what was happening in the three units.

Earlier, Chuck surprised me. He had noticed that my hospital issued socks were too small for me. He presented me with a new pair of Columbia brand socks, his wife, like Laura, had secretly smuggled in during visiting hours.

When meals were finished in the dining room, he would covertly smuggle uneaten containers of food and bring them to the community room for those who needed more to eat.

Thank you, Chuck. You are among the ones who inspired me to write this article.

When Chuck was to be released, he would intentionally write something dastardly on the form, implying he needed to stay. He once joked that once he wrote that he wanted to harm one of the bullying nurses.

Larry, my roommate, eventually started to join us in the community room, a high point was simply watching him at the main community table playing a wordless game with another patient of a different race who rarely spoke either. It was heartwarming to watch them.

When a new patient would approach me, a frequent question was: “What did you think of me when we first met?” They we so emotionally damaged they often didn’t know who they were. Once, while lying in bed, I felt that way – wondering if I was living in a reality or trapped into a nightmare – a nightmare where Laura was not cyberbullied by the brother-in-law, Joshua. I thought I had proof, but the photo was pulled out by FB administrators.

One new patient spent his time murmuring down the hallway that Satan was making him hate Jesus. Another man, who was kind and sensitive, tried to kill himself because his girlfriend had dumped him due to his timidity, preferring a ruthless (bullying) macho man.

Alex, a tall patient, asked me what I thought of him. The truth was easy: he was strong, handsome, and articulate. He had a pronounced intellectual quality. Later, I learned he was an artist. Soon, he was championing and protecting sensitive patients in our unit.

This led us to Christina, a petite and artistic young lady of twenty. She was one of the two people; Laura and I had given secret stems of carnations. I had assumed she was a victim of another word I dislike as much as bullying: misogyny. Later, during another visit, she gave Laura a Crayola drawing of her.

Chuck, Alex and the rest of us became her protectors when someone tried to bully or issue power over her.

CHAPTER FOUR

Paradise on the floor

I was moved to Unit Three, which really did seem like paradise in comparison to Unit Two. We were given more freedom, plus there was a balcony overlooking LA Chinatown so we could breathe fresh air, demonstrating the freedom which was to eventually come.

The sleeping accommodation was the same as Unit Two. My new roommate was a Spanish language poet and singer, and he would entertain us in group conferences, where we were all invited to join in. Like most of the inmates, he was close to being released.

Yet, there was trouble in paradise with a bullying, tyrannical head nurse, Marcus, who would order us around and mock us as crazy loonies behind our back. When I noticed this, I would ask them why they were not creating a healthy environment, which was emotionally essential to return to freedom. He would laugh and shrug his shoulders. They were like underqualified highway patrol cops who would pull anyone over without question.

The inch high pillow was a problem. I asked him if he could at least have a pillowcase. He threw one at me — “THAT SHOULD BE ENOUGH!” he said. At this point, I was only getting approximately three hours of sleep at night.

The head psychiatrist had informed both me and the rough head nurse, Marcus, that if I could not go back to sleep, I should approach the nurses’ station and ask for sleep medication. This was followed by a sandwich. It was a heavy dose of medication, and food was essential for digestion. The wrapped sandwich was grudgingly given to me. At this point, I became too intimidated to remind him to bring me the required sandwich after each sleep medication.

Enough was enough.

Just approaching the cruel nurse Marcus was all too much. I had a secret meeting with an alternative head nurse and social worker. I had a laundry list of insults, but what I had said was enough. My highly respected medical doctor (Dr. Hirshfeld) and Laura also changed the landscape in Unit Three — kindness, respect and professionalism was now required.

Marcus, the tyrannical nurse, was stripped of his power over me and three-other patients.

Freedom

I was released after ten days in the mental hospital. I thought I would return to a relativity normal life as my wife drove me home, but I still struggle, trying to understand the difference between good vs. evil. I’m not certain of the status of the bullying, brother-in-law, Joshua. We still receive images of self-grandeur on the family PTL app but nothing devoted to hurting Laura. Perhaps Laura’s family of siblings and in-laws really did step to the plate and strip him of his bullying power over others.

It was a long Ten Days that Shook my World. Now the healing continues.

POSTSCRIPT

Don’t be conflicted — just give! What I do wish is for everyone to understand is the plight of the mentally ill. Accept them as fellow human beings.

Once, when Pope Francis was in New York City, he wrote an op-ed in the New York Times. He wrote how every day we are approached by panhandlers and must make a moral decision if that person is worth a handout. Don’t be conflicted! Just give! And most importantly, look the person in the eye and illustrate that you accept them as a fellow human being.

I’m not certain if cyberbullying existed when Pope Francis wrote his op-ed in the New York Times, but am certain what he feels about it today.

Movies I recommend

• A Woman Under the Influence; John Cassavetes
• Tiitticut Follies: Fredrick Wiseman
• Shock Corridor: Samuel Fuller
• Let there Be Light: John Huston
• Lilith: Robert Rosen

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ANSWER: Austrians love to socialize, either at wine taverns or cafés where they hang out. Austrians love to ski, snowboard and even ice-climb in winter and hike/walk in the Austrian Alps and bicycle in Summer. They are also avid theater, concert and opera goers and even the small villages have bands, choirs, and folklore groups.

Photo courtesy: Austrian Tourist Office / Ascher

Photos courtesy: Österreich Werbung / J. Mallaun / Himsl

What’s one thing the public probably does NOT know about Austria?

ANSWER: Austria is over 1000 years old and up until the 20th Century was one of the world’s largest empires. Austria became a European power not by warfare, but by strategically marrying into the other royal families of Europe thereby neutralizing any enemies. A good example of this is Empress Maria Theresa’s daughter, the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, who married King Louis XIV and ended up losing her head.

Top Photo courtesy: Austrian Tourist Office / Trumler
Bottom Photos courtesy: Österreich Werbung / Trumler / Lammerhuber

Share some aspect of Austria as regards to what it has contributed to the world.

ANSWER: In the field of music alone, composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Strauss, Josef Haydn, Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Anton Bruckner, Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg brought great joy to the world.

Photos courtesy: Österreich Werbung / Gruenert / Trumler

Photo courtesy: Austrian Tourist Office / Mayer

For further information about Austria, click-on: www.austria.info/us

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Story and photo by Ed Rampell, a Los Angeles-based film historian and critic.

The recently revived Committee for the First Amendment, begun in 1947, during the era of anti-communist hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, took the struggle against censorship to the belly of the beast, Washington, D.C. There, original committee member Henry Fonda’s daughter Jane Fonda, along with folksinger Joan Baez, singer and actor Billy Porter, and other free speech champions took to the streets in protest.

They raised their voices to draw attention to and resist the Trump Administration’s increasingly authoritarian efforts to censor the arts, news reporters, and media organizations, epitomized by the takeover of the nearby Kennedy Center, recently renamed the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. They did so by harkening back to another dark time in U.S. history, eighty years ago—the purges and persecutions of the McCarthy era.

The March 27 demonstration, which took place on a drizzly afternoon just prior to the “No Kings” Day mobilizations in the nation’s capital and elsewhere around the country, drew members of the press with television cameras perched on risers. Other journalists and supporters—all of whom had to first pass through security screening—sat on about 150 folding chairs in a gated area, facing a specially constructed stage in front of the Kennedy Center that was festooned with pro-freedom-of-speech signs and next to the Watergate Complex.

One attendee, Miles Taylor, said he came because he was “a big fan of what Jane Fonda has done with the Committee for the First Amendment, resurrecting a free speech organization from the McCarthy era for a moment that is arguably vastly more dangerous for democracy.” Taylor,  a former Department of Homeland Security official, is embroiled in his own free speech battle, as he told The Progressive: “Trump accused me of treason and opened up a federal investigation” because of an anonymously written 2018 op-ed in The New York Times critical of the first Trump Administration. 

The original Committee for the First Amendment actually predated the rise of Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anticommunist witch hunt, which began in 1950. 

“The Committee for the First Amendment is a recreated organization that was first formed in 1947 by Hollywood actors and directors rallying in support of a group called the Hollywood Ten,” James Lardner told The Progressive at the protest. His father, screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr., was summoned before  the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), along with others, “to testify about their political beliefs and associations.” 

Asked by the Congressional inquisitors if he was a member of the Communist Party, Ring Lardner Jr. famously quipped: “I could answer the question the way you want . . .  but if I did, I would hate myself in the morning.” Lardner, who had won an Academy Award for co-writing the 1942 Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy comedy Woman of the Year, was imprisoned and fined for contempt of Congress along with the other members of the Hollywood Ten. 

His son James, who is involved in the climate action group Third Act and distributed No Kings Day leaflets at the event, believes threats to free speech today are “worse [than in the times of the Hollywood blacklist]. We are spiraling towards dictatorship, a white nationalist police state, to a degree that wasn’t true in the late 1940s.”  

From 1947-1960, the Hollywood Ten and about 300 other Hollywood talents who refused to provide to HUAC the names of others accused of leftwing politics, were labeled as “un-American” and blacklisted from working in the film and television industry. But none of them were ever charged with espionage or sabotage: Their real “crime” was publicly expressing viewpoints disapproved of by the U.S. government.

At 2:00 p.m. on Friday, March 27, Crys Matthews kicked off the program, saying, “I’m Black, a woman, lesbian, and a folksinger,” after which she sang her 2025 anthem “Sleeves Up.”. Next, activist and actor Jane Fonda took the stage, explaining why she was reestablishing the committee which her father had been an original member of in 1947, together with other movie stars such as Fredric March, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Judy Garland. 

“The attacks from the government are far more comprehensive today,” Fonda told the gathering. “Books are being banned, plaques and monuments depicting historical events this administration wants to forget are being removed [from] museums, the National Endowment of the Arts [and] state arts councils” are under attack, contends Fonda, who decried Trump’s seizing control of the Kennedy Center, where “fifty more people were fired just today. Some of them are with us [at this event].”

The two-time Oscar winner went on to condemn media mergers that the Trump Administration has been approving, while “he goes after artists. We can model courage, and courage is contagious . . . . The general public may think all this doesn’t affect them, but it does. If we don’t fight back, the news will be increasingly fake, and we won’t be allowed to know what’s happening. Our children’s academic curriculum will be actually censored and ticket costs for cultural events will go up while the quality will go down.”

Fonda proclaimed that “the bedrock of our democracy is the First Amendment,” which, she noted, “suffers greatly in times of war” as the government “works to crush internal dissent.” Fonda should know: She was surveilled by the FBI and persecuted for her outspoken opposition to the war in Vietnam, where she intrepidly traveled as U.S. bombs dropped. She was pejoratively nicknamed “Hanoi Jane” because of her relentless advocacy of peace with the Vietnamese people.

Novelist Ann Patchett spoke next, warning that “Book burning is a terrible thing; 300 books have been pulled from bookshelves. It’s not just Lady Chatterley’s Lover, it’s Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” She was followed by former MSNBC and CNN hosts Joy Reid and Jim Acosta, both of whom spoke out against news censorship, denouncing the arrests and court cases against Don Lemon and Georgia Fort. Reid, who is a woman and  Black (two populations unable to vote for much of our nation’s existence), defended the First Amendment, saying: “You can fault the framers [of the Constitution] without faulting the frame.”

A highlight of the afternoon’s program was a reenactment of the June 12, 1956, HUAC hearing of Black activist, actor, and singer Paul Robeson, portrayed by Billy Porter. Robeson delivered what is probably the most defiant testimony in the annals of the blacklist, which the performers reenacted using the actual HUAC transcripts. 

“The reason that I am here today . . . from the mouth of the State Department itself, is: I should not be allowed to travel because I have struggled for years for the independence of the colonial peoples of Africa . . . . The other reason that I am here today, again from the State Department . . . is that when I am abroad I speak out against the injustices against the Negro people of this land . . . . I am being tried for fighting for the rights of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America.”

Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers then performed, followed by legendary activist and musician Joan Baez, who sang Bob Dylan’s classic “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ” and the Civil Rights Movement freedom song, “Ain’t Gonna Let Anybody Turn Me ’Round.”  

Other speakers and performers included poet and author Rupi Kaur; Emmy-nominated writer and author Bess Kalb; Katie Bethell, executive director of  MoveOn and a No Kings organizer; Jessica J. González, co-CEO of the media reform group Free Press; and Logan Keith, national communications coordinator of the 50501 movement and an organizer with No Kings. 

Finally, the crowd heard from Kristy Lee, a self-described “gay, legally married folksinger from the South” who pulled out from a scheduled performance at the Kennedy Center over concerns about Trump’s “political branding” of events there. “Playing there would have cost me my integrity, which is worth more than a paycheck,” she explained. Lee called Fonda, Baez, and all of the other performers and speakers to join her onstage for a rousing rendition of her song “Free Love.”

The Los Angeles-based Fonda, still spry at age eighty-eight, later announced that she was leaving to attend the flagship No Kings rally in Minnesota. It was a moment that reminded this film historian of her father’s speech at the end of 1940’s film The Grapes of Wrath, when, during the depths of the Great Depression, Henry Fonda’s character Tom Joad leaves his family to join the struggle to unionize farmworkers, explaining: “I’ll be all around in the dark—I’ll be everywhere. Wherever you can look—wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there.”   

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