Tourists wear face masks in New York City. The states of California and New York are expected to be hit hardest in the loss of Chinese visitors amid the coronavirus, according to a Tourism Economics report... 51% of Americans did not use up their allotted vacation last year, and even less intend to this year. Having too much work to complete was the main reason for not using all vacation time.
A Gathering of Eagles; A Pride of Lions, or a Flight of Airline Pilots; any of which might well be a description of an aviation heaven that’s about 50 miles from London, and is only 45 minutes by express train. It’s also far better known as the Imperial War Museum (IWM) Duxford.
Yes, of course, the four Central European capitals we visited on our Danube River Cruise with Grand Circle – Prague, Czech Republic, Vienna, Austria, Bratislava, Slovakia and Budapest, Hungary – all wrapped in wonder, overwhelmed with their impressive history, expansive promenades and architectural grandeur. But it was an experience in Linz in Upper Austria that most impacted me.
A young, precocious girl who has just started to think in a different light about what used to be the enemy — boys! — tells us that her future dreamboat will have many, very specific qualities, and among them, he will speak three languages! She is wise beyond her years, a bit of a loner, highly expressive, spending hours, it would seem, with her diary — writing poetry, songs, and mentally meandering all over the globe...
Last month many in Europe, and possibly others around the world, celebrated the 75th Anniversary of June 6th, 1944, when the Allies invaded Normandy in France to begin WW2’s liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny. As a result of this 2019 Anniversary of the 1944 invasion, newspapers, television shows, magazines, and the media in general, were filled with photos of that June 6th day in 1944, along with remembrances by the few remaining WW2 military that – amazingly – are still with us.
I’ve visited many of the famous and yes, infamous, battle sites and related military places in Europe but, until a few years ago, I’d never had time to see – up close and VERY personal – the Mohne Dam in Germany. Before YOU read any further, do YOU know why it fits into either of the above categories?
Passing by in a car a few years ago, I had no clue this had been something special. After all, it looked just like a field that stretched into infinity. But that’s exactly what made it so appealing to the Luftwaffe in WW2. The German Air Force of that era has always intrigued me, so I was excited to visit …
There is no doubt that multi-award winning playwright Luis Valdez is a brilliant playwright, earning his stripes with his innovative “Zoot Suit,” which premiered in 1978 at the Mark Taper Forum and subsequently made history by becoming the first Chicano musical to hit Broadway.
He meant so much to the millions of Americans who fought in World War II, and to those who had waited for them to come home. He was a kid cartoonist for Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper; Mauldin's drawings of his muddy, exhausted, whisker-stubbled infantrymen Willie and Joe were the voice of truth about what it was like on the front lines.
Berlin has been on my mind. I just finished reading Scottish writer, Philip Kerr’s Berlin Noir Trilogy: an addictive, hard boiled historical fiction series about private eye Bernie Günter, as he descends into the dark underworld of Berlin in the 1920s and ‘30s. The trilogy reminded me about my own past journeys to Berlin.