Nestled in the corner of a city park, a short walk from subway lines, schools, bodegas and falafel shops, New York’s famed Brooklyn Botanic Garden is an urban oasis. It is a place, New York’s arts commissioner Laurie Cumbo says, where New Yorkers come to breathe. While that is undoubtedly true, convincing people to visit when the days get cold and night creeps on early is a challenge. For the second year the BBG (as the Brookyn Botanic is known), is creating “a new season,” according to Kathryn Glass, vice president of marketing for the garden. On November 16th, the switch was flipped, illuminating one… Read More…

It is an old tradition that travelers send postcards to loved ones back home. With the Coronavirus putting a halt to travel and creating a near-universal sense of isolation and fear, I propose the reverse. From my home in America, I am sending digital postcards to some of the people I have met on my travels. Each in their way has taught me we have much in common, no matter what country we call home. To: Doreen Sekento Kumum in Maasi Mara, Kenya Habari Doreen, Thanks once again for teaching me the very basics of stringing beads during my visit to the Karen Blixen Camp…. Read More…

  Nestled low among mid-rise, colonial-era buildings in the heart of the old city of Cadiz, my rental apartment had just one problem; the rising sun did not enter my bedroom window until well past 8:00. As I’d chosen to stay in Southern Spain in February to escape the New England winter I did not want to lose a moment of daylight just because my sun-sensitive body clock was tricked into thinking it was still too early to get up. A month later, (having surrendered to an alarm clock) I was doubly convinced. There is too much to enjoy in this historic city by the… Read More…

It was hot as blazes, about 95 degrees, the October day I set aside to explore Muscat, Oman’s capital city.  Wiping sweat and chugging water, I ticked off just two of the city’s must-do activities before finding a shady spot to sit and consult Google Maps for my new must-do: find a beach. My 2017 trip to Oman to came to mind while reading Seth Kugel’s excellent New York Times Travel story How to Up the Spontaneity Quotient on Your Next Trip.  Like him, I firmly believe it is not the sites we see but the people we get to know on their turf that… Read More…

Guest post by Andrea Lee Negroni – Santiago de Chile For many Santiaguinos, Saturday isn’t the start of a relaxing weekend, its the beginning of another day of hard work. Enterprising folks – the ones without desk jobs – are busy hustling a living in a variety of creative ways. During my five weeks living in Santiago, I’ve come to appreciate the resourcefulness those working outside Chile’s economic mainstream. On any given Saturday, you’ll see manicurists tidying up hands and painting fingernails in pop-up street salons constructed from card tables and cardboard boxes. Some old men have put bathroom scales on the sidewalk so passersby… Read More…

Artist Greg Gifford of Bend, Oregon, sees inspiration where others might overlook it. He finds it on the ground. A decade ago, a hobby for stacking rocks turned into the retired school teacher’s creative second career. “The materials are really cheap,” Gifford said, adding another incentive to using this material over something else for his creations. Gifford first started playing with stones while camping on the beach in Baja with his wife Jan. Mornings they would fish or kayak and in the afternoons they would windsurf. In between, he would make rock stacks, seeking the most challenging, oddly-shaped rocks to see if he could make… Read More…

The great thing about holidays is the transformation of the ordinary.  Christmas pageants transform ordinary folks into Bethlehem villagers. Lights transform homes into dazzling displays. Butter, flour and powdered sugar are transformed into something delectable (and even thematic). It is a time of transformation after all, especially for Christians who celebrate the incarnation of God through the birth of Jesus. Over the years, I’ve collected photos of the various ways people around the world decorate and celebrate from Ethiopia to England.   So I was especially pleased to see in my inbox today, these holiday-themed photos from hotels in the U.S.A. who are turning the… Read More…

Doris Dalbec is making use of the wheelchair her recently-deceased husband no longer needs; rolling herself back and forth from paint-laden table to the side of the visitors center at Redwood National and State Parks in Northern California. Oh, she can walk alright, but there’s a lot of up and down and side to side action when creating a mural 36 feet across and eight feet high. On the day I meet her, Dalbec was joined by Wanda Kirkpatrick and Nan Marie Stewart, three of many local painters who “leave ego aside” and work collaboratively on one enormous work of art. They are members of… Read More…

Sure, you know about the wildlife and the birds of Kenya and you know about the warriors. You’ve probably seen Out of Africa (a few times). Well, the secret, delightful discovery for first-time visitors to the Maasai-populated areas of this east African country, is that men and women, young and old, the Maasai are profligate jewelry wearers and makers. So, in addition your daily searches for the Big Five, plan to spend some time sitting in the shade with a willing Maasai teacher and learn to make something out of beads. Elephant with baby at Maasai Mara National Reserve Maasai women have some magical connection with… Read More…

To understand why I’ve rooted against Chicago’s Cubs for the past three decades, you have to know that once upon a time, the Cubs had me arrested.  And not just me, but Richard Isaac (aka Ike) my dear friend and camera man at WGN-TV. I worked as a city hall reporter in Chicago from 1983 to 1988 during the wild days when Harold Washington was the city’s first black mayor. Baseball? Nope, it was the city council that played hardball back then. Anyway, one day when the Cubs were not enjoying a particularly long run of losses, my bosses at Channel 9 sent Ike and me to… Read More…