Posts with the category ‘Go How Know How’


Travel Products that are “All About that ‘Case”

November 28, 2015

Pop singer Meghan Trainor’s momma may have told her “not to worry about your size” as she sings in her adorable hit, All About That Bass, but when it comes to your travel suitcase, size and weight definitely do matter. Airline bag fees and tougher security at transportation hubs are the two most obvious reasons to pack light. But there are other incentives. To experience a destination like a local means getting out of the cab and onto the bus, bike or sidewalk and who wants to haul a heavy bag up the steps of the subway or down the cobblestone streets? So if you wanna… Read More…


Alabama Shore Shows Diversity of U.S. Culture

November 13, 2015

On a recent trip to France, I had breakfast with Sofia Vandaele, General Manager of the newly remodeled and absolutely gorgeous Hilton Paris Opera. Sofia is Belgian and fluent in seven languages. It never ceases to amaze Americans – many of whom know only English – just how many different tongues the people in other countries speak. Sofia is very smart, not to mention charming which explains why she is one of the world’s youngest hotel managers. Big hat tip to a woman like that and who can also carry on a conversation in seven languages. Still, anyone who has visited Europe knows many countries are… Read More…


Weekend in the Palmyra Khaled al-Asaad Died to Protect

August 20, 2015

I hesitate to write this because Middle East politics is an unfathomable puzzle to me. I understand only the barest details of what is happening in Iraq and Syria. But hearing the news of the death of Khaled al-Asaad, the 83-year-old archeologist who was guardian and custodian of the historic sites in Palmyra (Tadmor) in Syria’s northwest breaks my heart. In 2006, while doing a month-long Arabic immersion course in Damascus, I hopped a bus and spent a weekend there.  As luck would have it, it was the culmination of the Zenobia Festival with camel races by day and music and dancing by night. Tadmor… Read More…


Wildlife From Both Sides of the Glass

June 17, 2015

In 2005, I had a big bay window installed over my kitchen sink. Since I spend hours standing there, I reasoned I might as well look at something. I thought I was providing myself with a view of the garden, but it is the wildlife I’ve seen that has made that window worth every penny I paid for it. During the particularly harsh Connecticut winter just past, a Cooper’s Hawk downed a mid-size bird on the blanket of snow covering my back lawn and proceeded to spend 25 minutes consuming its catch. The hawk left his version of dirty dishes for me to clean up, while he cleaned his feathers from atop a nearby tree…. Read More…


Kyoto’s Geisha Real or Imagined Still Captivating

May 7, 2015

One would think that Kyoto, Japan was in the middle of a geisha boom, the way the streets are filled with kimono-wearing women, shuffling down the sidewalks in their six-inch high wooden geta and split toe socks. The jangly metal fan ornaments and flower blossoms in their hair called kanzashi bob with each step they take.  But they are not real. Okay, the women are real but they are not geisha, geiko or even maiko, (what they call women training to be geisha). These are tourists taking part in the booming business of dressing up and touring the town, creating excitement every where they go, not the… Read More…


White Girl ‘Rocking a Kimono

By Andrea Lee Negroni     Sure, I anticipated it might be complicated to put on a Japanese kimono. Then, when a group of women, spouses or companions of participants in an international aviation conference were invited by the Sapporo Tourist Office to do it, I realized it IS complicated. First, we were each given two helpers and shown to racks of colorful silks. Spellbound, we thought we’d dig right in and wrap ourselves up. Wrong. A lot gets put on before the fun begins. I started with a sort of knee-length muslin slip, which has short sleeves, a V-neck collar and a tight sash around the waist. Then another patterned collar gets… Read More…


San Antonio; Harmonious in All the Ways that Count

April 22, 2015

It might have been sentiment that had me longing to return to San Antonio, Texas for the past twenty seven years. The city plays a memorable role in my career because it was in San Antonio where I reported my very first story for CBS News. It was the annual convention of Barbershop Harmony Society, held right before the 1988 political conventions. I still remember how anchorman Bob Schieffer introduced my story; “Democrats meeting in Atlanta can only hope that their gathering is as harmonious as the one being held in San Antonio this weekend…”, that Bob Schieffer is one clever writer. I was in and out of San Antonio so… Read More…


Evolution of Darwin From Thrill-seeking to Thought Provoking Destination

February 16, 2015

Its no secret; Australia is a country infested with things that will kill you. Or as humorist and Australiaphile Bill Bryson put it in his brilliant book, In a Sunburned Country, “If you are not stung or pronged to death in some unexpected manner, you may be fatally chomped by sharks or crocodiles,”. Even so, I was not prepared for just how much the residents of Darwin on Australia’s north coast would take pride in that dubious reputation. In a twist on the adage, “What doesn’t kill you makes you strong,” Darwin’s tourist-attracting theme seems to be, “If it can kill you, you can see it here up… Read More…


Lesson from the Rails; There Are No Strangers On a Train

February 7, 2015

The sound of raucous conversation greeted us when the double saloon-style doors opened to the Gold class lounge on Australia’s famed long distance train, The Ghan. My sister Lee and I were late in arriving for the departure cocktail party because we’d stopped first to check out the compartments where we’d be spending the next two nights crossing Australia from Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the far north. We each had a single room and the tiny cubicles were across a corridor so narrow, we could have left our doors open and held hands if we wanted. But we did not. We would have welcomed being closer to the… Read More…


Nine Wonderful Ways The Aussies Are Different

January 26, 2015

By Andrea Lee Negroni – I’ve traveled all over the world, but one country encompasses everything I love about travel and that’s Australia. It is astonishingly beautiful, with great food and wine. It’s got weird wildlife; deadly stingrays and jellyfish in Queensland, crocs in Darwin and the Outback’s kookaburra, need I go on? But more than all of this, it is the Aussie attitude that keeps me coming back. Below are nine uniquely Australian notions that captivate me, but I bet you can add some of your own. Gentle mothering – Even before I arrived down under, the welcoming flight attendants on Virgin Australia were urging those… Read More…


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