Richard, our local hero in the Dominican Republic, was hosting me for a day and a half. He 
wanted to show me the Cuevas de las Maravillas which is just west of La Romana and is designated a national park. I have been to a few caves in my time. I remember well the caves near Nerja in Spain and the Postos in Slovenia. Limestone plays fantastic tricks with water underground! This was going to be a bit of an adventure.
Our first and minor obstacle were that the caves were closed on the day we were going to be visiting. Richard, in his charming
Dominican Spanish, disturbed a guy from a siesta and asked him if there was any way that he could let us into the park and caves. The “transaction” was done quickly and before you know it the gates had been opened and we were walking along a path with a stone wall on either side. After about ten minutes, the first surprise came. On both sides of the wall, hanging around on trees and munching away on plants, were iguanas or baby dinosaurs, I’m not quite sure. Lots of them though. That prompted me to inquire if there were any venom issues – apparently not. Eventually, we got to the opening of the caves, all quite civilized, and then began the 
descent. Inside the cave, there are about 500 paintings and engravings on the walls all made by the Taínos, the ancient inhabitants of the island and in general, most of the Caribbean. There were human faces, animals, and geometric figures. All pretty basic stuff but all incredible given the time period. It is a rare photograph of life just before Columbus arrived. Of course, as is the case 
with all of the native Indians, they got royally (pardon the pun) screwed by either the Catholic monarchy or the diseases that the discoverer’s brought with them. So now we get to walk through their caves. For me it was a fabulous travel moment – alone, no tourists, just the guy who opened the door for us, and the only noise was the dripping of water through the stalactites that are endlessly fascinating and at the same time you wonder if today is the day that they will fall to the ground.
we made it. I was heading to one of those up-market all-inclusive resorts surrounded by golf courses, a marina, and a white sand beach. I was taking advantage of an outstanding credit on our books and it was a chance to see a little bit of the Dominican Republic.
looking surprisingly and shockingly bad. It even gave me cause to think I could return here to play golf even though I’m appalling. Unfortunately, I got lost easily and was fooled by speed bumps. The golf cart even lost its front piece somewhere on the road and I had to get out to fix it. It all became part of my routine. Take advantage of the pool in the morning, a nice breakfast, a drive in the golf cart for about an hour, and then a sunset at the beach. I didn’t take advantage of any of the main facilities mainly because I wouldn’t know how to skeet shoot, I don’t like guns, and polo was something that was way beyond my class station!
Inbound travel to the US is certainly getting impacted by Trump’s travel ban and the rhetoric that surrounds it. 
drag the airline industry in another direction. But inbound flights to the US that carried highly profitable passengers that spend serious amounts of money are not easily going to be replaced soon.
I didn’t know that this delightful town was a spectacular assemblage of Hansel and Gretel half-timbered houses that wound around the narrow streets and along the canals that crisscrossed the city. The colors of these quaint houses were amazing, almost surreal. We took what essentially was a punt boat with an electric motor and silently weaved our way 
under low bridges and gardens that backed onto the canal. It looked and reminded me of Little Venice in London. How had I missed this place on my prior travels? It’s old brick marketplace, it’s completely authentic feel, it felt, unlike any place I had ever been to. It definitely did not feel like France but they sure spoke French! It was one of those places that had been trading nationalities for well over a century. It was Alsace.
years ago. I do not recall much other than their famed Bear Pit, also known as The Bärengraben. Beyond that it was a place between somewhere you had come from to somewhere you wanted to get to. It was a stop for lunch or a break on a monotonous journey along motorways. One things for sure, it wasn’t Rome.
extraordinary that would be in harmony with the artistic movement that it represented – surrealism at the turn of the century. There are 4,000 Klee paintings in the museum amply padded with a Picasso here, a Joan Miro, or Dali there. In all, it truthfully is not much my cup of tea, although I liked the black and white photo depiction of the history of the artists and the period. There is also a children’s section where 
budding young artists are free to connect the dots between aspiration and reality. The cafe was a great place to grab lunch and surprisingly for Switzerland it was relatively a good deal. It’s worth the stop if you like this sort of thing. If surrealism is not your thing, it’s not such a bad place to pass a few hours in between where you have come from and where you are going.
All I knew about the German city of Baden Baden was that it was a famous spa town. But I also recall the English football team had boot camped there with their WAGS one infamous tournament of which there have been so many. So I equated it with failure, inevitability, and the hopelessness of England to ever be successful at soccer again after one great and surreal moment in 1966. Off I went to visit Baden Baden and try to heal the memories and expunge the dreadfulness of overpaid footie players.
gardens and people were strolling along its banks as if they were in a French impressionist painting. It was so damn civilized.
50 years. I didn’t get to go to a spa. It seemed complicated and difficult to figure out how to gain entrance. You knew the spas were somewhere but it just didn’t seem that if you wanted to go for a spa holiday, you would
credit from a canceled reservation a year ago over to a new reservation this year. So my son and I hit Telluride. I had never been before although I had heard lots about it. We both love to ski so this seemed like a perfect storm.
territories. Not more than 20 minutes from Montrose is Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. The canyon is as deep as the Grand Canyon but not as wide. It was spectacular in the early morning mist to see this giant chasm in a national park right next door to a very bland, modern town like Montrose.
caught my eye. It was called 
approach it through the Bois de Boulogne. Constructed around a cascading stairway of water, it’s an assemblage of huge glass sails and blocks known as “icebergs.” Because of the glass, the trees that surround it, and the constant movement of water, it creates a continuous impression of movement depending on the time of the day and night. It is quite a sight to behold.
scattered – not just the Picasso and Matisse pieces, but Cezanne, Gauguin, you name it, he had it. Much of it thankfully ended up at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. Although during the Stalin years – and there were lots of them – the viewing of his paintings were forbidden because Stalin thought that both Matisse and Picasso were seditious counter-revolutionaries. Oh dear.
the Swiss started it all and it still thrives there to this day. All you need to trigger one of these things is 100,000 votes. Well, as we know, it’s not all wine and roses. Hitler used the device to promote his populist rantings and managed to screw the entire western world over and kill a lot of innocent people in the process. Referendums gave him the dictatorial powers that enabled him to dominate the evil arena for over 12 years. In the USA, there’s no national mechanism for a referendum. Pity, as we could probably do something about Donald of Orange right now given his current standing! Still, 24 states hold referendums and Massachusetts became the most recent state to pass legalization of marijuana laws through this device. So, referendums are really not all that bad. It’s just that when you need them to fail, the failsafe doesn’t work. Brexit voters just caused the biggest upset in British politics…and what will happen to Scotland? After all, Romans thought it was wise to keep out the Scots by building a wall! Heard that somewhere before. Didn’t work then. Won’t work now!
would be good for something even though none of us could understand a word that she said! So, off I have been on the path of discovery to County Clare, the tiny town of Scarriff, and the even tinier hamlet of Aughram. I am looking at church records, the births and deaths register in Dublin, you name it, I am on it. And I am nearly there.
Boston, the loudspeaker message came over stating they were looking for passengers prepared to take an alternative flight for a credit voucher on the same airline. Let the buyer beware, as we know with 
to Strasbourg, the capital of the territory, to see this beautiful city that sits on the Rhine and its tributaries. It has fabulous wines and is the center of power for the European Parliament. Who knows, this would potentially be for me a last look at what it was like to see a Union Jack outside the Parliament building after Brexit.
to visit two other spectacular nearby places – Baden Baden and Colmar. For a French teacher, Colmar is a must and Baden Baden is a fabulous add-on across the border. We even got to see a baseball game outside the EU parliament. How strange, especially since baseball, so they say, is on the decline and soccer is on the rise. It seems here in the heart of Europe a flicker of faith was keeping the old ball game alive. Meanwhile, the Union Jack was flying high; a last flutter of the flag to denote that the great European experiment, alive and well everywhere, and created after the disaster of the second world war, was getting red carded in the U.K. Go on Scotland, declare independence and leave Auntie Britain and go live with your less superior relatives, The Euros. Ireland seems much happier living with its European neighbors since its divorce in 1922!
just as bad as reading a magazine during a dental surgery knowing that almost certainly what happens inside is not going to be good.
operating the most basic system of all with no baggage surcharge if you check, is always considered the best system? It’s random, there’s no class distinction, you just line up in rows with numbers allocated and you cannot move until they tell you. And on the airplane, it’s a free for all so you choose your seat, have a nice day, and get over it. It works and that’s the way it goes. The domestic boarding experience is one of the most horrific experiences known in the airline industry and yet the glowing example of how to do it right is staring everybody in the face.
about a $25 ticket on a 1,000-mile route? On the other hand, American is charging big bucks for crap service. Get a load of this – American’s numbers actually improved over last year. Alaska, which has just acquired Virgin America, looks like it will further improve its network and grab some of its strong points and push it over to what was its Virgin competitor.
the saddest examples of how not to make a great impression on your visit to such an amazing place like Paris. And it feels seedy, the taxi set up is appalling and you know that someone is specifically out there with a view to ripping you off. Of course, it happened to me.
