My blog has migrated to a new host and is being painstakingly reconstructed here. Please bear with me as I iron out wrinkles, hammer out the dents, and apply enough spit and duct tape to hold it all together.— Karen
“You want coffee now?” Our waiter could not conceal his astonishment. “With breakfast?” Too well-trained to roll his eyes, the waiter (who also served as the desk clerk of our hotel in Durr ës, Albania) murmured, “Right away, madam” in a way that spoke volumes. He disappeared into the back, ostensibly to fetch the coffee…
Four years ago, my husband — and I say this lovingly — became obsessed with an Albanian restaurant called Ali Kali. “The owner brings in your food riding on the back of a trick horse,” he said. “Ali Kali means Ali’s Horse. It’s fantastic. We’ve gotta go.” “I’m in, obviously. Where is it?” We were…
Some readers (and you know who you are) have expressed skepticism about our visit to Albania. “Why?” and “Are you nuts?” are among the milder comments I’ve received. “There’s nothing to see there,” a Spanish friend insisted. I beg to differ. Last Friday we entered Albania over wooded mountains, descending into a broad green valley…
“How can there be no taxis?” I demanded. “This is North Macedonia’s second largest city. Wikipedia called Bitola the transportation hub of the region. What gives?” “To be fair, there is a taxi. There’s just nobody in it.” Rich and I gazed at the empty yellow cab at the curb, the silent train station, and…
Like so many of Rich’s truly brilliant ideas, I thought it was totally insane when he first proposed it. Five days earlier, we’d left the warm hospitality of Greece and headed to the more bracing atmosphere of Skopje, the capital of what’s now known as North Macedonia . Skopje turned out to have a marvelous…
“In China, robots are making moussaka,” Stavros told me. “They freeze it and send it all over the world. Even some islands in Greece are serving such things. But this—” He broke into a smile and gestured to the dish he and his wife, Katerina, had labored over for the last three hours. “This is…
Rich and I thought we were prepared for anything — trains leaving at 3:30 AM, running once a week, or requiring awkwardly timed changes at obscure junctions. It never occurred to us that there might be no public transportation whatsoever between two major European cities just 146 miles apart. “Trains?” said the man at the…
“If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him,” said civil rights activist Cesar Chavez. “The people who give you their food give you their heart.” In the past, it was a bit tricky to convince strangers to allow you into their home at all, never mind asking…
“Ya gotta give the guy credit,” I said around midnight, as Rich’s new friend led yet another 20-something woman onto the dance floor. “He’s got a lot of energy for eighty-four.” One of the locals laughed. “Eighty-four? He’s ninety-three.” I regarded the dancer with even greater respect. Not only was he the life of the…
“I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder,” said travel writer Bill Bryson, “than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything.” Few countries offer more golden opportunities for feeling utterly ignorant than Greece. The written language alone makes you feel like a toddler, staring at…
CELEBRATING GOOD NEIGHBORS These days I’m writing about Good Neighbors, exploring how the people around me are working to help each other get through these challenging times. My weekly posts appear on Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on my travel and research schedule.
THIS BLOG IS A PROMOTION-FREE ZONE. As my regular readers know, I never get free or discounted goods or services for mentioning anything on this blog (or anywhere else). I only write about things I find interesting and/or useful.
