Wine, Waves & Flies

  Eight centuries ago the Spanish town of Girona had to choose between being infested with flies or infested with French. They went with flies. It was in the year 1285. The story goes that during the Aragonese Crusade Girona fell to French forces, who immediately set off for the collegiate of Saint Felix, where lay the uncorrupted body of the city's patron saint, St. Narcissus. Legend has it that to celebrate their victory the French soldiers desecrated the body of the revered holy man. Suddenly a horde of flies appeared and swarmed the French. According to the graphic description by Bernat Desclot, a monk from Ripoll who "jotted ... [Read More]

Hit by a Tram in Prague

I recall stepping out into a Prague street. I recall lying on my back, staring up into the underside of a tram as pain seared through my body. I just don’t recall what happened in between. It turns out that just before strolling out onto Vyšehradská Street, a one-way thoroughfare near our hotel, I looked right, into traffic, to ensure the way was clear. Being a one-way street I didn’t look left. An unfortunate oversight since next to the three one-way lanes there was a tram lane, heading the opposite direction, with a huge tram bearing down on me at full speed. I stepped  directly into its path. My ... [Read More]

The Bitter and the Sweet

HeliportTeamWeb

I’ve been reading a book called “The Swerve,” about the miraculous survival of a manuscript of “On the Nature of Things” by Lucretius, which carried forward the philosophy of Epicurus. I had read a translation of that Lucretius about a decade ago, and found myself enthralled with the true nature of Epicurean thought, which is not hedonism but, rather, a way of being in the world. The other day at the Atlanta Botanical Garden I saw the “Epi-graph” in the photo below: Then last week, as I was about to board an overseas flight, I saw another epigraph: “Let each man pass his days in that ... [Read More]

Sinking of the Concordia

It's a long horrifying story of the traumatic impact; people, objects, furnishings flying; the confusion, loss of power, the earpiercing sirens causing babies and children to scream from fright and pain; generations of families vacationing, pregnant women holding dear to their unborns, while the crew held back stampeding humans desperate to get on lifeboats, all competing in volume to be heard. Only 50% of the lifeboats were available, shifting all the weight to the evacuating side with dangling lifeboats filled to capacity and slowing the evacuation. Hysteria became less contained. It was a major scene from a disaster movie. The shore of the tiny island littered with ... [Read More]

Galileo Galilei

Josh Merryman in Spain

Prior to graduating from college I had the desire for another practical experience abroad that I could add to my resume. I love a challenge and will do whatever is necessary to accomplish my goals, but for this experience I needed a more accessible destination. I am paraplegic and use a manual wheelchair for mobility. Since I have an interest in international business, and Spanish is such a common language in the world, I decided to participate in an intensive Spanish language program abroad. I took advantage of the considerable information available on the Internet and did a large amount of research and correspondence regarding prospective language ... [Read More]

Size matters in the Canary Islands

   I arrived in the Tenerife, largest of the Canary Islands, to the following message from my colleague in Barcelona: "Mr. Jones! I think you made my eruption!" I couldn't think of any way to translate that into something I wanted to hear, so I declined to respond. Sometime later I received the following correction: "Sorry, I meant the eruption! You hear about volcano?" This made me simultaneously relieved and nervous. It turned out that just as Soo and I were arriving in the Canary Islands an underwater volcano erupted, near the Island of El Hierro, forcing the evacuation of more than 600 local resisdents. (El Hierro hasn't had the easiest of ... [Read More]

Çeşme – made for summer and spas

  February is the wrong time of the year to visit Çeşme, a small Turkish coastal town nestled on the Mediterranean Sea. And it’s not just because the temperature hovers near freezing (yes, my husband really brought me to a resort on the Med in the middle of winter.) The oddest part about visiting Çeşme (pronounced Chezmay) in February is that it’s a ghost town. Most shops are closed as many of the city’s residents are in-town only during the warmer months of April – October. During this season the town bustles to life with tourists sprawling the sandy beaches, sailing the aqua blue waters. And enjoying ... [Read More]

Adventures in Traveling

  There are a lot of airlines on earth. Some are good (Delta, Qantas), some are excellent (Emirates, Singapore), and some are utter crap. Sliding futilely into the latter position I present Vueling, a low-budget Spanish airline duking it out with Air India for the top spot on my ranking of world’s worst ways to fly. On what should have been a quick, easy domestic flight from Barcelona to Tenerife in the Canary Islands, Vueling instead set about mashing up our journey from the first opportunity, and never let up. Once at the airport Soo and I proceeded to the Iberia desk, since we had Iberia tickets. Some readers ... [Read More]

Style, service and sangrias in Spain

  It's easy to like Barcelona (pronounced Barthalona by the locals. Truly – I spent my first two days here convinced everyone had a lisp.) I decided upon arriving in Catalonia's capital city that it was my duty to sample Spain's native drink in as many places as possible. (This perhaps has less to do with the fact that it’s Spanish that it does with my fondness for sampling drinks – tequila in Mexico, grappa in Italy, vodka, well, everywhere. You get the idea.) And I wondered if being full of sangria would, among other things, help me understand the bizarre and wonderful style of Gaudi, the 19th-century architect whose ... [Read More]

Notes on Oktoberfest

It seems I was not alone in being slightly off-put by Oktoberfest this year. I suspect those carted off after a drunken brawl were a tad miffed, too. They’re common enough that police only record the ones that involve someone having a beer stein smashed into his head (there were 58 this year), but cram a jillion drunks into a small space and fights will happen. The Italians are considered the biggest troublemakers, the Germans and Russians the most likely to break into song. There were 48 children lost during Oktoberfest this year, but all were eventually found. It’s not true that many of these were simply traded ... [Read More]