Robbed In Barcelona

It happened on our third day in Barcelona. I can’t say we weren't warned. The travel guides warned us, the TripAdvisor forums warned us, the cab driver from the airport warned us and my friend Gursel, who has lived in Barcelona for six years, warned us. Despite the warnings and despite being wary the whole time we were in Barcelona, it still happened. We got pick pocketed. The scene of the crime was the Urquinaona metro station which is located in the heart of Barcelona’s delightful Gothic Quarter. As we were about to get on the train, an attractive young woman asked me a question I didn’t understand. ... [Read More]

The Big ‘D’ Surprises

I recently came back from a week-long stay in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex. I’d been there before on business and recall thinking it was not a very interesting city. This time I went there with my wife on vacation, if you call spending a week at your mother-in-law’s a vacation. Everything went well though. Not only did my mother-in-law and I get along just fine, but Dallas turned out to be a pretty interesting place, Like Atlanta, where I’m from, Dallas is a big sprawling modern city. Traffic is heavy wherever you go, but with plenty of freeways and lots of wide straight streets, it’s comparatively easy ... [Read More]

At the Epicenter of the Sichuan Quake

The only bulding that was not razed in Yingxiu was the school in which hundreds of students died in the earthquakeWhile we were staying in Chengdu, the capital of China’s Sichuan province and a bustling chaotic city of ten million people, we had the opportunity to visit Yingxiu, about 75 miles distant.  Yingxiu is a small mountain village that  was the epicenter for the great Sichuan earthquake of May 12, 2008 in which 100,000 people lost ther lives. Yingxiu was completely destroyed and two-thirds of its 15,000 residents perished in the quake. We hired a driver for the day and traveled  to Yigngxiu via a high-speed ... [Read More]

Fast Train to Dujiangyan

One of China’s most ambitious infrastructure  programs is the one to develop  it’s  high-speed rail network.  Over the last ten years, China has gone from a country with practically no high-speed rail lines, to the country with the most such lines .  By 2012, China is expected to have more miles of high-speed rail lines than the rest of the world put together, and plans are  in place for a network of 31,000 miles by 2020.    I mention this because we - my wife, my sister, two friends and I -  recently rode the country’s newest high-speed line which runs from Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan ... [Read More]

Beijing’s Olympic Green

Being a huge  fan of the Olympics and also a resident of Atlanta, home of the 1996 Olympics, I very much wanted to see the venues for the 2008 Olympics while I was in Beijing, so off we went . Olympic Green, the site for the most important Olympic venues is a long way from the center of town but it is an easy subway ride on the Number 10 line which opened just in time for the Olympics. Once we arrived at Olympic Green, the first building that caught my eye was not one of the Olympic venues but a skyscraper that looked like  the ... [Read More]

A Hotel Room in China

I have been traveling in China with friends and family for a  few days now and our  mid-level Chinese owned and operated hotel  in Beijing already feels like home.  We have spent some quality down time in our room, and  the hotel has provided several  nice surprises  including some things I’d never seen before.   For starters, hanging on the door of our hotel room is a sign with the following rules and regulations: Gambling is prohibited. Prostitution is prohibited. Drug taking and trafficking is prohibited. Helpfully, the sign provides a number to call should we see any of the above activities. The toiletry kit in the bathroom includes several items ... [Read More]

Easter in Guatemala

We were supposed to go to Guatemala for Christmas, but I was denied boarding when it was discovered that my passport had expired. It turned out to be a fortuitous error because we rebooked our travel for Easter and landed in Guatemala in the midst of their spectacular Semana Santa (Holy Week) celebrations. Antigua, about 45 minutes from Guatemala City, is ground zero for the festivities. The whole city is a UNESCO World Heritage  site and its cobblestone streets, pastel-colored colonial buildings and looming volcanoes are a joyous site any time of the year. But it really comes alive during Holy Week. The entire city participates ... [Read More]