Miami
Florida
June 14, 2002
Dear Family and Friends,
I am off again.
To hell with the money; to hell with the stock market; to hell with caution and trepidation.
I got my typhoid, diphtheria, yellow fever, hepatitis A and hepatitis B shots and I am ready.
Miami, Florida
Monday December 17, 2001
My Dear Family and Friends,
Sawat -dee,
I just checked the temperature readings on my Internet Home Page
London……43F - 6C Rain
Bucharest…27 - 2 Snow
New York….40 - 4 Rain
Kabul………50 - 9 Small arms fire, but can’t confirm
Bangkok ….89 - 32 Sunny * *
I made the right choice for my winter adventure.
Of course I could stay home, hang out at the pool (85F - 30C) and Jacuzzi (105F - 40C) and have a beer on South Beach on New Year’s Eve. Not this year.
After two weeks in Romania I crossed the Danube into БЬЛГаРИЯ at РУСЕ.
I can’t read a sign.
The Bulgarians invented the Cyrillic alphabet, and like the Greeks, their neighbors to the south, they insist on maintaining their ancient culture.
I had lunch at the Happy Bar and Grill where all the attractive waitresses wore short, I mean short mini-skirts. So much for ancient culture.
Cluj-Napoca
Romania
June 26, 2001
My Dear Family and Friends,
I am sitting in the delightful Hubertus Restaurant, listening to a sweet musical trio (keyboard, violin and clarinet) while I wait for my main course of roasted quail with potatoes and tomato salad.
I am in a charming university town called Cluj-Napoca in the middle of the Transylvanian Mountains in Romania.
For the past two days I have driven in the far north near the borders of Hungary and The Ukraine. The area is called The Maramureş where communities are living their lives the way they have for hundreds of years -- spinning, woodworking, and farming in beautiful and fertile mountain valleys alongside swift mountain rivers.
