“Welcome to Fiji”, announced the captain of the Atlantic Pacific, Boeing 747-400. It had been a 10 hour and 45 minute flight from Los Angeles to Nadi, the third largest municipality on the Viti Levu Isle. Fiji was the first stop of a Cultural-Volunteer Expedition Lead by Carpe Diem followed by, New Zealand, and Australia. Our purpose was to live, learn, and aid, to fully acclimate ourselves in the spirit of Fiji. As the team left the plane, we … [Read more...]
Unbridled: A Memoir
After my divorce, I needed to travel, to go on a journey to find myself. What better place to start than Ireland, home of my ancestors? During my trip I found images and parts of me that I didn't know existed. I found them in the faces and personalities all around me; in their laughter and ability to laugh at themselves; in the scenery; the castles and cottages; in the weather- stormy and changeable like myself; in the roads: driving on the … [Read more...]
Beirut in the Baltics
John M. Edwards is drawn into the Wild Wild East of “Europe Minor.” After the collapse of communism in the USSR, inflation in the freshly minted Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia rolled up the ruble into the cheapest toilet paper around, so I decided to go East and stock up. I needed a cheap place to wipe my ass because I was then unemployed, and an Orwellian year of freelancing in Paris had left me as restless … [Read more...]
One of the Keys to Happiness is a Bad Memory.
For the past decade, I’ve had this recurring nightmare. It involves concrete apartment structures hundreds and hundreds of stories tall and one city block wide. I’m usually stuck on one of the top floors, which are so high in the sky that small communities complete with little stores and schools have been established up there. Rickety walkways strung from windows connect the buildings so the tenants don’t have to make the journey down and back … [Read more...]
Touring Australia’s Barossa Valley
The Barossa Valley, when compared to the age of the European wine regions is rather young. However if you look deeper you realize there is a lot of "history" here. These are some of the oldest soils on the planet - the mountain ranges have been so well weathered they are now just gentle rolling hills. The Barossa is one of Australia's earliest wine regions - having been founded not by the British but by German settlers in the early 1840's. … [Read more...]
Stowe’s Simple Surprises
Sometimes luxury is in the simple things. Driving the last ten miles along Route 100 toward Stowe, Vermont, I was entering another way of life. There are no sky-scrapers, no fast-food chains, no billboards or even back-lit signs. There are independent little one- and two-storey shops, selling cheeses and maple syrups and cider doughnuts. I pulled into the parking lot at the recently renovated Topnotch Resort and Spa and quickly ducked … [Read more...]
Dispatch: The Berlin Stories Check-in at Checkpoint Charlie
Separated from his student tour group in East Berlin, a much younger John M. Edwards gets seriously lost and says, “Ich bin ein Berliner!” (I am a doughnut!), but, er, for exactly how long? It’s a race against time to find “Chuck” and bust through the border crossing before the “Iron Curtain” closes. . . . For numerology fans, both the first Mayflower landing at Plymouth Rock and the dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall fell on my birthday: … [Read more...]
5 Honolulu Highlights
After several visits to Kauai, Maui, Molokai and the Big Island of Hawaii, I finally had a chance to visit Oahu, the most populated of the Hawaiian Islands and home to the state capital of Honolulu. My travel opportunity came with an invitation to Honolulu to attend the launch of the new Hawaiian Airlines World Elite MasterCard issued by Barclaycard. Although primarily a business trip, I got a wonderful taste of what Honolulu has to offer leisure … [Read more...]
Unusual holidays – volunteering in Zimbabwe
After I decided to volunteer at Antelope Park in Gweru in Zimbabwe many people asked me if I really wanted to go there. Everyone is afraid of something; I was afraid of big dogs. That is partly why I wanted to travel there - to test myself and overcome my fears. 'Where else in the world' – like the motto of Antelope Park says, can you walk with lions? When I reached Zimbabwe for the first couple of hours I felt afraid - not about the animals I … [Read more...]
Perth on a Penny Royal a Day: Freebie New Year’s Day Downunder
John M. Edwards finds a six-month circumnavigation of Australia offers much more than empty Outback vistas of red dust and rock formations. but what better way to end you stay than plopping down at a hostel in Perth where everybody knows your name, one-legged pub crawls are the game, and where the Yanks take home the "Americas's Cup" trophy once again! Writing about New Year's Eve the day after is an annual letdown, unpublishable, an egregious … [Read more...]
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