I sat distraught and exhausted in the American Airlines Admirals' Club, staring dreamily at my laptop screen. I was applying the final touches to my enduring midterm -- a take-home test for an MBA class at the George Washington University foggy bottom campus, a stone's throw from downtown DC. I had heard it several times over -- almost in a trance -- every excruciating … [Read more...] about The Walls Came Tumbling Down
Overseas
Family Reunion of a First Kind
"Sometimes life brings you pleasant surprises -- it's not scripted or orchestrated, but just right. Life can be charming, like that, if you let it." It was a family reunion -- one that has never happened at this scale before. True, I spent nearly 10 days with Rio at the Chiswick flat. During this time, I was also able to spend some quality time with Luke … [Read more...] about Family Reunion of a First Kind
The Great, Sacred Pyramids of Giza
Egypt boasts so many great wonders, unequaled in any other destination in the world. Cairo just doesn't boast the Pharaonic monuments. It is a cumulation of the legacies of the Greeks, Romans and early Christians and the profusion of art and architecture accumulated from centuries of successive Islamic dynasties. There's nothing that compares to a visit to the Pyramids. … [Read more...] about The Great, Sacred Pyramids of Giza
Rome is for Lovers, Not Runners,
Rome is not a city for runners. There were no runners, just walkers, as I breezed along Via Nazionale, an old Roman boulevard that pierces through the heart of the government center at 0730 Mon morn.Perhaps folks in business suits to working suits were just diving back to the work week after a weekend of rest and mass.But for whatever reason, on this cool, crisp eve of December … [Read more...] about Rome is for Lovers, Not Runners,