I have been in Shenzhen now for nearly a week. We arrived late at night by bus from nearby Guangzhou, after what seemed like an interminable last day in Beijing punctuated by ceremonies and events set to the sizzling backdrop of a northern Chinese summer. I’ve become amazed by how much I can sweat in… Read More Shenzhen Easy Livin’
The program functions in a manner that keeps us busy about 6 hours a day, every day of the week, and as such, coupled with the slow going of the internet, I will admit to being a little lacking in my efforts for speedy updates. That said, we have kept very active in our free… Read More Busy busy busy
“Beijing welcomes you”–that’s the translation, and it’ll have to pass for now without any of the tonal marks that denote how to pronounce the word. It also serves as the slogan for next year’s summer Olympics, for which evidence litters the city. It has been a lot of fun to try out the language and… Read More Beijing Huanying Ni!
So Kathleen and I have finished up the last of our travels for the summer, returning late this past Sunday evening from Sardinia, a lovely Italian island lying in the heart of the Mediterranean. The trip was short, only four days, but all together made for a very pleasant and relaxing time. My only complaint… Read More Sardinia
Our last few days in Tunisia were spent hanging around the city of Sousse and making jaunts into the medina, the term for the old part of the city. Sousse dates back to a Phoenician settlement called Hadrumetum way back into the BCs, and the city center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From the… Read More Je comprends…I think
So we have made it back to Stuttgart safe and sound and i am typing away on my own computer again, happy to not be paying out the nose for the bad keyboard. During the middle of our visit we had what were probably our two most interesting days, or least some of the most… Read More Camels and colosseums
As i prepared to make a new entry i found myself dismayed to discover that a keyboard in Tunisia follows the French model, ,amely confusing and with no apparent options to change texts without better French knowledge. To the point though, the weather here has been nice and has served to quickly roast me a… Read More Misbegotten French keyboards
left dublin yesterday (thats the celtic version of the name up there) and headed to the slightly warmer, equally rainy, environs of stuttgart. it is a great relief to know that my baggage and worldly goods are in a place where i neednt worry constantly about them. the same bag was lost and returned to… Read More goodbye baile atha cliath, hello stuttgart
my arrival in dublin was anti-climactic, a welcome relief from the portly teenager i sat next to from chicago across the pond. the airport istelf was lettle more than a small pit stop, a surprise considering it serves as the gateway for the entire island. to top that off, one of my two bags was… Read More Emerald Isle
Zak Abroad 