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24/09/2018

What can I say - I like to feel cold on vacation

20/08/2018

Great story on NPR this morning. Though I still think vacations should be longer.

Americans forfeited about 200 million days of paid vacation leave last year. And many U.S. workers now take shorter, partial-week vacations. But even a mini-break can be good for your health.

24/01/2018

Planning a summer vacation? Now is a good time to book your trip to the Azores.

Isle of the ocean, say, whence comest thou? The smoke thy dark throne, and the blaze round thy brow; The voice of the earthquake proclaims thee abroad, And the deep, at thy coming, rolls darkly and loud.

19/11/2017

The palace in Udaipur is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It looks like it is made of sugar and air. Very sad to have so little time in this romantic city.

14/11/2017

Greetings from Jaipur! Exhausting first day in India.

15/06/2017

New article on my site

The air around suddenly vibrated and tingled, as it were, like the air over intensely heated plates of iron. Beneath this atmospheric waving and curling, and partially beneath a thin layer of water, also, the whales were swimming. Seen in advance of all the other indications, the puffs of v***r they...

29/04/2017

In the last hours before my departure from Costa Rica I walked down to the Pre-Columbian Gold Museum. Located in a vast concrete basement, it contains a collection of ancient objects created by the indigenous people of modern day Costa Rica and preserved in a burial ground until the 20th century. As I gazed upon dozens of gold and copper miniatures, I saw many of the animals I had spent the week enjoying in the rainforest - humming birds, butterflies, eagles, toucans, bats, monkeys, crocodiles, armadillos, turtles, and countless frogs. Before European conquest, people used gold to represent nature and used these images as amulets and ceremonial devices for healing and spiritual and bodily transformation. After exterminating most of the native population, Europeans put gold to use as a different kind of spiritual tool - to finance religious wars, to erect enormous structures to glorify Jesus and the monarchy. Today, the descendants and heirs of European conquerors, among which we can count any resident of Europe and North America, are experiencing economic success but also a severe collective spiritual crisis. When the figure of a dying man became the leading conduit to God, where did we hope to arrive? When we turned away from nature as our God and proceeded to conquer it, what did we hope to achieve but our own extermination?

I looked at the gold animals for a long time. Tears flooded my eyes. I imagined that meeting, that moment when gold frogs were taken away from the hands that made them and melted down into money. I wondered if the ancient people knew the price we would pay for choosing this path.

28/04/2017

It's sloth time

28/04/2017

Can never have enough volcano

27/04/2017

Costa Rica magic

28/01/2017

Last day of vacation - two beautiful, fun dives, a nice bike ride and a wild beach. An island with 150 residents comes very close to heaven.