CYMRU on the Mall

Last night, I gave my two-part lecture at the Smithsonian all about WALES and what a lovely country it is. On the way there I stopped for a look at the Smithsonian Folk Life festival that's roaring full tilt on the mall right now. How splendid it was to see all of the red and white tents and hear Welsh being spoken over the loudspeakers--so cool! If you get a chance, head down and check it all out. Thanks again to everyone who helped me out with my trip to Wales in April and everyone at the Smithsonian. I appreciate your wonderful support and interest in my travels! Talking about Wales made me miss it all the more and realize that there are still many corners for me to unravel, so . . .watch out Cymru, "I'll be back."

Bollywood Beauty

Shuchitra Pellai, Bollywood actress, singer and dancer extraordinaire.

Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright

Made it to the middle of India--Modhya Pradesh, and whaddya know, I was riding on the back of an elephant and saw this gorgeous adult male tiger. The video's fuzzy, but the tiger was not.

INDIA, Finally

Writing this from the Vienna airport--a place with lots of deep travel memories stretching back a good 15 years. I am on my way to deepest, darkest (and hottest) India to complete a swirl of assignments.

I've dreamt of visiting India my whole life, and now that it's actually happening, it feels a bit like a dream. I expect the dream-like state to continue for a long time. But still, I am thrilled.

Geographic Dissonance

Bright May has arrived in Washington, DC and the city is all flowers and people in tank tops smiling. I bought a bike to ride outside in the streets and put away all my mittens and woolly hats. Meanwhile, I am feeling a bit snowed under by several competing deadlines. I'm learning to mentally dart from one place to the next--this week my mind will be focused on Iceland, the Indian Ocean, then South America, then Russia, and ending with Africa. It's an odd feeling to be sitting at my desk, totally entrenched in one place, looking at the saucy stains on my notebooks and remembering what I was thinking and feeling when I was in that one place, and then get up from my desk and return to sunny spring in Washington. Of course, this all leads to a healthy amount of introspective behavior, but isn't that how blogs originated?

So today I am [my mind is] in Russia. Moscow--to be precise; writing a feature and having these little trickles of memories of that place, most of which involve snow and ice and that poetic humdrum of Russian winter. Meanwhile, the American sun is beating down on the right side of my face in a most un-Russian way. I love this picture because it capture so perfectly the matching hue of sky and ground--two stripes of white--a scene I know all to well from the many winters spent in Eurasia.

Live @ the Smithsonian

Now that I'm back from Wales, it's officially official: on June 25th, I'll be talking for TWO whole hours at the Smithsonian all about gorgeous Wales. I feel honored to have been asked and even more honored to be part of the much larger Smithsonian Folk Life Festival, for which Wales is the featured country this year. Until then, I will be fretting in my attempts to squeeze such a massive little country into two tiny hours and trying to brush up on my scant Welsh.

Iceland in Polish

My Iceland book was just released in Polish and showed up on my doorstep looking bright and colorful and fantastic. Thanks to National Geographic for doing a superb job, as always. I don't know if there are as many Poles as there were the last time I was there. Foreign language editions of guidebooks are rarely, if never, dedicated, but if I could include a dedication, it would be shared by the Polish motorcyclist who rode his bike from Gdansk to Hofn, via Sweden, Norway, and the Faroe Islands, along with the geography class of middle-schoolers from Warsaw who took the ship with me from Denmark. Dziekuje!