"Home sweet home" tiganeasca's Profile

Renee used to be with me in the picture above. (She is quite shy, however, and asked that I find another picture. Since we both liked the picture, though, we just decided that she would walk away ;-)) We were married in January 2005 on a beautiful sunny day in southern California. We met on a trip to Tibet and, needless to say, that destination has a truly special meaning for us both. We had both been to Nepal before and loved it and returned independently, only to meet in Kathmandu on the same Sierra Club trip to Tibet. See...travel is clearly the most enriching experience of all!

My Tibet travelogue is too long to post on VT. As a result, I have posted it on the website of the Nepali company that our group used. (Write me for more info.) Check my Tibet pages for some pictures and highlights (and a link to the travelogue). I have cannibalized the essay and used the highlights for travelogues here as well as posted a lot of new tips. I hope you enjoy them--and I really do want to know if they're helpful. Thanks!

Speaking of travelogues, you will find many on my pages. I originally wrote them to share my trips with friends and family who liked to enjoy my trips vicariously. As a result, you'll find travelogues on a number of my pages and they are often quite long (Romania, for example, is the result of two trips totalling five weeks and is broken into nine parts!). I hope you enjoy reading them and I encourage you to write with questions, corrections, comments, etc.

For those who are interested in the name I have chosen for VT: "tiganeasca" is a Romanian word; the first letter is not a "T" (I cannot reproduce it here with its proper diacritical mark--it is a "T" with a little curlicue underneath); it is pronounced like "ts" and it means (among other things) the language spoken by the Roma (or gypsies). I chose the name in honor of my affection for Romania and its people.

Outside Tingri, Tibet

VT is an extraordinary place. Since I joined VT, I have been rewarded many times over with the generosity, thoughtfulness, and kindness of those who began as strangers and have become friends.

I have discovered people who share my great attachment to Romania (even my very special interest in its gypsy music), my abiding love for the land and people of Nepal, my passion for Chicago, my interest in my family's roots in Belarus and Lithuania, not to mention my general curiosity with cultures all over the world from Bolivia to Iran.

Visiting others' pages continues to be both energizing and awe-inspiring. There are so many fascinating people, wonderful stories, and exquisite photographs that it is a pleasure every time to just sit and surf through all of your pages. Thanks for contributing.

I've included a number of travelogues about my visits to Romania, Nepal, Krakow, Prague, Belarus, Montana, Moscow, and Budapest as a quick way for others to share my experiences. I have also added several photo galleries and hope that they will be interesting viewing.

I also love Chicago and would be more than pleased to help any and all visitors who have questions.

Read, enjoy, and, if the spirit moves you, write!
Thanks for visiting.

Dave

Church in Maramures, Romania

This is one of my favorite poems...and reflections...

Ithaca
Konstantinos Kavafis
(known in the West as Constantine Cavafy)

When you start on your journey to Ithaca,
then pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
Do not fear the Lestrygonians
and the Cyclops and the angry Poseidon.
You will never meet such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your body and your spirit.
You will never meet the Lestrygonians,
the Cyclopes and the fierce Poseidon,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not raise them up before you.

Then pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many,
that you will enter ports seen for the first time
with such pleasure, with such joy!
Stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and corals, amber and ebony,
and pleasurable perfumes of all kinds,
buy as many pleasurable perfumes as you can;
visit hosts of Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from those who have knowledge.

Always keep Ithaca fixed in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for long years;
and even to anchor at the isle when you are old,
rich with all that you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would never have taken the road.
But she has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not defrauded you.
With the great wisdom you have gained, with so much experience,
you must surely have understood by then what Ithacas mean.

(translation by Rae Dalven)

A short winter stroll in St. Petersburg

Some things are universal, such as this mother and child out for a walk on a cold winter's day in St. Petersburg, Russia. As I note on my St. Petersburg page, children are generally extremely well cared for in Russia. The care and attention and love that they receive is impressive and, seeing this child, lovingly dressed, only confirmed what I saw so often.

Sunset in Nepal

Another wonderful reflection, from Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift From the Sea

"It is difficult today to leave one's friends and family and deliberately practice the art of solitude, for an hour or a day or a week. And yet, when it is done, I find there is a quality to being alone that is incredibly precious. Life rushes back into the void, richer, more vivid, fuller than before....
It is not physical solitude that actually separates one from other men, not physical isolation, but spiritual isolation. It is not the desert island nor the stony wilderness that cuts you from the people you love. It is the wilderness in the mind, the desert wastes in the heart through which one wanders lost and a stranger. When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others. How often, in a large city, shaking hands with my friends, I have felt the wilderness stretching between us. Both of us were wandering arid wastes, having lost the springs that nourished us--or having found them dry. Only when one is connected to one's own core is one connected to others, I am beginning to discover. And for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude."