7th-Son's VirtualTourist Home Page

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New pharmaceutical for happiness...

Forty countries and still trekking...

I browsed this website by accident. For those who believe there are NO accidents, well... ;-)

I've traveled through or lived or worked in +40 countries. Combine that with two Graduate degrees and you can probably ask me all kinds of fun travel questions. I make a great travel guide. But knowing that good teachers are also good students, you should expect me to ask you plenty of questions, too! :-)

Although I'm fluent only in English I can ask in Spanish, "How much is a room? Is the food good? -and- Doesn't that prostitute look like a man?!" (grin) I can curse well in Arabic, say I love you ten ways, sing a French song and speak commands to my dog in Russian... ;-)

My favorite places have been: Helsinki and the Arctic Circle in Finland (it wasn't just a "midnight sun" but sunlight for 24 hours - very intense!), the Dalmatian Coast of the former Yugoslavia, and running like a madman through Amstelveen Park in Netherlands, . Every place has it's distinctions, every person is unique. I never met a place I didn't like, well...

Another epiphany was just sitting in the sculpture park in Oslo, watching a tall red-haired girl eating a peach. And the best meal was not in a Michelin guide Parisian restaurant but at a buffet in a Helsinki hotel called the "Fisherman's Cottage" - which had neither fishermen nor cottages!

But my favorite generic dining experience is simply to buy some charcuterie and patisserie in Paris, climb to the top of Le Sacre Couer and eat my lunch al fresco.

My favorite views, ironically, were not the Swiss Alps or the Norwegian Fjords, which although sublime couldn't match the coastal dunes on the Oregon Coast, the Gorge near Portand, the 5-mile (!) bridge crossing in Astoria, or the ferry crossing in the Juan de Fuca Straits between the Olympus Mountains in Washington and Victoria, BC! Sitting on a cliff's edge in Har Ramon, Israel gave me the feeling that I imagine Moses must have had when he was there 3,000 years prior -- and I'm not even religious!

I've never been to but would really like to visit: Anghor Wat in Cambodia, take a Yangtze River cruise before they flood the new dam, and see Auckland. This summer I'm still hoping for a visit to Bucharest, Constanta, Varna & Odessa, if there's still the Black Sea Ferry.

Well, that's all for now. Hope you're all well and that things calm down a little on this planet.. Carpe Diem!