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When I took Latin in high school, I learned the acronym FRIPS for the five Romance languages, derived from Latin: French, Romanian, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. So here we are in Romania, and I can recognize half the written words. I didn’t know much about Romania before. In my five days here, I have learned a lot. My naïve preconception was that Romania was inhabited by gypsies and peasants. Wow, was I wrong! We traveled a bit in the province of Transylvania and saw some older traditional houses. But the residents had every modern convenience. So let me declare, Romania is a modern, sophisticated, highly developed, relatively affluent country, not at all like the outdated memories of its Communist decades. . .

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My blogs are intended to share my international travel experiences for readers who might never visit the places I describe. I try to include historical, political, and cultural observations when I am able to do so without too much background research. Photos are included in the associated gallery.

I first heard of Cape Verde Islands in the title of a jazz composition by pianist Horace Silver, The Cape Verdean Blues. 

In this post, based on what I learned during our Viking River Cruise from Bucharest to Budapest, I will attempt something very difficult: to explain the history of the Balkan countries in a short essay. This journey up the Danube River has been an amazing history lesson. I’ve learned that the Balkan situation is even more complicated than the Middle East, because the Middle East crisis escalated mostly in the last century, whereas the Balkan region has been at war for more than a millennium. . .

Photos from Jordan and Israel.

We began our China tour in the capital city of Beijing.  Though Beijing is a city of 21 million people, it is very clean and efficient...much above my expectations which were colored by my experience of the crowded cities in India.  We toured the famous Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square on our first day, and on the second day we toured a section of the Great Wall of China.

The city of Hue is located approximately in the middle of Vietnam and was the seat of royal power from the 19th and into the 20th centuries.  There were thirteen kings who reigned from Hue.  Many of the ancient structures were destroyed during the Vietnam-American War, which have since been restored.  The photos show scenes from the Imperial Palace as well as the three hundred-year-old Buddhist pagoda.

Chinese opera is a long-established unique Chinese cultural expression.  The stage and costumes are over-the-top.  The music is stunning...for non-Chinese an acquired taste.  

Pandas are China's cultural symbol of its diplomatic efforts to promote peace through cultural exchanges.  The US has hosted pandas on loan for many years, as well as pandas loaned to other countries.  They are so cute.  But we must remember that they are a species of bear.  They are not aggressive.  But they can be dangerous under certain circumstances.