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This blog describes a visit to ancient Petra and a conference of Middle East Nurses United in Human Caring.

Our recent trip to Georgia and Alabama was our first occasion to travel since Susan and I arrived back from Israel, Jordan, India, Dubai, and Nashville on March 5, 2020.  Society, including our company, Healing Healthcare Systems, shut down totally at the end of that week...

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.

Welcome to a quick visual tour of Abu Dhabi. All of the photos below were taken in the course of a two hour bus tour of downtown Abu Dhabi, which is the capital of the seven member confederation, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Many years ago, I was told the following joke which highlights Scandinavian cliché stereotypes: In a ferry sailing on the Baltic Sea, two Danes, two Norwegians, two Finns, and two Swedes walk into the bar. The two Danes clap each other on the back. . .

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let me declare, Romania is a modern, sophisticated, highly developed, relatively affluent country, not at all like the outdated memories of its Communist decades. . .

Susan and I had such a good time in our six weeks in Mumbai, that we plan to come again in November for another six weeks. Following a description of our time in Mumbai, this blog introduces the amazing sculptures of Khajuraho...erotic sculptures unique in the world.

Thousands of terracotta warriors were made and buried over two thousand years ago, but they were only discovered in 1974 when some farmers were digging a well.  They are buried 2-3 meters deep.  They were arranged in a classic large army formation, with the lowest rank soldiers in front, backed by archers and chariots, with the generals in the rear.  This is a unique human creation in the world.

At every Viking port, several different excursions with local guides are offered.  We didn’t want to visit another winery or cattle farm.  So we chose a city tour which included a tango performance.  Our local tour guide began by acknowledging that Uruguay is not a tourist “destination”...