As the lights came on at the Teatro Nacional in Habana, I wasn’t sure if I was in Cuba or the U.S. The audience was Caucasian, well dressed, with an air of sophistication and worldliness. I had just seen excerpts from Giselle, performed by the famous Cuban National Ballet, and again the dancers were all […]
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Once Upon A Time in Cuba 2013
I wonder if it’s better to leave a place with great memories or to return and be completely disenchanted with what it has become. I would soon have an answer to this question. After a nine year absence and ten trips to Cuba between 1995-2004, my curiosity finally lured me back. I was on my […]
Albania.. the third visit 2019
The sky was very dark when the hydrofoil from Corfu docked in Saranda, Albania. The trip took 30 minutes; so close to Greece but before 1991, a world away. Albania had been ruled from 1943-1985 by the Soviet style dictator Enver Hoxha, who closed the country off from the world. The first time I visited […]
The Old GDR Today
Soon after I arrived in Berlin, my German friend suggested I go with her to Frankfurt Oder, a town about an hour north of Berlin, once part of the GDR. While she met with union members at the local hospital, I could wander around, exploring and even walk across the border on the bridge to […]