Free Republic

9-11 affected many people in many different ways. Heart for Africa is one way one person dealt with that fateful day. Her name is Janine Maxwell and her story is "Its Not Okay With Me". Her story is gut wrenching and mind boggling. My story that follows is a happy, travel adventure for your reading pleasure. I hope you will read both stories, mine for entertainment and her's as a call to action. I hope you visit the website www.heartforafrica.org and make a difference. We are so lucky, so fortunate, to live in the USA. Please don't take that for...

Here we go yet again. This time we were off for a week in Italy - Rome, Venice, and Milan with our Rick Steve's Travel Guides in hand. Of all the places we've been so far, the books paid off handsomely in Italy. And next to the Swedes up in Kiruna, the Italians are some of the nicest Europeans we've met to date. No wonder so many Americans were there at the same time as we were. We land in Rome in the evening and catch a cab to the hotel. What can you say about Italian cab drivers? After...

At the end of March, Admiral Peary , Frosty , and myself flew up to Kiruna, Sweden, the home of the famous Ice Hotel, the world largest deep mine, and the area known as Lapland. It was an hour and 20 minute flight from Stockholm and took us inside the Arctic Circle. We were as far north as the Brooks Range in Alaska. Now Kiruna Airport, what can I say but its a riot. It has one arrival lounge and one departure lounge, and had one plane (ours) at it. They rolled up steps and unloaded people from the front...

American Family Vacation African Safari Spring 2006 Kenya and Zanzibar Seriously abridged version - April 5th, 2006 In my opinion, an African Safari has something for everybody. True, Mowgoli and I are big Animal Planet and Discovery Channel fans, but Dr. Livingston also enjoyed getting out and seeing everything from the animals to the beautiful sunsets. One of our safari books took the idea of making multiple visits to Africa, first to see the big game, then on following visits to pay more attention to the smaller animals, the birds, the plants, and the people. I disagree so I think...

For privacy purposes and since its Russia, I'll be Natasha and we'll have Boris and Boris Junior OK? We went to Russia. I can't believe we went to Russia. Did I say we went to Russia? Never in a million years would I have believed I'd be able to say, "I went to Russia". Now that I've gotten that off my chest... Getting a visa to go to Russia was very interesting. Someone told me it was their revenge for the American visa process. Needless to say, it cost about $130 each and wanted to know everything from education, military,...

Again, I'll try, through all my writing, to cover the things you won't read about in a tour book. Sometimes I feel like a sponge that just can't hold another drop. To start, after all the invites to come and see the UK, we finally were able to schedule a long weekend and hop a flight from Stockholm to London. Two hours away, just two hours. Being in Europe is making hitting these cities a cakewalk. OK, a little background. The "Smith" family came to the States a few years ago and spent some time with us. Since that time,...

I'm posting this because after I finished the latest Harry Potter and started talking with friends along the entire East Coast, I realized that most had a different take on the plot than I did. But first, for those persons out there that think the Harry Potter books are dangerous and should be banned, go back to your remote and ask your doctor to check the level of your meds. Its a story and if you take out all the imaginative settings and characters, its about teenagers growing up, dealing with crushes, rivalries, relationships, their futures, death of parents, realizing...

All the names have been changed. This is MY VIEW - MY EXPERIENCE - MY OPINION. I write to friends and family back home on a monthly basis. After seeing someone else post their trip experience out here, I thought this might be of interest to someone who was curious about a trip to Egypt. Hurghada and Luxor Egypt March 2005 First, I must say that as I'm sitting down to write this, I decided for the first time in my writing to change names and hide some details (but you'll be reading a lot of details anyway because these...