Category: culture
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Brooklyn, New York
Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church, Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY, where I was married in 1988. I have been traveling to Brooklyn all my life. My maternal uncle, Jack Waldron, was a Catholic priest who dedicated his life to serving folks in Brooklyn, particularly those with fewer financial resources, who spoke Spanish, or who…
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Ithaca – Finger Lakes – FLX
When I returned from Chicago I saw things at home in a new way. This is natural: absence makes the heart grow fonder, as they say! After feeling gratitude for my friends, the quiet was the first thing I noticed. So much noise pollution where we lived in Chicago. The next thing I felt happy…
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Pompeii Exhibit
The Museum of Science and Industry had lots of cool stuff, but my interest was the Pompeii exhibit. There were artifacts borrowed from other museums and lots of commentary and videos to put things in context. I remember joyfully learning about Pompeii in 6th grade; this brought back all that excitement. The one upsetting part…
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The Arts, Part 2 – Performances on Stage and Screen
I enjoyed a number of different performances over the course of the summer. Comedy Musical dramas West Side Story Hadestown To Kill a Mockingbird Opera (filmed and shown in the theater) The Barber of Seville Movies I went to so many movies! Of course Barbiheimer was all the rage this summer, but I also saw:…
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Non-verbal communication
I knew spoken and written language could be an issue for me as I traveled. I have the privilege of speaking English, which many folks around the world know, but I wanted to know some basic “please” and “thank you” in other languages so I didn’t feel *completely* like an imperialist! I had always loved…
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Tools for eating
I left you all before I finished telling you about some odds and ends! As you know, eating wonderful food was a highlight of my trip. Since the countries I visited had very different cultures, the utensils for eating varied quite a bit. I expected to mostly eat with chopsticks. I fancy myself an expert,…
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Garbage collection in Taipei
When Johne first invited me to Taipei, he listed various tourist attractions he wanted to show me, then he said, “And then we will watch trash collection.” I thought he was joking, but it is seriously cool! In the places I have lived in the US (NY, Iowa, Colorado, Massachusetts and Minnesota) trash collection was…
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Temple of the Tooth
I have enjoyed all the temples and mosques I visited throughout my trip, but the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy was particularly special. It houses a tooth of Buddha, so people make pilgrimages to it. We went in the evening so it would be cool. The tradition in Sri Lanka is to wear white…
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Chichen Itza
Learning about different cultures – and feeling some shame about my ignorance- continued when we visited Chichen Itza. First, I always thought this was a pyramid. Not! It is a government building that just has a similar shape to the Egyptian pyramids. Second, I didn’t know it was one of the 7 wonders of the…
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Cenote
According to Wikipedia, “A cenote is a natural pit, or sinkhole, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater. The regional term is specifically associated with the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, where cenotes were commonly used for water supplies by the ancient Maya…” We loved the one we visited. I had heard from…
MB Meets World 