We arrived in Paris under dark skies. Charles-de-Gaulle airport still feels like a futuristic city, some thirty years after it was built. After we had found our simple hotel in the (what else?!) 7tharrondissement (this refers to the unique and, for outsiders, somewhat confusing neighbourhood system in Paris that looks like a snail on the […]
Early in the morning of our event day, we took the scenic route from Munich to Schwangau and Neuschwanstein Castle, and what a ride it was through the valleys at the bottom of the Alps and through the forests of southern Bavaria! As we got closer to Schwangau, the weather got better and better and—most […]
October 3 is a national holiday in Germany, the Day of Reunification of West and East Germany and the Bavarians had decided to extend Oktoberfest by 2 days, ending on this holiday. Enough reason for us to postpone the World Tour event at Neuschwanstein Castle to Wednesday, October 4. As the saying goes, and it […]
Surprise, surprise … at 5 am, the day broke promisingly with a dark blue sky…I can not believe that we could be having such luck again like in Istanbul! But, yes, as the day awoke, it became a perfect and calm day. At 7, we presented ourselves with van and trailer at the gates of […]
Rain…rain and more rain in Rome? Yes! At least our colorful and trendy hotel made up a bit for the gray weather. Even so, when I looked out of my window, I gazed right at a wall that made me think it must be like this in the worst Moscow suburban ghetto. Felt like being […]
Out of nowhere, and like a shooting star from the sky, on our very last morning in Moscow … an American (of all things!!) in Russia, David called me on my mobile, he cannot read Tia, our PR person’s, mobile number on the fax we sent late yesterday and was running late to their 6.15 […]
Our first meeting at RIAN seemed to be a good start in the week, with two young and very bright Russians, Evgenia and Vladimir, both handling international relations. They did their best, but even they could not cut through the bureaucracy of the Kremlin security in time (N7W had asked for permits to film at […]
Moscow has an amazingly multi-racial population. If you thought that all Russians look alike, well exactly the opposite is the case. From the Mongol influence, with almond eyes and black hair, to the blondes with blue eyes or a far more southern look with brown hair and dark eyes, everyone is different in Moscow. It […]
To our great surprise, we were greeted by a most friendly, young Russian immigrations officer and went through immigration in only 10 minutes. Even the luggage was already on the belt by the time we got there … with one exception—one of my bags was missing! Maybe it had gotten lost in the jam of […]
Here is a very nice story for kids and animal lovers: Apparently, one of the Sultans was fed up with the stray animals in town and ordered that they be all rounded up and taken out of town. The citizens refused to obey and decided to take care of them. Even today, Istanbul’s stray dogs […]