by Stephanie Block My grandmother was born in Shanghai, China, around the turn of the twentieth century. and she died before I ever got to meet her, choking on a fishbone in the middle of a dinner party in Oahu. Everyone’s jaws drop when I mention the countries that have hosted my fair-skinned, almond-eyed family:…
Rich Arabian nights and delicious jasmine days…it’s easy for a Diva to find solace in an Egyptian palace at the foot of the Great Pyramids. As the round, burnt-orange sun falls behind the rolling Egyptian sands, palm trees glow with the reflection of the day’s heat. It is 2004, and the same sun that set…
The lessons I’ve learned by flying solo The morning of my solo check-flight arrived with an unpleasant gusting 18-knot wind. I stood on the tarmac and surveyed the gusts, 2 knots faster would force me to cancel my check flight – the Cessna I flew could not handle 20-knot winds hitting the side of the…
by Kisha Montgomery The other night, I went with a local NGO to warn street children in Durban that the police were planning a raid the next day to sweep about forty of them off the street. Typically, the police will gather the children in vans. They will then either trump up charges and send…
by Eva Kent Picking up the VIA Destinations magazine from the ticket counter at the train station, I saw that the main topic of the September issue was “What Do Men Want?” I realized this would make for painful reading material. The night before I had been stood up by a Canadian guy I really…
by Audrey Mei At 9:30 a.m., Sunday, November 1, 1755, Lisbon was struck by the first of three earthquakes, the third of which succeeded in reducing the bustling town—a center of wealth and culture—to rubble. The stone roofs of the churches came tumbling down onto the thousands of churchgoers who had congregated to worship All…
by Genice Jacobs In 2004, Genice Jacobs traveled halfway around the world to Almaty, Kazakhstan to adopt her daughter Jiana. She kept a blog to record her journey, both to Central Asia and to motherhood. Saturday, November 13, 2004 The Beginning: Thinking, Planning, and Worrying It’s been a long, windy, and fortunately not-too-bumpy road since…