'Staying Alive By Not Staying Still'
My Russian artist friend Kirilll Stefanov *(yes, three lll’s at the end of his first name) was perusing his online portfolio of art works when he serendipitously discovered a sketch that he didn’t recognize right away.
It was the impromptu work (above) that I’m so proud to own!
Thin ice was crusting along the shoreline of the Kemijoki, the river running through the city of Rovaniemi.
Beyond the shore the river was freezing but flowing freely through the Arctic Circle city, the capital of the Lapland region of Finland, said to be the true home of Santa Claus.
It was evening and, though not yet 7, had been dark for several hours in the absence of the waning Autumn sun of the earth’s far north.
Snow clouds occluded whatever celestial light might have broken through, though city lights on the opposite shore from a nearby change house penetrated the darkness.
What a great night for a swim!
I knew it was coming. My Finnish friend Minna had warned me.
I arrived in Rovaniemi two days earlier and she was already inviting me to perhaps the most challenging counter yet to my normal, warm climate comfort-zone ways of travel.
I was living in New Delhi, India, in May, resting after a long, grueling trip through Egypt, Zimbabwe and Zambia. But I needed to make a visa run somewhere and Kathmandu, Nepal, seemed the likeliest choice of destinations.
I had time to spend in Nepal but wasn’t up physically or mentally for a full-on Mount Everest trek. Basically I just wanted a taste of the city to satisfy the visa requirement for returning to India.
I booked a room outside the city center and began exploring Nepal’s capital city by foot, as I’m used to doing in most places I visit, wandering about the neighborhoods, thoroughfares and backstreet corners of the city looking for interesting things. There was plenty of that.
An unfortunate thing about nomadic travel is that we tend to lose track of friends as fast as we make them.
I met Kirill Stefanov, an artist, in a hostel in Cairo.
It was March, he was friendly, his English was good and we’d talk.
He was often on the phone with his wife and children in Russia. He’d left his home shortly before the fighting started in the Ukraine to look for a place to relocate his family safely before the shooting started. He wanted a flat and a small studio where he could pursue his talent. But by then the shooting had started and he was stuck, uncertain how or when he’d be united with his family again.
I wished him luck and left Cairo in pursuit of my journey, which I felt almost ashamed to continue in light of Kirill’s plight. I lost track of him but often think about him. I haven’t had any contact with him since I left the hostel and all I can do is hope that he’s found some way home, either in or out of Russia, and that he and his family are safe.
I was in a tour van — called a “marshrutka” here — on my way to a hiking trip in Northern Georgia’s Truso Valley earlier this year when I first saw the Russia-Georgia Friendship Monument.
It’s an impressive if not gaudy decoration dominating the stunningly beautiful Devil’s Valley among the sprawling misty green Caucasus mountains. It was a joint project of the two countries, built in 1983 along the Georgia Military Road to celebrate “ongoing friendship” between what were then the Soviet states of Russia and Georgia, and the Treaty of Georgievsk‘s bicentennial anniversary.
Hollywood stars Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, recently married and honeymooning in France, were spotted having lunch Tuesday at an alfresco dining area overlooking the Napoleon Courtyard of the Louvre Museum in Paris.
The courtyard features the museum’s iconic glass-and-metal pyramid, designed by Chinese-American I.M. Pei, where visitors enter the museum.
Meanwhile, I’m attending a travel-memoir writing workshop this week in Paris with travel writer Rolf Potts.
This post will be mostly photos taken Monday, my first full day in Athens, being a tourist, hiking from my apartment 3.5 kilometers to the bustling city center where history comes alive, as tour books may suggest.
My aim, however, especially on the Acropolis, was to remove the ubiquitous tourists themselves, the scaffolding and equipment in place for the ongoing renovations of the ancient site, the lighting fixtures for the evening shows, and any other visual intrusions that would mar a clear view of the magnificent, historic antiquities on display there for clutter-free photos.
Not an easy task.
But first let me tell you my revelation of the day.
I’m still pulling my hair out with Chase, the credit card company: This latest chapter is too crazy to pass up! Let me know if you have had a similar experience.
Now that I’m 70 years old, I have the pleasure of being targeted with age discrimination by travel insurance companies.
Happy New Year, 2022! Forty-seven years ago I was a recent college grad, about to begin a long career as a journalist starting in New Jersey, then California, then to …