Category: STORIES
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County Galway | The Gig Rig Comes to Town
Their feet move like lightning, twirling and tapping, and springing into the air. It’s not Riverdance. It’s the villagers of Clifden, County Galway, Ireland, where dancing seems to be woven into the fabric of their everyday lives. It was a rainy Friday afternoon, but folks of all ages, shapes, and sizes, came out for the…
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Connemara | A Savage Beauty
I’m a “details” kind of person . . . my eagle eye can spot a treasure among any flea market heap. Because of this, I find myself dumbstruck among vast expanses of scenery. Nowhere was this more true than in the extraordinary Connemara region of Ireland. There’s a road, aptly called Sky Road, that curves…
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Ireland | Two Days, Three Counties | Day Two
Ireland is the living, breathing definition of the word “enchanting.” Just look at the scene above if you have any doubt. (Truth be told I was in such a state of euphoria that I first thought the white horse might be a unicorn.) Okay, let’s get back to reality, and the two day, three county…
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Ireland | Two days, Three Counties | Day One
Ireland is a country full of wonderfulness, split up into charming counties that each have multitudes of things to see and do. Really, you could spend months there and not see everything. As it happens, I had two days.
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Ireland | Sculpt it and they will come
Alongside a desolate road in the wilds of Connemara, Ireland, is this enormous stone sculpture of a mythical giant. The tourist guides say that if you touch his hand, you will have good luck. You probably think it’s an ancient Gaelic effigy with historical implications like the Blarney Stone. Think again. This is the most…
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Dublin | Little Girl, Big Talent
When I saw the little girl with the pony tail setting up her microphone on Grafton Street in Dublin, I thought, “How cute.” When she opened her mouth to sing, a song that she had written herself, I was mesmerized. Ashley is nine years old. The schoolgirl from Mullingar, Ireland, picked up her sister’s guitar…
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Ireland | Green, green Éire
“Dear Erin, how sweetly thy green bosom rises! An emerald set in the ring of the sea. Each blade of thy meadows my faithful heart prizes, Thou queen of the west, the world’s cushla ma chree.* ” John Philpot Curran (1750-1817) Irish politician and orator From County Cork to Connemara, I was struck by the…
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Taj Mahal: The Photo Shoot
With great reverence, I walked towards the Seventh Wonder of the World, the marvelous monument to undying love, the exquisitely carved massive marble dome glowing in the sunset…but where there’s tourists you just can’t take anything too seriously. It was the week of Diwali, one of India’s two most important holidays. Everyone was on vacation,…
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India | Road Trip
You have to see it to believe it. Driving through India was like one of those Crazy Taxi driving video games, where there’s always something, or someone, in the road that you have to swerve around, and where the terrain is like a roller coaster. It’s both terrifying and fascinating at the same time.
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Italy | Miss GPS and Me
Driving in Italy, rule one: Have a GPS. Rule two: Listen to it. Rule three: Try not to let it drive you mad.
