Mind you, I am not talking about normal Mexican things. I am not talking about things like stores never opening when they say they will. I am talking not about the traditional, provincial Mexican custom of never showing up on time for anything. I am not talking about never offering so much as a “How-Do-You-Do” when the kindly Mexican is asked why he didn’t call to cancel an appointment by his good anal-attentive American pal. That’s not what I mean.

I have been talking about things in my columns like getting shoved off the sidewalk into the path of a bus manned by someone who thinks he is a racecar driver. I am talking about calling for the bottled water to get delivered only to have it finally come after you’ve died from thirst and your body was shipped back to the States three months ago. That’s what I mean.

My friend sent me a story today. She is one who has finally admitted that perhaps my wife and I see this sort of stuff, and she doesn’t because she and her husband, in typical American expat fashion, stay pretty much holed up in their lavish estate (it isn’t really an estate but I am adding this in case she reads this-and she occasionally does) until they need something. When they venture out, when they pull themselves from their American TV channels beamed from space via satellite, they drive everywhere. They rarely walk so they seldom have the pleasure of being run over by a bus when a kindly Guanajuatense pushes them into its path.

Our friend went to the Mega Superstore today. Yes, gentrification has begun in Guanajuato with a superstore, on the scale of a Super Wal-Mart, to totally destroy a way of life and ancient culture in Guanajuato. She was in a line with just 7 people in it. A Mexican woman, with no groceries, was in line in front of her. When “her turn” came, she whipped out her cell phone and called her large extended family–comprised of several generations–to get up from the coffee shop and come up front to check out. So, here came her family, about 30 of them, with shopping carts full to overflowing, to cut in front of our friend and check out. Our friend did the “Guanajuato Shove” and cut in front of this woman saying, “Con Permiso” and checked out before she would have surely been thrown, shoved, and elbowed out of the way.

“In general, Mexicans are polite and formal when dealing with foreigners from the North. Newcomers from the States often take this treatment as friendliness, but it is far more complicated than that. Mexicans and other inhabitants of Latin America often wear a mask that
covers their true feelings.” – Ken Luboff

All sympathetic ranting and raving will be entertained and appreciated by phone or e-mail.

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The downside to this sexual openness is that it has resulted in the spread of sexually transmitted diseases including AIDS.

Despite this, female prostitution flourishes quite openly in streets and night clubs with most of these girls asking for as little as $20 for sex. Off course foreigners are often viewed as cash cow and therefore expected to pay a “special price” which could be anything between $50 – $100.

Male gigolos also ply their trade (mostly subtle) in beaches and beach resorts right across the continent.

If you are a woman and are traveling alone you may find your motives uncomfortably open to debate. In short, men will most likely consider you to be free and available and off course rich therefore a ticket to financial freedom. To ride the fairly constant attention you need to be confident with yourself and in your relations and dealings with others.
Should you come across overly persistent hasslers simply refuse to converse and you need not fear expressing your anger if it is how you feel. Asking other locals for help in ridding yourself of a leech also works.

A useful trick, that might help if you’re not married and are traveling alone is to wear a modest “wedding ring” and you really don’t need to go to the extreme of taking along a picture of a male friend with a husband-like message written on the back as proof.

Some female tourists to Africa arrive expecting sexual adventures that flirtatious pestering – irritating or amusing as it strikes you – is a fairly constant part of the scene, though machismo is rare. If you are a woman looking for a holiday affair, be aware that your lover more likely than not sells romance for a living.

You may be surprised to find out that male homosexuality is an accepted under-current in the Muslim areas of North Africa and along the coast of East Africa, although it’s officially illegal and could theoretically get you time in the slammer.Attitudes elsewhere can be even more unenlightened, and many people don’t even believe in the existence of homosexuality. The exception being South Africa, where same sex couples have the same rights as heterosexual couples under law. Obviously, if you’re out in the sticks in South Africa you might encounter some less tolerant attitudes, but in places like cape Town you’ll find a thriving gay nightlife. Elsewhere on the continent gay nightlife tends to be far more secretive and even seedy.

Finding cheap accommodation can also be a problem for two men wanting to share a room, as few guest house outside North Africa will allow this. For women sharing a room is fine and acceptable almost anywhere.

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You keep walking and you come to The Museum of History. Across the street there is WW1 memorial. There is another area if you keep going with more large bronze statues, but a foreigner must have a walking guide to show them military leaders former home and Lugansk famous people’s homes and old factories of military area.

The German hotel is the other beautiful building. There are little underground shopping malls beneath the main street of Lugansk. Also along the main street there are many nice restaurants serving many kinds of food.

There is the Russian drama theater and the Lugansk drama theater. There is also The Puppet Theater for ladies with children. The circus arena, the soccer stadium and a tennis-court there. A nice restaurant just in front of the stadium on the street. There’s so much beauty in Lugansk!

There is the University of teachers and the famous Rossiya dept store with it’s beautiful displays of merchandise. You can buy tickets to all entertainment events in the city on the second floor.(It is like ticket master in USA) only they hand you the tickets to any event. It is so convenient.

There are three good disco clubs and more if you ask the cab drivers. The one I went to is the 80’s music club which is the best one and has great lighting and music. Life starts after 10.00 pm and Thursday is a good day to go. The comedy club with the large stage is good and there is another on the north side with lots of mirrors. It is a large club with go-go dancers.

There is also the Art Museum where you can buy art, too. The Lugansk Region building, city hall, and regional sports building make good photo shoots as well as the many statues and older buildings in the factory neighborhoods. There is the open market street across from the Rossiya Dept store for several blocks. It is loaded with hundreds of shops and street vendors and thousands of people each day visit this area. It is fun just to walk up and down the street and visit the long malls which run parallel to the street.

I have mentioned quite a bit here. It kept me busy for 8 full days not including my arrival and departure days from Kiev and back again. Take a cab – cabs are inexpensive for westerners 15-25 Ukrainian dollars (hrivnas) to any club one way ($3-$5) pretty cheap. There are cabs everywhere you look.

OK, so I gave you many items of pleasure and don’t forget the ice cream – it is very tasty!!
Here are the main streets of Lugansk where I traveled. We went down the main side streets to connect. Geroev VOV , Sovetskaya street, Oboronnaya street, where Rossiya supermarket is. There is a casino next door, a bank machine, a workout gym across the street, restaurants, farmers market, street vendors, perfume store.

I love the underground malls – they are different. All the hundreds of street vendors and hundreds of small shops. I walked many, many kilometers for hours, it was quite an experience and I enjoyed it and food. My friends made me home made “Borsch” and the sour cream Summer soup, yummy!!!

And of course I can not keep silence: there are many beautiful women there! .

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1) The following will make you run screaming for the nearest taxi to get you to the airport for an emergency airlift back to the U.S.A.:

a. Large mountainous piles of dog poop on the sidewalks.

b. Pickup trucks parked in front of butcher shops with partially slaughtered, bloodied meat in the back.

c. Men, women, and children placing the snout of a pig onto a flour or corn tortilla, wrapping it, and then consuming it while making loud smacking and squishing sounds.

d. All the above.

2) The following will incite you to flapping your arms like a deranged windmill, cursing madly, and lecturing Mexicans in English (which they probably cannot comprehend):

a. Seeing a Mexican mother serving her child a taco for breakfast rather than Special K cereal with skim milk.

b. Seeing Mexicans eating a Styrofoam plate filled with refried beans, topped with the most virulent chilies, and chips morning, noon, and night.

c. Witnessing the rolling corn-on-the-cob shack woman slathering copious amounts of FAT FULL mayonnaise on corn on the cob and then stuffing it into the mouth of a 2-year-old.

d. None of the above since you come from America where more than 67% of the population is fatter than hogs and so what the hell do you know about good nutrition anyway!

3) You can tolerate the following without needing massive amounts of tranquilizers or an open-ended Prozac prescription:

a. Invisible marching drummer and bugle bands that you can hear every night starting at 7:30 p.m., playing the same hideously repetitive tune, from another dimension that is bleeding over into your reality (you hear them but they cannot ever be seen!).

b. Warfare-grade explosives being set off during the day or night for the advent of a fiesta which rattle windows, cause paintings to fall off the walls and jar you senseless.

c. Banshee screaming men roaming the streets as soon it is daylight screaming the words, “gas” and “water”.

d. Barking dogs, crowing roosters, quacking ducks and geese, screeching parrots, honking car alarms, all going off simultaneously outside your bedroom window at all possible hours of the day or night.

4) You find the following events thrilling:

a. Stores that never open (ever) at their posted hours.

b. Stores that never, ever post their hours.

c. Stores that will only carry a certain item once a year or never again as long as you both shall live.

d. Stores that play wild music so loudly that when your wife asks you something you can see her mouth move but hear nothing coming out of it.

5) You desire to move to Mexico is because:

a. You want to live in an established American expat community where Mexicans, like slaves, wait on you hand and foot for the rest of your life.

b. You want to help Americanize another Mexican town with all your American pathologies until the town is unrecognizable as Mexican.

c. You are on the lam from the law in more than one country for income tax evasion.

d. You want to help drive up the prices of real estate until no Mexicans living or who have ever lived could possibly afford to live in their own town.

Please answer all of these questions as honestly as possible and forward them to The President of the Republic of Mexico (whoever that turns out to be) in care of Mexico City, Mexico.

Your expatriation depends on it!

tm

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In recent years, canopy tours have become a favorite adventure for tourists in Puerto Vallarta. Originally developed in the rainforests of Costa Rica, canopy tours allow thrill-seeking travelers to ride pulley lines between platforms high in the trees. During the tours, helpful guides are on hand to help even the most timid participants make the most of the scenic experience. As you glide from tree to tree, the guides will also point out unique plant life and offer plenty of information about the rainforest’s extensive ecosystem. Though the activity might seem dangerous, each tour is supported by an incredible array of safety equipment and open to children six and older. Ask your concierge for tour recommendations as some tour companies will pick up outside the best resorts and discounts are often available to guests.

If you want to go deeper into the rainforest and see the remains of a once-prosperous mining town, take the 15 minute flight to San Sebastian. Though seeing the town of San Sebastian can be an eye-opening experience, the journey can be just as captivating. The short tour flights fly low over the mountains and the rainforest canopy, passing picturesque waterfalls and canyons. When you reach the remote village of 500 situated at over 4,300 feet, it might be hard to spot San Sebastian’s prosperous past. Yet, remnants of the 18th century silver boom that drew over 30,000 people to the area are hiding throughout the countryside. Today, the current residents embrace tourists and love to share stories with curious travelers. One of the most interesting characters is Pachita, a 92-year old woman who has spent her entire life in San Sebastian and works at the town’s quaint candy story. Most tours to San Sebastian also include a fresh-cooked meal at one of the town’s colonial haciendas.

If you want to experience the natural beauty of the rainforest at the ground level, there are a number of hiking and biking tours available in Puerto Vallarta. Most tour companies offer different excursions to suit all ages and skill levels. The most popular hiking tours generally last 2-3 hours and wind through incredible vegetation, while the advanced tours incorporate all the best sites of the rainforest and can last all day. Along the way, tour guides will point out interesting species and assist tourists in bird and animal watching. Mountain biking tours offer similar opportunities, yet some tours also allow guests to ride from the cobblestone streets of Puerto Vallarta directly into the mountains.

While most of the tours mentioned here will provide transportation from your resort and food throughout the day, there are a number of items you should bring along for a day in the rainforest. For your comfort, you should pack both sunscreen and insect repellent and apply each throughout the day. If you plan on taking a dip in any of the rainforest’s waterfalls or lagoons, you might want to pack a swimsuit and towel. To make the most of the scenery, you should also bring along binoculars and a camera to preserve the memories.

If you are looking for some unique outdoor activities for your trip to Mexico and Puerto Vallarta, look no further than mountains above the city. As the rainforest and all of its activities lie just a few miles from the luxurious resorts of Puerto Vallarta, this special destination is able to provide the best of both worlds unlike anywhere else.

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Well, and a circus they threw last night?.. Zero Gravity Circus provided 2.5 hours of jaw-dropping colorful and amazing entertainment, the more-than-capacity crowd at the Hall at Toronto’s downtown Steamwhistle Brewery was in absolute awe and cheering wildly.

When I got there at 7 pm things were a little more sedate. The stage was still being set up, and the bar area where the silent auction was going to be held had been set up already and a few G.A.P employees were around, finishing last-minute touches. The Silent Auction include a variety of fabulous items:

- G.A.P Adventures trips to Costa Rica & Peru
- A round trip air ticket Toronto to Lisbon with Air Transat
- A Stratford Theatre Get A Way – 2 tickets to the Stratford Theatre & overnight stay at Bentley’s
- Professional Chef services – a gourmet 4 course dinner for 4 in your home by Vanessa Yeung (Bistro at Home)
- A Fuji film digital camera -S3000
- A gift Certificate for a pair of Blunstone boots
- A framed Guatemalan Market Photo – by Paul Teolis
- Diesel Fitness Memberships
- Personal Training by Tranz4m Inc.
- Platinum Seats to an upcoming ACC event
- Hand Crafted Jewellery by Tanya Tkachenko
- Peruvian Woven Table linen made by The women of the Ccaccaccollo Community, weaving book &aArt piece by JJ Nicol
- A manicure & pedicure at the Beauty Exchange
- A Sky Dive from SWOOP – Independant Jump
- Dinner for 6 at the Bright Pearl Restaurant
- Dinner for 2 at Thuet Restaurant
- Dinner at Focaccia Restaurant

From about 8 pm onwards people started rolling in and the steady stream of onlookers didn’t stop. A violinist on stilts and two other colourful elevated characters were entertaining the pre-show crowd.

And when the show got going at about 9 pm, every seat in the house was full and people were standing on the sides and in the back of the theatre. In his welcome speech, Bruce even tried to persuade members of his staff to give up their chairs in return for a free beer at the Steamwhistle Brewery, that’ s how full the theatre was.

Bruce is certainly an icon in Toronto. One of Canada’s most successful entrepreneurs, he came from humble beginnings as a child of a Chinese-Trinidadian immigrant family who settled in Calgary. Blessed with a keen sense of adventure and entrepreneurial talent he left for the greener pastures of Toronto and in his early twenties he started G.A.P Adventures, now one of the world’s leaders in small group adventure travel and a company dedicated to social causes and environmentally sustainable travel. Bruce has won many prestigious awards for his entrepreneurial achievements and his dedication to social and environmental causes. No doubt he is a charismatic figure and the media’s extensive coverage of him attests to Bruce Poon Tip’s ability to fascinate a crowd.

After Bruce’s introductory words, we saw a just released film on the big screen about Planeterra’s initiatives in Cusco. The local director of the drop-in centre in Cusco spoke about the street children and images graphically illustrated the poverty of these children and the fact that this organization makes such a difference in these children’s lives by housing, feeding, educating and providing them with psychological support.

Then the big event was ready to kick off and the MCs, Foo and Feso, two theatrical clowns from Zero Gravity Circus, came out to welcome the crowd. Throughout the entire performance Feso never spoke while Foo talked a mixture of French and extraterrestrial gibberish, with the odd comprehensible English word thrown in to help the crowd get her point. Foo mainly relied on voice inflection, facial expressions, gestures and body language to make herself understood and the two provided a wonderful humoristic duo guiding the audience throughout the show.

At one point Foo called for a volunteer from the audience and a young man with a t-shirt saying “Bite Me’ got up on stage and joined the two MCs for a trick with a spinning plate on a stick. At various times during the show Feso juggled or did fire tricks and at some point he even included a running chain saw in his juggling act.

The first official act in the show was a Hula Hoop Act featuring a beautiful Oriental woman who at some point had in excess of 6 hula hoops twisting around her body at the same time. Her lithe body contorted itself in all sorts of virtually impossible shapes while she kept the hula hoops spinning, always with an angelic smile on her face.

Fire artists were next: 2 young women with lit fire boxes on wires were twirling their illuminated tools according to their choreography and came together in perfect unison. An aerial rope artist came out next and performed unbelieavable stunts, often suspended in the air by only one foot. A duo of plate spinners then had the crowd in awe when at some point they had 6 plates spinning on sticks that were mounted on a table, and 6 additional plates spinning on the table’s surface in between. Every few seconds they had to go back and re-spin the plates to make sure they wouln’t drop.

A real crowd pleaser was about to come up next: 4 young men, two dressed in red, and two dressed in dark colours came up and the stage was set for a mock gang fight. The crowd was certainly enthused about the macho performance that was about to unfold. Each duo performed floor acrobatics and break dances, summersaulting through the air, breakdancing on their backs or on one arm, and the mock confrontation of two imaginary gangs resulted in the total delight of the audience.

The next performance was called “aerial silks” and a woman was performing all sorts of aerial stunts on a red sheet of silk that had been lowered from the ceiling. After all this excitement, a brief 15 minute intermission helped to calm the crowd down and as people were filing out from the Hall into the bar area, I was listening to the audience’s amazed comments. Everyone enjoyed the show and was in awe at the unique high-quality of the performances.

When the crowd had settled in again after the intermission, Bruce and Elinor Schwob, one of Planeterra’s fundraisers, did a draw for door prizes. Tilleys Endurables had sponsored a door prize, G.A.P had sponsored a prize pack as well as the top door prize: a trip to the Galapagos Islands which was happily won by a woman from Cambridge, Ontario.

The show continued with a young acrobat that had an audience member toss him a volleyball which he caught and balanced on a stick that he was holding in his mouth. He then asked for another audience volunteer and a young woman reluctantly came up from the crowd, upon which he asked her to lay down. Then he picked up a metal ladder, climbed the ladder and balanced himself perfectely upright using little steps. And with these tiny steps he approached the young lady lying on the floor who was getting more anxious with every second. The acrobat successfully walked over her on the ladder without falling over or stepping on any parts of her body, but the tension and suspense was palpable.

A group of 5 gorgeous women was next, four of them, barefoot and dressed in purple gowns, performed a choreography on the floor while one women, dressed in striking lime green, performed acrobatics hanging from a red hoop. This was a very visually striking act as the group performed with perfect grace and harmony.

A contortion duo with candelabras was next: 2 young exotic women, one had already ratpured the crowd with the hula hoop show earlier, performed floor acrobatics with lit candelabras on their heads, in their feet and in their hands. They twisted themselves into impossible body positions while always maintaining the lit candelabras upright. At certain points they were balancing four lit candelabras each: one in each hand, one with their foot and one in their mouth. It was as if they had bones and joints made of rubber.

The senses were being teased at every turn. Three men dressed in blue silky uniforms performed a variety of stunts and acrobatics, and at one point one of the men was balancing the two others on his shoulders and they completed the stunt with a jump down on the floor and a tumble.

A male and a female performer on a trapeze and in gorgeous skin-tight suits performed a very sensuous trapeze act and melted into a variety of positions suspended in the air, an appropriate end to the official part of the show, when Foo came out and invited all the performers out on stage. The crowd clapped and cheered wildly and every time the performers took a bow the audience spontaneously erupted into another round of enthusiastic applause.

Bruce and Elinor got up one more time to thank the audience and thanked Zero Gravity Circus for donating their performance free of charge to the cause of Cusco’s street kids. They also indicated they were going to do a singing duet. Unfortunately, none of the microphones cooperated so they postponed their singing premiere to G.A.P’s fundraising ball at Casa Loma in October. When the microphones finally came back on Bruce joked about having to fire the sound company.

The crowd was invited to stick around for a meet and greet with the performers and it seemed like hundreds of people stayed behind to chat and to take advantage of the fruits and the chocolate fountain. I chatted a bit with Paul Teolis, a photographer who I had recently interviewed who had also donated a beautiful photo of a Guatemalan street market for the Silent Auction.

By this time it must have been 12:30 am, so Paul and I said goodnight and a big thanks for this great event to Bruce who was swarmed by this time by a crowd of appreciative supporters. Paul and I rode the subway back into Toronto’s east side and we both commented on what a wonderful event it had been.

In total, an amount of over $20,000 was raised for Planeterra’s Cusco initiative from ticket sales, the silent auction and the sale of water bottles, popcorn and jambalaya. It’s amazing what can be achieved when a group of people with determination, dedication and good will come together.

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Originally from Brooklyn, Andie had lived in Atlanta for 20 years and become an expert in advertising production and management while Nancy, on the other hand, had been involved in the screen printing business. Nancy represented several American companies in the Latin American market and spent quite a bit of time in Latin America, including Cuernavaca, and this was the beginning to their Mexican adventure.

Andie’s comments shed light on the decision to relocate to a foreign country and the inevitable issues of culture shock and psychological adjustment that go along with the move to a strange land. Her story will also illustrate coping mechanisms and the fact that the human spirit will indeed adjust over time.

As Nancy had been spending more and more time in Mexico, Andie and Nancy were starting to think it might actually be nice to live somewhere else. Cuernavaca might be a good destination since it was close enough to easily go back and forth. Andie had attended a Spanish course at the Cetlalic Alternative Language School and had a chance to meet a lot of people from Cuernavaca’s local gay community and Cuernavaca increasingly looked like an interesting destination.

Both women thought that it might be a good idea to move to Cuernavaca, a goal they decided to accomplish in the New Millennium. So Andie decided to give up her job in advertising which was made easier by the after-effects of 911 which had severely affected the advertising industry.

Andie worked for a month with the previous owner of Villa San Marcos to gain some practical experience running a bed and breakfast. So the women put their furniture into storage in Atlanta and after their arrival in Cuernavaca they first lived in a furnished apartment. They later moved into an unfurnished condo, a rather bare place, which Andie describes as “graduate student living”. Andie admitted that as you get older these types of transitions get just a little harder.

Prior to their purchase, their B&B had been empty for five years. Once they acquired the property, they invested another year of renovations into La Nuestra. Building a clientele from scratch is always an issue for new entrepreneurs and Andie indicated that their clients mostly find them through the Internet and through word of mouth. In addition, Andie sent many news releases to independent booksellers and feminist book stores to request that the information about their B&B be put on their bulletin boards.

As new B&B owners, Andie and Nancy also decided to advertise on three web sites, two sites about Mexico and one site dedicated to gay travelers. Andie stressed, however, that their target market is not only the gay community, but people from all walks of life. Travellers come from the United States (California, Minnesota, and various places in the north), but also from Canada. In addition, they also host many weekend guests from Mexico City. Many of their guests don’t even move when they come here, they just relax in the beautiful garden by the pool and say this place feels just like home.

I asked Andie to elaborate on this process of cultural transition which they went through after they first relocated to Mexico. At first they felt excited, the place was new, they were learning the language, and there was this general feeling of newness that made everything so interesting.

But as the newness wore off, feelings of culture shock started to settle in. Andie experienced frustrations as she had to adjust to the Mexican concepts of time and reliability. Adjusting to the much more relaxed concept of time was difficult, especially since Andie had been living her life in Atlanta with a strict agenda. The unreliability of workmen and repair people was also a frequent source of frustrations. Andie told me a few stories of her renovation project and mentioned that workers might show up a day later or sometimes not at all.

On the other hand she was impressed by the easy-going attitude of local Mexican people and commented that they are very helpful when you make an effort to speak Spanish. Traffic can also be quite bad in this city. On the issue of cultural adjustment Andie said, that one of her friends commented on how great it must be to live in this new place while Andie admitted that many times this adjustment phase was really tough on her, especially at the beginning. She was missing her friends, her culture, her familiar environment.

Now things are much better. Andie runs an organization called the Newcomers Club which is an association of recent, mostly English-speaking residents, of Cuernavaca. The club had been in existence for 15 years, but had not been very active. Andie became president about four years ago, and the club now has around 170 members, ranging in age all the way from their forties and up. The oldest member is 91 years old.

The Cuernavaca Newcomers Club has a number of functions:
- It welcomes new English-speaking residents and helps them find their way
- It publishes a service directory every 2 years
- It provides a buddy system
- The club hosts a variety of social events throughout the year
- Speakers are invited to the club’s meetings and speak on various topics of interest, such as ecology, globalization, alternative health, investments and many more.
- The club is involved in a variety of charity projects as well.

The Newcomers Club holds two big social events a year: a cocktail party in September and a holiday party around Christmas time. Evening events include guitar concerts, talks on topics of interest and a “studio crawl” where the group visits different artists’ studios around town. An increasing number of social events will be held over the summer months as well, which used to be a quieter time.

One of the Newcomers Club’s most important involvements is in philanthropy. At Christmas members are encouraged to adopt a family in collaboration with the Episcopal Church. The club itself is non-denominational, but the church provides a list of 15 of the most needy families. Then, with the help of donations, the club purchases boxes of basic items that are given away to these needy families.

The Newcomers Club is also involved with a Mexican Charity called “Caminamos Juntos” which was founded by Susan Smith, a Canadian woman. Caminamos Juntos para la Salud y el Desarollo dedicates itself to helping one specific Mexican village in the state of Guerrero. This village has many problems: the water supply contains a toxic level of arsenic, there is a lot of poverty and alcohol abuse. Every month Caminamos Juntos asks for different supplies, e.g. in September the charity requests school supplies, in December it requests blankets, and at Christmas the charity request non-battery operated toys.

Andie indicated that the average age of newcomers to Cuernavaca is in their 50s. She added that dollars go a lot further in Cuernavaca than they would in Florida or the Caribbean.

In addition to volunteering with the Newcomers Club, Andie also donates her time to a local library called the Guild House. She volunteers four Friday mornings a months, two in the library, two with the Newcomers Club. Together with her work as a B&B owner at La Nuestra this keeps her busy.

Nowadays she still goes to back home to the United States about 4 to 5 times a year. Nancy and Andie still have a small apartment in Atlanta where they stay when they go home. Andie and I had a great conversation about her travel experiences in Israel and Spain, and about Latin machismo which also manifests itself on the road (a woman cutting a man off on the road will definitely incur his wrath, while the opposite is just considered normal).

I am one of these people who thinks that one day in my life I’ll probably try to spend 2 or 3 months of the year in a warm place, and Andie’s experience in Cuernavaca has given me some valuable insights about the decision-making process, the cultural adjustment phase, and the rewards of getting involved in a local volunteer organization.

For the entire article including photos please visit
http://www.travelandtransitions.com/stories_photos/cuernavaca_7.htm

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Fans of Klimt, Schiele & Co., I recently wanted to take a leisurely look at the Grand Palais blockbuster exhibition on Vienne 1900. I picked a weekday mid-afternoon, assuming I could whizz in and loiter through. Oops! I lined up before the entry (in freezing weather) for over an hour. And when I got a glimpse of the over-populated jostling going on inside, threw in the towel.

If body-contact sport isn’t your ideal for expo-visiting in Paris (or elsewhere), try small museums.

Here’s a sampling of Parisian fares in this vein, where – despite the displays’ intrinsic interest, and English documentation generally available – you’re not likely to have your feet trampled or be elbowed in the ribs. Some are so tiny they aren’t mentioned in Bordas’ authoritative Guide des Musées de France.

Let’s begin by wandering down rue Antoine Bourdelle, 15e arrondissement (district) near the Gare Montparnasse. At no. 18 you can’t not notice, through a grillwork fence, a garden hosting a bronze horse almost two storeys high.

This is the Musée Bourdelle, former home and studio of the sculptor (1861-1929) for whom the street is named, and whose work – fittingly for a small museum? – was grandiose in intent and result. The style is somewhere between rough-hewn Rodin (with whom he collaborated for a while) and Art Déco’s wind-swept streamlining.

On view are samples of his inclination for antiquity and exoticism that range from statues of Sappho and Archer Heracles to a monumental portrayal of Polish national poet Mickiewicz and bas-reliefs of music, drama, etc. for the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, inaugurated in 1913. It was inaugurated with a scandalous premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, danced by a rather lightly clad Nijinsky. That year Bourdelle exhibited work at New York’s landmark Armory Show.

Address:
18 rue Antoine Bourdelle
Paris 15th district
Open except Mondays and holidays 10 a.m.>6 p.m.
Full entry: ?4.50; youth: ?2.20; under 14: free.
Metro stations: Montparnasse, Falguière.

Just around the corner is the diminutive Musée du Monparnasse recalling such Roaring-’20s Montparnasse denizens as Hemingway, Picasso and Modigliani. It opened its doors in 1998 in a quaint paved street (Chemin du Montparnasse) which itself is worth the visit.

The museum offers its visitors a treasure trove of photographs taken by such luminaries as Robert Doisneau and Henri Cartier-Bresson, and many watercolours and prints by Montparnasse artists.

Address:
21 avenue du Maine
Paris 15th district
Open except Mondays and holidays 12:30 a.m.>7 p.m.
Full entry: ?5; reduced: ?4;
under 12: free;
Metro station: Montparnasse

Still closer to the Gare Montparnasse is the Musée de la Poste, an offshoot of the postal administration – and a good place to take the prettiest mail-woman in your neighborhood.

Opened in 1973, it’s a museographical surprise: you take an elevator to floor five then spiral down, room-to-room, to the ground floor.

Goodies along the way include: an articulated-arm Chappe semaphore (ca. 1800), part of a France-wide network enabling messages to come 10 km. station-to-station in clear weather from, say, Calais to Paris in just over an hour until France imported Samuel Morse’s system in 1856; a lovely 1900 ceramic post office counter; and an explanation of Paris pneumatique system that, 1866>1984, air-propelled correspondence via underground tubes at a speed of up to 700 meters a minute.

Address:
34 boulevard Vaugirard
Paris 15th district
Open except Mondays and holidays 10 a.m.>6 p.m.
Full entry: ?5; reduced: ?3.50;
under 18 and mailmen/women: free;
Metro station: Montparnasse.

And now, for gruesomely comic (?) relief : Paris’ Crime Museum a.k.a. Musée des Collections Historiques de la Préfecture de Police.

Can you imagine what early handcuffs looked – and felt – like ? Ouch ! They’re there. As are: a genuine guillotine blade, perhaps used on the murderer of a nearby victim’s punctured skull, and stark temporary exhibits.

A recent one of these documented oh-so-graphically the trials and tribulations of bagnards – forced-labor convicts transported to hellish camps in e.g. New Caledonia and French Guyana as late as 1953. Among them was the escapee-author of 1970s U.S. best-seller Papillon.

Address:
4 rue de la Montagne Sainte Geneviève
Paris 5th district
Open Monday through Friday 9 a.m.>5 p.m.
Free entry (except for executed criminals)
Metro station: Maubert-Mutualité

For wine buffs I can think of no place better than the Musée du Vin (Wine Museum). It opened its doors in 1984, and hunkers in 13th century quarries reconverted in the 16th-17th centuries by monks to store their wine (grapes grew abundantly on the Passy slopes, now facing the Eiffel Tower).

Ranging through time from Roman domination, and signposted by mini-Bacchus figures, displays include viticulturists’ tools, a barrel-maker’s workshop, and vessels for testing, storing, transporting and consuming the beverage.

The visit ends with… wine-tasting. You can also lunch there.
Thermal springs once flowed here, so the Wine Museum is on… rue des Eaux: Water Street!

Address:
Rue des Eaux – 5, square Charles Dickens -
Paris 16th district
Open Tuesday through Sunday 10 a.m.>6 p.m.
Entry: ?8 (includes that glass)
Metro station: Passy

(This article is a collaborative between Phil Chavanne, Senior Editor, and Arthur Gilette, a regular contributor to www.Paris-Eiffel-Tower-News.com. Both are more than happy to share their in-depth knowledge of Paris.)

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Seeing Hands Massage

With the onset of the genocidal rule of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia took a serious turn for the worse from the late 1970s through the early eighties. When the Khmer Rouge were finished killing or starving as much as twenty percent of the population and finally thrown out of power, the land turned into a lawless morass with all that implies. During this time, numerous people were left disabled. A particularly significant disability was blindness, which arose from torture or muggings undertaken by throwing battery acid in the face of victims.

As the country recovers, a unique and heartening development has occurred with Cambodians that are blind. The Association for the Blind in Cambodia, along with international backers, has been training the blind to be masseuses. Their motto is, “The blind can see with there hands.”

Members of the association travel the country to find potential masseuses. The individuals are then trained until they are masters of the art of massage. The Association has even gone one step further. In Sihanoukville, Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, the Association for the Blind has opened massage businesses known as “Seeing Hands,” which solely employee the blind masseuses.

I heartily and enthusiastically recommend you get a massage at Seeing Hands if you’re traveling in Cambodia. Driving anywhere in Cambodia is a bone jarring experience. There is no better way to get out the knots than one of these massages. The masseuses are friendly and seem to be able to find every little knot. I guarantee you’ll feel like a new man or woman after getting one.

Each Seeing Hands location has slightly different prices, but all are cheap as is typical for Cambodia. You can expect to spend between three to five dollars for the best one-hour massage you’ve ever had.

On top of it, you’ll feel good to know you’re helping people help themselves. In fact, many of the masseuses make more money a month than people who can see!

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