What do you do with your leftover coins? Whenever I’m go on vacation, I keep some leftover coins for my collection and spend the rest at the airport duty free shops. But no matter how hard I try, I usually find a few more when I unpack. Since currency exchanges and banks don’t buy back leftover coins, I usually add them to my collection. But that’s becoming quite sizable and...

  I could write about Paris everyday and not run out of things to say.  But I woke up this morning thinking about my blog buddy, Heather Munro, whose posts on Paris really got me stoked. Heather’s photographs capture the romance and the beauty of Paris like no other blogger I had seen in a while. So I went looking for what other bloggers are saying about Paris. Hope you...

I thought for today’s Soulful Sundays, I’d pick a song that celebrated fathers.  The Temptations’ Papa Was a Rolling Stone was the first one that came to mind though it’s a celebration of one type of father. June’s a difficult month, not only because of Fathers’ Day but because the 6th is the day my father was born. When I was growing up, my father and I had a sometime stormy...

After walking around Paris for most of the day taking in one must-see attraction after another, I was excited to see the Eiffel Tower straight ahead, looking as if it had sprouted from the ground. The images I had in my head from movies and television and photographs dwarfed in comparison to the real thing. It was impressive! Up close, the Eiffel Tower, with its intricate lattice work, is a...

As I walked around Paris, the Eiffel Tower beckoned me like a lighthouse. I set out to find her just by looking out for her as her top rose above trees and buildings. I didn’t need a map. I just kept cutting across streets that would bring me closer. After a while, I realized I’d cover more territory by bus than on foot. I’d get closer, much closer.

Solange, my almost-mother-in-law, used to make coq au vin (chicken in wine) quite often. Stylish, beautiful, generous and funny, she was a stay-at-home mom, long before the term came into vogue, to eight children. Her home was inviting and warm and almost always full of people. Mom had a habit of “spicing up” everything she made — it just wasn’t done until she added her own flavors and seasoned it...

After checking out the African and European galleries at The Louvre, I walked back to the Jardin Tuileries, a large public garden located between the Louvre and Place de la Concorde. This time, I sat for a while and people watched. The Jardin Tuileries has been opened to the public since 1667. Thousands of Parisians and tourists stroll, sit, eat and relax in the Jardin Tuileries everyday. Jardin Tuileries, a...

As I walked through gallery after gallery in The Louvre in search of the European and African art collections, I couldn’t help notice that many of people ahead of me were taking photos of the artwork. Most didn’t even look at a painting long enough. They just got within camera range, snapped and moved on to the next one. Granted, with the size of The Louvre — I’m sure I...

I like a challenge.  They give me an opportunity to stretch. So six months after pledging to blog every day, I’ve decided to take on the 1000-1000 Travel Blog Challenge to grow my blog to the point where it earns at least $1000 US per month and gets an average of 1000 visitors a day. It won’t be easy but I won’t be alone. I’ll be joining a fabulous group...

As a former art gallery director, a visit to Paris would not have been complete without a visit to the Louvre. Yet, when I finally arrived at this world renowned museum and saw the lines, I balked. I had three days in Paris. There was no way I wanted to spend my time in an endless queue! In addition, it was an unseasonably warm April and the unrelenting afternoon sun forced several...