Sarajevo, Bosnia

Sarajevo is full of history, but the recent history is pretty horrible. Lots of bad things happened here - there are cemetaries all around the city, like the one pictured.

Views of Plovdiv, Buglaria

The lovely city of Plovdiv is one of the major urban centres in Bulgaria. It is also very old - people have been there for at least 9000 years. Alexander the Great's father was there, at which time it was called Philippopolis. The Thracians were there too - Orpheus is said to have lived in the region, and good singers are said to "sing like Thracians". The Bulgarians arrived later, and they have added ther own touch - converting "Philippopolis" into the more lyrical "Plovdiv" - nice, don't you think? Obviously the influence of the musical Thracians. The Romans were there at one stage in between, but then they were just about everywhere so that is no big deal.

Enough of the history already - here are shots of me and Mr Joe Goldberg (who is working with us) next to the Roman town walls, which are the foundation for a restaurant; the Roman theatre; cobbled streets and Ottoman influenced architecture in the old part of Plovdiv.

28 Hours in NYC

Peggy and I raced up to New York City on the bus (4 hours), leaving Gavin at home to work. We had 28 hours, including sleep, and managed to fit in an awful lot of shopping, galleries, eating and walking around amazed at it all.

Washington monuments

Washington DC is a great place to walk around - flat, lots to see everywhere, and plenty of food, coffee shops and bathrooms. Here is me (with Tanya from Skopje in Macedonia - who has featured in another blog entry and is her for a conference) outside some monuments on a walk around town last Saturday.

Hiking the Appalachian Trail

The Shenandoah mountain national park is not far from DC, and the Appalachian Trail runs through it, so Gavin and Peggy and Victoria and I did a bit of hiking - after a long lunch. Mid-winter is probably not the prettiest time, but we had fun. It is well set up for campers with little huts to stay overnight (that is Victoria and me outside one).

Mountain Man, USA

Washington DC is not all Obama look-a-likes. As this rather attractive hat shows, the smart man about town can also chose the backwoods look.