A change in latitude, does wonders to my attitude.

Covid 19 has be with us since March 24, 2020. It first came to Italy and then it travelled to Belgium with skiers returning home from their ski holidays in the Italian slopes. My cousin Glenda, who resides in Hong kong, had already sent me a text to stock up on face masks a month earlier as infections were sweeping through HongKong and Singapore.  We were kind of lagging behind in Europe... As I picked up where I left, it has been two years and four months of living under Covid pandemic measures. I have been too reluctant to travel because of the uncertainties involved. Countries were imposing quarantine measures of up to 2 weeks, compulsory  and repeated PCR tests and the possibilities of being grounded. For the sake of doing something, I signed up for an MBA course in the fall of 2021 at the prestigious  Catholic University Leuven  (KUL).  By far the most enriching thing I have embarked on and yet with much blood, sweat and tears. I continue to press on until...

On a Saturday morning on July 27, 2019,  as I was going down the stairs in my apartment, I absent-mindedly missed two steps on the staircase and crashed landed onto the floor.  It happened in a flash, one moment on the stairs and the next, sprawled on the ground. The excruciating pain shot through my leg foot as I grasped it tightly, waiting for the pain to subside. Then I limped into the kitchen and pulled out a bag of frozen peas to ice the sore foot. Seeing that I could still slightly move my toes and that the pain was tolerable, I mistakenly believed that I had narrowly escaped a broken foot.  I have always thought that if you can move your fingers or toes, then nothing is broken. And if something was broken, the pain would be so unbearable that you would be tearing your hair out. With that self diagnosis concluded, I held off going to Emergency and thought that the injury would heal over time. I had a summer BBQ party that same evening and had promised ...

Part of Vieux Port July and August are months when things grind to a halt in Europe, well, most of northern Europe anyway.  Summer heralds endless festivals like beach parties, concerts, music festivals and some very well known ones like Tomorrowland. European airports are thrown into chaos and highways like the A7 in France -also known as the Route du Soleil- get all choked up with motorists driving caravans, SUVs, cars piled with kids, pets, suitcases and bicycles, all heading south in search of destinations in the sun. Alcoves along the Corniche My trip to Marseille happened to be at the very start of July and to do my bit for the environment I took the TGV high speed train. Travelling at 300 kms/hr, Marseille was a mere 5 hour train ride from Brussels. On the train, there is a bar serving sandwiches, snacks and beverages, electric outlets for your smart gadgets and wifi ; the connections almost never work though, so I switched on to mobile data instead. I stayed ...

Glamorous in cairo From Amman in Jordan, it was a just a short 50 minutes flight to Cairo on EgyptAir. Being part of the Star Alliance group means that the airline has to maintain a certain standard of service and safety, which is reassuring, and I bumped up my ff miles too. For some strange reason, I was under the impression that the dress code for females in Cairo would be less conservative compared to Jerusalem. So I wore out all my long sleeve blouses and trousers in Jerusalem and putting aside the shorts and tee shirts for Cairo. Luckily, I had a big shawl that I could cover my shoulders and bare arms with. View of the Nile from hotel room The streets of Cairo can be quite a tricky affair especially when you're female and foreign. On the first day of my arrival, my companion and I were chatted up by two men who offered to guide us to our destination. After about 15 minutes of friendly chatting we realised that we did not want anymore to follow them. At this st...

With sizzling temperatures of 35 plus degrees, we left Jerusalem in an armoured 4x4 vehicle to the Israeli-Jordan border at Allenby crossing With the help of our guide who assisted us through the Israeli border control, we cleared immigration  rather quickly and smoothly. We then bade him farewell and continued on foot to the departure terminal. From there we were bussed to the Jordanian border control some hundred metres away. At one point a border guard boarded the bus and took our passports, followed by another guy who came to collect the bus fares. We each had to pay 18 Jordanian dinar ( 23 euros ) for the bus fare, which I found was very high. I checked later with the young Italian couple who had sat behind us, and they said that the bus driver had told them that the bus fare was 2 JD ( 2.52 euros ) each, which sounded reasonable. The Italian guy had complained to the bus driver and after an exchange of words between the driver and the bus fare collector, a few dinars were ha...

Visiting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is an experience that affects you no matter what your religious and political affinities are. Here history goes back to about 4500 BC, where the bedrock of monotheistic religions Judaism, Islam and Christianity have their beginnings. Archeological digs have and continue to unearth ancient cities and structures as we know from Biblical scriptures. It is exhilarating to see The Dead Sea Scrolls of the Qumran caves, King Hezekiah's tunnel,  Pool of Bethesda, Apostle Peter's house, the Sea of Galilee and many more. Tel Aviv Mediterranean sea I started my trip in Tel Aviv, a modern city on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline. There are 16 beaches along the coastline favoured by locals and tourists. There is Nordau Beach ( Separation Beach ) for men only and women only on separate and alternate days, Jerusalem beach and Tel Aviv beach with nice surf, clean sand and popular with families. So liberal is Tel Aviv that even the LGBT community has th...