journal

Founded 1296, meaning New City, capital of Lanna Kingdom and largest city in Northern Thailand, Chiang Mai is surrounded by a moat, which remains and, unfortunately for us, afraid less of the water than what is in the water, a major player in Songkran. The four gates into the moated

Our flight delayed in Berlin, we received a voucher. The pizza guy had vouchers piling in and was becoming exasperated from their holders by expectation that €10 would cover anything more than a slice of margherita. Drink? No, are you kidding! 0:00 /0:32 1× 0:00 /0:30

(was going to call it Berlin do your Wurst. Although the temperature plummeted immediately on our arrival, it never does.) The History of Berlin I have written before about my father receiving a DAAD scholarship which provided the excuse for my mother, Ianthe (extraordinary that my granny and grandpa, if

we arrived, entered the White Box, not so inviting a concept in these temperatures, the polar vortex throwing its arms and legs out of bed, and the wind frigid, with only a heat-pump for heating, missing the ambient heat of our room in İstanbul, yet again (a heat-pump

note: Chania, the second largest town-city in Crete, is 'ch' as in loch. video of where the last post left us, still in Ramadan, İstanbul Havalimanı: 0:00 /0:18 1× Taxi from Heraklion (Ηράκλειο) airport, called Νίκος Καζαντζάκης, to Chania. Yes, Nikos Kazantzakis, known in the

Every intention of visiting one of two intact remaining Byzantine churches in İstanbul, Aya İrini, Hagia Irene or Αγία Ειρήνη in the original Greek, the other being Θεοτόκος Παναγιώτισσα, Mary of the Mongols. Acknowledged by Kübra in Fener-Balat as a heroine of İstanbul, the church in her name is