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No it’s not a parasite…this “rapid learning” language program really works. With the use of rhythm, music, and repetition, the words are literally burned into your brain. (What person-of-a-certain-age doesn’t remember “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir” from the song?)
Travel blogger extraordinaire, Una Janicijevic, invited me to be one of the subjects of the “10 Questions” feature on her blog:
10 Questions on Let’s Get Lost
An art director in Toronto, Canada, Una is a fellow world traveler who shares her photos and experiences on her fabulous blog, Let’s Get Lost.
“For all the planning in the world, sometimes the best part is getting lost.”
I couldn’t agree more!
Wandering around the city of Prague, I noticed that I could see the fairy castle on the hill no matter where I was. It became like a “Where’s Waldo” game…here, you try it…
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) American poet and educator
Wherever I am in the world, I have found that my feeble attempts to speak even a few words of the language are usually rewarded with a smile (okay, sometimes it’s a laugh at my bad pronunciation) and an open door into the culture.
In India, the simple greeting of “namasté” transformed faces from wary to welcoming.
One morning I looked out from my balcony in Positano and saw this ship sailing across the harbor, in front of the islands of Homer’s famous sirens. The Li Galli islands in the distance are where those famous seductresses lured sailors to their deaths in Homer’s Odyssey.
The beguiling misty pink daybreak scene out my window looked as if it had been staged as a reenactment of the mythical tale. It was spellbinding.
“You will come first of all to the Sirens, who are enchanters of all mankind and whoever comes their way; and that man who unsuspecting approaches them, and listens to the Sirens singing, has no prospect of coming home and delighting his wife and little children as they stand about him in greeting, but the Sirens by the melody of their singing enchant him.”
Homer’s Odyssey
“In certain corners of the Luxembourg garden you could almost believe yourself in the countryside. There was nothing more delicious, after a wearying day, than to find yourself hidden among these great trees, to forget Paris in the center of Paris, to smell the invigorating scents of earth and vegetation.”
Jules François Simon, 19th century French statesman
The words of Monsieur Simon rang true for me today as I spent a glorious afternoon in the Jardin du Luxembourg. My photographs speak more clearly than any words…
Bruges is in Belgium. I mention this because I think I may have hit the traveling wall…I’ve been to so many different European cities lately that I can’t seem to remember where I am.
Well, she’s done it again. Tracie Valentino, the brilliant graphic designer behind the Objects logo and blog design, has won yet another (third and counting) award for the design of the blog.
I’ve been to a lot of art galleries, but I’ve never seen one quite like this one in Rome.