Posts tagged Linda’s Blog

I never thought that one of the best travel experiences Ian and I would have, is being slapped by mountain gorillas in Rwanda! Of course, mine was a baby gorilla who wanted to show me how he had mastered vine twirling. Ian had a much louder and stance altering pat on the back by Agasha, the King silverback of this jungle. He simply wanted to remind Ian who was the Alpha in this family. Never were we or our friends with whom we traveled, afraid of their interaction with us as we made our best effort to keep our regulated distance from them. Mountain gorillas are gentle, playful and familial …

When I was taping in India, I saw the wooden sandals in which Gandhi walked for hundreds of miles in the house in which he stayed in Mumbai. No doubt, they hurt to wear them. I asked my guide,”why would he do that? Wasn’t walking hundreds of miles not enough?” Her reply, “Mahatma was always trying to master his mind.” I couldn’t really say he was nuts because at times I chose to wear the most uncomfortable high heels and my motive is self centered rather than for the purpose of gaining freedom for all from an oppressive government through nonviolence, which, btw, he achieved.  The only thing I achieved …

Imagine that we are like computers. We are programmed by others and our experiences but the program designer who has final say in our happiness is us! Get an orange and hold it under your nose and breath in the scent while you think about where you see yourself being happier several months away. What are you doing? What happened in the summer? Did you finally take that road trip, change your job, fix that relationship issues that were troubling? Be specific because like a computer, if you google,”How can I be a happier in September?” all sorts of things will pop up which confuse your inner ‘Siri.” We will …

What? It is probably the last wish we want to think about for the New Year but maybe the very thing that brings us the most happiness. Where does a New Year’s resolution go without discipline? South! They all do. What happens when we get off track? I believe, all sorts of things that don’t make us happy. I am planning on being more disciplined when it comes to Yoga because I love it and I get off track when travel for work. Oh, I have heaps of justifiable reasons but they don’t make me happy, just less fit. From age 7 to 17, I was scared to death to …

There is a place that requires you to leave your ego at the border or the beach, in this energetic spot on the planet. Byron Bay, Australia is built in the pathway of a once active volcano and people believe the energy flow has replaced the lava flow that covered the area. The status symbol here is how big is your smile or how bare are your feet because you’re here. In Byron, you can check out the wheat grass shots in the organic open air market, you can hop in a kayak and visit the resident dolphins who live free and happily in the bay and you feel you …

As I watched the rhino grazing in the African plain, I wondered if my grandkids would be looking at photos of rhinos in a book one day like we look at dinosaurs. Their extinction would be much more palatable if it were due to an ice age. However, they are being killed off in staggering numbers now for their horns which happen to be made of the same thing as our fingernails, keratin. So, if biting our fingernails doesn’t cure our ills or make us feel “horny,” killing rhinos won’t do the trick either. Rhino horns are also in high demand for dagger handles, a long standing status symbol of …

Visiting Burj Khalifa While here in Dubai, Ian and I went to the top of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, measuring 829.8 m (2,722 ft). It is absolutely amazing and one should not visit Dubai without having the experience of the ascent, the view, and the state of the art sights and sounds on the way up to the top. We enjoyed a 60 second lift off to the 148th floor in an elevator that projected images of the tallest buildings around the world as we passed over them.   Flower of Life It was in the elevator that I noticed the Burj Khalifa’s logo on …