International Workers’ Day, also known as Labor Day in some countries and often called May Day, is a holiday of workers and working classes promoted by the international labor movement and occurs every year on May 1 or the first Monday in May. May 1 was chosen for International Workers’ Day to commemorate the 1886…
Category: route
Crossing Ukraine
Odessa, Ukraine, August 1992.In the late afternoon, I should take the train to Lviv. But it turned out that there are no free seats on the night express.So me and five girls spent the night in a hotel built during socialist era. There was a bar on the tenth floor. A few locals and the…
When Your Passport is Stolen in India
While studying architecture, we also learned a lot about the history of architecture. Also about the Taj Mahal.And so, on a fine Sunday afternoon on February 26, 1989, I studied whether everything we were taught was true. Taj Mahal in all its beauty. I was so carried away by all this beauty that I forgot…
Hotel San Diego and its Residents
Late in the evening of Wednesday, February 10, 1982, I arrived in San Diego. After a long drive from Phoenix, AZ to Yuma, to the town of El Centro, where things got complicated. Nadine, a young Swiss girl, and I went to eat, and when we returned, our bus had already left. With our luggage….
Buying Pistachios at the Market in Yazd
The pistachio (Pistacia vera), a member of the cashew family, is a small tree originating from an area that includes Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Iran. The tree produces seeds that are widely consumed as food.The name pistachio is from late Middle English pistace, from Old French, superseded in the 16th century by forms from Italian…
Kebab in Iran
Kebab, kebob, kabob…According to tradition, the dish was invented by medieval soldiers who used their swords to grill meat over open-field fires. Kebab, also spelled kebob or kabob, dish of Middle Eastern or Central Asian origin that typically combines small pieces of meat such as lamb or beef with vegetables on a skewer and is…
Rainy San Francisco
Once upon a time there was a girl we called Yesyes. And I had a crush on her.In February 1982 I was in SF for the first time. I’ve always wanted to be there, I’m just a child of the hippie generation.I took the overnight Greyhound from Los Angeles. It was five in the morning…
Turkish Coffee at Hafiz
“Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love” – Turkish ProverbTurkey and Turkish coffee. Perfect association. After all, we are well-known coffee drinkers in the Balkans (where we also belong just a little). Bosnia and Serbia were part of the Ottoman Empire anyway. And the first cafes in Europe were…
When the Police Arrest the Wrong One
When I was wandering in the early 1980s across the USA from New York to San Francisco and back, I wish to stop in Dallas. I was still in elementary school when the principal came in during class and said President Kennedy had been shot. Then we watched footage of the assassination on TV and…
Marquee Club Silver Jubilee
London, summer of 1983. Music was still music that summer. Punk in all its splendor, progressive rock, The Police with “Every Breath You Take” were constantly on the radio. And good old rock still insisted on the barricades.In such an atmosphere, the friends I was staying with invited me to the famous Marquee Club one…