The stillness of the pre-dawn hour is interrupted as the old furnace fires up to take away the morning chill. As the warmth permeates all within the house, we are oblivious to the cold and near frost that blankets the yard and fields surrounding us. Soon the old country road will become a conduit for […]

Krakow’s ancient center was beautiful in the morning light. The streets were clean and pristine even after the crowds of the evening before. Although I was there for a graduate course at Penn, there was ample time scheduled for visiting noted sites of interest. The twelfth century cathedral was modestly preserved and the home parish […]

The energy of the city was palpable as people strolled to their desired destinations that afternoon in London. An afternoon free from lectures in the course I was taking offered the opportunity for a leisurely stroll past the British Museum to a theatre whose marquee gave evidence of a matinee performance of Les Miserable. I […]

The light of the morning sun glistens through the tree tops as it rises from the East. The crisp fall air bids adieu to the days of summer. The leaves once glowing green now fall gently in the breeze, inhabited by a multitude of yellow, red, and brown hues. Fall has fully arrived and ushers […]

It was the bottom of the third inning in the Human Resources versus the Finance Departments Spring softball game. It was my turn at bat for HR with the score five to three in favor of Finance. I stepped to the plate as the CFO positioned himself as Catcher. I was poised to drive our […]

It had been a long flight from Kennedy Airport in New York. The Pan Am jumbo jet descended toward the runway in Cairo as I saw in the distance the majestic pyramids rising from the desert floor. We were delayed there for about an hour as authorities conducted a search for an unknown parcel. After […]

The rain pummeled the canvas top of the Jeep as we rose over hills and through the valleys from southern Virginia to the New Jersey shore. An evening stopover south of Baltimore, gave a respite to an otherwise grueling nine hour journey. We talked, we reminisced, and we expressed our gratitude for opportunities of experiences […]

It was a charter flight from JFK in New York to Taormina in Sicily, by way of Rome. We had found the cheap flight through a discount travel agency and quickly scooped it up. Our return flight was fifteen days later from Paris, and we had made no hotel arrangements or travel plans within Europe. […]

Today the weather changed. A refreshing cool wind blew from the northwest scattering multicolored leaves about the lawn. Maple tree seeds ample enough to dot the surface of the carport spread briskly in the gusts of wind. The farm animals seemed to revel in the freshness of the day as goats bantered about with each […]

The train was rumbling southeast from Berlin toward the Polish border. The one week course in Berlin had concluded and I and several of my fellow graduate students from Penn were on our way to a course on emerging economies. We would begin the next day with a lecture at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, where […]