Author Archives: Ursula Once upon a time, long, long ago, we told fanciful stories about a moon made of cheese, and about a man who lived there. Then, fifty years ago this week, while we all watched on our flickery black-and-white television screens, American astronauts Commander Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin exited their Apollo Lunar Module Eagle and walked on the surface […]  ‘Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.’ This sense of dislocation – in a positive way – often arises when travelling off the beaten track. In Southern Ethiopia, I was so far off the popular routes that most of the ‘highways’ I was on weren’t paved! Around the city of Arba Minch – […]  The earthquake in Nepal in April 2015 killed more than 8,800 people in that country, injured nearly three times that many, and left nearly 3.5 million homeless. As a further blow to the national psyche, numerous precious historical religious buildings were damaged or destroyed. Many of these were contributors to the 1979 UNESCO World-Heritage listing […]  I love Bluesfest! Byron Bay Bluesfest, the annual five-day Easter long-weekend festival of blues and roots music from around the world, always includes a line-up of interesting international visitors. Some are big names that take me back to my youth (see, for example: Bring on the Big Names; The Soundtrack of my Youth Musical Name-Dropping; […]  I’ve said it before – and probably more than once: I love Europe! I love how you can wake up in Switzerland, explore and have lunch in Italy, and be back in Switzerland – and in a different region and city! – in time for dinner. My husband and I were enjoying a long sight-seeing […] |
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