home page
   

about us
       about us
   

see The Beast
       see the beast
   

our photo album
       our photo album
   

explore tucson
       explore tucson
   

other links
       links
   

email us
       email us
   

sign our guest book
       sign our guest book
   

home page
       home
 

www.davidandcarol.com

 

Our Magnificent Journey
Chapter 6
Europe 2005
London, Paris, Normandy, Prague

 

Carol and David  
Reflections
 
 

Once more we have enjoyed to the hilt another fabulous chapter of Our Magnificent Journey. We have savored the flavors of several of the major cities of Europe, had almost countless adventures and met so many wonderful people.

 

It felt to us as though no time had past since our last visit in 2003. In that respect, planes are like time machines. To be sure, there are noticeable changes each time we visit, mostly technological, but not much has really changed since my first trip in 1971 and Carol's in 1977. The most noticeable change is definitely how expensive London has become, particularly for Americans now, due to the devaluation of the dollar. London is nearly unaffordable, in our opinion.

 

We noticed very few Americans wherever we traveled on this trip. By far the most abundantly represented nationalities were the British, Italians, Germans, Russians and French. It certainly seems as though the advent of capitalism in Russia has enabled more of its citizens to travel.

 

Wherever we visited, we recognized the global disenchantment with the war in Iraq – it seemed to be a main topic – it was what folks from other nations wanted to talk about.

 

Each chapter of Our Magnificent Journey leads us further to the conclusion that the planet is teeming with wonderful, warm, generous and loving human beings. Much of the time, it seems we are misled by our leaders. We have just been in Berlin on the 60th anniversary of Hitler's suicide (April 29, 1945,) and we have been in London for a massive and joyous 60th anniversary of Victory in Europe – May 8, 1945.

 

Man has managed to survive many terrible, dark periods throughout history. So many innocent lives have been lost in someone else's mistaken/misled cause. The Russians alone lost around 27,000,000 lives in WWII in their attempt to stop Hitler. We can only hope and pray that lessons are learned along the way.

 

As this chapter of Our Magnificent Journey comes to its conclusion, stayed tuned – Carol is already planning the next chapter – Italy 2006!

 

Vaya Con Dios!!!

 

 

 copyright 1998 / david and carol lehrman / all rights reserved
email david@davidandcarol.com