The Unesco World Heritage site Takht-e-Soleiman is 42 kilo­met­ers north­east from a small town called Takab in Iran.  It was the spir­itual centre of the ancient state reli­gion called Zoroastrianism. This 1500-year old site must have been remark­able in its heyday, because the for­ti­fy­ing walls that still stand are very impress­ive.  It is truly a [...]

It sure is getting hot wearing my head scarf and the knee length “manto” (a.k.a. thin jacket). It is the law for me to wear a head scarf. I have some other ones you’ll see me mod­el­ing in future photos.  Cultural pres­sure and local fashion make me feel like I should wear the manto. People sure stare as [...]

Images of fast moving clouds black­en­ing the sky and a light­ning bolt allow­ing me to see the sil­hou­ette of the castle  in front of me raced through my mind. Chris and I were about to visit Bran Castle, one of the mag­ni­fi­cent castles of Romania. My ima­gin­a­tion was going wild. I couldn’t help it. Dracula [...]

For the first time in my life I have had people ask me where I’m from and when I say Canada they shrug their shoulders and say, “Where’s that?”  After 5.5 months I am offi­cially home­sick. Although some of my home­sick­ness might be brought on by the fact that my entire body is aching, my [...]

I’m sitting on a comfy bed in our quaint hotel room in Brasov, Romania.  Located within the old city walls, we can almost touch the house across from us. We took a four-hour train ride here yes­ter­day from the Romanian capital, Bucharest. After our time in Madrid and Morocco, it was refresh­ing to see the [...]