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Travel Cultures Language

Crossing Cultures with an Urban Eye

by Meredith Mullins on July 31, 2017

View of Hong Kong apartment building by Michael Wolf from his series Life in Cities, images that show the megacity crossing cultures. (Image © Michael Wolf.)

Michael Wolf’s images are a metaphor for megacities.
© Michael Wolf

Michael Wolf’s View of Life in Cities

Human herds. The crush of crowds. Anonymity. Frenetic rhythms. Unrelenting surround-sound. Noise. Congestion. Forced verticality. Pollution.

Density in all its forms.

Much has been written to advocate for, rail against, and, ultimately, to understand life in cities. Images abound. Urban life is not a mystery.

A Wanderlust for Words

by Joyce McGreevy on July 11, 2017

Daunt Books for Travelers on Marylebone High St, London celebrates wanderlust and reading while traveling. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Daunt Books for Travelers, on the Marylebone High Street London,
is an original Edwardian bookshop.
© Joyce McGreevy

The Enchantment of
Reading While Traveling

If there were an award for writing and reading while traveling, Emily Hahn would have been World Champion. Early in her 92-year life of wanderlust, Hahn solo-traveled from the Congo to China. That was in the 1920s, and by 1997, Hahn had reported for The New Yorker from around the world, written 52 books, and read voraciously across genres.

She’d also enrolled at an all-male college, overcome opium addiction, carried out underground relief work during WWII, been the concubine of a Chinese poet, married a British spy, and become a pioneering environmentalist.

The Interdependence of Independence

by Meredith Mullins on July 4, 2017

American flag, as part of crossing cultures in celebration of Independence Day. (Image © VStock LLC.)

A symbol of freedom
© VStock LLC

Crossing Cultures in Celebration of Independence Day

It’s July. Our thoughts are drifting to . . . beaches, heat-quenching thunderstorms, easy summer reading, lazy days, and, oh yes . . . freedom.

Independence is in the air. Especially for an American living in France. (C’est moi.)

Large American flag and smaller French flags at the American Embassy Residence in Paris France, as we are crossing cultures in celebration of Independence Day. (Image © Meredith Mullins.)

America and France cross cultures in celebration of independence at the
American Embassy Residence in Paris.
© Meredith Mullins

I feel fortunate to divide my time between two countries that celebrate their freedoms. It’s rewarding to walk down both paths of history. And it’s gratifying to have two occasions to party in the name of pride and patriotism—July 4th and July 14th.

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