15 Comments

Joel,

Once again, you have excelled Yourself.

That dense and endearing tapestry of your opening quote was only surpassed by your encapsulation of what travel is all about.... ”A Georgian restaurant... in the middle of the Armenian Quarter... in Jerusalem... named Kangaroo.”

Just brilliant.

Thanks.

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a rhapsody in any language ... reading that is a vacation in and of itself !

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You are too kind, good sir. Memory, likewise, is a kind of vacation from the present. Best!

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Now I feel like I have to return... if only to get to the origin of the name! Thanks as always for your kind words. Cheers!

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Dec 20, 2023Liked by Joel Bowman

I love reading your accounts of your travels. It is almost certain that I will never visit these places, but now I feel that I have, at least vicariously. Thank you!

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And many more places loom large on the list... half a dozen countries already sprout from '24's calendar. Stay tuned... and best to you!

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While you and Anya have a way with words and descriptive magic and you are educating Frida to be who ever she wants to be, there is only one flaw in your stories... you all love to eat, drink, and be merry but from the pictures of yourselves you share you two appear to be slim and fit. Is there a contradiction lurking between the lines? All that walking around exploring the sights couldn’t possibly account for the slim and fit creatures who so love wine and fancy food including the stuffing? Are you using AI to alter your appearance?

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ha ha! 10,000 steps a day do go a long way!

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Three simple words, my good sir... flâneur, flâneur, flâneur!

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Yes, you most certainly are. Even if the overwhelming mass of humanity doesn’t know what a flaneur is. Are you the riddle inside a mystery wrapped in an enigma When did you meet Churchill?

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really joel…it’s nice to clearly see when others enjoy their work. i was going to quip another missive on biden’s behalf but decided a bottle of merlot in the hot tub with a fatty might better serve my attitude with a better outcome.

peace to you and your family of merry followers.

Christ has saved me . what a glorious joy.

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Dec 23, 2023Liked by Joel Bowman

Joel, thank you for reminding me of the trip to Israel taken by my wife and I in 2012. The pictures of the Dead Sea (swam in the sea and looked 20 years younger afterwards) and Old Jerusalem (we were lost, also) are so familiar. Our tour group, lead by a Catholic nun, was small (14). We traveled to many of the sites visited by Jesus and as group carried a large wooden cross on the Via Dolorosa. (As now, rockets were being fired from Gaza and there was an incident in Golan Heights the day after we left.) It was a very memorable trip.

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Thanks for the memories, good sir! Such a special place. Here's my recollection of walking the Via Dolorosa, if you're interested. Cheers!

https://joelbowman.substack.com/p/ecce-via

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“Only later, through the prism of dreams, conversations, deep reflection, does another picture altogether begin to emerge...”

I find myself in the first part, everyday experience being the foundation of an ultimate understanding. I am reading a complete history of the Napoleonic Wars.

It impacted 200 years. Man has not changed much.

I don’t think many of us really put the right dots together. Sometimes, we get a glimpse of something that was there all the time.

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My grandmother used to say all the time: Remember! The Napoleonic wars were not that long ago! Of course she was quite a bit older when my mother was born and her father was 60 when she was born - so the generational connections spanned centuries...

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