Tirane, Albania November 11
The manager or curator of the national archaeological Museum, Mr. Melsi, explained as possibly a name coming from the combination of letters from Marx, Engles, Lenin, Stalin, international, explained some of the history of the area and the people. Influenced many thousands of years ago by the Celtic groups they have many influences from the Hellenic people the Romans the Turks and others. Many of the different groups of people intermarried so there is such a mix here it’s difficult to define the people by current borders. An interesting discussion was about the mythical identifications of the origin of humans and the relationship to the gods. What I got out of the discussion was an egg or orb which opened, humans being created, and which is now represented by head coverings of different peoples in this and the Middle Eastern areas. In addition the skirt like clothing in relation to the Scotland-Ireland Celtic traditional clothing. The origin of the bagpipes, as I read many years ago, actually comes from this general area and slightly south, very mountainous and difficult to travel and therefore communicate so the pipes were used as a communication tool and later as a musical instrument. The origin of the eagle on the Albanian flag it’s most likely a symbol coming from Alexander the great and the Macedonian influences. It was a fascinating discussion and it ended with information concerning the Albanian language prevalence in Montenegro and Kosovo.
Outer Hebrides October 21
On the ferry
At the information desk I met one of the workers on the Ferry and started asking questions about the screen on the wall, the interactive navigation system the captain uses. It turned out he was the quartermaster in charge of taking the ferry in and out of the port After the captain docks or leaves the dock. He also manages the fire emergency systems and some of the other safety systems on the ship. He explained some of the details on the navigation screen including the depth areas which are in meters and not fractions of miles which they use in the UK for driving. His grandfather used to live on the island of Fladda Chuain where there was a monastery, a very small island. His father also used to visit very often with his kids one of whom is the quartermaster. He said they do have some boats going out to the island but not for the public. They sometimes have boats going out from the Hebrides to take sheep to the island but it was not clear what the sheep were used for. I am sure at least they were used to cut the grass. He also mentioned someone brought rabbits to the island and they are not the standard wild gray rabbits they are black-and-white domesticated rabbits.
Shetlands October 8
In the morning for breakfast one of the customers in the guest house started talking about his many journeys to the Shetland to do birding and explained birdwatching was a term used by people who didn’t know anything about birding. He was from Nottingham and loved coming up here to take photos with his new mirrorless Sony digital camera. He has plans to retire a little bit earlier than he needs to get more pension but he said he would rather start enjoying his life rather than continuing work. He seemed to be at least 60 years old.
MacDuff September 27
Walking into the The old Moray pub in MacDuff A fellow named Ian asked me where I was from and then went to the jukebox to pick some quintessential “American” songs, country roads, No Woman No Cry , and “the Black velvet band” which is actually an Irish song of rebellion. Well, he had had one or two too many but was very pleasant. So we talked for a while and I found he is an aircraft engineer, traveled to many countries in the world and even in Algeria in the 1970s working on a water desalinization plant project for Kellogg. But he saw how hard it was for the people in Algeria compared to his life inside the compound with fresh bottled water every day and food cooked by French Canadians while the people outside couldn’t get any freshwater and had a problem getting food. Then he played “mellow yellow” by Donovan and the other people in the bar said, “did you know Donovan is from Scotland?” And most thought he was from Edinburgh but Ian said “I will bet you 100 pounds he is from Glasgow. Nobody took him up on the bet but I checked and sure enough, Donovan was born in Glasgow. He gave me a gift of a baseball cap emblazoned with the Scottish flag and “eurocup 2024”. But what really amazed me, he is the first person I ever met in my whole life who knew all the words and could sing the famous Dean Martin song, “the little old wine drinker me”. We sang it together without any background music.
Huntley, September 2024
Huntley has its own Castle ruins but also a local pub where people gather and converse in different dialects from around Scotland. One follow sat next to me who was 80 and a veteran of the Falklands war. He has a daughter living in Spain who is living the highlife , something he’s not so comfortable with. We had a great conversation for over an hour and then his friends showed up and sat at the same table and we all talked together. It was a very enjoyable conversation. Since I had been treated to drinks by the people I met before I decided to buy them all one round And then they requested I stay while they had a drink. But it was time for me to travel on so I excused myself and wishes them the best. Extremely nice people.
Elgin, Scotland September 2024
Elgin is not pronounced the same way as it is for the watch or the US town. It sounds like ELGHEN. The B&B I used that evening was owned by a well-known boxing professional in the area and even was known to the people I met in a town 30 minutes away. The follow is 82, retired from boxing and performing his referee profession around the world. He showed me a glass case with over 100 trophies, very impressive. In front of his house there are many things with price tag on them including household items and bicycles which he refurbishes and then sells and gives the money to the local boxing club. He is a very dedicated person.
Silent Interview- Feeding the Birds
Debbie has been working for the Hualapai Park Service, Mojave County Arizona (County Park), for the past 27 years and now as a volunteer due to severe budget cuts. During this first interview for my website I found she was born in the same town and even in the same hospital as I, 13 years later. I will let Debbie and the elk speak for themselves.
Orkneys, Scotland September 2024
Having a Guinness on the Orkney islands, Scotland in the pub/ reception of the main hotel at St. Margaret’s karaoke night. After the evening entertainment the older gentleman whose back of the head you can see, Tommy, came to talk with me along with Drew who are both from Aberdeen area. The group bought me a pint of Guinness when they were doing another round which was very nice of them. Tommy used to practice karate, has never been to Japan but loves Japanese culture. We had a nice long conversation. Very nice and friendly people.
Thurso, Scotland September 2024
In Thurso after my first beer at The Commercial, evidently the place to have something to drink in the evening, a fellow from Carlisle, England sat next to me and we struck up a conversation. He was very interested and inquisitive in what’s going on in the US and what people and places were like. He was up in that area for work and will go back to Carlisle before the end of this year.
Riga, Latvia December 2026
I rode in a Bolt car share to the train station to catch a train to Estonia. The driver was a young fellow in his Tesla. I asked him about his car and the popularity of Chinese EV‘s in Latvia. He commented that the Chinese EV’s are not popular because they have a bad reputation for dealer service and maintenance. He said Tesla has an excellent service and maintenance arrangement and so he would stick with Tesla every time.
Near Connemara, Ireland March 2026
This fellow I don’t want to mention his name or the city where I met him since much of the information was of personal nature. He has three children, two of them autistic. His background is interesting. He comes from the lineage of travelers which as some of you will know is a minority group in Ireland at least and at most a group of people who carry on traditions of traveling in groups or caravans throughout Ireland during certain times of the year. The television show “Peaky Blinders” shows the lifestyle of Irish travelers living in Birmingham before, during and after World War I. The history of travelers is something I want to delve a little bit more into since the information I had previously is probably partly true and probably partly someone’s imagination. I asked about the history and it doesn’t seem that the tag “gypsy” fits because these people are originally as Irish as anyone else in Ireland for the past thousand or 2000 years. When did they start traveling? that part was difficult to understand because the pub was a little noisy and my hearing is not all that great so I didn’t pick up some of what he explained. But the part I did understand was that the origin of many travelers could’ve come during the famine when there was not enough food in one place so they got in groups and traveled around looking for food. But then he said it was actually before that time the traveler groups started. But I will ask other people and try and get more information about this group of people. It seems there is still some discrimination against “travelers”. There are some lingering issues with the government trying to solve the problem of people not wanting to associate with them and in some ways making the problem worse but I don’t really know if that’s true or not. More investigation is really needed here. But it was a very interesting evening. We not only closed down the pub, we were there past closing time since the fellow I was talking to was good friends of everybody at the pub and the discussion was very interesting for everyone. I would like to add the song I learned when I was 12 years old of moonshine brewed in the hills of Conemarra, an area just a short distance west of Galway. He was talking about the beautiful hills and I started singing the words of this song to him because the hills reminded me of this song I learned from the Clancy Brothers. He started smiling broadly and commented that this with his father’s favorite song.
Westport, Ireland March 9, 2026
Last night at the Porterhouse pub in Westport I started talking with a group of professors. Eddie was celebrating his 80th birthday. Most are retired from a University in Dublin. A few are still teaching at private universities. They travel around the world cycling. All of them are over 65. Their next trip is to Crete in May and they will cycle around. One member has two bionic hips and Eddie has a bionic knee. They were worried for me traveling around the world under the reputation of what is going on right now. We had a good chat over Guinness.
Limerick, Ireland March 18, 2026
In a pub was an 87-year-old fellow who came up to me just to ask me to try Beamish as an alternative to Guinness. He was popularly known as “paddy fish” because he was a fisherman and a photo on the wall identified him as the codfather. He was quite a storyteller and related to me how one building in town was built and donated to the city by a major sponsor of the upcoming Ryder Cup golf tournament. The city give it back to the fellow and I understand it is not occupied. But I heard another story from other people about this fellow who donated the building which was not as complementary as just a nice fellow who donated a building. Evidently he made his money in various ways. But it was very enjoyable talking with “ the codfather”.