Witnessed the greatness of Ba’albek

That’s fascinating! I have so much to learn about this region.

Okay! My tour guide isn’t an expert on this so it was a guess from his end. Scholars say that evidence point the three wise men to being from Amedi; if scholars aren’t clear as to what religion they were, I’m unsure how my tour guide would have known then, ha.

Photo of a snow capped mountain range in the background with a green ridge below it.

Top of Iraqi Kurdistan 😍

He stated they would have likely been Jewish as the town was predominantly Jewish at the time

Good question, I’ll ask my tour guide tomorrow so I’ll follow up with what he says!

Today was a special day. I got to visit Amedi, where the Three Wise Men were living when they visited Jesus in Bethlehem. I'm truly not a religious person by any means but being able to visit historical places as such was still impactful for me. What an amazing place Iraqi Kurdistan is ♥️

Lalish temple pretending from lush green hillsides

Iraqi Kurdistan is beautiful ♥️

Landscape-oriented photo of a wall heavily decorated with tag graffiti. In the middle is a window decorated with flowers and "kwiaciarnia" written across the middle horizontal wooden panel.

I love strolling through Kazimierz in Kraków ♥️

If I'm going to use travel advisories as my guideline for trips to book, maybe I should stop waiting until the last minute to check the visa requirements?

Reporting from Poland, what crime is he referencing? 🤔

Thank you for this! I’m looking forward to keeping up with your book publishing journey!

Good luck! How did you come across an editor? I've been meaning to write a book but I'm contemplating on talking with editors first to test the waters before devoting an insane amount of time writing.

I mean, whatever makes it easier for PiS to lose the upcoming presidential election I guess.

Scene from Inglorious Bastards, where a character asks another "Hans, are we the baddies?"

Waking up to the headlines this week has me like

Poles in general will prioritize resisting against Russia over other things, so if the US buddies up with Putin - which is becoming increasingly evident - then I suspect the average Pole's perspective of the US may change, if it hasn't already (which it has, based on my experience living in Kraków).

It's hard to choose given that Poland does such a good job with both savory and sweet. I generally lean towards savory though, especially if kielbasa is part of the meal 😋

"They did not support our East Shield initiative, but at the same time they bring back border checks?"

🔥🔥🔥

Why is it that my favorite photo I’ve taken in Kraków is from a cheap disposable film camera? It makes me wonder if the sharper digital images - especially post-processed ones - distract us from the purpose of a photo, which is to enjoy the subject and scenery.

Still decompressing from attending the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Words cannot express how moving the ceremony was.

Seems very effective if you ask me

Dziękuję! 🙏🏼

Dziękuję bardzo! 🙏 😁

Completed A1.1 of Polish today 🙌

It's my third language that I'm picking up and I'm hoping it won't be the last. Being able to say that I can speak with fluency in three different languages as a person who was born deaf is something I aspire to achieve, so hopefully this progress continues 🙏

Valley overlooking a river and agave fields in rural Oaxaca, Mexico.

Pile of prepared agaves ready to be cooked.

Metal bowl used to drink mezcal out of.

Artesanal-style mezcal distillation process used to make mezcal.

Freshly-made espadin mezcal at a random palenque along the backroads in Oaxaca, Mexico, a path not advised for tourists to travel along for various reasons. It was a special moment as the mezcal was worth the adventure 😌

@foodshoptravel.bsky.social @tony-bookdirect.bsky.social #traveladdictfoodies

Mirror-like reflection across the thin layer of water sitting on top of the salt flats. A mountain range and an SUV in the distance can be seen with their reflection shown below.

Bratislava is definitely on my list of places to go to; I'd love to see some of their communist-era buildings.

Here's one from Bolivia when I visited Salar de Uyuni a long time ago. I've been itching to go back again with a better camera but this is the best I've got at the moment.

Wow, what a shame! I've heard great things about Albania so hopefully it gets a second chance. Tour guides can really make or break an experience as I've learned.

I didn't care much for Costa Rica, but I think that was mostly because it was jaded by being on a group tour that....just didn't need to be a group tour, if that makes sense. But my friend had never been abroad before so I went along with her preferences.

I should give it a second chance.

Woah, I love how the photo turned out. Was this on film? I promise I'm not asking because it of this being taken 40 years ago 😅