Tag: History

Arabia, Aunt AliceLeave a comment

19 – Cultural Souvenirs from Arabia

Alice Delaney Walker, aka Dana Walker

Leaving a country is traumatic. What’s worse is being back home and thinking, “I should have bought that when I was there!”  What stops me? I have this silly feeling that anything that costs more than 100 of any denomination is too expensive.  Before I left Saudi Arabia, I went on a jewelry binge. This is not healthy shopping. It’s less painful to take a few weeks and buy a souvenir (French for “to remember”) here and there, carefully and selectively.       I love rugs, however, I’m not a doctor or an oil executive.  I’ll invest in fake Chinese rugs … Continue reading 19 – Cultural Souvenirs from Arabia

Aunt AliceLeave a comment

Cultural Reflections: Life in the Gulf vs. America

Alice Delaney Walker, aka Dana Walker

So there I was in college last summer, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Everything was normal.  No separation of the sexes, easily availability for any and all shopping.  No problem communicating in English. No foreign-currency conversion although I found myself doing it backwards a few times to compare American and Gulf prices. I even got used to everyone wearing shorts, although I didn’t wear them. I also realized American men wear baseball hats for the same reason Arabian men and women cover their heads:  protection from the sun. It was a relief to sit in the student desk and not at the … Continue reading Cultural Reflections: Life in the Gulf vs. America

EFL Teacher BlogLeave a comment

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day: Chicago’s Irish Heritage – 8 March 15, 1990

Alice Delaney Walker, aka Dana Walker

  For St. Patrick’s Day in Chicago, the Chicago River is dyed green, a leprechaun and green-hats parade down State Street and Michigan Avenue. It will be broadcasted throughout the day while a lot of drinking of green-dyed refreshment accompanies … Continue reading Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day: Chicago’s Irish Heritage – 8 March 15, 1990

EFL Teacher BlogLeave a comment

American Romance with Europe

Alice Delaney Walker, aka Dana Walker

A Jewish friend walks towards the Jewish District in Seville, Spain The romance Americans have with Europe is astounding.  Europe – the home of mass slaughter, entangling countries with two world wars – romantic? Recent wars have created populations with PTSD in Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Concentration camps are now tourist traps in Poland and Czech. Germany opens its arms for Muslim migrants – Jewish cousins – to propagate its factories. Even the American Sixties romance of the Volkswagen bus was not obliterated with VW’s wartime history, and with its recent auto emissions scandal. Reality merely dents VW’s reigns in German … Continue reading American Romance with Europe