I would never have thought that I would ever travel as much as I have. I truly never believed that I would get out of Shelby County, Tennessee,

even though one of my biggest dreams was to explore the world. I met a young lady that I later married who had the same wanderlust that I did, but she had the courage to take me on the journeys of a lifetime. We've been to Europe, Asia and Africa and I loved it. The most memorable trip of all was a cruise that we took in the Mediterranean that started in Athens, then went to Egypt, Israel, Turkey, and to the beautiful Greek islands. We were lucky enough to go to the walled old city of Jerusalem and to Bethlehem, where I purchased a multitude of rosaries that were handmade in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. We walked the stations of the cross and, for those of you who do not know the stations of the cross, it is where miracles happened as Jesus carried his cross to the place where he was to be crucified. The thing that struck me was all of these places were relatively close in proximity to each other, even Bethlehem would have been like going from downtown Memphis Tennessee to Southaven, Mississippi. We also visited the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem that was built over the cave in which Jesus was born in a manger. The feeling that comes over you when you walk the areas where Jesus was born or where he taught the multitudes, even the garden of Gethsemane, is extremely close to everything.

I know that you're thinking that it costs too much money and it's too dangerous . I too was skeptical of the cost and our safety, but it was too important a journey for me not to have taken it. Just going to Jerusalem and Bethlehem would have been all I could've ever wished for, but we also went to Egypt and visited the Hanging Church in Coptic Cairo, which is built over the cave in which Jesus and his family stayed during his exile from Israel. We met some wonderful friends on our tour of Egypt and we actually went to a hookah bar, restaurant and had falafel which was a mixture of fried beans and vegetables in a ball served with lettuce, tomato and a Egyptian style yogurt sauce that was delicious. I can't help but think why was I blessed with these gifts from God when there are so many others more deserving of the trip. I will always be eternally grateful to my wife for the life I have been able to enjoy with her.

Of course, I have also done other things that were on my bucket list such as go to 221B Baker Street in London, England,

the home of the mythical character Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. Other than Earl Derr Biggers character Charlie Chan, the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories of Sherlock Holmes have always been my favorites. Of course, while we were in Hawaii I just had to go to Hotel Street in Honolulu where a lot of the exploits of that Oriental detective Charlie Chan took place.

We also drove completely around Germany, while we were in Germany. Our trip started in Basel, Switzerland visiting one of my wife's best friends. And then we set out on the autobahn driving a little Mercedes station wagon that I enjoyed immensely. Of course we visited her family while we were there and we went to all of the famous churches in Germany and, you guessed it, I bought more rosaries. I loved the food in Germany but it took us a while to find authentic German food. One day while looking for a German restaurant in Hamlin, a young black man crossed our path and in German my wife asked him if he knew where we could find a good German restaurant and in flawless German he jokingly said "for that you have to go to Spain", which was completely hilarious to me when she repeated it to me in English. When my wife told me what he had said the young man spoke up with a thick British accent and I was astonished and so was my wife, who is very seldom fooled by a non-native speaking German. We had a short conversation and went on our way. At one of the auto rest areas off of the autobahn there was a restaurant and it had authentic German food.

I guess truck drivers like their own cuisine served to them. We stayed in the town made famous by the Pied Piper of Hamlin and our hotel room was above a restaurant and bar, but it was extremely quaint because everything was done up like it was in the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin.

Our trip to Turkey was the most amazing place of all as it seemed to have the culture of the East and the West blended quite carefully. We went to the Hagia Sophia and to the Blue Mosque and to Topkapi, the palace of the sultans of the Ottoman Empire. Istanbul was known in earlier times as Constantinople after the Emperor Constantine that was converted to Christianity. The Ottomans conquered Turkey and changed the city name to Istanbul in the early 20th century. A dear friend of our family lived for a time in Ankara, Turkey, where her father was stationed for the Air Force and she sent me a Turkish dagger as a present one Christmas. It is solid brass and I still have it to this day. I was ecstatic going to Turkey, not only because she had been there, but it was also where they shot my favorite James Bond movie of all times "From Russia With Love". I secretly tried to find the support column were Sean Connery as James Bond 007 hid out of sight in the Hagia Sophia and I think I found it.

I know it's silly to base a lot of what you really want to see on TV and movies, but I have told you all many times that I am a movie and TV fanatic and it was nice to go to all of these countries that I had read and seen in movies and TV shows, such as going to Harrods Department Store in London and having tea and scones with my wife, actually she had tea and scones, while I had a hamburger and a Coke. I have been to Macy's in New York and various other large department stores in United States but nothing, and let me tell you, nothing is quite like going into Harrods department store. They have everything imaginable to man to be sold in this store.

The first time I saw Paris, I fell deeply in love with the City of Lights. No other city has the romantic atmosphere that draws us back as Paris, France. We tried our best to eat the places where the french themselves would eat at and not the tourist traps. we would go to the market on Rue Cler and buy a baguette and cheese and a bottle of wine and sit in our hotel room overlooking a view of the Eiffel Tower and eat our food and then back out to the Champs Elysee to the top of the Arc de Triomphe to gaze at the Eiffel Tower in all its glittering, glowing glory at night. Since the millenium the Eiffel Tower has been glowing and blinking which makes it even more a romantic site to see from the Arc de Triomphe.

When one visits Paris, the Louvre Museum     is 

absolute must.

Not only does it house treasures from around the world, but it also has the most magnificent collection of paintings of any museum ever anywhere. The greatest masterpiece ever, the Mona Lisa, is its featured treasure. And no other museum that I know of has a greater collection of Egyptian artifacts, other than the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

There will always be a part of my heart that longs to sit in the Polidor Restaurant in St. Michel, having lunch and a glass of wine. One thing that I guess I wanted to see more than anything else was the place where Charles Lindbergh landed on his flight from New York to Paris at the Le Bourget Airport and its Museum of Air and Space which is only rivaled by the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

I wish that I could show you all the wonders that I have seen in my life as a poor young man from Memphis. I have truly been blessed with the riches of ages and those riches are not of gold, they are the sights and sounds of the world and the knowledge that each of these trips have brought me. I pray that we have at least one more trip or two still to do. My wife and I would both love to go to Rome and attended mass at St. Peter's Basilica and I would also love to go back to Germany one more time. Even if we never go across the sea again, I am hopeful that we will be able to visit some of our favorite cities in the United States and Canada, one more time as well.

I don't tell you these things to brag, truly I am not. I only wish to share them with you so that you might take at least one trip to somewhere exotic yourself. God has blessed me and I pray that he will bless you with something as remarkable as he did me