Tuesday, January 20, 2009

New Year's resolution

To lose weight? To stop smoking? None of the above. What is it then? To be more daring, to go to places I've never been, rather than the usual comfortable ones. First stop, Cairo, Egypt. I have a patient who is from Cairo, he said, if I'd gone in May, I'll be able to stay in his house. He goes back to Cairo each May. He was pleased that I'm going to Cairo. I have a lot of patients who are from all over the world. It's amazing what a melting pot I have in my practice.
Another patient came yesterday, I've served him before and from his name, I know he is a Slav. So yesterday I decided to ask him where he was from, I made a few guesses, Romania, Serbia, Croatia....? He said, he is Serbian. I started talking to him about how the world (NATO and the USA under Clinton and Allbright) turned against Serbia. I said, 'Milosevic and all the others are bad but the Serbs are good people'. He seemed to like to hear that and I know I've made a lifelong friend. I'm going to start visiting Eastern Europe especially the Balkan areas, starting with Romania in June this year. There are some absolutely gorgeous painted monasteries in Moldova that I wish very much to see and that is what I shall be doing in June. Next maybe Belgrade in Serbia, Sofia in Bulgaria, the monastery in Riga........

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