The Netflix series “Marco Polo” has rekindled my memories about my own adventures in China. We have been taught that the Polo family was from Venice. So when I lived in Croatia and found their claim to Polo’s home in Korcula, I became interested in his travels and the parallel to my own.
Much of the perspective we “Westerners” have about historic 13th century China (and the expanse of that portion of the known world at that time) is through Polo’s eyes as documented in “Travels of Marco Polo.” Through my eyes, I have observed many interesting places and things in today’s China near the Silk Road and the Yangtze River. This story is about my adventures there.
I have traveled to several “old towns” in many cities around the world. But few can compare to La Boca barrio in Buenos Aires (“BA”), Argentina. The neighborhood is at the mouth (“boca” in Spanish) of the Matanza-Riachuelo River.
Dateline May 6, 1945, Plzen, Czechoslovakia. Over the past five and a half years Plzen (Pilsen) in the Bohemia region of Czechoslovakia has been oppressed under the boot of NAZI German rule. Today, General Patton’s United States’ Third Army liberated Plzen. Czechs, young and old, greeted American soldiers by waving the stars and stripes as American tanks thundered into the city. 
The first real snowfall of the season occurred this week in Brno, Czech Republic. Granted, the snowfall was just a dusting of maybe four inches. As it fell, the view of Špilberk Castle disappeared from my apartment’s picture glass window. Snow covered the branches of the trees and I reminisced about this time of year when winter snowfall would come to Somerset, my hometown in Western Pennsylvania in the United States
Silently I paused while walking through the Oak Grove at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, my alma mater. While the university has changed so many things since my graduation, the Oak Grove appears to be the remaining, residual component of my school and my experience there. In the Oak Grove are fond memories of my university, the trees, their smells, their acorns and the grey squirrels that inhabit the grove.
Barry's Adventures Following Retirement 