Travelers' Intercom

My husband, Ed, and I traveled to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia for a month in the fall of 2009. We had a wonderful trip and enjoyed every moment of our travels.

In the summer of 2010, however, my husband found he didn’t have much energy — he didn’t feel good, but he didn’t feel bad either. He complained to the doctors, but when you are going to be 70 on your next birthday, no matter how young and active you have kept yourself you are still going to be 70.

In January 2011 his condition became much worse. To make a very long saga short, he saw many doctors...

I took the 16-day “Italian Masterpiece” tour with Cosmos, Sept. 29-Oct. 14, 2007. The trip began with two days in Venice, then the itinerary led us south to Rome, which we reached on Oct. 3. From there we continued back to Venice.

The first leg of the flight over was on United Airlines and the last on Lufthansa. When we arrived in the Venice area from Zürich, my suitcase was missing. I waited for the next flight, but it was not on that one, either. The others were visiting Venice while I spent the afternoon waiting for my luggage and filling out forms at the lost-and-found. I then...

I have had an apartment in Paris for more than 25 years and spend about 20 weeks a year there, making several visits each year, most recently in September ’09. Lately, as I reported (June ’09, pg. 14 & Aug. ’09, pg. 57), the manned ticket counters for the Métro are being replaced by ticket-dispensing machines which, even for the locals, are difficult to understand.

I thought ITN readers might appreciate being taken, step by step, through the process of purchasing Métro and bus tickets, so I asked my friend Katia Chestopalov to help. Katia was a translator at the UN until last...