Croatia, inspired backdrop for the award-winning Game of Thrones series, much like the fantasy television drama, is (almost) too good to be true. Every vista, worthy of a photograph. Welcoming people, rich culture, and natural beauty abound. Add to that the ease with which visitors can move throughout the county and region, and you have … Continue reading
Bolivia boasts yet another superlative, which in my opinion is not to be missed. I spent five days acclimatizing in La Paz, took a three-day trip to Lake Titicaca, returned to La Paz to meet my Global Builders team with The Fuller Center for a week, then flew from La Paz to Uyuni and back … Continue reading
Do we have the same memory from middle school? Learning that there was such a place called Ti-ti-ca-ca, a combination of words too hilarious to be uttered together? Many years later, I paid a visit to this very intriguing place with a laughable name. It feels a world away from La Paz, where I’d been … Continue reading
Once again, leading a Global Builders team with The Fuller Center for Housing, took me overseas, this time to Bolivia. I live near sea level, so landing straight away at an elevation over 13,000 feet at La Paz’s El Alto Airport was an adjustment to say the least. Bolivia is not an easy destination for … Continue reading
One of eight islands that make up America’s 50th state, Hawai’i is the largest and therefore nicknamed The Big Island. It is also the youngest in the archipelago, and one of the least populated. It’s amazing anything grows at all in the hard volcanic rock that you might mistake for rich soil. This also keeps … Continue reading
Having spent a couple days in Romania’s capital city at the end of my two-week tour of building houses in Cluj and around Transylvania, I’m not sure why it gets a bad rap. Sure, it’s a rather large city. But I like gritty urban environs just as much as I like glacial lakes and mountain … Continue reading
The parts of the forested Romanian countryside, dotted with villages, fortresses and castles is a delight to explore these days. But many of these previously fortified cities represent a refuge from danger that may have been on the horizon, just a few hundred years ago. Seeing them gives one a true appreciation for the ways … Continue reading
If you only had time to visit one city and use it as a homebase to explore some of Transylvania’s most popular sites, make it Brasov (bra-shov). From Brasov we also took day trips to see Viscri, Bran Castle, Rupea Fortress and Rasnov Fortress and Peles Castle on the way to Bucharest. Wander Without a … Continue reading
Despite popular belief, Transylvania is not a town or city, but one of several regions, occupying the northern center of Romania. Practically everyone’s heard of it from Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula in which Jonathan Harker stays at the castle of a Transylvanian nobleman, Count Dracula. Subsequently he discovers the Count a vampire. You already … Continue reading
This was the moment I’d been preparing for—meeting 11 volunteers in Cluj-Napoca to kick off our week of building with Fuller Center in Jucu de Sus, a bucolic village about 35 kilometers outside of Cluj. First, The Best Part Let me begin by saying, for me, and I believe for many volunteers, the best part … Continue reading
Global Staci 