Belarus: backstage at the Bolshoi Ballet.

Attending a ballet performance can transport you to a world of fantasy. Think The Nutcracker. Think Swan Lake. Think The Little Prince. 

While the stage is where the audience gets transported, backstage is where the dancers and set gets transformed. In this five minute video, you can accompany travel vlogger Eileen Aldis backstage at the National Academic Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theatre of Minsk where all the magic happens, where costumes come alive, sets become real, and dancers metamorphose into characters from the famous stories of our childhood.

In addition to being the venue for some magnificent storytelling, the Bolshoi Ballet of Minsk is the stuff of legends. It survived World War II, even though it was hit by a undetonated bomb. The theatre is covered with gold inlay and if you look close, you can spy the telltale Soviet sickle and hammer. The statues adorning the top of the building look as though they have been there for generations -- but they are actually a relatively new addition.

This video will have you wanting to hustle back to the ballet.

 

Milford, CT: small city with a big heart.

This weekend, I visited my family in Connecticut after not seeing them since the pandemic started. The weather was absolutely beautiful as I watched my nephew in a ruby match, my niece in a softball game, and reconnected with Long Island Sound -- where I first fell in love with the water.

This video runs less than three minutes and gives a great snapshot of what makes my hometown so special -- the water, the history, the New England charm (and yes, Maine friends, the lobster roll WAS invented here). 

I relished my first in-person trip in 16 months -- but am now relegated to the sofa after a jam packed weekend.

P.S. The best part of the trip was catching up with my parents -- I just wish this article came out one week earlier, as it offers some great tips for catching up with parents post-pandemic.

Barbados: kitesurfing.

Half circles litter the sky. They are tethered to people on the water tethered to their surfboards. Would you try this on the windiest island in the Caribbean? Could you keep in check your sense of feeling out of control as you feel the exhilaration pulsating in your heart and on your skin in the form of slapping wind and water?

This is meditation time, time to be one with the wind, the water, and in the moment. There is no thinking about the emails that are piling up in your inbox. Just as the half circles are tethered to people tethered to their surfboards, kitesurfing tethers participants to the present moment. The slapping wind and water will bring you back to it if you try to run back to the past or forward to the future.

If you can't kitesurf now, enjoy this four-minute video that serves as a Barbadian meditation. Watch the half circles litter the sky. Let your ears take in the calypso. You can almost feel the wind and the water.

Bangladesh: Dhaka Art Summit

I came across the Dhaka Art Summit quite by accident, as I was originally going to blog about Somapura Mahavihara, the ruins of a Buddhist shrine. The film I originally selected was in Bengali and I wanted to find something in English so that I could understand what the narrator was saying. Before I could find a suitable video, I stumbled upon the Dhaka Art Summit and was taken in by the images.

Since 2012, the Samdani Art Foundation has hosted this biennial gathering of artists and the general public to explore a wide range of contemporary art. This nine-day event is very accessible, with no VIP events or tickets. Right before the pandemic shut the world down in 2020, 500 artists showed their works and 40,000 people per day walked through the exhibits.

This nine-minute video offers striking eye candy.

Bahrain: an action-packed 48 hours in Manama.

I watched a number of videos on Bahrain this afternoon. One vlogger went on an interesting tour of a souk (market) with tantalizing sweets and spices. I almost shared his video -- but then he spent the last three minutes on a commercial for a travel insurance company. It was a buzzkill. I then learned about the Bahrain Fort and a vlogger with an interesting video -- but felt very bad for him as he marinated in his perspiration.

And then, I discovered Leyla Kazim. In less than 10 minutes, Leyla depicts a 48-hour trip to Bahrain that showcases all of the highlights I saw in other videos. She went to the souk, took a cooking class, fed camels, went kayaking -- and more! She is an excellent travel companion and made me remember all of the nice extras of traveling.