It was 2002, and I was just starting a year of graduate management studies at Oxford University. My friend Roland, an Egyptologist in my college whom I’d met “in hall” (i.e., at one of the nightly formal, gowns-required dinners that passes for normal mealtime at Oxford), toured me around the museum’s labyrinth of curiously labeled curio cabinets: “Snuff-Taking Equipment,” “Amulets, Cures and Charms,” and “Treatment of Dead Enemies,” where I came nose to nose with some shrunken human heads.

Examining the case marked “Origins of Writing,” we were approached by a cheerful, clipboard-wielding volunteer who wanted to record our feedback. I remember Roland, who was fluent in more dead languages than living ones, remarking: “Oh, this place is wonderful! But I’m afraid I do have to tell you: this cuneiform tablet is upside down.” The docent flushed; I laughed. To a mere mortal, this is like noticing that a Japanese flag is hanging backward. But that’s Roland for you.

Read “Where Shrunken Heads are a Big Attraction” in it’s entirety.

Take, for example, this scene in Vilnius (where I am delighted to be living for the summer), which I photographed while jogging today.

It is a normal scene, a bit of urban decay, some concrete blight. Very common around here. You might think to yourself, “Those poor kids [the ones barely visible at the lower right] grow up playing in such ugly, rundown parks.”

True enough. But I knew, only because I happened to discover it two days ago, that that ugly cement mound is a plinth, upon which used to be this monument to Soviet partisans who terrorized the country with Stalin’s sponsorship:

When Lithuania got its independence in 1991, this statue and dozens like it were dismantled — immediately and with fervour — and a large number wound up in Gruto Parkas in southern Lithuania, where they are now a tourist attraction (and where the above photograph was taken, not by me).

So, yes, this local park is a bit on the ugly side. But those kids are growing up in a free country, as EU citizens.

Typing this now, I remember walking through the Killing Fields in 2002 and seeing Cambodian children splashing happily in the rainwater that had half-filled a pit which used to be a mass open grave. It was a scene of awful poverty — yet so much better than the historical alternative.

I guess my point is that without knowing the fuller context of things, sometimes your eyes play tricks on you, and you don’t really see what you’re looking at. If you’re an innocent kid, that’s so much the better. But if you’re a consultant like me, or an interested traveller, it’s worth bearing in mind.

The restored Königsberg Cathedral

One hundred and fifty euros for a Russian visa. Nearly six hours waiting to cross the border at Sovetsk/Tilsit. And 134km from there to the city of Kaliningrad/Königsberg.

Königsberg Cathedral is the jewel of what precious little is left here of German architecture — the site the official tourist brochure says to visit first and foremost.

When we got there, at 1pm on a summer Sunday, it was closed of course.

Because it was the weekend.

Lesson: if you want to keep your customers, you MIGHT consider keeping your customers’ hours.

That said, we are really enjoying walking around this one-of-a-kind city, nourished by good, cheap beer (and no open container laws) and the legendary Belomorkanal pinch-filter cigarettes at 6 rubles (that’s almost 11 whole English pence) a pack.

Driving from New Orleans to Mobile, I passed this work in progress on the Biloxi waterfront. Directly across from the broad white sand beach and down the main drag from a coming-soon Margaritaville hotel and casino, the construction site really stood out.

No surprise why: it’s an art museum designed by Frank Gehry which was 11 months away from opening when Katrina came along. Hurricane winds broke loose a barge and drove it into the nearly finished building. They’re putting it back together now.

I happen to like Gehry and I like his work. I also found myself agreeing with him — or was he unknowingly agreeing with me? — when he said last summer that the ‘Bilbao effect’ is “bullshit”.

Still, I like that the museum will house local art (mostly from a mad potter named Ohr), and I think the people of Biloxi should be proud to have an exciting building in their midst. Maybe Jimmy Buffet will wander over from Margaritaville and play at the grand opening.