I AM WAITING for the captain to arrive. It is the day after Thanksgiving and we are in San Diego with a fully boarded airplane. The entire crew is here except for the captain. No one knows where he is. The copilot stayed with family the night before, not at the hotel, so he hasn’t seen Rex since they arrived in San Diego yesterday.

I AM EATING dinner with Beki, a driver for a tour company in Lalibela, Ethiopia. Beki is eager to introduce me to a local dish, tibs. “You will like it,” he assures me. “It is a favorite of Westerners.

I AM SHOPPING in Itaewon, the frantic marketplace in Seoul, Korea, where the locals NEVER shop. Korean girls prefer their designer clothing authentic, are willing to pay full price.

I AM WALKING around Budapest, Hungary, admiring old, beautiful buildings that are crumbling just enough to give the city great charm and character. It is a terrific city for sightseeing on foot. A Hungarian man riding a bicycle is heading in my direction.

I HAVE SIGNED up for spa treatments in a hot spring high in the Andes mountains of Ecuador. The high-pressure jet massage sounds rather interesting, something I have never experienced before.

I AM LIVING in Jerusalem in a tiny flat on the second floor of a building near the King David Hotel. A winding stone staircase leads to apartments on three floors. The neighbor upstairs is a short sturdy blonde woman who keeps trying to set me up with Yaakov, the son of the neighbors who live next door.

I AM EATING lunch in a restaurant in New Delhi, India. The restaurant is beautifully furnished and the food is delicious. The only patrons are foreigners, and tour bus after tour bus pulls up, discharging groups of Europeans.

I AM PANICKING because I have a mosquito bite on the side of my face. I am on vacation in Nepal, heading to India the next day. I chose not to take malaria tablets because the risk is relatively low in the places I am going.

I AM LISTENING intently to a passenger standing in the front galley of my airplane. The service is over, the trash picked up. Passengers are watching movies, listening to music, reading, sleeping, or trying to sleep.

I AM SMOKING a cigar in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, a Montecristo, the cigar of choice of Che Guevara, the revolutionary.