My earliest memories of the Waldorf Astoria hotel happened on May 7, 1945. The whole city of New York was in a frenzy, because VE Day had just been announced, the end of World War II in Europe. I was on liberty from duty at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, awaiting assignment to a new ship after service on a troop ship during the retaking campaign of the Philippines the previous October.

As most of the news photos and films show, there were a million people in Times Square, all shouting, dancing and kissing to celebrate the occasion. Not many in the crowd, except for GIs and sailors, thought about the hard fighting ahead to reach VJ Day, victory over the Empire of Japan. The battle of Iwo Jima just a few months past had been one of the most brutal in the war, and the invasion of Okinawa was just weeks away.  However, it was a triumphant moment and, after four years of war, the American people needed to celebrate.

We enjoyed our stay in Bruges last year. It’s a perfectly preserved medieval town. Like an authentic movie set for an Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks movie, it’s complete with town square surrounded by 400-year-old churches, homes, quaint stores, popular cafes, statues and Saturday market in the square.

Four of us were backpacking through Northern Europe, and decided to spend several days in the beautiful Bruges area. We found a hotel on one of the town’s many narrow, cobblestone streets, and when we were told the room would be $100 a night, we thought about going elsewhere. However, at the landlord’s urging, we climbed to the second floor to take a look.

It isn’t too much of an exaggeration to call the San Diego one of the best in the world. For the past 70 years it has been the model for zoos everywhere to encourage evolving from confining cages to roomy natural living areas for the animals.

Many seasoned citizens have visited city zoos since childhood, and they can easily remember those of not too many years ago, featuring listless, miserable animals behind bars and small fenced enclosures. Yesterday’s zoos were prisons, where inmates endured life sentences of boredom.

One of the most heart-warming aspects of the San Diego Zoo is that it’s designed to allow animals to live as naturally as possible, with plenty of space for roaming and interacting with other compatible animals. At the same time, the zoo encourages visitors of all ages to find interesting areas to stop and observe without disturbing the animals’ lives. No longer does Dad have to say, “Let’s go to the zoo and laugh at the monkeys in their cages.”

The must-visit Brandenburg Gate was for 50 years following World War II the flash point between Russian and Allied troops, always poised for what could have quickly become an atomic war. Things have quieted down significantly now. Since Berlin was put together again as the bustling city it once was in 1991, the Gate has become a prime tourist destination.

The huge structure, designed from the entry facade of the Parthenon in Athens’ Acropolis, was completed in 1791. Since then, victorious armies from Germany, Czarist and Communist Russia, England, France and the United States have marched through it on the way to or from battle. So, would you believe its first name was the Berlin Arch of Peace?