4 Steps to a Healthy Father-Son Relationship
What Joy I feel to have two grown boys who not only love me, but LIKE me. We like spending time together, enjoy old routines and new adventures, want to talk and play and hang. I fly into Philadelphia for a quick weekend with our youngest, and he drops everything to be with me. On…
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Mile Zero – Newfoundland
Dukes of Hazzard at 8:00, 8:30 Newfoundland. Canadian childhood included constant reminders that Newfoundland is special. Apart. So far gone that it gets its own time zone. It really does feel like we’re perched tenuously on the edge of everything here. But not the end of the world, like at Finisterre which was clearly the…
No Country for Old Cyclists – Cape Breton
Cycling the Cabot Trail of Cape Breton ain’t for sissies. It may not even be for old men. It may even be that I’m old… Part-way up this mountainside that has no visible end, I’m negotiating with myself to just make it to that next bend. Or maybe just to that next phone pole. Reminding…
British Columbia: Still Beautiful, Super, and Natural
I grew up proud of the “Beautiful British Columbia” license plate on the back of my Dad’s ’74 Ford Gran Torino. Simple, understated, confident. And oh so true! Then BC Tourism jumped on the 1980’s hyperbole bandwagon and launched the “Super, Natural” slogan that, until an AI search 10 minutes ago, I thought was “Supernatural.”…
Three Best Places to Retire in Nova Scotia
I’ve written before about the challenge of choosing where in the world to travel when the whole world is on the menu. Imagine the higher stakes of picking a place to Settle Down when the options feel almost as vast. No, we’re not settling down yet. But sometime probably in this decade we’ll plant some…
Oh Canada! Why Now?
I wake up early this Canada Day morning, go for a swim the park rangers promised would be much colder than it was, then walk around the 100 wooded campsites of Notre Dame Provincial Park. Unlike our sad little site with nothing but the little backpacking tent from our honeymoon 26 years ago, these campers…
Magdalen Islands through Galen’s Lens
What better way to celebrate graduation than taking Galen on one of his dream photography tours, and his partner Cai on one of their dream naturalist tours? The first photos below are taken by me, mostly to give contrast to the stunning quality and artistry that is Galen Juliusson Photography. We finish the graduation bonanza…
Six Degrees of Proud for my College Graduate Galen
I watch my first-born glide across the stage to accept his college graduation certificate. Big goofy smile reminiscent of his old “Did you see that kick?” glances at us ever-attentive parents shivering on the soccer sidelines, he bounds over to the President and gives him a full hug instead of a handshake. Then just like…
Welcome to the USA?
“Please don’t excite the dawgs or they’ll pee.” If US Immigration wanted to make people smile, they could have adopted my highschool buddy Kyle’s front door greeting (in full slow Arkansas drawl). First impressions are lasting (just ask Head ‘n Shoulders dandruff shampoo), and the US could choose to make a welcoming, “you’ve come to…
Walking with my Toddler Husband
Me ‘n Sazza, we walk and explore together – a lot. And me, I get amused and curious and blown sideways – a lot. As a creative writing exercise with my Albanian Writers Group, I played with how all the beauty cuts and I’ll-Be-Right-Back!’s and Did-You-See?’s might look from her perspective. Walking with my Toddler…
Poland is all it’s Krakow’d-up to be
It’s our last week of this 9-month Europe/North Africa jaunt. Part of me wants to hole up in our current home – Krakow – and just Live like we did in Albania: get a one-week gym pass, write, knock off a few more of my Netflix things-to-watch, idle in coffee shops. It’s my last chance…
Clean Corners in Copenhagen
Everything works in Copenhagen. Corners are 90 degrees. Metro trains are every 4 minutes. Cyclists use proper hand signals. After all the delightful quirks and imperfections of Albania, Tunisia and Turkey, it’s relaxing and pleasant to be in a place where the quirk is to make sense. We are here in Denmark to visit Zekiah…
Albania’s Small Towns
We could easily spend our entire 7-week Albanian stay in the capital Tirana. Comfortable, friendly, safe – it lets us settle into Living instead of Travelling. But what a shame it would be to not take advantage of easy access to gorgeous Albanian countryside and fascinating smaller towns. We recollect how glad we were to…
Lessons in Authoritarianism: Albanian Ghosts Dance in the White House
Much has been written about how Trump (and his Maple-MAGA admirer Poilievre in Canada, if he gets the chance) is following Hitler’s playbook to destroy democracy, but Albania offers a much more recent example. Learning the horrors of Enver Hoxha’s 41-year authoritarian reign has been emotionally draining as I see the parallels to current affairs…
Weekend in Kosovo
One reason we chose to set up camp in Albania for 2 months is the easy access to several other countries we know nothing about. With a half-day drive one can cross the border into Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia or Greece, and the outer ring of Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and Italy…
For Americans Wearing Canadian Flags
At a bar the other night I met yet another three Americans who laughingly admitted to wearing a Canadian flag when travelling. Here’s what I wish I’d said to them. What part of you can possibly think that’s okay?! “People treat us better,” is inevitably your reason. Sometimes hiding behind a “We don’t like our…
You Can’t Paint Over Poverty
Everything I wrote in my “Extreme Makeover Tirana” post was true – for me. The murals and painted buildings make every walk an adventure, and the brave new architecture is literally fantastic. But fading rainbows and optimistic green arrows can’t mask the continued hard times for the average Albanian. The young woman in the photo…
Extreme Makeover – Tirana, Albania
Grey – I couldn’t imagine any colour but grey. We have come to Albania because the only image I could conjure was rows of bleak featureless communist-era cement buildings. Populated by grey, emotionally-flattened post-Communist-era people. My Western cold-war propaganda indoctrination sunk in deep. Antiquated propaganda-based assumptions are inevitably wrong, as they thankfully are here. The…
Cold ASS, Warm Quakers and a Hot Vicar – Alderney
Our first exposure to Alderney’s ASS occurs at the Nunnery. The venerable Alderney Swim & Soup club has kindly invited us for a polar plunge that they do every morning. Though not every morning has 30mph winds blowing the 4 degrees air over the 6 degrees water. And no-one told us that they all wear…
Hike Around Alderney (all 10 miles of it)
The sweet and salty are swirled together. Beauty framed by tragedy, today’s Peace tinged by yesterday’s war, carefree days more poignant after last night’s nightmares. Alderney is a yin-yang paradise of light layered over a heavy, dark past. On a warm (10 degrees) sunny (ish) February morn we set out to walk around the entire…
Walking with Jane Austen
North Waltham is “a village and civil parish in the borough of Basingstoke and Deane in Hampshire, England.” With one school, one store, one church and two pubs, it is a very ordinary and properly-proportioned English town (except that neither of the pubs show live soccer matches!) What distinguishes North Waltham is that one of…
Speaking English in London
For the past 6 months we’ve been functioning primarily in French & Spanish while trying to decipher Turkish and Arabic. Does that sign say Open or Closed, Push or Pull? Is this baking powder or baking soda? Is the yoga teacher telling us to lock our knees or clench our bums? It’s been exciting to…
Feelin’ Easy-ahh in Tunisia
We chose Tunisia rather randomly – the cheapest nearby country to fill 2 weeks before our upcoming UK housesit – and very ignorantly worried that it might just be a continuation of our Moroccan experience. More mosques, more North African landscape and culture, more medina market peddlers and walled old cities and offers of camel…
2024 – A Review and a Rewrite
When it came time to write the traditional Family Christmas letter, I was stuck. After 61 blog posts, was there anything new to say? So I took a deep breath and re-read every post, beginning to end, Minnesota to Morocco. While there wasn’t much to be added, there was an arc, a development or evolution…
Morocco through fresh eyes (and professional lens)
One of the most humbling and joyous achievements of parenthood is watching your children get better than you. I have been quite good at lot of things, then watched my own flesh and blood do them even better. Zekiah blasts past me in soccer, logical thinking, even professional networking these days. Galen’s fingers dance beyond…
Currently in...
Moncton, New Brunswick for a month of post-knee-replacement rehab (Sarah's) with our lovely Galen and his fiance Cai.
Heading to...
Newfoundland, Uruguay, Chile, Easter Island, Carnival!, Monteverde. Please share any sites, people or ideas by email.