Don’t you just love it after reading a story when you’re given the chance to catch up with the characters and learn what’s become of them?We’re only one month removed from the trip, but life in Los Angeles is surprisingly lovely. We use the word “surprising” because we were pretty much dreading our return. We […]
FOUR REFLECTIONS
Memory is ridiculously fleeting. Almost instantaneously as we arrived home, we could feel the trip slipping from something we were doing to something we had done. It’s startling how quickly the present becomes the past. So on our fourth day back in Los Angeles, before we even officially returned to our house which was still […]
A TYPICAL SCHOOL DAY
As we begin to address the mountain of questions that have poured in, we will start with the one that we unequivocally hear the most: “What do the kids do about school?” Once you tell a stranger that you’re taking a year off to travel the world, this is far and away the first thing […]
A WALKING SAFARI
Once we forded the river, we finally found the starting camp for our “Walking Safari.” Months earlier, when we signed up for this Walking Safari, we really didn’t know what the hell we were getting into. We were just following the suggestion of a friend of a friend of an acquaintance. See, for many months […]
THE MANY FACES OF AFRICA
We snapped all the “faces” below in the Samburu and Masai Mara regions of Kenya: Sub-Saharan Africa wasn’t on our original itinerary. It was our thinking that in the future we’d make Africa a trip unto itself. But as we began to circumnavigate the globe, we realized it would be plain wrong to make an […]
THE THINGS WE THINK ABOUT WHEN WE VISIT A CONCENTRATION CAMP
Outside Berlin, our family walks through Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp in operation from 1936-1945, and our heads fill with thoughts.
IT’S RAINING IN VENICE
We’d heard stories about Venice in the rain — especially in the winter — when the entire city would be submerged in knee high water and you’d have to wear waders to get around. But this was the late Spring when we were there and we didn’t expect a relatively light rain to create water […]
THE OLD CITY OF JERUSALEM
Nowhere on earth is more history packed into a single square mile. This walled city is shared uneasily by Jews, Muslims, Christians — and especially tourists, each on their own pilgrimage. Our pilgrimage led us to the Western Wall where we each scribbled a prayer. Once you’ve walked through the streets of Jerusalem and experienced […]
FOUR REFLECTIONS ON THE DEAD SEA
Sister: When people say the Dead Sea, I think of the crystal clear sea and the oily salt water keeping me afloat as I lay back effortlessly. It is magical how the water let me sit down like I was sitting in a chair, but there was nothing underneath me. The turquoise water was so […]
FINALLY, ISRAEL IS REAL TO US
Israel is a revelation. Though we’d read about the country for years and formulated many opinions (“There must be a two state solution!”), we never truly understood the complexities and the nuances of the country until we stepped foot there. (As a side note, we are beyond impressed how Obama struck such a perfect tone […]