A half hour north of Copenhagen by train, you get off at a stop called Humlebæk then follow the signs as you walk about ten minutes up the road to a place called Lousiana. Louisiana is a modern art museum, and it is our family’s unanimous choice for best museum in the world. It has gorgeous […]
LION OF KENYA
It’s hard to overstate the simple unadulterated pleasure of driving around in the dying light — far beyond the reach of any cellphone tower — just searching for wild animals.
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 […]
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.
THE SITUATION IN ATHENS
In Italy, in Spain, in Portugal and throughout much of the world, people are talking about the recent economic crisis and how it’s changed their lives. The Crisis has been a constant topic of conversation around dinner tables, in the homes of new friends, and a living study in real world economics for the kids. […]
EXPERIMENTS IN ART
While in Paris, we had the time and opportunity to wander through museums with our drawing pads and colored pencils, trying our hand at imitating the Masters. See if you can guess which family member drew which sketch below (clockwise from top left). [UPDATE: The answer to “who drew what” can be found in the comments […]
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 […]
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 […]
AN ARTISAN IN MARRAKECH
Wandering the globe, we’ve discovered unlikely artists creating perfect cups of coffee in Kyoto, and devoted masters fabricating papier-mâché puppets in Barcelona. For the third installment in our series, we present “An Artisan In Marrakech.” A few years ago, a couple American expatriates named Sam and Caitlin arrived in Morocco and found that there were legions […]
LET THERE BE LUMIERE
If the Lumière brothers — the visionary fathers of cinema — hailed from anywhere in the US, there would be a giant amusement park erected in their memory. But in Lyon, France, there is just the elegant Institut Lumière — one of the most enjoyable and fascinating museum visits we’ve had on our trip so far.