A few days ago Cyrus asked, “Hey mom can you do a new job?” Confused, I replied, “What do you mean?” He explained: “I want to go back on the round-the-world adventure. So I need you to not do your normal job and become a scientist instead for a while so you can build us…
I had forgotten how enormous the Forbidden City is. Thank goodness. If I had remembered, I may not have so enthusiastically dragged my husband and kids there. Still let-lagged. In a heat wave. Or at least I would have insisted we take a taxi, instead of walk, from our (allegedly) conveniently located hotel, so we could…
We are driving to the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu. We’re out of the city, mostly on straight roads now, so I’m braving the use of my laptop as we drive through a thunderstorm. No plan yet as to how we’ll stay dry (we probably won’t) while we explore the wall, but we’re OK…
The Pyramid of Djoser does not look like the kind of pyramid you are picturing in your mind right now. It’s not a smooth, pointed shape with clean lines reaching toward the heavens, angles aligned with the sun’s rays. It’s not the shape that has become ubiquitous with the very idea of Egypt. Djoser’s pyramid, also known…
Somewhere in my research for our time in Dublin, I stumbled upon an article about Kevin Woods, the Last Leprechaun Whisperer of Ireland. (And yes, it is capitalized.) As his website describes, in 1989 a leprechaun suit, bones, and gold coins were found on Carlingford mountain in Co Louth Ireland. No was was more skeptical than the…
God as a person. I’ve always loved this about Christianity. I love the idea that God wanted to be close to people, so went to all the trouble to be born as a baby, and took all that time to grow up into a man who could walk and talk with people, and sit and…
“Mama. God needs a snack.” Asa, our three-year-old, pressed his face against a rectangular plexiglass box, fixated on the statue of Jesus lying inside. He couldn’t stop staring at the plaster God-man there, bloodied and gaunt and grimacing – and, according to Asa’s diagnosis, in urgent need of a granola bar or some Goldfish crackers.…
Four days into our adventure, we were running through the Louvre with half an hour before closing. We know, though, that the full half hour is not actually ours to use; when 15 minutes remain we will be asked to begin to make our way to the exits. The guards, in fact, have begun to…
I’m writing this on a tour bus back to Rome from Pompeii. We are all covered in volcanic dust, and given the lack of laundry facilities in our current airbnb, will likely be covered in this volcanic dust for the next few days until we leave Italy. This is after a day of hiking up…
It’s 10pm, and it’s still light outside. We’re driving south on the M1 highway toward Dublin, and we’re still a ways out. Hopefully it’ll be under an hour without traffic. The boys won’t (can’t) really sleep because of the sun. They don’t care what time it is; it doesn’t seem like bedtime to them. I…
Around the World in 80-ish Days* 