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By Manila time both Scott and I were running out of steam. I kept making plans for the last few days that involved getting out of town, finally realizing there were plenty of small adventures to pursue right there near our hotel after two months of Doing a Lot of Stuff! My favorite jaunt was to Chinatown, not sure why, maybe the weird sweets! Manila’s a tough city in many ways, and… Read More
Please view these next three posts on a laptop or computer…photos deserve more than your phone. My February time in Cambodia and the Philippines seems so very long ago and far away. I wasn’t quite my normal travel self, but my equally travel-obsessed son Scott was with me so it all turned out quite splendidly. What follows are three photo album posts: Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, and Manila (Philippines). Not many words,… Read More
January/February 2025. The Tropics. Great place to spend some winter…even if you’re from a too-sunny/warm climate already. Palm trees, blue skies and lots of ocean, mangoes, genocide museums, skyscrapers, lots of rice, chickens in the yard, islands—so many islands, history of American colonization and bombs, ancient temples: blackened by time and quietly accepting a world of visitors into their lush jungle home. At a Big Event. With your Favorite People. So, there… Read More
Fantasy Island for a month. How does that sound? Especially in January? What follows is a show&tell overview, and you can judge for yourself. Well, actually the pictures are all pure scenic perfectness, only interrupted by human interest views, you know a cow or a crab or some cool kids. There’s a sweet little restaurant called Miley’s high up a hill; only good bread or butter (of any kind) I’ve had for… Read More
January has been quite a month hasn’t it? In my case, a brilliantly staged and fantastically (and I do mean with elements of fantasy) executed destination wedding in the tropical land of the Philippines started off the month/year for me. Life at its best. Soon though, the post-wedding glow was dimmed by an event watched with worldwide trepidation. On January 20th, the inauguration of our very own, home-grown, real life fascist took… Read More
I really must leave Paris and move ahead with my life. The thing is…I’ve been, off and on, obsessing about our last evening there and, while I’ve covered that week’s happenings in some detail, apparently, I do not want it to end. But all good things…and all that…. Let me plunge right back into that dark and rainy evening. September 27th it was. Teresa and I had tickets for DANCE ME –… Read More
Here’s the opportunity for you just to meander about the city with us. In the sun and rain, early or late, happy or … happy. Yes, Paris has a whole lot of ordinary suburbs like all urban areas…but, you know, in the center of Parisian history, where we visitors hang out, it is so not ordinary. It is beautiful, and like no other city…and I have been to most of the world’s… Read More
I am about to share the last stop on my September journey. Paris. It had been awhile. At least fifteen years? How could that be? My favorite city for so many years. I was Paris enamored, enchanted, enthralled…yeah, all that. And yet in my travels in the 2000s, I only returned a few times, and they were early on. Why? Perhaps, afraid to have the memory diminished, the magic tarnished by the… Read More
September in Europe was comprised of three distinct passages. First a visit to the ‘young’ cousins in Kristiansand, the Setesdal Valley, and Neset. My ancestral stomping grounds. Can I call it home, even though I didn’t visit until age 46? Yes, why not? It feels right, especially since most of the names on the mailboxes of my Minnesota childhood road were Olson, Nelson, Gunderson, and Neset so it seems my grandfather didn’t… Read More
Back then: September 2024. An excellent time was had in Norway and in Paris. Coming up: November 2024. The end of the US as we thought we knew it OR we are saved by the skin of our teeth or in the nick of time or just barely…or whatever. But Now. October 2024. I’ve been intending to write three praiseworthy blog posts about my September trip. I published an Oslo introduction… Read More