Five years ago today, March 9, I met a tall, handsome Norwegian man for a movie. We sat on that bench up there and talked for a bit while we waited to go into the theater. Long story short, I now live in Norway. It’s no small move, emigrating from your home country, especially considering I lived in my hometown for 24 years before moving … Continue reading Of Anniversaries … and Anniversaries
It’s been nearly five months since I moved to Norway from the states. One would think I’d be well situated in either The Honeymoon Phase, in which everything about my new home seems exotic and charming, or the Homesick Like a Mofo Phase, in which I long for my homeland, what with its large grocery stores, hair products for women of color, and a language … Continue reading Home.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock lo these last few years, you’ve heard of Hamilton! The Musical. I admit I was a little late to the party when it came to the soundtrack, but I more than made up for it once I started listening to it. Put it this way: I had to institute my own 12-step program to wean myself off of … Continue reading This Is 50: I Was in the Room Where It Happened!
I married a Norwegian who hates winter. By the time February rolls around, he’s pretty fed up with the cold. How to fix this? Hit the beach! Every year since we’ve been together, we’ve been like the birds, heading south to warmer climes. Our first vacation, in fact, was to the Dominican Republic (I’ll eventually get caught up on our travels and will have a … Continue reading U.S. Virgin Islands
The very first friend I met in 2001 when I started working at Random Nonprofit Publisher (RNP) was a woman named Pat. Eager to make a good impression, I often showed up a good 30 minutes before my scheduled time. She had a different schedule, so she’d be there in our big communal office, and for those 30 minutes before anyone else started filtering in, she … Continue reading Atlanta
Our first vacation together was to the Dominican Republic back in February 2014. Espen had booked seven days in Santo Domingo. Turns out, that nation’s capital doesn’t have seven days’ worth of things to see. (Believe me, there will be a post about that trip at some point.) After visiting pretty much everything worth seeing in a day and a half, Espen insisted on forgoing the rest of … Continue reading Road Trip: New England and Canada
I love cathedrals. It was one of my favorite sections in art history class. The scale, the symbolism, and, of course, the windows … We’re lucky to have the world’s sixth largest cathedral in the nation’s capital. It had been a while since I’d seen it, and Espen had only seen it from a distance, so we visited Sunday. They’re still working on repairs from … Continue reading National Cathedral
Whenever I visit someplace new, I ask myself, “Could I live here?” Even if it’s a lovely place, it may not be a place I want to wake up every day. Case in point: I love New York. But I love visiting New York. I couldn’t live there. Not unless I was was so enormously wealthy that I could afford to live, say, overlooking the park. … Continue reading Philly: More Than Cheesesteaks
My father is originally from Milton, Delaware. On the last Saturday of every June, there’s a family reunion of sorts (more like a big family picnic) at one of the state parks. I went once when I was about 9, way back in the ’70s. The next time wasn’t until 2012, when I joined a cousin who knows even fewer people on that side of … Continue reading Delmarva and Cape May
Espen visited New Orleans back in 2013, when he went in July (!) with his friend Inge as part of a road trip across America. (How two Norwegians survived the heat that time a year is a mystery.) Of all the cities he has visited while living in the states — and there have been many — New Orleans remains one of his absolute favorites. I … Continue reading Bon Temps and All That Jazz
Where the Road Takes You 