June 28th, 2021 | Education, Europe, Friends, General, Travel
I learned about the English-Speaking Union at Emma Willard School where, freshman year, our ESU was the tall and soignée Julia. Three years later, I applied to the program; our headmaster, William Dietel, at that time chaired the selection committee. I still remember...
September 27th, 2020 | Europe, General, Health, Society at Large, Travel, United States
As of 8:00 pm March 30, 2020, Governor Hogan’s “Stay At Home” order went into effect. This is a deadly public health crisis—we are no longer asking or suggesting that Marylanders stay home, we are directing them to do so. No Maryland resident should be leaving their...
July 26th, 2020 | Europe, General, Politics, Travel
I so want to leave. It doesn’t matter where we might go, just get in the car or take a cheap flight to some place we’ve talked about visiting, like Nashville, Tennesee, or Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Such domestic destinations are apart from our desire to see the lochs and...
December 6th, 2019 | Architecture and Design, Cooking, Kitchen and Table, Europe, Family, Genealogy, General, Health, literature and poetry, Travel, visual arts
My Dear One, noticing that we had a lot of empty calendar space from the end of October to the beginning of November, suggested that we fly off to somewhere in Europe. France? Italy? It took almost no time to decide on the Veneto. For ten days we nested in the...
December 3rd, 2019 | Architecture and Design, Europe, General, Travel, visual arts
I had long wanted to fully experience the Venice Biennale. In 2017, the curator of the American pavilion was Christopher Bedford, also the newly hired director of the Baltimore Museum of Art. The credentials created quite the synergistic buzz. The artist who...
November 21st, 2019 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, Europe, General, Travel
I travel to eat. My Dear One not so much, although he takes pleasure when we hit the culinary jackpot. Eating is not just about finding those restaurants you want to keep secret from Tripadvisor and Yelp. It’s about the idea of food, the way local ingredients might be...