The forecast was splendid: sunny at 71 degrees, which is to say 22 degrees Celsius.…
Šeima Means Family 1: The Family We Choose
We reached out to Audrius about fifteen years ago as we jumped into the quagmire that is the genealogy of Lithuanian immigrants to the United States. He shares a surname with my Dear One and a rather random Internet search turned him up in Kaunas. We grasped at that...
In Flanders Cities 5: Brussels is Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is not really my thing—too ornate, too feminine, too precious. I admire certain artists and objects and connect to the focus on materials and their unique qualities, but l would not want an Art Nouveau home or Art Nouveau furnishings, or even much in the...
In Flanders’ Cities 4: Antwerp
I was here in the summer of 1970, an eighteen-year-old hitchhiking around Europe after a year on an English-Speaking Union scholarship at Princess Helena College in Hertfordshire, England. My traveling companion, Sue, was a school pal of a school pal, and we joined...
In Flanders’ Cities 2: The Kitchen
I do not understand why one wouldn’t want to cook while on vacation. Everything tastes better in Europe. The eggs are eggier, the butter more buttery and the vegetables, breads and meats so much more dense with flavor. There is a shop a few meters off St. Catherine...