Archive | Travel

Le Chambon map on Wikipedia

Back to France for Memory, Murder and Mystery

Sam and I fly to France tonight to make a second pilgrimage back to the boarding school I went to half a century ago. But it’s more than a trip down memory lane. This time, I am aiming to make sense of the extraordinary history of the French village of Le Chambon-Sur-Lignon, especially as it […]

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Leaning tower April 2017

Up and Down in Liguria, Fueled by Ibuprofen

I’ve sent the final draft of my manuscript to the publisher and it has been accepted for publication. With that behind me, Debbie and I “snuck away” recently for a trip to Italy – a walking tour of the coast of Liguria and the hills of Tuscany. It proved to be a delightful and illuminating […]

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A Busman’s Holiday on a French Island

{Update from both Sam and Debbie} First, an apology for the hiatus on our blog. Debbie will be telling you more about that. In the meantime, I want to tell you about our French immersion during March. It took three airplanes (we stopped in Barcelona and London), three trains, one bus, and one ferry to […]

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Sam’s Take on the Ups and Downs of San Francisco

I have not left my heart in San Francisco but I might have a weakness for the Fillmore/California Street neighborhood where we stayed in an Airbnb over the holidays. After ten days in this city some thoughts have coalesced but remain poorly defined. I want to like it here but I can’t. Or, I don’t want […]

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Incremental Change: Debbie’s Gap Year Wrap-Up

Sam had his say, reflecting back on our Gap Year. It is always a pleasant surprise to learn more about what he is thinking. Now it’s my turn. My thoughts are not as organized or logical. I picture tidy file cabinets inside Sam’s brain, clearly labeled “Africa,” “France,” “Hunting,” “Lemurs,” “The Last Ferryman,” etc. Not so […]

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Poverty in Africa Is Different

We have been back for a week. It has been a quiet return. I’ve been catching up on bills and creditors, recovering from jet lag and contracting (and then recovering) from gastroenteritis acquired here in the U.S. Debbie suffered a shorter bout in Uganda. The highlight of the week was a trip to Portland to […]

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Why We’re Planning A Digital Detox in Africa

Writing those words makes me feel horribly spoiled: I am planning a digital detox while in Africa. You would be justified in asking why? To cleanse my Facebook-polluted brain? To “fit in” in a third-world environment where electricity and the Internet are not guaranteed? For convenience sake, because staying “connected” might be difficult? The answer […]

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Africa Travel Jitters

The long distraction of our impending trip to Africa is coming to a close. The mental rehearsals of packing and organizing are giving way to actual packing, selection and rejection of items, organization of papers and reviewing the weather channel with an eye on the next blizzard. The challenge of packing for hours of driving (from […]

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