“When in Paris, the only thing one should leave to chance is the Loterie Nationale.” – Ernest Hemingway June 8 was our third day in Paris. Deciding the attacks with hammers were finished, we went to Notre Dame cathedral and the nearby archeological crypt (after our usual cafe au lait […]
The 5 of us were biking along the canals behind the palace at Versailles when my 8-year-old followed my detour off the main path to see where a hilly dirt path that went into the nearby woods might lead, as it seemed more exciting than the wider main trail. He […]
We boarded the train in York and arrived at King’s Cross on July 7, briefly stopping at Platform 9 3/4 before depositing our bags at the AirBnB in London. Then, I met my distant German relative, Andreas, and his girlfriend to tour the Warner Brothers Harry Potter studio, and it […]
As the girls sang “Welcome to Old York” to the tune of the similarly-titled Taylor Swift song about NYC, we started our 1 day in what would become one of my favorite cities visited in the world. We came by train from Edinburgh after returning the car. Then, about a […]
On Tuesday the 5th of July, I walked a mile in the rain to Hertz and rented what was supposed to be an automatic Audi but ended up being a manual shift Kia. So, my first experience driving on the left side of the road would be with a stick […]
On Monday, we began our second day in Scotland with hopes of touring the Palace of Holyroodhouse, but the Queen was there, meaning no tours were to be conducted. So, we walked to Edinburgh Castle and saw the prisons where (eventual) American POWs were kept during our Revolutionary War. Did […]
I thought we’d never see this sign. We arrived at the Atlanta airport in the early afternoon on July 1, intending to fly Delta to JFK around 5pm, but they evacuated our plane right after bumping me to first class, so we caught another plane, where I again got bumped […]
Last week, we completed our much-anticipated walk from the Irish Sea to the North Sea along Hadrian’s Wall in northern England, and it was the second life experience (the first one being going to war) I’ve had which I can now describe with the phrase, “I probably wouldn’t choose to […]
Sometimes a man needs to hop on a plane to attend a party with over 6 million people. Science and psychology tell us this is the best way to spend our discretionary funds, but I’d do it even if they didn’t. The idea for last week’s trip was actually hatched […]