A Long-Overdue Affair: The Wisconsin State Fair
Last year, it finally happened. I went to the Wisconsin State Fair! Although I had lived in the state for over a decade, for whatever reason, I’d never made it to the festival grounds in West Allis until last year. Ironically, it took me to move out of Wisconsin to […]
Chicago: Keeping the Blues Alive
Today is a special day in Chicago: Buddy Guy celebrates his 90th birthday. Although we are currently busy writing posts about Uzbekistan, this milestone-and America’s 250th year-makes it the perfect moment to celebrate one of the country’s greatest musical traditions: the blues. At his birthday bashes, Buddy Guy usually tells […]
Uzbekistan: One Conversation at a Time
We were in Margilan, a medium-sized town in the Fergana Valley, on a quick day trip when we stopped at the street market for lunch. We found a tiny café serving hot tea and potato samsas, sat down, and ordered a pot of tea with three samsas to share. As […]
Monterrey, Mexico: World Cup Edition
Back in February, we climbed Cerro de la Silla and marveled at the striking Estadio BBVA from above. There, on the hiking trail, I had an interesting thought: “How cool would it be to see this mountain from the stadium seats during the world’s biggest sporting event?” Later that evening, […]
2026 FIFA World Cup: Hogwarts vs. Narnia
Those who follow this blog know I am a big soccer fan and try to attend games in every country I visit. This fact is even listed in my section of “About Us” on this website. So, it won’t surprise anyone that attending the World Cup this summer was on […]
Stop and Smell the Flowers
“Dead bushes,” I muttered. “We need to do something about it.” It had been more than a year since the pandemic started, and I was looking through the window of our condo at the lifeless branches dangling outside. “Why don’t we get rid of them and plant some flowers? We […]
The Prettiest Town in Mexico
“We are going to the prettiest town in Mexico,” Victor said as we were packing our backpacks for the flight. “Says who?” I demanded, “Who decides what’s the ‘prettiest town”? What’s the prettiest town in the US? In Europe? In the world? I’ve never even heard of Guanajuato before you […]
Rhode Island: Gilded Age of Our Travels
How do you spell “Victor”? How do you spell “Julia”? I wasn’t sure what I expected before visiting Rhode Island, but learning a new language was certainly not what I planned for. But here we were, at the gift shop of the Sailing Museum in Newport, unexpectedly immersed in the […]
Part II: It’s Good to Be Home
Start with Part I here. Short version: Victor became terribly sick with a fever and rash on our 15-hour flight from Dubai to Newark. There was good news and bad news. Good news – Victor did make it back to the U.S. Bad news – we were landing in Newark […]
Long Way Home
On the morning of December 31st, Victor started running a fever. It wasn’t too bad, and he didn’t even want to slow down or skip any of the sightseeing we had planned for that day. I gave him a few pills of ibuprofen and forgot about it. We celebrated that […]
Unexpected Oman
There were many ways Oman surprised me, mostly due to my complete lack of knowledge about its history, politics, and, as crazy as it sounds, geographical location. For whatever reason, I only considered countries separated by a land border to be Oman’s neighbors and cultural influencers. It never occurred to […]