Grieving from Afar
We initially met via Yahoo’s online dating site in the spring of 2005. I was still in Texas finishing up my chaplain residency, but I had accepted a job near Denver, Colorado, and would soon be leaving the buckle of the Bible belt for the more open-minded, high-altitude life. He had adopted a son when the boy was a teenager. Having been a teenager waiting for adoption as well as now being an adult considering adoption in the near...
Gaining foreign vocabulary for travel
I’m always mystified when I meet travelers who don’t know a single word of the language for the country they’re visiting. No one expects you to be fluent, but at least learn some of the important words like “thank you.” And with all the technology available at our fingertips, there’s really no excuse to not have at least some local vocabulary for your visit. Here are just some of the tools available to you. Websites For trying to...
Confessions of a Scrooge
For most of my adult life, I have absolutely despised Christmas and the whole holiday season. As a child, it was a bit different because my maternal family are Jewish, so I grew up with Channukah. While my cousin, who had wanted to become a rabbi instead of an attorney, would become angry with his wife for serving green and red Jell-O (“They don’t make it in white and blue!”) and would seethe as me and the other kids sang Christmas...
What’s Next?
As we’ve been reexamining our plan for a long-term base, it’s been a bit of a challenge. We really love Romania, and when I think about what’s next, I go back and forth. But we have some upcoming travel that puts us in a prime position to explore other options, so I feel like we need to do that at a minimum. After spending the last 2 years in places that really didn’t care too much about the Christmas holiday, or even New Year’s, we...
Say what?
One of the joys of travel is dealing with language barriers and mistranslations. To get the most out of an experience, I and many other travelers try to learn at least a few words in the local language. It’s amazing how just being able to say something as simple as “thank you” in the local tongue will put a smile on someone’s face. Sometimes, though, you get a situation where you or the other person looks confused, or breaks out into...
Why Romania?
Some people have been surprised about our choice of Romania for a long-term base. Surprisingly, most of them have been locals. They are pleasantly surprised we’re here exploring and even more shocked when they hear we’re planning on being here for a while. I’ve been tempted to try to start taking photos of people’s face when I tell them we’re considering being here for possibly a year or two. It’s kind of entertaining. Even our cabbie...
