2020: A Check-In at MidYear

The sticky heat of the midsummer holiday clung to my skin in a tacky sheen. I could feel it where my forearms contacted the chair and where the bend of my elbows creased. It’s summertime in Michigan, where I sit on the screened-in porch of the cottage listening to the cacophony of children splashing in […]

Eating In the Garden

There are a lot of olive trees here. They’re everywhere. It makes sense, I guess, as this small island produces 5% of the world’s olive oil. They don’t really have an established identity in the international olive oil market. Instead, the Cretan olives get exported to other countries, such as Italy and Spain, where they […]

The Post In Which I Watch Italian Infomercials

This is it, my friends, the last day of this voyage, and we started with no set agenda or schedule, so slept in a touch longer before breaking our nightly fast. When our morning meal was done we returned to our room where, out the window, the world had become saturated. I haven’t spoken much […]

On Into Tuscany

We left Bologna today, heading south. Sometimes when I travel I have a plan that I mostly stick with, whereas other times I find unexpected things to do along the way. When I travel with friends, this happens more often, and in this case D had heard about the Ducati factory just outside of Bologna. […]

Yes I Really Did Eat This Trip

We have been pushing ourselves a bit, so really needed today as a down day, a time to slow our steps and see the town. Our daylight hours until now have been spread far afield, but today it was time to stay close by. This of course means a bit less excitement, as well as […]

The German Pain Scale

Conference day today. They canceled my postgraduate course, but offered me a different course. Given that I had considered both of these options, I’m not torn up about it. One (minor) problem with being in the conference is this: I don’t have much to blog about, so I’ll make some general observations. German, for example, […]