london
Luxembourg
There have been many images coming out of Europe showing refugees arriving or stuck at borders, so here’s another image worth sharing.
Whenever you are feeling cruddy as a parent, saying yes to an after school playdate is one way to feel better about your sacrifice. Add in distance (the playdate is twenty minutes from your house) and traffic (pick up at 6:30pm) and you have the makings of a parental martyrdom victory.
I’m routinely cheerful, until something sets me off. The alarm faintly sounded Monday morning at 8:01am with a call from my son announcing that he and his brothers had missed the bus and “it was a long story.”
And you thought a 54 minute wait time at the DMV to renew your driver’s license was something to sniff at.
This past Mother’s Day my children were scattered across Europe. Quinn was in Luxembourg, Lawton was with Brett and I in the Netherlands, and Colin was *somewhere* in Belgium.
You all see my many travel photos and probably wonder if my children still go to school. They do. And Brett still works. A lot in fact. It got me thinking that while I most often share the awesome parts of living abroad, there are still loads of things that have taken some adjustment. Even 16 months later.
I’m often asked about the International School experience and how it compares to that of US public schools. Mostly my answer is: “It’s great!” Our boys like it, and we do too.
On Wednesday I posted this lovely quote from Pico Iyer about travel and living abroad: “Travel, for me, is a little bit like being in love, because suddenly all your senses are at the setting marked “on.” On Thursday I had a bit of an expat meltdown. Pico and I were no longer seeing wanderlust eye to wanderlust eye.
Athletic programs are not an integral part of the European high school experience. In fact, they don’t really even exist. Unlike the US where sports are embedded in every high school across America, most European student athletes play outside of school in year round club programs.
Initially put off with the much smaller sized European kitchens, I have come to appreciate that small is sometimes better.
The minimum drinking age in most countries around the world is 18. Luxembourg is on the other side of that distribution curve as one of 16 mostly European countries where it’s legal to buy and publicly consume alcohol at 16.
Oh, happy day. The headline from my online Luxembourg newspaper today is “Enjoy the sun, on Wednesday it's over!” For a small country, ALL the news gets reported. Every weather change, every event, every car accident, and pretty much everything their 2 ½ reporters can dig up.
This past weekend my family was invited over for fondue at the home of a Swiss family. Unless you’re lactose intolerant or maybe even if you are, that’s the kind of dinner invitation not to be refused. Never having had traditional Swiss fondue, our hosts did more than just prepare the caquelon to receive its cheesy calling, they also treated us to a memorable first experience.
Last night, Brett and I attended Curriculum Night at Quinn’s new school: The International School of Luxembourg (ISL.) As one might expect, things work a little differently here then they do in the US.
When back in the US this summer, someone asked Brett and I what was one unexpected thing we noticed about the difference between living in the US and Luxembourg.
I spent my first day back in Luxembourg on one of those epic quests to find something that doesn’t exist.
Now that we are out of the woods, I can tell you. I don’t have an underactive thyroid. But it was dicey there for a few days. The days between my web self-diagnosis and an actual blood test.
I come from the birth place of Starbucks, where coffee shops dot each street corner and designer baristas make latte art. Java – especially the fair trade kind - flows from our hearts and wallets.
It’s not every day a well-known Seattle artist decides to open his world tour in Luxembourg and you, a passport holder from Seattle living as a local in Luxembourg, are there to see it.