Oxford Experience

Posted on by Caroline
We’re on our way now to Ireland, for a very brief stop-over before we continue west to Denver to meet back up with the kids. Our time in Oxford has been lovely. I got up early yesterday to take some photos around town before the streets got mobbed by hordes of other tourists and the sun retreated behind clouds. Then our class went out on a field trip to visit churches and apparently abandoned (but not really?) villages dating back to the era of the Black Death. Here a few photos worth making particular note of… First, there’s one particular door on an alley next to University Church. The spot in front of this door is where (according to legend),...Read More

First Day

Posted on by Caroline
We finished our first day as Oxford summer students and everything has been just as amazing as we’d hoped it would be. We’ve had three meals in the Christ Church Hall so far and we’ve met an incredibly diverse group of fascinating people. They’ve hailed from Orkney to Florida, from Aix en Provence to Pakistan. All with rich life stories and an abundance of curiosity and intelligence. My tutor for The Black Death course is perfect. We’re covering a lot of detailed information and I can’t keep up as I try to write down the references to books and historians and historic figures and events. But he has a sense of humor. Anyone who acknowledges the dearth of good coffee...Read More

Cambridge

Posted on by Caroline
We arrived at Heathrow yesterday morning around 9 and found our bus out to Cambridge. Wandering around Cambridge was a surreal, dream-like experience. My mental map of the town is wobbly, so I couldn’t predict what would be around every corner, but every new turn brought back a wave of happy memories and dimly remembered emotions. We realized how much of our early days were centered on trying and loving various restaurants around town. We just made it in time to put an order of Yippee Noodle’s incomparable salty squid. After renewing our faith in salty squid, we walked around the various colleges in town and then walked out to see Tim’s old apartment in Chesterton. Altogether, we covered about...Read More

20 Year Anniversary

Posted on by Caroline
This is an adventure that we’ve talked about and planned for months. The kids are all packed up and on Sunday they’ll take a bus up into the Rockies for a week-long sleep away camp. They’ll do rock climbing and camp fires and zip-lining and sing-alongs. It’s their first sleep-away camp and they’re a big jumble of excitement and nerves. Meanwhile, Tim and I are on a flight to London right now for our own sleep-away camp. We signed up for a week at Oxford University, where we’ll take classes, live in the dorms and eat in the Christ Church dining hall. We’re celebrating our 20 year anniversary this week, and we couldn’t imagine any better way of celebrating than...Read More

Failing Vacation

Posted on by Caroline
This is us, failing our vacation. By this time today, we were supposed to be well into our ski trip weekend. I would be sitting in a cafe, coffee and book in hand, ready to meet up with Tim and the kids at the end of a day on the slopes. Tim’s been planning this ski meet-up for months. But when his training popped up on the schedule, we knew we would have to cut our travel pretty close if we wanted to make it work. So while most of the families and skiers were settling into the ski resort, we were still making our way there. The storm that promised epic snow caused our flight to get cancelled, and...Read More

Last Day in the City

Posted on by Caroline
Today was our last full day in the city. We started by visiting the Meatpacking to see Chelsea Market (and eat breakfast), and stroll down to Highline Park to the Whitney Museum. I feel like I've been hearing about the Highline Park for forever as an example of urban revitalization and urban greening. I'm really glad we saw it, although it was a gray cold day, and I imagine that the park would be perfect in the spring and fall. Someday maybe we'll go back. The Whitney Museum has been a highlight for me - it was designed by one of my favorite architects (okay, another one of my favorite architects...), Renzo Piano. I really love the way Renzo Piano...Read More

Wonder Around Every Corner

Posted on by Caroline
Yesterday was the American Natural History Museum, lunch at a delectable place called Jacob's Pickles, Central Park, Grand Central Station, Bryant Park, and the NYC Public (including seeing the original Pooh bear). We felt like every corner we turned, we found something new and astounding. And I am quickly running out of time, so I'll focus mostly on a few photos from the day... and p.s. We found a building called the James B. Duke House...

Lady Liberty

Posted on by Caroline
Yesterday we started our day at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Although the mechanics of waiting in line and going through security were frustrating and long, taking the ferry across the harbor gave us a chance to shed the frustration and turn our attention to the beauty and optimism of this incredible monument to central ideals of America. It was a beautiful, sunny, cold morning with porcelain blue skies. Last week the kids had read a few books about the Statue of Liberty with my dad, so they were the recent experts and pointed out various details to us. They seemed particularly interested her broken chains and the way she is striding forward. We were all interested in...Read More

Times Square

Posted on by Caroline
New York brought it today. After an obscenely early start, we arrived in the city around 1:30 and checked into our hotel. Tim selected the Knickerbocker Hotel for us this week - a storied hotel right off Times Square (which we learned was previously Long Acre Square). In the day, the history includes a long, contentious rivalry with the Waldorf Astoria, an uneasy ownership by someone widely known as John Jacob “Jack Ass” Astor, a speak-easy, and the fabled invention of the martini. For us today, we’ve appreciated the great location, kind staff and comparatively spacious rooms (although our bar for room size seems to be set by Tokyo, and by that measure nearly every US hotel room is huge....Read More

New York, New York

Posted on by Caroline
When we’re already in the states, Tim has a random week off in the middle of training and the kids say they want to go to New York City… You hop on a plane and go to New York City. I think they got the idea from Home Alone 2, which has been a favorite Christmas movie for a few years now. Usually on some night that I’m out at a holiday get-together, Tim and the kids make some popcorn and watch Home Alone. I’m not sure what part of the sequel made them want to see the city - it doesn’t seem like a particularly flattering portrait of the city - it’s heavy on the scary elements and light...Read More