October 19 – 23 The day after skiing the dunes we hopped onto a bus to travel to the Atlas Mountains. We saw some women hanging out with some sheep by the baggage compartment. We wondered if the sheep were riding with us. Sure enough, just before departure, they loaded the sheep into the luggage compartment […]

October 18 It felt very odd to walk along with skis on my shoulder and ski boots in my hand while wearing shorts and a t-shirt, but that’s what I did last week when our family skied the dunes in Merzouga. The day before we left, after the kids finished their schoolwork, I inspected the equipment […]

Today we left our place and got on some camels for two hours. I can’t remember any of the camel’s names except for moms camel, Jimmy Hendrix. When I first got on the camel I was really worried that I was going to fall off. But after the first minute I was fine. It felt […]

Four days ago we walked out of our hotel to face four camels lounging about in the sand. They were to take us across the desert. Of course, we got on, and thus started out our desert expedition. The first two hours were spent getting away from society and into the endless desert. The camels had […]

When we left on this trip, we knew that despite all the crime, terrorism, disease and natural disasters in the parts of the world that we would be visiting, that the most dangerous thing we would do on this trip would be to get in a car. On the 13th we tested that knowledge when we […]

We spent three nights in Marrakesh. It was a great first experience for Morocco. The kids had been looking forward to Morocco because it is the first really unique and exotic country we have been to. Sure, Nicaragua and Honduras, as well as the European countries were different than home, but people basically dressed the same, […]

Morocco, October 3- 8 We stopped on a busy street on the edge of a pedestrian walkway teeming with people. “Just walk up here,” said the taxi driver gesturing vaguely down the street. “Your hotel is not far.” We gathered our bags and set off in what we hoped was the direction of the main square, […]

When we first started planning this trip, we told the kids they could pick a country to visit for their birthday, and if it could be worked into the itinerary, we would go there. Emma immediately said Paris, and never wavered from that decision. She couldn’t say why, she just thought she would like it. She […]

Sicily I am really sorry we haven’t been keeping up on our blog. We decided that we are going to use Sicily as our hanging out area, so we decided to relax and not post much on our blog. In Paris our time was taken up with sightseeing. The computer was used either for booking our […]

(I don’t think this title means much, but Mom insists.) We are in Syracuse, Sicily, and are having a very good time. After a bit of a searching for a nice hotel, we found a really great one, and settled right in. But first, I need to talk about our visit to the once great city […]

Siena, September 16-18 We stopped for two nights in Siena on our way from Venice to Rome on the advice of Rick Steeve’s Italy guidebook; “its a must see”. He was right. It is a gorgeous old gothic city, with an old town center that hasn’t changed much since the 1500’s. The reason? It lost big-time […]

Today we spent on a train going to Italy. When we got to Venice and settled in. It was kind of late around 7:00, so we went out to dinner. I got a cheese pizza, but I couldn’t get the full sensation of the taste because of my plugged nose. The next day we went to […]

At the end of the opening scene in the movie Sound of Music, Maria hears church bells that remind her she is late for mass. Those bells still ring all over Salzburg. We were delighted to find that our hotel was right across the street from a beautiful old church whose bells rang very hour…..and half […]

Prague We left Prague two days ago for Salzburg, Austria. It ended up as a longer stay than we initially planned for several reasons. One was simply that it is a great city; beautiful, with a lot of history and interesting architecture, and it is in a relatively compact area, lending itself well to walking. Another […]

Oslo– This is Fjord Country Our blogging has been delayed again. Though we were busy the last four days in Prague, the main reason for the delay was our poor internet connection. But now we are in Salzburg, and again have a good Internet connection. Before I get into Prague, I must backtrack to the […]

Land of the Vikings Perhaps I enjoy Norway so much because it is the land of the Vikings, the name of my beloved football team. Or maybe it is because my paternal grandmother’s family is from Norway, and that part of the family showed their ancestral roots so much in speech and the way they […]

I’m looking out the window of our place on the fjord. There are no words to describe the view. At first I couldn’t stop taking pictures. The light would change or the clouds descend and it looked different. I finally calmed down and now I just sit and look. We arrived several days ago after […]

We have a little catching up to do on the blog. We are now on our way to Oslo, after a mad dash in the airport. Small details matter; a flight to Oslo’s Rygge airport is not the same as a flight to Oslo’s Torp airport, even if on the same airline. But we did […]

August 18 When we arrived in London we went on the underground to our hotel on Belsize park. At the hotel we layed down and went to sleep. Later in the day we met Alex and Julia (our friends that decided to meet us in London). We went to their place and watched television and a […]

August 13 Today we went to the Macaw Mountain Bird Park. It was a 21/2 kilometer walk from town. We had a guide bring us through. The first stop was the parakeets, then scarlet macaws. There was a cage for scarlet macaws that you could walk through. There were also toucans, green macaws, aracaris, owls, hawks, […]