One of my college roommates had studied abroad three times. He’d traveled much of Europe and had no shortage of suggestions for me.
Among them, he insisted I attend a “show” while in Amsterdam.
I hesitated. This wasn’t really my sort of thing.…
Category Archives: Themes
The Photographer’s End
Her great-uncle is a photographer.
We were sitting around diner one day, and I’d just spent ten minutes explaining my newest camera.
He looked at it. Then held up his phone.
“My dog.”
“The sunset.”
“Me in London.”
“Oh, here’s when I saw Kate Bush last year.…
Not The Fish
The Fish Hotel couldn’t take us.
Our reservation didn’t begin for another three days, and on this Saturday night every room was full.
The receptionist apologized, then offered us a room for the following night at nearly three times the price we’d paid.…
Crossing the Traffic Circle
The Arc de Triomphe stood only a hundred yards away.
Cars circled it from every direction.
Tourists stood atop. Black jackets and colorful hats against the gray sky.
I followed the sidewalk until it simply… ended.
Ahead, the pavement sloped into six lanes of traffic.…
Beneath the Monument
The bus emptied beneath a monument.
A titanium rocket curved into the sky atop a sweeping plume of metal, its nose disappearing somewhere above the apartment blocks.
Dani found a bench while I tried photographing it, but every angle lost either the rocket or the curve that held it aloft.…
The Woman from Kolkata
We stood beside a busy intersection on a dirty road, far from the tourist trail.
Every rickshaw driver who passed recognized us as lost tourists.
One pulled over and waited.
He knew we needed a ride.
Our destination was three miles away.…
The View Cost Extra
From the top of the tower, the city spread out in every direction—a shifting mass of rooftops, alleyways, and movement.
A priest had brought me here, leading me up the winding tower steps to this overlook.
The view had cost extra.…
The Collector
The address led us to a cluster of condominium towers.
We circled the block twice then turned back toward the street when a security guard waved us over.
Cautiously, we approached.
He handed me a business card printed on ordinary paper.…
The Mansion, … Mostly
The palace was once lavish. Now, apartments and storefronts hid it from the street.
A small sign pointed us through a gate toward a snow-covered courtyard.
At the entrance, a guard shook his head then pointed instead to an unmarked door half a flight of stairs below ground.…
Twenty-two Tickets
Before sunrise, we rode the subway through a silent Chengdu.
Our stomachs wanted breakfast.
Instead, we went to the railway station.
~
The ticket hall felt almost empty.
Six windows stood behind the counter, but only one was open. We stepped forward and handed over our reservation number.…
To See, but Not Understand
A short drive north of Varanasi, we climbed out of the rickshaw.
A man stepped into our path.
“Guide, sir? Guide? Without me, you will see, but you won’t understand.”
We smiled, thanked him, and kept walking.
After twenty steps Dani stopped.…
Zoo Animals
Cologne Zoo greeted us with cheetahs. They waited behind a low fence, seemingly close enough to touch.
The kids didn’t notice.
Instead, Avery ran to the playground.
Corbin followed.
A tower rose above us on wooden posts, connected to another by a rope bridge.…
Where’s the Grapes
Vineyards covered every hillside around Bacharach.
For days, we’d walked among them.
The boys hardly noticed.
On our last evening, something clicked.
~
We’d set out, for one last family hike to the Postenturm tower.
Both boys grabbed their wooden swords from the toy shop, and off we went.…
Connaught Place, Unofficial
The stainless-steel doors looked modern and out of place against the building’s tired-looking facade.
A sheet of pink printer paper taped to one of them.
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Dani pulled them open, and we stepped inside.
~
It took a minute for my eyes to adjust.…
The Crossing
The conductor barely glanced at the visas and invitation letters I’d carried so carefully across Estonia.
“Passports,” was all she said.
A hand outstretched.
She compared our faces against a handwritten ledger, nodded once, and stepped aside.
Inside, lace curtains hung in the windows.…
Mountain People
“Shake the Shark?”
The driver smiled.
“Yeah. You know… like from the American television show.”
I looked at my brother. He didn’t know either.
Shake the Shark laughed all the same, then he started the engine to his car.
~
He’d met us at the houseboat docks just after sunrise.…
Five o’clock Snow
The conductor slid down the aisle without taking a step.
The bus looked older than me. Faded green paint showed beneath newer coats, curtains hung in the windows, and decades-old advertisements ghosted through the peeling sides.
A woman wearing a white cap worked her way down the aisle.…
The Sundial
A giant triangle rose from the ground like the fin of a buried ship.
Around it stood bowls, ramps, stairways, arches, and curved walls of pink stone, each angled toward a different part of the sky.
Nothing here looked like a temple.…
Scenes of West Lake
We skipped breakfast in Shanghai because we assumed Hangzhou would be easy.
By noon, we still hadn’t eaten.
First Dani found a coffee shop.
Inside, everything was pale wood and Scandinavian furniture. The tables were full, the pastries looked good, and the prices looked like San Francisco.…
The Boat from Terminal 1
The terminal stood dark and empty.
No lights glowed inside the building.
No passengers waited outside with luggage.
And no ferries sat behind the terminal.
A mile away, another ship towered above the harbor beside a building labeled TERMINAL 1 in giant illuminated letters.…
Outside the Burger King
She noticed the Spanish workbook sticking out of my backpack.
“You’re studying?”
I looked up.
Dark hair. Brown eyes.
“Tratando de. It’s getting easier.”
She laughed.
“Mine too. English. Some days easier. Some days… not so much.”
The bus lurched around a corner.…
Dingling
Our journey began with dragon-turtles, each carrying a stone tablet on its back, ancient characters neither Dani nor I could read.
Moving past them, willow trees bowed over the path, and morning sunlight flickered through the branches and across the stone.…
Bare Shoulders
Stone walls and wooden gates blocked our path through the city’s pink walls into the park. A man stood outside. He looked like a security guard.
“Is the park open?”
He bowed slightly, then motioned toward the gate with such enthusiasm that I felt silly for having asked.…
The Building with Elephants
At the fourth crossing, Dani stopped a woman walking down the street and asked if she knew the way to our guesthouse.
The woman understood us but struggled to answer in English.
She scrunched her face in concentration.
“One hundred meters.…
Curry Popcorn
Tokyo Disneyland smelled like curry popcorn.
I stepped off the train, saw the Mickey-ear headbands, the crowds, the castle, and something inside me sagged.
Dani looked over.
“You look miserable.”
I kept walking.
“No I don’t.”
“Whatever.”
She took the boys’ hands and headed toward the gates.…