Living La Vida Loca

A Global Adventure

  • Andrew and I have had the pleasure of exploring many places in Mexico and always enjoy the people, the varied landscape, the diverse cuisine, and the rich history of this neighboring country. We are always shocked at the reaction of so many intelligent people who are afraid to travel in Mexico because the media focuses… Read more

  • The Final Stop: Shirahama

    Our last stop on our three-week adventure in Japan was specifically designed for a “chill” finale, so we headed by train from the Kumano area up the coast to the Izu Peninsula to Shirahama. We opted to stay in a small B & B that turned out to be perfect to end our trip. Nestled… Read more

  • A Slice of Life One of the things that Andrew and I most enjoy when we travel is getting to know local people. It’s not always easy to do this when you are in “tourist mode”, wanting to see famous sites, try the best versions of local cuisine, and do this as comfortably as possible.… Read more

  • Never let it be said that we travel within a narrow range of experiences. Andrew and I like to cast the widest net possible to capture as many faces of a country and culture as we can within the constraints of the time we have. Certainly, during our 3+ years in Spain we got an… Read more

  • Hiroshima…

    Andrew and I agreed that it was important to bear witness to what happened at Hiroshima while we were in Japan. Admittedly, this was not on our original itinerary, but something about the current state of the world and the recent rise in global unrest, divisiveness, and antisemitism had us rethinking our tourist priorities. There… Read more

  • When we said goodbye to Tokyo, we didn’t in just a few days get to explore all the diverse aspects of this megalopolis, but in hindsight we did get a good sense of the unique neighborhoods, corporate versus local business, and the incredible variety of food and experiences available. Conversely, we did clearly see the… Read more

  • With our incessant wanderlust and a lot of family logistics since our trip, I am miserably late in posting about our wonderful trip to Japan. We went on our own and I take some pride in having planned our itinerary myself (with the kind help of other travelers who’d gone before and my now-trusty assistant,… Read more

  • We started our day with a shuttle to the island monastery of Mont-Saint-Michel, a World Heritage site and one of three main pilgrimage sites in Europe. The view from our bus arriving at the far end of a bridge that crosses to the actual building was incredible. When the tide comes in, this walking bridge is… Read more

  • I clearly remember as I was growing up that the year 2000 seemed like a distant future. When I watched the film “2001: A Space Odyssey” I could not imagine how the world might look THAT foreign, and that computers would potentially behave as HAL did. Fast forward to today – January 2024 – and we… Read more

  • The Normandy Invasion, during World War II involved the Allied invasion of western Europe. It was launched on June 6, 1944 (the most celebrated D-Day of the war), with the simultaneous landing of U.S., British, and Canadian forces on five separate beachheads in Normandy, France. By the end of August 1944 all of northern France was liberated, and the invading forces reorganized for the drive into Germany, where… Read more