To be entirely honest, I was a bit apprehensive about visiting Jordan. The country is, after all, situated in the heart of the Middle East, a place I had never been and had only heard about in the news. I was extremely conscious of being an American in a region where I imagined Americans were […]
We drove to a local Jordanian family’s house for a delicious dinner. It was a cool evening and thunder was coming from our bellies. As soon as we got there we quickly unbuckled and met our host. A smiling gray-haired man met us at the door and ushered us in to meet his wife. The […]
We had a great time in Jordan. This is at one of the highlights. Can you guess the location of this building?
When the day finally arrived to leave Paris, we dried our tears and left home four hours early for the train station. We knew there would be some sort of weather delay because heavy snows had already cancelled most of the Eurostar trains from Paris to London the day before. We stumbled out of the […]
My family recently participated in an atelier at the Louvre. An atelier is a workshop and almost every museum in Paris offers them. This one was about photography. When we arrived we waited with some other families until the photographer got there. She told us what was going to happen in French, of which I […]
Our last stop in the Loire Valley was the massive Château Chambord. The building was commissioned in 1519 by a 25-year-old King Francois I. The stated reason was that he loved to hunt and he dreamed of having a hunting lodge so princely that nobles would flock there to hunt in royal style. In French class we learned […]
Can you guess what noble castle Piggy is dining in tonight? Remember everyone wants a chance to guess, so email your answer straight to me at katherine@365saturdays.org
The family (including piggy of course) had a wonderful long weekend. We went to two main places and this is one of them. Can you guess where Piggy visited over the weekend? (Pssst… it is not always completely connected to land!) Remember everyone wants to guess so don’t just post your answer – email it straight […]
When we got there the line was extraordinarily long. We were at the Salon Du Chocolat, which in English means the festival of chocolate. Everyone got there at the same time, after lunch. After waiting for about a half an hour, we got inside and what we found was a chocolate trade-show. It was a […]
Here are brief descriptions and photos from other activities in Paris this October: – Playing in the Tuileries. Paris has turned to autumn colors, and the leaves are down in the nearby Tuileries park. One day the factors all aligned and the whole family had a few free hours at mid-day with no tours and no […]
A few days ago we went to La Tour d’Argent, or the “Tower of Silver.” We entered the tower and were greeted by a woman in a black dress and a man in a suit. The woman took our coats and the man ushered us in to a fancily decorated waiting room. We sat on […]
Intent upon maximizing our culinary explorations in Paris, despite the great risk to our waistlines, we have now had the good fortune to have dined at three of the city’s most famous restaurants: Taillevent, Le Grand Vefour, and La Tour d’Argent. An amateur’s review and report seems to be in order. This time, however, I […]
So far we have been to three different cooking classes, Macaroons, Cookies and lemon cake, and Chouquettes. Macaroons: We went with our friends Colin, Matthew, and their mom Karen, to an English cooking class. Dad had class but he assured us he would be there for the eating part. There were four other people and […]
Cooking in Paris has been hard because there are so many fabulous restaurants to tempt us that we often eat out. However, we sometimes visit the weekly outdoor markets and become inspired. As Russ’s photos will attest, the stalls there are laden with every tasty thing you can imagine: pyramids of colorful vegetables which seem […]
My sister and I have French lessons 3-4 times a week, with our awesome teacher Blandine. Our lessons are each 1 ½ hours long, and great fun! Back in your childhood, or maybe more recently, you may have heard that the French Teachers were strict, proper, had the ability to hit students with a ruler, […]
Naomi had taken us to the L’Orangerie museum a few weeks ago. Today we were going to use the knowledge she imbued upon us and transfer that knowledge to my mother. We arrived at the L’Orangerie and decided to go for the most famous exhibits first: Monet’s “Water Lillies” collection. Monet had painted the set […]
Last night, we had one of our most memorable meals yet. As a birthday surprise, Russ made dinner reservations and arranged for Naomi to come and stay with the kids. We were off to Taillevent, a Michelin-starred restaurant which has been called a “veritable temple to haute cuisine” and a venerable Parisian institution of fine […]
We have now completed six weeks in Paris. Any notion of sitting quietly at cafés has been dispelled by the sheer magnitude and opportunity of arriving at the city, hosting visitors, setting up an apartment and enrolling family members in various activities. This is the absolute best place on our year-long itinerary for friends and […]
Using a US cellphone in foreign countries is prohibitively expensive. For this reason we brought an unlocked GSM cellphone. We planned to buy prepaid SIM cards in each country where we would stay for a long time. We also brought a SIM card from GymSIM that offers discounted international calling around the world, so we could use that for the shorter […]
While Linda and Hugh were visiting us we had a chance to take the tour of the Paris Opera house. This was far more interesting than we had expected. This is the opera house that was the inspiration for Phantom of the Opera. There really is an underground lake, which is a water reservoir in […]
Yesterday, we spent the morning exploring the source of two of our favorite French foods: baguettes and chocolate. On a guided visit led by Leontine, a colleague of Antoinette’s, we went behind the scenes to learn exactly where baguettes come from. We were joined by my mom and stepdad and their good friends the Neufelds, […]
Last time Piggy was in front of the Dordogne River. Everyone who guessed got it right! This is from yesterday. Where is Piggy in Paris (HINT not the Louvre) and what is she in front of?
The mission of Road School is for the kids to learn a solid school year’s worth of academics, yet keep the pencil and paper time down to two hours each day on the road. The strategies for covering all the material in such a short time are to run for at least ten months; and […]
The Waller’s from Natick were in town last week to watch the World Badminton Championships. We were able to see them on several days and to meet Patrick’s parents as well. On the last day Maria and Peter came over, and after tea (of course!) we took the Metro over to the Montmartre section of […]
When we arrived in Paris as an extended family of twelve people of all ages, we had a challenge. The Seattle Wilcoxes wanted a classic whirlwind introduction to the city of Paris, yet both they and the Newton Wilcoxes would be leaving in just a few days. At the same time we wanted to preserve […]
We hopped a flight from London to Bordeaux, rented a caravan of cars, and drove into the countryside of southwestern France. This is Aquitaine, the region controlled by the British during the Hundred Years War, a period of time when related royal families in both Paris and London had a legitimate claim to rule France. […]
Surprise last week Piggy wasn’t at London Bridge. She was at the Tower Bridge that goes to the Tower of London. Congratulations to Rachel Kahn, Nanny & Poppa, Sam and Antony Sofianos, Abbie Fox and Emily Bendremer. And for last last week, the answer was the North Face of the Eiger mountain. For that, Beth […]
This week we met up with the Seattle Wilcoxes and the Newton Wilcoxes for a grand reunion in London. A few highlights: The Athenaeum – a superb, stylish hotel just across the park from Buckginham Palace and walking distance to the West End that loves kids – wow! The focus on children includes a special […]
We were in Grindelwald, heading to a real Swiss family’s house for a real Swiss dinner. I know Mom is supposed to write about food, but this meal was too good to let the chance of writing it pass by. When we arrived we learned that our driver Bernard was a good friend with the […]
After four rainy days, the clouds parted and we laced up our walking shoes. The sun had apparently been on loan to the Mediterranean and we didn’t want to waste a moment now that it had returned. We were heading out for a hike in the Alps. To reach the starting point for our walk, […]
Last time Piggy was at the Viking Ship Musuem in Roskilde, Denmark. Before that she was at the Blue Mosque standing near the Hagia Sofia. For the past month the people who have guessed piggy right once are: Tessa Hyatt, Rachel Kahn, Nicholas Waller, Grant Kahn, Beth Altchek, and Sam McClure! For the past month […]
We left Zurich early on Tuesday. We were headed to Wengen, a small Alpine town nestled in the heart of the Berner Oberland region. On our way, we were scheduled to visit a small family farm to see cheese making at its traditional best. We were not disappointed. In the town of Lungern, we met […]
We are just in Zurich for a day before heading off into the Berner Oberland mountains tomorrow. Zurich is a quaint city and if you can afford to live here, offers an excellent quality of life: a medium-sized city next to a lake with a mountain backdrop, 1200 fountains that spout clean water, two major […]
We had decided to skip lunch and go to an early supper at one of the island’s best restaurants. We arrived shortly after 6:00 pm when dinner service began. As we approached the entrance, I straightened the collar of Carter’s shirt; it was Friday night in high season and we had no reservation. We entered. […]
The weather in Scandinavia was cool and damp but the cuisine proved to be an entirely unexpected bright spot. Against a backdrop of grey skies and goosebumps, we sat down in a classic Copenhagen café to experience our first official smørrebrød, the famous open-faced sandwich. We were served thick slices of dense, dark bread studded […]
Send me your guess by email! P.S. Our friend Jerry Rubin told us to go here. Thanks it was great!
We came through Copenhagen for a few days of transition from Turkey to Sweden. The first day was all about sleeping late after a post-midnight arrival. When we found out the hotel ran a great breakfast until 11am, we found ourselves liking Denmark pretty well. The streets were clean, the trains ran on time, most […]
After a 90 minute tarmac flight delay in Munich and an endless wait for baggage handling, we finally made it out of the Copenhagen airport late in the night (so late it was dark even in summer when they get 19 hours of sunlight!). Our bleary eyes could not miss this sign though. It seems […]
We had a whirlwind 24-hour stop in this southwest coastal part of Turkey. We arrived in time for a gourmet dinner at a tiny inn up in the mountains. After the meal we slept in an authentic hillside dwelling while listening to the village goat’s bell as he ambled past our door. We woke, packed and indulged […]
One of the topics in Road School is comparative religion. We wanted to study this because religion has such a great influence on history and culture. Although the book we are using starts with Judaism and Christianity before getting to Islam (and then five more religions), we started with Islam so the kids could have […]
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