After two months of life-swallowing work with a local Congressional campaign this fall, my wrap-up post on our year abroad is long, long overdue. In fact, the concept of “wrapping up” this kind of year is fairly ridiculous to begin

This was the sight that greeted us as we tromped down from our hillside cabana to Ao Phranang (a beach in the Railay area of Krabi Province), on our first morning there. We were pretty happy with it.    

We spend the better part of three days staying in Siem Reap, from where we visited the temples at Angkor Wat, the spiritual and physical seat of power of the Khmer Empire for hundreds of years (from approximately 800 –

The entrance gate to Ta Phrom, a grand ruin being taken back by the jungle, and made famous by “Tomb Raider,” an action movie filmed here and featuring Angelina Jolie.                    

Although we scheduled them more like punctuation marks to our other destinations, Hong Kong and Bangkok are fabulous international cities that we really enjoyed — especially Hong Kong. These were just a few of the lanterns hanging at a streetside

In honor of a memorable 2008 Olympics, Lacey and I have invented a new Olympic event.  It’s called the Alternative Triathlon.  Here’s how it works: At the end of each Olympics (perhaps during the closing ceremonies?) three randomly selected events

Yesterday, exactly one year after leaving the United States, I returned to it.  My excitement was tempered, though, because a typhoon and solidly booked flights (presumably full of other folks returning from the Olympics) is keeping Lacey in Hong Kong,

Friday, August 21 The Event: Men’s 10 Meter Platform Diving (Qualifying Round) The Competitors: Thirty divers from about 20 countries. The Venue: The Water Cube! The Water Cube and the Bird’s Nest were the two venues we’d heard the most

Thursday, August 21 The Event: Athletics (various events) The Competitors: Too many to list The Venue: The Bird’s Nest!!  In some ways the venue was the star of our night.  Although I have no architectural expertise whatsoever, for me the

As a little diversion from my Olympic “reporting,” I thought I’d share some incredible menu translations that Lacey and I copied down from the menu of “Mao Jia” (Mao’s House) restaurant in Shenzhen, a city outside Hong Kong where we