Author: Us
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Spain with a baby!
Welp, in what’s fast becoming a tradition around these parts, we’ve successfully procrastinated writing the post about our last trip until 48 hours before our next trip. In our defense, we’ve been raising another human for the past year. Have baby, will travel Not to let Claudia’s maternity leave get away without a trip to…
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The Stunning Dolomites
Well, it’s taken a year to post this, but to be fair, we’ve been a bit busy! We chose our last overseas baby-free vacation well, if we don’t say so ourselves! As has been the case for our last three big trips, we had some close friends getting married abroad and decided to tag on…
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Quebec City
Several months ago, I received a call from a curator in Quebec. The Solair chair, a fun and now famous outdoor chair that my father and his partner designed in the 70s in Montreal, would be part of the permanent exhibit in a brand new wing of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ), Quebec City’s…
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Cuba: Some of Our Favorite Memories
Havana is the living, breathing heart of Cuba, and one of the most diverse, engaging, and friendly cities we’ve ever been to. Perhaps more than anywhere else we visited on the island, Havana produced the feelings of uniqueness, independence, and distance that I mentioned in my last post. Cuba’s capital is a patchwork of hundreds…
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More Questions than Answers in Cuba
In our last post, Nick commented that Cuba didn’t feel homogeneous like the US can feel, where almost everywhere you go, you’ll find the same stores, fast-food restaurants, hotels chains, etc. At the same time, one could argue that Cuba, while refreshingly void of Starbucks and McDonald’s, is even more homogeneous than the US in…
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Introduction to Cuba
Cuba: the country that has attracted, vexed, and frustrated generations of Americans, from Hemingway to Ted Cruz. It’s been on our shortlist of destination goals for a while, so close to home and yet so far ideologically, politically, and culturally. With the US regulations limiting travel there opening up slightly in 2015, and an invitation…
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Adventuring in Beautiful Yosemite National Park
Given all the international travel we’ve done and every country that’s still on our list, sometimes it’s easy to forget the incredible places that can be found within the enormous and varied country we live in. Our National Park system is the envy of the rest of the world, and there may be no more…
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Umbria and Tuscany: New Family and Old Friends
We’ve been to Italy three times in the last three years, and it always feels like a bit of a homecoming. Claudia’s aunt Valeria splits her time between Milan and Città di Castello in Umbria, where she and Claudia’s dad were born and lived for many years. My connection is a bit more strained: when my great-grandfather…
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Finding My Roots in Trani
My father’s father passed away a few years before I was born, so I never knew him, nor have I ever met any member of the extended Fabiano family–all the Italian relatives I knew growing up were on my grandmother’s side. I’ve spoken with my aunt several times to gather as much information as I…
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Unassuming Puglia
Our next stop found us crossing from Basilicata into Puglia (the heel of Italy’s boot) and the sleepy and charming Valley of Itria. The most famous thing about this region is probably its trulli, traditional conical dwellings. We picked out a comfortable bed and breakfast where we could stay in one of these unusual buildings…