You may have seen New Zealand’s sports teams perform the haka before matches, facing their opponents with shouts, glares and bulging eyes.
We saw traditional Māori dances in person at the Te Puia cultural center in Rotorua, on New Zealand’s North Island. This 90-second video (also viewable at http://youtu.be/m5oKvlgeEjM) has some highlights:
The performance was touristy but fascinating, like the rest of the center, which features geysers, kiwis and diverse crafts produced by Māori artisans trained at an on-site school.
We learned about Māori culture throughout our visit to the North Island, just as we had on the South Island. For instance, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, in the capital city, Wellington, helped us appreciate the dazzling seamanship of the Polynesian settlers who arrived in the 1300s — centuries before Columbus or Magellan. It showed how they established a thriving society “discovered” by European settlers in the early 1800s.
At the Auckland Art Gallery, in New Zealand’s largest city, we admired portraits of Māori and other indigenous leaders, like the one you see of Tūhoto Arikiat. In Waitangi, we visited the site where Māori leaders and British officials signed a historic treaty in 1840, still recognized as a founding document of New Zealand.
We learned so much about the country during our bus trip, such as about the terrible Gallipoli campaign of World War One, where thousands of troops from New Zealand and other nations suffered and died. A stunning exhibit at the national museum captures the carnage.
At Riverdale Farm in Rotorua, we watched a show about New Zealand’s diverse varieties of sheep. At the Kauri Museum, we learned about the towering kauri forests that once covered much of New Zealand. In several locations, we learned how New Zealand was the first nation to allow women to vote — 27 years before the United States.
We also took a tour about the Wētā Workshop, which created the special effects for the Lord of the Rings trilogy and other movies, as well as for the Gallipoli exhibit. The photo shows me trying out a new look for myself at one of the tour’s interactive stations.
As with any trip. many of the most interesting sights were unplanned, like this sign at a McDonald’s, known locally as Macca’s, as it is in Australia.
We also happened to be in Auckland during its annual International Buskers Festival, which attracts performers from around the world. The photo shows Andy Spigola of Italy.
We visited countless places of natural beauty — lakes, mountains, geysers and more — challenged ourselves with jet boats and luge rides, and sampled the country’s famous Sauvignon Blancs and other wines.
We loved all of it — even more since we were far from the winter weather back home.
New Zealand isn’t a big country. It has just over 5 million people — less than a quarter of its sheep population. But it is filled with beauty, history and fun things to do. The next time I see a New Zealand team competing on television, I’ll be cheering for them, even if I tune in too late to see the haka dance.
You don’t have to be a Lord of the Rings fanatic to find your tribe in New Zealand.
We met some of the movie trilogy’s devoted tribe yesterday during a tour showing how Wētā Workshop created the special effects for director Peter Jackson.
But we’d already found our own tribe during the preceding 16 days, on a bus trip across New Zealand that connected us with others who share our passion for global travel.
People like Ron, a retired banker from Toronto who has visited 81 countries and hopes to top 100 with upcoming trips to Bhutan, West Africa and Central Europe.
Or Vickie, a teacher from Canberra, Australia, who fills her school breaks with trips around the world, from Cambodia to Europe. She’s even spent time in Moldova, where Champa and I served in the Peace Corps together.
Or Eric and Jyleece , from western Canada, who will remain on the road for the next two months, adding to their extensive travels.
We loved spending time and swapping stories with this group while exploring New Zealand on a Grand Pacific bus tour that began in Christchurch. We didn’t have to explain or justify to any of them why we feel so alive when we’re exploring new places.
Back home, by contrast, we sometimes feel like outliers. We’re not surrounded by people who share our passion. If you have a passion of your own, from romance novels to politics to sports, you probably enjoy being with your tribe, too.
Our tribe of world travelers gets energy from meeting different kinds of people and learning about new cultures. We feel that travel opens our eyes wider. It gives us new perspective on our lives back home. It adds to the happiness we get from family, friends and the rest of our “normal” lives. It fills every day with new experiences and memories.
To be sure, it’s not for everyone. Travel can be tiring and unsettling. Some people consider it a waste of time and money, preferring to stay home. Others limit their travel to familiar and safe destinations. Still others prefer to chill out at a resort, or gamble, or hike or shop.
Of course, many people lack the means, freedom or mobility to travel at all, even if they want to. Champa and I traveled far less when we had young children, limited vacation time and future college bills. Even then, we recognized how fortunate we were to travel at all.
We respect that millions of people would rather play golf, watch football, garden or spend their time in ways other than travel. That’s their choice — but it’s not ours.
In New Zealand, we’ve been reassured we’re not alone. We don’t usually travel with a group but were glad we made an exception this time.
For instance, we met Dorothy, above, a Scottish woman who has visited every continent, including Antarctica. And Carolina from Perth, now in her eighties but still adding countries to a list that includes Afghanistan, Uganda and many others.
Interacting with the Lord of the Rings tribe was fun, in other words, but we had found our own tribal partners and were sorry to leave them.
The Rings character Gollum, whom we saw during the Wētā Workshop tour, might have described our emotions best: Spending time with fellow travelers was precious.
Champa and I are halfway through a tour of New Zealand, traveling by ferry yesterday from the South Island to the North Island. Here are a dozen images that illustrate some of what we’ve learned so far about this magical country.
For starters, there are unusual things to see and do here. As just one example, we took a boat from Te Anau to a remote cave entrance. There we boarded smaller boats in darkness to see glowing worms, which are more accurately described as maggots.
If you prefer adventurous activities, New Zealand is for you. We’ve seen bungee jumping, paragliding, trail biking and more, including this family luge ride down a mountain top in Queenstown, which we reached on the gondola shown at the top of this post. Our own biggest adventure was aboard a jet boat.
New Zealand’s biggest draw, of course, is its natural beauty, which is breathtaking. This shot is at Milford Sound, which is actually a fjord.
There’s abundant wildlife, too, such as these seals and a wide variety of birds.
New Zealand’s colonial heritage is obvious, such as at this boathouse in Christchurch that offers punting on the city’s Avon River.
Colonial architecture is also striking, such as at this railway station in Dunedin, a city with a resemblance to Edinburgh.
New Zealand embraces its history in many ways, as at this museum in Arrowtown that celebrates miners and others.
Much of the history is complicated. I’ve been impressed by New Zealand’s respect for its Māori origins, but tensions remain in that relationship. This photo is from Picton.
Antarctica looms surprisingly large on the South Island. Christchurch is the starting point for many Antarctic trips.
Christchurch is also notable as the location of devastating earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 from which it is still recovering. This local museum features chilling videos of survivors sharing their stories.
Finally, there are the beautiful vineyards. Wine has become a big business in New Zealand, which is now famous for Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and other varieties. These vineyards are in Blenheim.
This isn’t all we saw, of course, and we still have the North Island and its hobbits awaiting us on our trip, which we’re taking with an excellent local company. For now, I’ll bid you “Haere rā” — goodbye — and encourage you to enjoy some kiwi fruit and a glass of Marlborough white while we continue our exploration.
We’ve been eating our favorite snack food while traveling in Australia and New Zealand the past several weeks.
It’s not chips, burgers or pizza, although these are plentiful. No, we’ve been eating momos — the Nepalese dumplings you see in the photo here.
In Sydney, we ate at The Momo Hub, then at Falcha Hall. As soon as we arrived in New Zealand, we ate at Kathmandu Mo:Mo in Christchurch, then at Mela in Dunedin and The Himalaya in Queenstown.
If you’ve never tried momos, you don’t know what you’re missing. They’re delectable dumplings stuffed with flavorful ground meat or vegetables You buy them either steamed or fried, dip them in sauce and eat them with a fork or your fingers — one or two bites per momo. Our go-to order is a plate of 10 or 12 steamed chicken momos, which we share.
Momos are ubiquitous in Nepal and have been gaining popularity elsewhere. You can find them in most U.S. cities. In India, some fast food chains now specialize in momos. I think it’s only a matter of time until momos become as common to the American food scene as tacos or ramen, which were considered exotic not so long ago.
Here in Australia and New Zealand, which both have significant numbers of Nepalis, momo shops have also been a great place for us to meet people and learn about their lives. The above photo shows Champa with a Gurung family we met in Queenstown. The owner, Satya Thapa, is on the right. That’s him cooking in the next photo.
The following photo shows a young woman who moved recently to Dunedin, on New Zealand’s South Island, to help her brother launch a Nepalese restaurant featuring momos. They were yummy. Like everyone else we met, she was surprised when I placed the order and chatted in Nepali, which I learned years ago while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal.
We’ve also been eating local foods, of course, as well as this region’s famous beer and wine. However, we did skip the kangaroo meat.
I know it’s odd to write about Nepal’s national snack food while we’re touring Down Under but there’s never a bad time to eat or talk about momos. I’m dreaming of the day when someone opens a momo shop in our hometown of Durham, N.C.
For now, I’ve begun researching where to find the best momos when we arrive in Auckland in a few days.
I’ve visited some beautiful coastal cities — Rio de Janiero, Venice, San Francisco, Cape Town — but none captivated me like Sydney.
Its famous harbor, flanked by the iconic opera house and bridge, bustles with ferries and sailboats. Locals and tourists from across Asia and the world fill its shops and restaurants. Street performers, gardens, museums and other attractions compete for attention.
The Opera House seemingly changes shape depending on your vantage point.
We just spent nine days in Sydney and filled almost every hour with something interesting. Here are some highlights:
We met this koala at the Taronga Zoo, a quick ferry ride from the Circular Quay beside the Opera House.
A walk across the Harbour Bridge offers a great view of the city.
The Art Gallery of New South Wales has diverse collections in a distinctive setting.
The Sydney Barracks tell the stories of convicts who helped build Australia.
An extensive, easy-to-learn transit system uses ferries, trams, buses and trains.
We fed kangaroos and met other residents of another zoo, the Sydney Zoo.
Manly has popular beaches and hiking trails. We traveled there by ferry.
Perhaps the most famous beach hike is the Bondi to Coogee Walk, where we saw swimmers, surfers, volleyball players, body builders and lots of people just enjoying the day.
This crowd was among the million people awaiting the start of Sydney’s famous New Year’s Eve fireworks.
We visited the Blue Mountains, where we saw the famous Three Sisters rock formation.
This concert of Beatles music rocked the Joan Sutherland Theatre at the Sydney Opera House.
Australia’s state libraries, like this one in Sydney, offer museum-quality exhibits.
The Museum of Contemporary Art is adjacent to the Circular Quay and The Rocks, the city’s oldest neighborhood.
Boats are everywhere in Sydney, including at this harbor near Watsons Bay, where we went hiking.
The Australian Museum offers an excellent introduction to the country’s natural history.
It took some adjusting (but only some) to celebrate the holiday season in a summer climate. This scene is at St. Mary’s Cathedral.
A highlight of our Sydney trip was visiting with Nepali relatives who now live there, including our nephew Manohar, with Rukshana.
This wall hanging, like the image at the top of this post, is among the Museum of Sydney’s artwork from the Coomaditchie people.
Adelaide is known for several things — beautiful churches, wineries, festivals — but what I’ll remember most about it is the life-sized sculpture of a mother breastfeeding her baby at the Art Gallery of South Australia.
As you can see, it’s not quite a human mother. What gives the life-sized piece by Patricia Piccinini even more power is its placement beside a traditional Virgin and Child by William Adolphe Bouguereau.
Here are the two works together, each offering a different vision of motherhood.
Now consider this Rodin sculpture placed beside Ricky Swallow’s meticulous carving of a skeleton from lime wood.
I found the juxtaposition strange and wonderful. Likewise for the presentation shown at the top of this post.
Champa and I are both art lovers; she is an artist herself. We try to check out local museums whenever we visit a new city. Most have galleries filled with works of specific periods or genres. Adelaide’s museum had those, too, but it also challenged us to think beyond categories, as with this surrealist mashup:
Adelaide’s museum can’t compete with the volume of places like the Louvre, but it impressed us in its own way, as did the city generally.
Next door, for instance, and also free, is the South Australian Museum, which has excellent displays of natural history and Aboriginal culture.
Next to that is the State Library, whose historic Mortlock Wing looks like a reading room at Hogwarts.
Further up the street is an excellent botanic garden, now featuring pieces by American glass artist Dale Chihuly placed in strategic locations and lit up at night.
We also enjoyed Adelaide’s giant outdoor Rundell Mall, decked out for the holidays, and a Central Market filled with luscious produce and specialty food shops.
Australia’s fifth largest city has many other attractions, which we didn’t have time to visit. However, we saw enough to give it an artistic thumbs up.
This very red piece is by Chiharu Shiota, a Japanese artist now living in Germany.
Never tell someone from Los Angeles or Barcelona that they’re “only” the second city to New York or Madrid.
Similarly, as we saw yesterday, residents of Melbourne don’t view their beautiful city as second to Sydney or anyplace else in Australia.
Nor should they. This city of 5.2 million people is a multicultural gem with vibrant culture and a strong economy. It’s currently fourth in the Global Liveability Index, behind only Vienna, Copenhagen and Zurich.
Melbourne was briefly the world’s richest city, during the 1880s. It served as Australia’s capital, hosted the 1956 Olympics and is the birthplace of movie stars and celebrities, including NBA star Kyrie Irving.
It’s also a fun place to visit. We began our brief tour with an early-morning stroll through the Royal Botanic Gardens, which are stunning. When we came across some women bicyclists having a picnic next to blooming lotus flowers, I thought to myself, “Wow, I could live here.”
Then we explored downtown on foot, joining a free walking tour, as we’ve done in other cities around the world. Our starting point, above, was the State Library Victoria, with its imposing dome room.
Another stop was the Old Melbourne Gaol, or jail, where the famous bushranger Ned Kelly was hanged for murder.
Carlton Gardens, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, features the Royal Exhibition Building, which has hosted an international exposition, Olympic competitions and other historic events. It’s near the state parliament building, below.
Other landmarks included the picturesque Flinders St. Railway Station and St. Paul’s Cathedral, below, and less formal attractions such as graffiti art and shops decked out for the holidays.
We ended our visit with a tram ride, giving us a final glimpse of this impressive city.
My Aussie friend Simon has been telling me for years that Melbourne is a great city. Now I can finally reply, “I’ll second that!”
I just hope he doesn’t take it the wrong way.
The paving at Melbourne’s Federation Square features inlaid textual pieces.
Many of the things I saw after arriving in Australia two days ago didn’t surprise me: its beauty, its diversity, its prosperity, its young people drinking beer at an outdoor pub. It felt like California with the avocado toast replaced by Vegemite.
At least that’s the vibe I got at Sydney’s Darling Harbor as Champa and I took a long walk to shake off our very long journey from North Carolina.
Things got more complex when we spent much of the following afternoon at the Australian Museum, which we’d expected to just breeze through. It showed us how Australia is simultaneously, and strikingly, distinctive, from its history to its landscape.
For instance, its birds. I’m not a bird watcher but I was spellbound by the collection we saw at the museum. There were giant emus and cassowaries, and distinctive kinds of turkeys, hawks and pelicans. I saw my first albatross — not the metaphor, but the actual bird, plus kookaburras, boobies and cormorants.
Other exhibits were also revelatory, about everything from minerals to kangaroos. At the neighboring Anzac Memorial, we learned about Australia’s military history. We visited Saint Mary’s Cathedral, strolled in Tumbalong Park and ate momos and dal-bhat at one of several Nepalese restaurants near our hotel.
Not all of it was positive. In one museum exhibit, I learned about Australia’s horrific treatment of laborers from the South Sea Islands, and its complicated, sometimes disgraceful, legacy with its aboriginal population.
But Australia has also given us Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett, scientists, Olympic champions, tennis stars and personalities ranging from feminist Germaine Greer to media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
On its shiny surface, especially what we’ve seen so far in Sydney, Australia resembles the United States. But we’re learning how the reality lies deeper, and we look forward to discovering more over the next few weeks. We’re departing Sydney this evening and will return after Christmas for more local sightseeing and the city’s famous New Year’s fireworks.
I know all of this is a first impression based on a small section of a single city in a country so big it fills a continent, so I’m looking forward to learning more.
I knew my favorite book of 2024 months before it recently won this year’s National Book Award. Percival Everett’s James tops my annual Top Ten list and it’s a masterpiece.
Everett retells Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through the eyes of its enslaved runaway Jim — now James –,who travels with Huck on a perilous journey down the Mississippi River. The story is familiar but its new perspective is chilling, with a voice as powerful as Twain’s. I loved Everett’s earlier Trees, was less enthusiastic about Erasure — which was adapted for the film American Fiction, but James is in a different class. It’s my book of the year.
My other favorite was The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. It was published in 2023 but, as I noted in last year’s Top Ten, I’m bending the rules to accommodate books I didn’t read until after year’s end. There’s no way I can exclude this sweeping epic abut three generations of a family in southern India. As in his previous work, Verghese draws on his medical background and deep knowledge of Indian history to create a saga that encompasses leprosy, genetic disorders and, above all, the human heart. It’s more than 700 pages but I could barely put it down.
Colm Tóibín’s Long Island is another historical novel whose setting is closer to home. It picks up the story of Eilis Lacey, who Saoirse Ronan portrayed in the film version of Tóibín’s earlier Brooklyn. Eilis has now settled into married life with her husband and his Italian family on Long Island. When she is confronted with a shocking discovery about him, she returns to her native Ireland for a visit and sees the man she almost married there. We feel her anguish as she ponders whether to reunite with him or return to an American husband and children who still love her.
Rachel Kushner’s Creation Lake was as smart and gripping as I’ve come to expect of her. It’s the story of a 34-year-old dropout from a Ph.D. program who’s become a spy for hire. Sadie’s shadowy employer asks her to infiltrate a French commune that may threaten their agricultural business. It’s a thriller that, as with Kushner’s previous novels, weaves in fascinating diversions on everything from Neandertal consciousness to Italian food. Kushner is also very funny. After reading The Flamethrowers, The Mars Room and now this, I can’t wait for whatever she creates next.
As I look at my list, I realize that most of my books are by authors I’ve enjoyed previously. Another is City in Ruins, the last of a terrific crime trilogy by Don Winslow. It completes the story of Danny Ryan, a former Providence waterfront worker from a tough Irish American family connected to the mob. Danny has become a successful casino operator in Las Vegas but can’t escape his past. I lived in Providence for several years, so these characters were familiar to me, but they will be compelling to readers anywhere. This is a gripping tale of honor and revenge whose heroes keep surprising us.
Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods is also a thriller, this one involving a summer camp in the Adirondacks that is less bucolic than it seems. A camper disappears and, as people search for her, secrets emerge about the rich family that runs the camp and the earlier disappearance of their own son. The novel explores the tenuous relationship between parents and children, and between wealthy people and those who serve them. I enjoyed Moore’s earlier Long Bright River, set in the far grittier streets of Philadelphia, and hope she develops the following she deserves.
The last of my “repeat authors” is Tana French, whose engrossing 2020 novel, The Searcher, introduced me to Cal Hooper, a retired Chicago police detective who moves to an Irish village for a quieter life but cannot escape the criminality around him. In her new book, The Hunter, it’s three years later and Cal is drawn again into mayhem, this time with the grifter father of a troubled teenage girl he’s taken under his wing. As the story reaches a bloody conclusion, Cal struggles to maintain his moral compass amid cultural differences and deep family secrets.
Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is about a young man who moves with his father from Iran to the United States after losing his mother on an airliner shot down by American forces. He struggles with depression and addiction, drifting through life until traveling on a whim to New York to see a dying artist, an encounter that reveals truths he never imagined. Told from different perspectives and filled with imaginary conversations with the likes of Lisa Simpson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, it’s a haunting tale of someone overcoming racism, alienation and grief to redefine himself.
My last novel has ties to the first. Danzy Senna is married to Percival Everett and is a gifted writer herself, as she demonstrates in Colored Television, a funny, poignant story about a biracial author with a struggling academic career. Seduced by a luxurious house-sitting gig, she begins writing for a celebrated but devious television producer, setting her on a journey that threatens her marriage, her family and her own sense of identity. It’s a novel makes you laugh, cringe and keep turning the pages.
I enjoyed several nonfiction books this year but am singling out just one for my list. Anthony Fauci’s On Call is a deeply personal, well-written memoir by the famed physician whose career stretches back much further than the COVID pandemic to include AIDS and other health crises. I was a science writer in Washington, D.C. for many years, so have been following Dr. Fauci for decades. I have enormous respect for everything he has done as a scientist and public servant and was disgusted by the abuse he endured during COVID. His book is riveting and empathetic, reminding us of the collective debt we owe him.
Another memoir, not quite on my Top Ten list, evoked a similar sense of gratitude. Liz Cheney’s Oath and Honor is filled with fascinating details about her courageous journey to uncover the truth about the January 6 insurrection and the first Trump administration.
I enjoyed other memoirs, too. In her long-awaited Burn Book, tech writer Kara Swisher brings us back to the birth of Silicon Valley and the early days of Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and others. As in her popular podcasts, Swisher can be self-indulgent but she’s often insightful and never boring. Another memoir, Hisham Matar’s The Return, describes how his Libyan family endured the murderous regime of Muammar Gaddafi
Two older memoirs also held personal interest, for different reasons. In Ten Years a Nomad, Matthew Kepnes — known as “Nomadic Matt” — describes how he spent years wandering around the globe, a journey I am about to emulate on a much smaller scale. In Waiting for the Monsoon, journalist Rob Nordland tells how his life filled with writing and travel was imperiled by a health crisis — one worse than anything I have experienced, but resonant nonetheless.
I also enjoyed McKay Coppins’ excellent biography of Mitt Romney; John Vaillant’s harrowing account of Fire Weather; and Jessica Roy’s American Girls, about a young woman from a religious family in Arkansas ending up with the Islamic State in Syria. Bianca Bosker’s Get the Picture provided a devastating tour of New York’s art scene.
On the political front, I also enjoyed The Age of Grievance, by Frank Bruni; The Age of Revolutions by Fareed Zakaria; The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris (remember her?) and — older but still interesting — The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics by Rob Christensen.
My final non-fiction nod goes to The Catalyst, which describes how RNA science has become central to our understanding of cancer, aging and more. Author Thomas Cech, a Nobel laureate, introduces us to the people behind the discoveries and explains in non-technical language how RNA is changing our world. I worked with Tom for several years and admire both his brilliance and his ability to explain complex science.
Other new fiction favorites included Dolly Alderton’s Good Material, a British rom-com about a struggling stand-up comedian; Vanessa Chan’s The Storm We Made, about the complex choices Malaysians made during the Japanese occupation; Francis Spufford’s Cahokia Jazz, a noir thriller set in a reimagined Midwestern state; and The Vegetarian, a dark novel from Korea by Han Kong, who won this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature. I also inherited a friend’s copy of Larry McMurtry’s classic Cadillac Jack, which was worth the long wait, as was Alistair MacLeod’s lovely No Great Mischief, which I read before traveling to his native Nova Scotia.
As usual, some titles disappointed, notably four you may see on “best books” lists elsewhere: Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner; This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud; There’s Always This Year: On Basketball by Hanif Abdurraqib; and Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange. I gave up on all of them before finishing. Maybe I stopped too soon.
Looking ahead, I’m preparing to tackle a 1,336-page classic that I’ve downloaded to read during our upcoming trip to Australia and New Zealand: Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, about Robert Moses’s transformation of New York. I hope to finish it in time for my 2025 list. Until then, I invite you to share your own suggestions in the comments section and wish everyone another year of great books. Happy reading!
We visited the Statue of Liberty this past weekend and I found myself wondering whether they will soon be adding “Don’t” to the front of the famous poem by Emma Lazarus.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore,” the poem says. “Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
“Don’t give me your tired, your poor” sounds about right these days, the way things are going. For good measure, they could add a warning about immigrants eating dogs and cats.
In the wake of the recent election, I found it disheartening to visit Lady Liberty, which greeted my grandparents more than a century ago. Champa and I went there with our son and his family during a family get-together in New York.
Our four granddaughters were especially excited to see the names of their great-great-grandparents on the Wall of Honor at Ellis Island. These were my dad’s parents, Reuben and Sarah Jarmul, who both came to New York after fleeing religious persecution in Eastern Europe. My mother’s family came from Germany a few decades later, narrowly escaping the Holocaust in Germany.
Today’s refugees will not be so lucky — and their situation is just one of many issues that make me despair about what lies ahead during the next four years.
Several months ago, I wrote about how we were considering a post-election Plan B focused on “slow travel,” which has become popular among older Americans and is substantially less expensive than many people assume. Now this has become our Plan A. We’re going to keep our home in Durham, at least for now, but will spend much of our time elsewhere around the world. We think it’s our best way to stay sane during the next four years.
We could change our minds. Maybe the next Trump presidency will be less tumultuous than we expect. Maybe we’ll experience a health setback, a family crisis or something else. Maybe we’ll get tired of the road. Serving in the Peace Corps and traveling frequently have made us comfortable with uncertainty and foreign adventure.
For now, though, we need to get away, although we’ll remain engaged and seek new opportunities to serve as volunteers. In three weeks, we’re leaving on an extended trip to Australia and New Zealand, and we have other trips planned after that.
As we head for other shores, we’ll keep Lady Liberty in our hearts. My last glimpse of her this past weekend was from the ferry returning us from Ellis Island to New York’s Battery Park. It was sunset and the sky was bathed in red. As I gazed behind us, across the harbor where my grandparents came to find safety and freedom, I watched the statue’s outstretched lamp as it slowly faded into the gathering darkness.
I hope it will shine more brightly when we come back.
"Not Exactly Retired" 