Helpful Hint for new readers: you may want to scroll down the page to find Archive on Left.

clicking here will bring you to a particular location/date of our trip. I suggest starting with January 09...... julie

Picture=1000 words

Can't let go

Since the voyage continues, I thought I'd update the blog. John and Julie are already making plans for next winter - Mexico, Guatemala, who knows where else, and who knows for how long? Judith is already booked for the entire month of May in Rome. Patrice and I are going to New York/New Jersey next weekend.

Comments like these are humbling, but they make me want to continue - the voyage, the blog, the conversations:



"Denise, it was such fun to follow your journey. The pictures were fantastic! On my screen they opened in a full browser window - and I'm running a 20" monitor now - so they were gigantic. I kept trying to imagine what was going on behind your deadpan full stare, with all that "world" around you. I installed your blog on my yahoo home page, and looked for the latest links all the time. Sounds like John & Julie were good traveling companions, and as you know, them's priceless.I've been dealing with torn knee cartilage. Painful, awkward, limiting. And it really hit home as I saw the places you guys went, how impossible that would be for me now. Sobering. I could never have done Italy - some days I can't make it to work! But I'm going to fix it one way or another, as soon as possible.I know how much planning and cogitating went into the trip, and I feel as if I got the high-level view of a fascinating journey. Got any more writing to share? I mean, jeez, ya had a laptop.....Welcome back to this version of reality - I can't wait to hear/see more! " Terry in Vancouver



Thanks, Terry. You are inspiring me to continue.

Thoughts on travel

Coming home is comforting. No flights or hotel reservations to confirm, no new currency to understand, no new expressions to learn, no orienting ourselves in a new city. It would be easy to settle back into a routine. But I don't want to do that. My "routine" has been shaken up forever.

How about thoughts from 2 very different men? Henry Miller says, "One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things."

Saint Augustine writes, "The world is a great book. They who never stir from home read only a page."

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for our next adventure...

Paris-Dublin-Chicago

My time in Paris was spent with old friends. Francoise and Gustave welcomed me into their comfortable "pavillon". After dinner, we watched the Oscars from the night before. It was very amusing, hearing the French commentary and critiques.
This morning I flew to Dublin for a layover. It looks "lovely", as the Irish say, from the airplane, and I promised myself to come back to visit.
So then I had 7 hours to plan my return to "normal life". I searched for some enlightenment, some way to make this painless, and meaningful. Ten minutes before arriving in Chicago, as I saw the skyline from the window, I decided that this was just another stop on my trip. I am treating it as if it's a new city I'm discovering. The voyage continues.....

Leaving Lille and back to Paris

It's been great staying in Lille with Damien, June and the kids, but today I take the train to Paris, and tomorrow, the plane to Chicago. They will be coming to the States at the end of June, so it's not too far off.
It's hard to believe that the trip is coming to an end. Of course, I want it to last as long as possible, and I want to take advantage of every moment. Here in Lille, I've loved walking the cobblestone streets, admiring the architecture, exploring the great boutiques, and of course, being with friends and family. I could definitely live here. But then I could live in a lot of places.
I'm approaching the return to Chicago with a bit of trepidation. Cold weather, work stuff that awaits me, and a to do list that I dread. But there are friends and family that I'm looking forward to seeing. And of course, there's the next few months, when I must assimilate all that's happened in January and February. Trite, but true, this kind of trip is life changing, and my gratitude is deep.
Obviously, I hope to be planning the next great trip, asap. Any ideas?

Le Peintre in Paris

Dinner with the FitzGeralds and our friend in Paris, Stephanie Bauer; also one of Annie's best friends.  Le Peintre is a fun bistro in the 12th Arr. that we really enjoyed for a couple of meals.

We also had a great reunion lunch with Denise and two of her friends at La Procope, the oldest restaurant in Paris, a couple of days later.  

After Paris, we flew home via NYC and Denise went on to Lille, France.  We are still floating upon return as the trip has been so fantastic and enlightening and more to think about than any of us imagined. It will take some time for us to integrate all we saw and learned. Denise was a great travel companion (thoughtful, open-minded, flexible and infatiguable!) and we all worked together to have the trip be meaningful and fun at the same time. South America next perhaps??

At Last

The best return home moment was getting into National Airport in DC and seeing Annie, Carlos and our little 15 month old grandson, Carlitos Eli,  waiting for us!  Carlitos was holding a Welcome Home sign and a big smile. Hugs all around and a free ride home. 

We've spent the last two days with them catching up and pulling out souvenirs for them from our fully  loaded suitcases. They very thoughtfully recorded 12 hours of the Presidential Inauguration

festivities and ceremonies for us!!  (I had the original recording of Etta James singing "At Last" on my iPhone  and played it in the Paris apt. Marcia FitzGerald immediately got very teary eyed and told me that it was the song that Michele and Barack Obama danced to at the first Neighborhood Ball in DC on Inauguration night; she said that Beyonce Knowles sang it live and was fully sobbing with emotion at the end of the song.  I hope it is on the taped recording!)

I felt that this year, of all years, the coming home photos should include us in front of the White House ... 

Why I love Lille

So happy to be in France

What a great way to end an Around the World trip. Paris felt like coming home, and now I'm in Lille, in the north of France, where I'm currently watching my granddaughter, Sophie, build mighty towers out of wooden blocks. What more could I ask for?
I shall try to take some pictures of this incredible city, which I imagine most of you are not familiar with. It's an hour north of Paris, a half hour from Brussels, and an hour and a half from London. Cobblestone streets, and beautiful stone houses.
A word about my travel mates. I was lucky enough to have the best travel partners you could imagine. Always ready for an adventure, always with a smile - or even a lift, if it was too high to jump. Spending all that together time would not have worked with people who were less flexible, less willing to go with the flow. This worked..... marvelously. It was much more than I could have imagined. Thanks J&J.

La Magie Calder

Last Friday, we went to the Pompideau Centre musee of Modern Art here in Paris:
The best thing we saw was a film of Alexander Calder performing his wire circus; filmed in 1961,
using the circus he created in Paris in the late 1920s, it was a tour de force of creative hilarity!!
The four of us laughed for an hour! The first thing Marcia and are doing after arriving home will be to buy the DVD, called La Magie Calder.

Valentine's Day a Paris

Entering the Western world via Paris made the transition easy; the cold weather was a shock though! Our friends, George and Marcia FitzGerald have joined us in the little apt we rented in the 12th Arr. As it turned out, St. Valentine Day was this Weekend so we enjoyed the day even more here. There are not the red hearts everywhere here like there is in the USA though; we had to search a long time to find one for the photo! We did see a few young girls at Notre Dame with English signs offering Free Hugs OOOOOOO John took advantage of that!
The food seems so rich; the people look so healthy; the traffic so loud and dense and orderly.
Color seems so shocking in the land of the black and gray, but I am trying my best to at least wear some of my colorful, new silk scarves. I feel so grateful every time I can brush my teeth with water from the tap; also for things like the Rule of Law, health care, and freedom of speech and freedom of the Press. They should not be taken for granted. In so many ways we in the Western world are very lucky.