In Masaka, Uganda, the Youth Desk gives young people a physical open-door space to meet with officials, and they use it! Lines frequently form in the morning for young people to report problems and propose solutions.
Quite the adventure in the Andes
Happy Octo-October.
Christchurch. Otautahi.
A sweet little hub in one of the most enjoyable parts of the world.
I went to New Zealand excited to spend time in its gorgeous outdoor landscapes. Between Hunt For The Wilderpeople and Lord of the Rings, I expected nature to be a big draw.
One thing I heard over and over was that South Island was probably the more ideal setting for outdoor adventures. (Now that I’ve been to both, I’d have to say that the North deserves some credit too!)
Like most visitors, Christchurch was our entry point to the island. The city wears a lot of English influence, but when the massive 2011 earthquake brought about the need to rebuild, Maori leaders also incorporated a lot of their cultural concepts of space into the urban design.
One of my favorite aspects of the city was how easy it was to get around, keeping adventure in easy access. From our hotel right at the edge of the Botanical Garden, we were able to walk to the center of town in under ten minutes.
Some stories to dive into before your arrive in Christchurch
Marlon WIlliams is an accomplished singer-songwriter in his own right, but what makes this 2025 release extra special is the way he pulled from traditional country and folk whilst singing in Maori. Also important to note: we get a Lorde feature.
Here’s an interesting little novel set in Central Otago on a rural sheep farm. Most notably, the story is told from the perspective of a magpie. The book feels lighthearted for most of its pages, which is a bit of an accomplishment considering that it actually deals with some heavy stuff. Namely, domestic violence. Still, a well written book and worth reading.
This isn’t just one of my favorite films from New Zealand… it’s one of my favorite films hands down. It’s an earlier Taika Waititi film from before he was a total household name, and stars a young Julian Dennison alongside Sam Neill. The setting of the South Island bush is absolutely gorgeous and whet my appetite to do some exploring
We Were Dangerous is a comedy that will make you laugh while simultaneously making you mad that its story was based on the real world treatment of many Maori young people for a large part of history. The story is set in 1954 on a religious island institution for delinquent girls. The authoritarian matron comes up against the bond formed by three of the rebellious young girls.
We went to Christchurch in the winter, so much of our outdoor activity were shaped by the weather.
A scenic train journey can take you from the Christchurch train station and all the way to Arthur’s Pass National Park. As a scenic railway, efficiency isn’t the point. Instead you’ll get a good look at the remote farmlands of Otautahi, while passing some great waterfalls and bridges along the way. There’s an onboard café as well, and an open front car for some especially good views that really let you feel that breeze, you know?
Loved exploring this National Park even though it was a wet winter day while I was there. We did the short hike to Devil’s Punchbowl Falls which was a short hike with a decent climb and some spectacular views. This area is also home to the kea bird, the only alpine parrot known locally for its cheeky behavior, tendency to bully sheep, and taste for the rubber sealant on cars.
This is the spot that visitors will frequently refer to as “that spot where they filmed that part of Narnia…” because that’s what it is. The battle scene from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe was shot around some hills that feel vast and rolling, whilst being punctuated with massive, smooth, black boulders. I immediately noted that this had to be one of the most gorgeous places I’ve been able to walk through in my life.
Here are a few ways to get to know what makes Christchurch unique.
This was the site of an old Anglican Cathedral that was completely wrecked during the 2011 earthquake. Shortly afterwards, they decided to rebuild… out of cardboard tubes and similar materials. It apparently went so well that the cathedral’s cardboard structure still remains. We were welcomed by an older deacon who promised not to chat about politics. Good, because this opened him up to share all kinds of stories from his memory of the earthquake and the years afterwards.
In Māori tradition, river confluences are typical gathering spots and meal sites and it’s interesting to see how much of that was incorporated into the planning of Christchurch.
This is most evident at the Bridge of Remembrance which is where the Avon River arrives at the city center and you see an international food hall. Food. Gathering spots. A river. I see what you did there.
One can rent a small boat for some punting on the Avon. I didn’t do this personally, but it’s a thing.
Christchurch’s city center deserves its own little call out because it’s fairly easy to explore and you get a strong sense for how new everything still feels post-rebuild.
For the most part it’s a shopping area with some good bars and restaurants thrown in. I spent a good bit of time browsing the two locations of Scorpio’s Books and some of the outdoor suppliers. Then we managed to spend an easy Sunday working our way out of an escape room.
Christchurch’s Botanic Gardens offers a lot of great walking paths, some covered gardens, and plenty of green space. We happened to be there at the same time as some kind of Pokemon Go event, so good for those trainers getting to be out and about. The garden boasts over 50,000 species of plants which in turn attract a good variety of birds. We spent some of our visit using the Alice in Wonderland scavenger hunt to help us find our way around the park. It may have been meant for kids, but it offered a good way to find our way about
We only stayed in one place while in Christchurch, but this one’s such a winner that it counts for a lot more.
We stayed at The Observatory which was right across the street from the Botanical Garden and City Park and only ten minutes from downtown. This was located on the site of an old college that was modeled after Oxford University… thus the engraving PHYSICAL EDUCATION right above our doorway entrance.
The interior had so much charm, though. In particular, I loved the drawing room outfitted with books, travel guides, coffee machines, and bright furniture. We made it a point to spend some time in that space just cause it was so cozy. And the rest of the former-school was also being put to good use.
The site also housed a cinema, which was in the middle of a French film festival. Along with that were a paint-and-sip studio, a wine bar, a dance studio, and an art gallery.
Christchurch is full of good eats. Conveniently, most of them happen to be housed together under one roof. (Or maybe I should say… dangerously…)
We were so sold on this place we booked a reservation for the night of our ten year anniversary. Their menu is solid. They handled a classic lamb rack flawlessly, but also pulled off being pretty creative with other items… Deanna ordered an apple-based soup that turned out to be the sleeper pick of the dinner.
We were highly recommended Rollickin’ Gelato prior to coming to New Zealand and since we found a location right in the heart of Christchurch we couldn’t say no. Kiwis tend to really enjoy their fruity ice cream, which isn’t typically my first pick. But they did have a handmade version of hokey pokey, New Zealand’s classic ice cream invention, that this place did really well.
Is it too much to declare a food hall as perhaps my favorite part of the city? Really though, it might’ve been. We went here about twice a day, and that felt necessary because this food hall had so many good options it was always hard to settle on just one. Over the course of our numerous visits, we enjoyed an Argentine asado spot, some Nepalese dumplings, Cambodian food, lassi, and a woodfired pizza spot that had a lamb and mint inspired offering. What a delight.
The perfect companion to Riverside Food Hall. Little High is much smaller by comparison, but its food options can hold their own. I really enjoyed my massaman curry lamb shank from the Thai spot, but I was most amused by the American inspired eatery that looked pretty good in all honesty.
New Zealand’s wines are the thing of legend, but there are lots of other fine beverages too.
This place was always so lively every time we walked by. It was an actual church up until the 2011 earthquake, and since then it has been repurposed into a bar. Bar is a bit of an understatement though, because between the trivia nights, the open mics, and other events, they have a good community feel going.
Australia’s mark on the coffee world came from popularizing the flat white, but New Zealand should be remembered right alongside them. Unknown Chapter Coffee Roasters was a solid café and breakfast spot, whether you were there for straight up coffee or something like an eggs benedict or chai. Their physical space was especially inviting and lively.
This was a proper winery in a cottage-like structure out in the Waipara country. In terms of their wines, they kept things pretty classic with their merlot probably being their strongest offering. We had our lunch here and particularly enjoyed the very wide variety on their lunch platter.
This was a really lovely mom-and-pop winery way out in a remote part of Waipara. They had some wild stories of times that storms and road closures left people stranded in the winery for longer than they planned. Thankfully we made it out without any big storms, and we did get to enjoy tasting a bit of all their wines. The views from the tasting room are immaculate, and they’re made even better thanks to the presence of Pepper, the dog who kind of runs the place.
One thing that gets often overlooked about New Zealand… it’s a fantastic hub of some gin distilleries. I don’t know if that’s something that got passed along with all of the English influences or if there are some other historical or environmental factors making gin a big deal around here, but gin gin (and several others) are fantastic and I’m not one to complain about that.
Speaking of things that New Zealand does pretty well that easily go overlooked… craft beer! Two Thumb is one of the more established craft brewers on the scene. I had their signature lager and really enjoyed it.
•••
Christchurch is a special place. Booking it as our 10th anniversary destination kind of signaled the high expectations we had for the place. And it managed to live up to all of it. On a future visit, I’d love to do a bit more of Queenstown, which is even more of an outdoor adventure hub.
I saw this gorgeous bird in Ecuador, and it turns out it’s a significant bird for much of Central and South America. Their pendulum like tails hold deep cultural, spiritual, and ecological significance across Mesoamerica and they’re also the national bird of El Salvador.
If you heard someone was injecting hundreds of millions of dollars into the Australian economy and planting nearly 100 million trees a year, that would command some respect. Well, don’t overlook the bats.
The most underrated linguistic difference between British and American English has to be the way they use the world scheme for very official things like retirement plans and government policy. Australia and New Zealand too, I believe.
You don’t have a pension plan. You have a freakin’ pension SCHEME.
It’s like Jafar came up with this idea. His next scheme will involve solar credits. Muahahaha.
Anyways, here are a couple dozen of my obsessions from this past summer.
This was a pretty short read that managed to pack a lot into its pages. Perfection follows the trajectory of an American couple attempting to create the perfect digital nomad life in Berlin, seeing their journey from idealists responding to the migrant crisis to dealing with the coming-and-going of their social circle of expats. There’s a running theme of growing into adulthood during the emergence of the digital era, and the weird relationship between performatively having a well-polished life and genuine contentment. It wasn’t quite the exploration of Berlin’s art scene that I thought it might be, but ended up being a well-constructed portrait of some very familiar feeling lives.
This is the kind of novel that plants you with a family for several generations as you watch a country’s history unfold around it. So if you liked Pachinko or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, then yeah this spans that sort of stretch. In this case, that includes World War Two then the Hungarian Uprising of the 1950s.
If I’m honest it made it hard for me to track things sometimes. Thankfully there were also a lot of moments punctuated by a change in Hungarian regime, sometimes the family is elite, other times they’re targeted by the party in charge.
I’m not the biggest lover of psychedelic rock, but then I found Seera. I threw them on as background music when I wanted to have a really laid back night of making art, and it ended up being the perfect companion.
Saudi Arabia is a complicated place of course. Seera has a unique perspective as an all-female psychedelic band from Riyadh. They’re really the first all-female musical act like this in Saudi Arabia to be performing so openly and publicly, a sign of how some things seem to be changing quite a bit there. They sing in a Saudi dialect and Middle Eastern musical motifs. The name Seera translates to “journey,” or “epic,” and so the sound really feels like stepping into a whole new landscape.
This summer, I had the chance to connect with some of the team from ProCosta in El Salvador, and I loved their approach to their conservation work.
The Eastern Pacific Hawskbill Turtle was considered extinct for a long time. But my friend Melissa pointed out that it was simply because the scientists weren’t looking in the right spot. While the population around the coral reefs had disappeared, there were still some surviving members located around the mangroves.
ProCosta works to protect them by patrolling the beaches for eggs, rehabilitating injured or sick turtles, collecting a ton of data, and perhaps most importantly, involving the local community in the process and training local leaders. I had the chance to pretty much witnessing an egg hatch and it was an incredible sight.
There’s an incomplete joke about how this could pair with Maria Ressa’s How to Stand Up to a Dictator and some other book as a weird trilogy of resisting dictators. That joke would probably appeal only to me.
Reed Brody’s book focuses primarily on a brutal authoritarian who seemed to go unnoticed by the world. Chad’s Hissène Habré tortured, terrorized, and antagonized his own people, all while receiving a lot of support from the United States and other western nations.
Brody tells the story of the hunt for Habré as he was evading arrest, followed by his dramatic trial. Brody is a human rights lawyer and a sharp storyteller.
I’ve been a huge fan of the TV show for a long time, and finally had the chance to see the stage play that it was adapted from. Showrunner Ins Choi was back in the lead role as Appa. There were some parts that you could clearly trace to lines of dialogue adapted for screen.
I was also intrigued by what didn’t translate. The change in medium allowed for a different kind of depth. We encounter Appa at a more pivotal point in his life. His fallout with Jung and relationship with Janet are a little more serious. But it was still hilarious at parts and also stirring. A great reminder that our best stories unfold in relationships.
This was a beautiful film- both gorgeously animated and mesmerizing in its narrative. It’s a hand drawn biopic in a lot of ways, telling the story of French filmmaking legend Marcel Pagnol. It unveils some of his early childhood losses, his adventures in theatre, and how that led him to writing and film as his art progressed.
It’s an artist portrait, but also a look at the relationship that influenced him, and an anthology of the history of cinema. The animation style would not feel out of place next to the Miyazaki canon. And you get a fascinating look at how World War 2 impacted it all.
I discovered Midnight Generation over this summer and I can’t stop. It feels too easy to describe them as a Mexican Daft Punk but I mean… just listen. That’s a pretty spot on description. The way they’ve managed to take on Daft Punk’s funk riffs in synth form and talkbox vocals is so spot on. And it feels like a loving homage to the French duo rather than a ripoff. Perfect music for driving around at night.
Putting the World Cup on this list feels too easy and obvious, except leaving it off would simply be dishonest. The World Cup was a total obsession as it always is. I’ve already written about how to me it’s a strong reminder that in spite of all the concentrated forces of corruption and inequality, people still come together with curiosity and enthusiasm. The tournament this year was especially meaningful as I got to watch along with my kids… the six year old especially taking a strong interest.
I am so glad I discovered this indie band from Ecuador. The soundtrack of my life probably consists of a lot of late 2000s and 2010s indie rock, and these guys absolutely nail that sound. They’re lo-fi, a little psychedelic folk…and if you listen closely enough, you might get some bossa nova influences that remind you we’re in South America.
I catch hints of Local Natives, The War on Drugs, maybe some Arcade Fire. I think their best album is 2017’s Verano En Coma, however their more recent Residencia Azul is also very good.
Stirring.
Rosalia’s Lux album was my favorite album of last year, perhaps my favorite of the decade, and her live tour had a lot to live up to.
It delivered.
From her emergence on stage to Sexo, Violencia, y Llantas to the dramatic Berghain to the high note at the end of Mio Cristo Piange Diamanté, this was an incredible display of art and heart.
I’m thankful my friend and fellow freestyle rapper Abi put me on to this. Wax is a playful rapper who does a lot of freestyle shows that are a typically a good time.
On his most recent tour, he essentially recorded an album on the go, with some final recordings being done on stage and others in hotel rooms while on the road (thus the name). It makes for a fun listen and there are some impressive rhymes.
This felt a bit like a bar, a bit like a café, and a lot like a 1950’s American Diner. And it was in San Salvador. But with menu fixtures like BLTs, burgers, and patty melts, it fits. Lest you think you came to El Salvador just to have the most stereotypical Yankee meal, it’s also one of the best spots to get horchata el morro, El Salvador’s take on horchata made with morro nut.
The night I was there happened to be the night of Argentina’s semifinal match in the World Cup against Switzerland, and that made for a lively venue and spirited crowd. Pleased with myself over the choice of where to go out.
My Phillies hosted this year’s Major League All Star game, a blatant move to send the game to Philadelphia for the USA’s 250th birthday. While the game fell a couple weeks after the 4th of July, I heard more than a few people highlight it as a bit more pure of an American celebration than some of the forced pomp on actual Independence Day.
It felt sincere, albeit goofy at times, like when they introduced the starting lineup by having the players come out and sign a giant Declaration of Independence. Lots of signatures from Venezuelans and Dominicans, but hey, most of the original signers weren’t born here either.
The high point came in the 7th inning, when kids on bikes made their way to the field alongside several All-Stars and some of the original cast of The Sandlot. A video of Ray Charles playing at a ballpark was shown, and the fireworks recreated the magic of that Sandlot scene. Good stuff.
Threads user jonnynexus posted an unusual trend of fried chicken restaurants in the UK named after American locations. And it makes sense because Kentucky Fried Chicken is such a hit, but… Alaska Fried Chicken? Turns out Montana Fried Chicken and Florida Fried Chicken also exist… along with a lot of other unlikely spots.
Otyken is an indigenous Siberian music collective that mixes traditional folk music with a lot of elements of modern pop. You can expect big beats to go behind throat singing vocals. This summer, they released a new album, Tundra, however that release led to me diving further into one of their earlier releases, Genesis.
This was a good summer for checking off some different San Diego restaurants that have been on my list for a long time. Bosforo was a great spot for some Turkish classics in a sleek presentation.
Their menu runs deep, and I appreciated the inclusion of some meze and drink options that went beyond the usual hummus spreads. The kebabs are their most praised item and rightfully so. I do hope to be back to explore even more of their menu.
This movie is earning its praise.
It really does harken back to the rich worlds of the movies you saw as a kid, where the stakes were high but things were still somehow lighthearted. And despite having a cartoonish presence, this movie still seems to carry a bit of depth, bringing big questions, humility, and curiosity to a film accessible for kids.
A kids movie that can handle the nuances of death in an honest way is a bit of a rarity. Way to go, sheep.
A friend of mine has a little part on this show, so I checked out the first episode and that was enough to get me hooked. It’s hard to describe this show or to pin down the premise, because there’s a lot going on. It’s like a police procedural meets a silly best friend comedy. It’s sometimes dark, sometimes funny, but consistently well performed by David Harbor and Jason Bateman.
This place is fully committed to the aesthetic experience. The food itself is decently priced and pretty good, but the main draw of course is the Saharan night setup. Demand is high, so you’ll want to book this early.
Most menu items are kebab skewers and mezze, so they trend on the lighter side. Appetizers are good, but seems surprisingly nibbly for a place you have to book ahead of schedule. There are some exceptions, like the lamb shank. Saffron rice was excellent. Do take the side trip to the bathroom, which is also committed to the North African look & feel.
This discovery was the consequence of stopping in a grocery store on my way home from a long run. A can of pure banana juice has to be good for preventing cramps, right? Sure. But it’s also delicious. And even though it feels like an overpay when the only ingredient listed on the can is ‘bananas,’ I know i’m not going to finely press those bananas into a smooth liquid all on my own.
The premise of this documentary is extremely simple. It follows around a group of soccer teams in Greenland as they all try to advance through a tournament. However, they have to deal with a bunch of problems fairly unique to a sports league in one of the most inhospitable climates on Earth.
Man-purse benefits: unlocked.
I started using this little alpaca wool shoulder sling that I got in Ecuador last year whenever I don’t want to have a gazillion things in my pocket, and its a way better feel. I admit it feels a bit like raising the stakes in case I ever forget it somewhere, but so far, I’ve liked having this around.
A woman using an OnlyFans-ish site witnesses a live murder, and that sets off a series that feels a bit like a film noir but with a modern energy and a fantastic performance by Tatiana Maslany. This show had me excited for each week’s new episode drop. Great trickle of information released as the layers get pulled back.
I love bats. One of my favorite animals. But do I love them enough to ride out so many pages of bat information? Absolutely.
Even more so, this book features a lot more of the author’s stories from a lifetime’s work of following bats around, learning their behaviors, and investigating patterns. He spends time in places with some colorful communities and manages to be really winsome with his obsession.
This Taiwanese film follows two sisters who support their mom as she runs a small food stand at the Taipei Night Market. It’s a great slice-of-life film and it fills the space of the night market really well. It’s a movie that’s full of heart and that made me miss spending time in Taipei.
This is why, when a friend invites you to visit his hometown and notes that its become a model for ecotourism’s potential… you should say yes.
I want to draw more food.
📍 Brauð & Co
🇮🇸 Reykjavik, Iceland
There’s a reason this spot is considered such a Reykjavik essential… The freshness of the rolls lands especially well after a day out in frigid weather. I’m especially fond of the happy marriage cake.
Street Art walk of Montreal. One of my favorite portrait-murals of all time is the Jackie Robinson piece on the side of Coco Rico in Montréal. It’s been there for years, and hopefully it’ll be there for perpetuity.
Earlier in the year, I found myself in a bit of liminal space.
One professional chapter came to an end and my next endeavor had yet to get started.
It was kind of a weird time to be honest. A lot of the tentpoles had been removed and it felt a bit unsettling to not be able to immediately slide into a new groove.
So what better time to go to Amsterdam?
Yeah… I probably wouldn’t have planned to go on a trip during that weird in-between time. Switching jobs created some financial question marks and plane tickets were surging.
But… I already booked this trip months ago.
Plus, I’m committed to doing a one-on-one trip with each of my kids on a rotation, and my four year old was on deck.
When we first became a family of five, I actually really wanted to do Amsterdam as our first big family trip.
I heard so much about how kid-friendly it was.
I imagined being easily being able to wheel a stroller around the Rijksmuseun, parking them at little canalside eateries.
Ah, yes. The weird fantasy of traveling with three babies. But after living through a couple years of Covid and newborns, I was very itchy to go somewhere.
It never quite worked out during their infant years, but now I got the chance to take a slightly older kid to experience the kid-friendliness of the Netherlands in a different way. Plus, this kid could easily live off fries and cheese, so it seemed like the right fit.
The Amsterdam flight is probably my favorite option out of San Diego. It’s a simple ten hour flight over the Atlantic with no layovers. It leaves comfortably at 3pm, removing any early wakeups and accommodating a half day of work.
Then, you arrive in Amsterdam in the late morning with a comfortable amount of time to get where you’re going with the most convenient transport.
Or… you have yourself a really easy point of connection to the rest of Europe. Or much of Africa.
But for us, on this particular trip, Amsterdam was the prize.
Without much of a challenge, I managed to find the ideal combination of train transfers to get to our hotel.
The impressive convenience of Dutch public transit comes as a surprise to no one at this point.
One of the hallmarks of Dutch design and culture is solid pragmatism. Things generally work as they’re supposed to. There’s an ease of use to infrastructure.
Later in the week, the kid and I would rent bikes to explore Amsterdam in the most classic way possible. As a longtime sustainability advocate, Amsterdam has always been a paragon of urban design done right.
That alone should be impressive. But to me the even more impressive thing is the way this is accomplished without sacrificing personality.
Amsterdam still has a strong personality that it makes known.
This goes beyond the tourist level pot leaf fridge magnets and boisterousness of the Red Light District.
It’s the spirit of quirkiness that still manages to take root within the city’s high functioning infrastructure.
It’s in my favorite street food- Kapsalon- a relatively recent invention named after the barbershop where it was created. The maximalist presentation of fries, kebab, and gouda are absolutely loaded.
It’s in the playful sounds of the Dutch language. A bit squeaky, if I can say so.
It’s in that meme highlighting the countries of Europe that have eaten their prime ministers, with only the Netherlands colored in due to a bizarre and grisly revolt in 1672.
Who says a high functioning social system can’t show a little personality.
We pulled into the Zaandam station and right after hopping off the train, we immediately knew where to go next. We didn’t need to consult a map. A left at the Albert Heijn corner store? That seemed like the obvious right choice.
I’m going to assume that this instinctive approach to navigation was the result of some design wizardry.
We followed our feet to a town center, with bridges over a canal, two levels of walkways, and a whole lot of activity. People were sitting outside at cafes, shopping in the boutiques, and socializing on street corners.
This was Zaandam.
One of its visual anchors was an especially quirky eight story building. It looked a bit like the book cover of Tales From a Wayside School, but somehow even weirder.
It almost looked like several different buildings had been smashed together. Different floors seemed partly rotated at different angles. Several triangular rooftops seemed to start and stop right at the middle of the tower.
It almost looked like someone asked a computer to crank out a building to look like Amsterdam and it cooked up a cartoonish amalgamation of every aesthetic stereotype.
This unusual tower would be our home base in Amsterdam. The Hotel Inntel.
Zaandam was an industrial area that got a makeover in the early 2000s that paid homage to the region’s historical wooden houses.
This was the perfect spot to anchor ourselves for freely exploring. We spent time walking back and forth over its main canal, snacking on Kapsalon, and hanging out at a wooden playground in one of its corners. It kind of felt like walking around a cartoon world.
A couple days later we would get the chance to do an even deeper dive into the Netherlands’ playful, quirky side.
We hopped on a bus and headed down south to the town of Kaatsheuvel. This was home to Efteling.
Efteling is one of Europe’s largest amusement parks. It opened about three years ahead of Disneyland and during that gap between the openings of the two parks, Walt Disney took a trip to Efteling and apparently drew a lot of inspiration.
The inspiration is apparent. The park and its sections have a similar layout. The rides are similarly more oriented around storytelling than thrills.
The most noticeable difference is that Disney is a Goliath of intellectual property, whereas Efteling doesn’t have the same pool of movies to inspire its rides.
Instead, they’ve got old European fairy tales.
Old European fairy tales, as in, the ones that are occasionally so absurd, brutal, and dark that you wonder what people were thinking 700 years ago. The ones that inspired Disney movies, but triggered the studio to say there’s no way we can go ahead with that without some heavy edits.
Yup, this was the theme park for the original source material.
While Efteling thankfully avoids stuff like the original Hansel & Gretel ending, it still includes bits like talking trees and a donkey that poops when you give it a gold coin.
The park’s trash cans yell at you.
I got to admit that I spent a good chunk of my day in Efteling pondering over my life in transition. But whenever I ran the risk of taking myself too seriously, I’d be jolted back into reality by the fact that a trash can with the face of a small boy was yelling at me.
Paper hier!
The Netherlands embraces the weird.
In most settings, the word weird is often used as a pejorative. But not so with me.
I try to be careful not to label things weird in a way that could be taken as an insult. But to me, weirdness is a badge of honor.
It means you aren’t generic, you're rooted in authenticity, and you’ve probably got some stories to tell.
In most places, well functioning systems are associated with a sort of minimalism. You strip away the unnecessary clutter so that what really matters can be clearly seen.
Apple’s innovations came clad in a plain Helvetica. Luxury coffee shops are the ones that eschew color for white marble. Scandinavia’s quality of life scores seem linked to the minimalist aesthetic.
But then there’s Amsterdam which seems to go against the grain.
It has some of the best transit systems in the world, a strong quality of life, and well organized neighborhoods but at the same time, it isn’t afraid to let its true colors show.
With my own life in transition, visiting the Netherlands was an enjoyable reminder.
Doing good work doesn’t need to come at the expense of embracing your own quirks.
Whether it’s weird architecture or a weird moment in your life.
After a week of fries, gouda, and stroopwafel, I felt more encouraged about this weird season in my life. There’s no reason why weirdness can’t still be paired with excellence. More often than not, forcing a return to some sense of normalcy often results in dissatisfaction.
Whether you’re one of Europe’s iconic cities or a dad just trying to keep up,..
Let the weird be weird.
Illegal fishing is a serious problem. It threatens ecological balance and the livelihood of rural fisherfolk trying to do it the right way. But Ghana is equipping those communities to do something about it.
My ongoing quest to collect a football jersey from every country I’ve been to.
FRANCE
COLOMBIA
The best film crews I’ve worked with approach their work with patience. They relate to their subject, put them at ease. They put presence over production.
I have yet to see a news feed that couldn’t use more Fred.
The coastal town of Greystones, Ireland outside Dublin has a community-wide initiative of offering a voluntary smartphone ban until the age of 12.
Don’t say I’m a cheap date, but we finally had a chance to check out the trailer park themed bar downtown, where we enjoyed a dressed up TV dinner and brushed up on our beer pong skills.
Lots of reminders lately to make sure our favorite octogenarians get their flowers. Ode to Trejo.
