I recently traveled across the United States by train. It takes four days for a train to travel 3,000 miles — that’s the distance between the east and west coasts. When I began the trip this March, it was snowing in New York and some parts of the Hudson river still had ice. The trees were bare and the sky was grey. Our train followed the Hudson river northward, and then passed by small towns with lots of brick buildings. We had to wait at one of the stations in upstate New York for a connecting train to bring sleeper cars that would be attached to our train — the sleeper cars I would be staying in. We passed by one of the Great Lakes. Sometimes it snowed, but it didn’t stick to the ground. Our train pulled into Chicago late because of the delay, so we missed the connecting train and stayed the night in Chicago. No matter; you shouldn’t take the train cross country if you are in a hurry. Downtown Chicago is windy, just like everyone says, but it …

William got to go to Beijing for a work trip and I went along! Since it was November, it was very cold and it was also very dry (I needed lots of hand and face moisturizer). It would have been better to go in nicer weather, but the trip was still lots of fun. We saw many of the main tourist sites–the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, and the Great Wall. But we loved the hutongs best–they are traditional residential alleys. They are lined with traditional courtyard residences, some of which people still live in, and some which have been converted into restaurants, businesses, and hotels. The subways made getting around Beijing easy (and they were also very clean too!), though we also took some buses and some taxis (luckily William speaks Mandarin). Hutongs Hutong Hotels (Courtyard 7, a hotel that we stayed at which is located in a renovated Hutong. It was really nice.) Around Town Forbidden Palace Summer Palace 798 Arts District Lama Temple Great Wall Food

For our fourth of July vacation this year, we went to Germany. There were lots of sausages: in restaurants, beer halls, and even sold on the street. In Munich, we went to beer halls. They pour huge beers (William and I usually shared the liter of beer) and serve large plates of very filling, heavy food (e.g. roasted pork shoulder, pork knuckles, sausage, and grilled mackerel “fish on a stick”). We stayed one night in Rothenburg ob der Tauber (a well-preserved medieval town) and also made a quick stop in Nuremberg the next day. Finally, we went to Berlin. Berlin has lots of graffiti and street art. There was a mix of old and new buildings and lots of repurposed warehouses decorated with street art. In modern times, Germain people eat all sorts of cuisines on a regular basis. I suspect that many Germains eat traditional foods as often as Americans eat hot dogs or hamburgers, which is to say that it is probably only eaten on occasion, though some eat it more often than others. However …