a colorful peek inside a demolished building

I thought it was some sort of large-scale art piece when I first saw it. It’s an old apartment building that is being dismantled in pieces. Right now (but I’m not sure how much longer), an entire face has been removed, letting everybody have a peek into the empty rooms. On their own, some of …

must learn Dutch: resources

I wanted to go into more detail about my attempts to learn Dutch. Duolingo. I’ve been using DuoLingo for French… because I love wasting time? I don’t know, I really do enjoy the format. Plus, I studied French in middle school, high school and university, so it’s been nice for my ego to blaze through …

I could live here for a long time

I won’t go so far as to say the “f” word… (Forever.) …but I think I could see us living in Ghent for a long time. Longer-than-three-years, long time. Longer-than-Kyrgyzstan, long time. Moving to Bishkek, the plan was open-ended. Well, initially we said, “Let’s stay at least a year and see where it goes from …

must learn Dutch

No, really. I’m serious this time. I have to learn Dutch. In Kyrgyzstan, I gave up on learning Russian. Work was the ultimate excuse, plus I had reached a decent level of speaking and comprehension. I was good enough at Russian, I told myself. It wasn’t even a personally satisfactory level, I always wished I …

Darwin’s DIY Learning Tower

I’m not much of a DIYer. I want to be; I’ve wanted to be one for a long time. In Kyrgyzstan, it seemed too daunting, so I silently pined away for a life located near a Hobby Lobby or Joann’s fabric store, filing away all of the DIY projects of my dreams. One day I’ll …