My most surreal / memorable travel experiences: #5 See full map I couldn’t stay under the Eiffel Tower, that was for sure. (Once back in class my French teacher Frédéric was alarmed when I told him what I’d done, given…
My most surreal / memorable travel experiences: #5 See full map I was studying abroad for a summer in Compiègne, France. It was an idyllic time, with days devoted solely to French lessons at the local university and evenings spent…
My most surreal / memorable travel experiences: #6 See full map One man whom we visited frequently had a house just off the main road, where we could sit and watch people coming and going. His livelihood was gained through…
My most surreal / memorable travel experiences: #6 See full map I was in Mali for five weeks in the summer of 2001 to participate in a training program run by my university’s engineering school. We spent several weeks providing…
My most surreal / memorable travel experiences: #7 See full map There are a few moments in life when you realize that you’re really in over your head. Lying on the M40 in the middle of nowhere sometime after midnight…
My most surreal / memorable travel experiences: #7 See full map I was spending part of a summer in London, and towards the end of my stay had yet to explore much beyond the city itself. I knew Oxford and…
My most surreal / memorable travel experiences: #8 See full map Pilani and its surroundings are scorchingly hot during the day, but the desert quickly gives back its heat when the sun goes down. The night was becoming quite cool….
My most surreal / memorable travel experiences: #8 See full map I was in Delhi, close enough to a friend’s university that I could finally take up his invitation to address a student group there. I headed off to BITS-Pilani,…
Today marked the installation of Harvard University’s 28th president, Drew Gilpin Faust. (She was a professor of American history at Penn for a year while I was there, and I remember hearing about it when she was “poached” by Harvard…