The Day President Kennedy Was Killed

Robert and Nancy Amerson, Jane and Susan, 1962, Rome

On Friday, November 22, 1963, when I was nine years old, my family was in the final days of a week in Washington DC between my father’s US Information Agency posts in Rome and Bogotá. My father completed his morning briefings on the Kennedy administration’s Alliance for Progress, the president’s key economic development initiative for…

Travel Tuesday: How to Pack for Your Next Trip

Folks, after a loooong delay—a year of recovery from my 3-month 2019 hospitalization in Amsterdam, two years of pandemic isolation, and a year of planning—my husband and I recently celebrated a return to traveling with a two-week trip to Northern Europe. I shared pictures from our reunion with the people who saved my life when…

Wellness Wednesday: Running Where I Learned to Walk

Omg you ran 5k next to the hospital where you learned how to walk again, what a special moment that must have been! Gemma, my Amsterdam physiotherapist, July 2023 https://videopress.com/v/7nRrgJBn?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&posterUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fraisedintheforeignservice.blog%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2023%2F05%2F8235c702-5f00-437a-948c-00f4406f833c_mov_avc_240p.original.jpg&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true Four years ago, when six weeks in an Amsterdam ICU had fully depleted my fitness-instructor muscles, I would have been thrilled simply to be able…