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…

Family Friday: How Public Parks Improve Wellbeing

Paris’ Luxembourg Gardens One of our favorite days of our 2018 week in Paris was the Sunday we spent in the Luxembourg Gardens, wandering along the sandy paths with other couples, grandmothers and grandchildren, entire families, “le tout Paris.” Jardín du Luxembourg, July 2018 Amsterdam’s Vondelpark The following week, we discovered much the same bucolic…

Travel Tuesday: Looking At The Dutch Tulips

Silk tulips at Amsterdam’s floating market

Visitors tiptoe through the tulips in Dutch virus test, wrote Mike Corder recently for the AP, documenting the opening of the famed Keukenhof Gardens for a lucky 5,000 people. It is one of hundreds of public venues that the Dutch government has allowed to reopen under strict conditions to evaluate whether rapid testing can safely…