Holidays are a time for family, and grandparents play a role too. Argentine journalist Ignacio Pereyra asks what happens when there are no grandparents around, and asks a grandmother to share her thoughts too.
Tag: memories
Questions, doubts, challenges, imaginary friends, linguistic habits, privileges, reflections, setbacks and anecdotes: in his latest fatherhood-focused newsletter, the author shares fragments of 2024 in the form of a personal diary.
How does déjà vu happen? Psychologists have long avoided the complicated question, but researchers are now trying to understand this uncanny phenomenon.
Lebanese writer Tarek Ismail, who fled his village in southern Lebanon in September, reflects on his new life as a displaced person: “I am now facing a fate that is not in my hands.”
The Lebanese coastal metropolis has long been a source of inspiration and freedom for Baghdad native poet Aya Mansour. As Israel sends ground troops into Lebanon, she asks how the world can watch as fire and smoke covers the beauty of Beirut without saying a word.
Hezbollah’s Imad 4 underground missile facility, which was revealed on Aug. 16, is just another layer of the Lebanese tragedy. For Hazem El-Amin, the footage brings back memories of his experience during the Lebanese Civil War.
The author was from one of the rare families in Damascus who were not direct victims of Syria’s long civil war. But she hardly emerged unscathed.
Taking an international trip with small children can be a source of stress, but that shouldn’t overshadow the larger life lessons of such an adventure.
The surge in toy sales sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic has tailed off, and the industry is now in a serious crisis. LEGO, Mattel and others see a potential lifeline in a new target: adults who play. The “escape into the inner child” could become a market worth billions.
A psychiatrist unpacks her relationship with driving, and her dad.
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Photographic Memory
Flipping through the pages of an old photo album with my nonna, I asked her, “Grandma, why were you all in black and white when you were young?” She replied, “The war broke out. One morning we woke up, and all the colors were gone.” Learn more about Worldcrunch’s exclusive Dottoré! series here.
When I blew the candles on my 29th birthday cake, on March 27th 2020, it was only 10 days after the first lockdown had begun in France. Still, I felt lucky. I remember telling myself that, even though the day included no friends, at least in 2021 for the much more momentous passage into la […]
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We’re All Dancing, We’re All Dancing
There’s a famous nursery rhyme about the bridge of Avignon, in southern France, that goes: Sur le Pont d’Avignon L’on y danse, l’on y danse Sur le Pont d’Avignon L’on y danse tous en rond (On the bridge of Avignon We’re all dancing, we’re all dancing On the bridge of Avignon We’re all dancing in […]
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Allied Dog
Our dog, whom we had gotten soon after the end of World War II and named “Jeep,” was keeping a benevolent eye on our cat.
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Pilgrim And Painter
The plastered façades of the mudbrick houses in and around Luxor, in eastern Egypt, are decorated with memorable episodes in the life of their owners. On many of the houses, one can see a large space devoted to the representation of the owners’ pilgrimage to Mecca, or Hajj, one of the most important experiences in […]
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Where The Sun Never Sets
As strange as it sounds, this daytime photo could very well have been taken at night: My wife and I were on our way back from Norway“s North Cape, where we watched the midnight sun go down, flirt with the horizon, and go back up.
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Flooded Memory
In 60 years of travels, I have very few mishaps to report. But this slide comes with a story. My wife and I were traveling through central Morocco with four other people in a Volkswagen van. On the road to Midelt, we were surprised by heavy rain, which caused rocks to fall and block our […]
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Little Greek Eiffel
Las Vegas, Shenzhen, Mexico … Paris” Eiffel Tower has inspired countless duplicates. We came upon this one standing a mere 18-meters tall at the entrance of Filiatra, in Greece’s southern Peloponnese region.
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Life On The Nile
On our Nile cruise down to Abu Simbel, we passed by these locals harvesting sugarcane. I couldn’t help but think of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile — and particularly about its 1978 movie adaptation with Peter Ustinov, a favorite of mine and of my grandson’s. Thankfully, nothing dramatic happened and no Hercule Poirot had […]
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Promenade Des Francais
Time to share a little vintage family portrait. This was my daughter Cécile’s first trip outside of her native Franche-Comté; here she’s with my wife and my father, walking along the Promenade des Anglais on Nice’s Bay of Angels. In the background you can catch a glimpse of the world-famous Hotel Negresco.
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Ask A Ghost
Legend has it that if you stand at the front gate of Dunguaire Castle and ask a question, you’ll have an answer by the end of the day. I don’t know who’s doing the answering, but I’d be more curious to hear from the ghosts of W.B. Yeats and George Bernard Shaw, the two Irish […]
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Sweet Past
At the end of the 19th century, Saint-Leu’s Stella Matutina sugarcane factory employed some 250 Indian, Cafre and Malagasy workers. It closed its doors in 1978 and has now been turned into a museum. The loading platforms are still functional — a token of the French island’s once flourishing sugar economy.
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Home Sweet Home
The beautiful region of Lake Toba, in Indonesia’s North Sumatra, is home to the Batak people, composed of a number of ethnic groups with distinct languages, customs and architecture. The Batak houses rank among the most memorable I’ve had the chance to photograph (this list includes the tongkonan in nearby Sulawesi, Zulu kraals in South […]
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International Delicacies
I’m not exactly an adventurous eater, but I did taste that alligator pie in Lafayette, Louisiana, during a big jazz festival. It tasted like veal. I also nibbled on a fried scorpion in China — tasteless — and, together with 12 fellow travelers in South Africa, ate a gigantic omelette made with a single ostrich […]
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Budding Traveler
This is probably one of the oldest pictures you will see here. I was 5 when we drove to Villersexel in eastern France, in my dad’s brand new Peugeot 201. We visited the city’s famous château, which you can see in the background and which is said to have been partly built by both Charles […]
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Next Mechanic: 10 Miles
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well that’s lucky, because I don’t really remember what happened here. I’ll let you imagine the misfortunes of these two Swazi men.
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In The Footsteps Of Maria Callas
We had a friend take this family shot in the spectacular theater of Epidaurus, in the sanctuary of Asclepius. The place is impressive, but unlike the Ancient Theater of Orange in southern France, it’s missing its scaenae frons (its decorated rear wall). Too bad we missed Maria Callas by just a couple of years: The […]
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Toboggan Fun For All
Going up to Funchal’s Monte neighborhood in a cable car is very picturesque. But the way down is all about fun. Two gentlemen dressed in white and wearing straw boaters will take you downhill at relatively high speeds in these large wicker baskets they call “toboggans.”
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Babushka And Matryoshkas
Up on Moscow’s Sparrow Hills, newlyweds take pictures and tourists buy souvenirs. Grand-Mère (a.k.a. babushka) was contemplating a vast array of matryoshkas; we brought a couple of these Russian nesting dolls back — they don’t take much space in your luggage!
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Road Humor
Driving through southern Algeria in the early 1970s was quite an adventure — and I’m not sure the state of roads has gotten any better since. Which means that the “Cape Town” direction on that sign in Ouargla was mostly for fun.
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Flowing Volga, Still Life
Ten years had passed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union when we took a river cruise on the Volga … but in some places, there was no way of telling. This church, which had been abandoned under the Communist regime, remained unrepaired. The landscape of open pasture and haystacks brought back childhood memories of […]