we're back, bitches

After a six-year hiatus, the Eckstein clan is tan(ish), rested and ready to make their triumphant return to the Old World. We board a plane on Tuesday evening, leaving behind the land of baseball, fast food and air conditioning for the more refined and often confusing place called Europe. For the next seven weeks, we will be doing a variant of the Grand Tour, starting in Paris and finishing in Stockholm, with plenty of places in between -- Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Seefeld (AT), Munich, Copenhagen.

As I did six years ago, I am going to use this space to record the highlights and lowlights of our journey. I will do my best to describe the places we go, sights we see, people we meet and food we eat. I will write about the personal and the historical and I will try to make it interesting for those who know us well and friends of friends.

I had worried six years ago that writing this blog would distract from my traveling, that I'd be so focused on writing, that I'd be unable to enjoy the experiences the rest of my family was enjoying. Turns out, I was wrong. I found blogging not only fulfilling, but a useful way to get more out of our trip. Writing -- and thinking about what you want to write -- made me focus more on everything else around me, most particularly my family and their experiences. It was some form of mindfulness, I suppose, that clarified the present. In my normal life, there are pesky rules of client confidences and time constraints that prevent me from writing about what I do.  For the next seven weeks, I am liberated from those shackles. And last but not least, this blog gives me a socially-acceptable space to mock my children in public.

Speaking of my children, they are now 15 and 13, capable of making their own contributions to this blog. I am mostly excited about the prospect of them doing so, as I want to see how their perspectives and experiences differ from mine. I also look forward to seeing them write in a freer, non-academic setting.

Lauren has said she will be a regular contributor here, and she is true to her word. Owen, for his part, has been more ambivalent about his participation. He at one point threatened to start a rival blog to show me up. More recently, he has responded with a sincere shoulder shrug. Owen has been told that he cannot pack his PS4. That will certainly hinder the progress of his flagship NBA2K franchise, the Phoenix Owenballs (POB), but will create a lot of newfound free time for him, so there's always hope.