DENISE School Review, Secondary School

DENISE School Review, Secondary School

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

This post is mostly focussed on DENISE secondary school (ages 12-18). For more information on DENISE in general and the primary school (ages 4-11), you can also check out my review of DENISE primary school.

Full disclosure: although my kids spent a combined total of six years at DENISE primary school and we had a positive experience there, we chose not to send them to DENISE secondary school. So this is not strictly a review, but more a compilation of the factors we used to make the decision NOT to continue with DENISE secondary.

My main reason for writing this post is because parents with kids ages 10+ often contact me wanting information on the secondary school.… Read more

denise-school-amsterdam

DENISE School Review, Primary School

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

This post concerns DENISE primary school (ages 4-11). You can also read my review of DENISE secondary school (ages 12-18). However, since it is the same school administration in the same building, you may find both articles helpful regardless of the age of your kids.

It is hard to believe my baby just graduated from Group 8 this week, and will soon be headed off to a new school. For our entire past four years in Amsterdam, DENISE (De Nieuwe Internationale School Esprit) has played a big part in our family’s experience of the city. The school has gone through many changes during its five years of existence so far, and I’ve had a front-row seat to most of them.… Read more

bellabeat-leaf

My Bellabeat Leaf, One Year On

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

A year ago we were getting ready to make the long pilgrimage to visit family in California. And when you live abroad, one of the things you tend to do before heading “home” for a visit is make that list of things you can only get there. I am not one of those people who brings home suitcases full of mac & cheese, peanut butter and chocolate chips. We usually only travel with carry-ons anyway, or at most one check-in to share among us. So whatever we bring home has to be small. Last year for me it was my own set of Thinx (which I am still loving every month, but don’t feel like writing a post about my period at the moment) and a Bellabeat Leaf, which I am still loving every single day.… Read more

Places I’ve Planned to Live

Places I’ve Planned to Live

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

When we were planning family trips as a kid, my mom used to tell me that anticipation is half the fun. It seems I took it to heart. Perhaps a little too much to heart. Tony and I have moved a lot of places since we got married fifteen years ago. But we have planned even more moves than we have executed, in varying levels of depth, up to and including consulting Google Maps street view to check out various prospective neighbourhoods.

Planning to move somewhere is a sort of reflexive impulse for us. We do it when we are feeling frustrated about the weather, the culture, the food, our jobs, or anything else about where we live now.… Read more

E-Ink and the Future that Never Was: The Onyx Boox Note Pro

E-Ink and the Future that Never Was: The Onyx Boox Note Pro

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Roman Mars did a great episode on his design podcast 99% Invisible last year about Dirigibles and the Future that Never Was. His intro went like this:

For over a century, lighter-than-air vehicles have captured the public imagination, playing a recurring role in our visions of alternate realities and futures that might have been. In these visions, cargo and passengers traverse the globe in a civilised fashion, and then dock elegantly at the mooring towers on top of Art Deco skyscrapers.

The euphonious voice of Roman Mars is not the only one remarking that zeppelins are a quick and easy way to indicate that you are in a world that is not quite ours.… Read more

Grad School at 40

Grad School at 40

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

OK, technically I recently turned 39. But 40 sounds so much older, doesn’t it? It definitely sounded ancient to me when I graduated for the first time a million years ago at the ripe young age of 21. I do remember seeing a few “nontraditional” students in my classes back then. There was the nice older woman with my grandma’s haircut who sat next to me in history, and the tall Sikh man in philosophy with the salt and pepper beard. People who were obviously in a different stage of life from the rest of us. Now, unaccountably, I am about to become one of those people.… Read more

My Favourite Podcasts

My Favourite Podcasts

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Strange that it has only been two years since my precipitous entry into the world of podcasting, first behind the mic and then shortly thereafter between the earbuds. In the past couple of years podcasts have become an integral part of my life. I listen to them while cycling, while walking my dog, while making dinner. I am guessing I average at least an hour of podcast listening per day, and some days it is at least twice that. I am even active in an online podcast club (like a book club, but for podcasts). And I have by now tried out enough different types of podcasts that I pretty much know what I like.… Read more

Genealogy, I am Doing It

Genealogy, I am Doing It

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

The terrific thing about having left your religion several years ago instead of yesterday is that you’ve already gone through all the stages of grief, you’ve worked through whatever family drama ensued from the big announcement, and you’re now free to make peace with your past. Which includes deciding which elements of that past you choose to keep, and which you let go.

There are parts of me that will always be Mormon. Like my propensity to hoard nonperishable food; a year supply of wheat in 15-gallon buckets is well beyond even my capacity to fit into my tiny Amsterdam apartment, but I am always overbuying things like pasta and dried beans.… Read more

Holiday Confusion

Holiday Confusion

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Yesterday I realised belatedly that I had neglected to buy chocolate eggs to hide for my children. It’s not too late; I’m pretty sure at least one of the five or six grocery stores within walking distance of my house is open today, even though most of them were uncharacteristically closed yesterday evening. There was a sort of palpable holiday feeling around the city last night. It’s the beginning of Easter weekend, and a two-week Meivakantie (May school vacation) for the kids, and King’s Day is next Saturday. Besides which, the weather is gorgeously sunny and warm; the cafés and restaurants had put every spare table outside, and they were all full of happy people.… Read more

The Indiana Jones of 19th Century Archaeologists

The Indiana Jones of 19th Century Archaeologists

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

My work trip in Berlin last month was mostly work, aside from a few nights out on the town with new friends. One evening we bonded at a Cuban cocktail bar over several pages of sugary cocktails, including some kind of hideously sweet bright green beer that is apparently a thing in Berlin.

Then there was an even more memorable evening where we randomly ended up in a German karaoke bar next to Alexanderplatz. Karaoke is one of those things that is so individually cultural, and yet simultaneously so weirdly universal. Suffice it to say that I heard the same Josh Groban song twice in one night.… Read more