culture shock – Casteluzzo

Grad School at 40

June 1, 2019June 6, 2019Sarah 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

So You’ve Never Been to a (Naked) Dutch Spa?

March 8, 2019March 8, 2019Sarah Bringhurst Familia

That’s understandable. After all, if you come from a culture where public nudity is not the norm, it can take some screwing of your courage to the sticking place to relinquish your clothing. To say nothing of relaxing to any meaningful degree while wearing only your birthday suit in a room full of similarly (un)attired strangers. But I mean this seriously and un-ironically: if you have never been to a Dutch spa, you are missing out.

There are, of course, the undeniable bragging rights that come out of such an encounter. You become one of the initiated. And forever after whenever you go back to that place where nudity is not the norm, you have a party story everyone wants to hear.… Read more

Thanksgiving Far from Home

November 25, 2018Sarah Bringhurst Familia

What do I love so much about Thanksgiving? I think it’s that there are no traditions to worry about except hanging out together and cooking and eating with people I care about. There’s something so cosy and nice about being warm together inside while it’s cold outside and the smell of turkey and stuffing and pie and everything else taking its turn in the oven wafts in from the kitchen.

It’s the quintessential family holiday, but it’s also a holiday that I have spent many times away from family. Thanksgiving away from family is a puzzle to be solved. Not celebrating is just sad and unthinkable, but since people, preferably lots of people, are a key ingredient to the holiday, celebrating does involve some planning and inviting, which can be more or less challenging depending on the circumstances.… Read more

A Long-Awaited Goodbye

April 1, 2018Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Last week my husband and I submitted our resignations from the Mormon church. It was the final step in a journey of several years. In 2014 we stopped going to church after Kate Kelly, founder of the Ordain Women movement, was formally excommunicated by the Mormon church leadership. For years I had felt increasingly constricted by my lived experience as a woman in an overtly and overwhelmingly patriarchal church. And that church could not have sent a clearer message to women like me that we were not wanted than by excommunicating Kate Kelly, leader of the movement that sought equality for women within the church.… Read more

The March of Death (aka Avondvierdaagse)

June 7, 2017June 7, 2017Sarah Bringhurst Familia

There are quite a few Dutch customs that would seem, frankly, crazy in the U.S. Some of them involve the impressively wide range of stuff Dutch kids are permitted, nay, encouraged to do (cycle several kilometres to school by themselves, take public transport all over the city, etc.) Others involve acts of defiance against the weather (the impossibly long ice skating race, Elfstedentocht, which happens only when the ice is thick enough on waterways between eleven northern cities, or the wildly popular leap into the frigid North Sea on New Year’s Day).

And then there are activities which can involve both kids and extreme weather.… Read more

Personality, Language, and Why I Don’t Speak Dutch Yet

April 2, 2017Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Before I start I just have to say that this is kind of a vulnerable post. It’s a topic that is fracturing my entire self-concept and leaves me feeling very open to criticism. I don’t know why I’m writing it at all, except that I spend so much time thinking about it. So anyway.

A few weeks ago, an article titled Are We Different People in Different Languages? was circulating Facebook amongst various of my international friends. It’s a brilliant article on creative writing and multilingualism, and I recommend it if you’re interested in either of those subjects. But the discussion online was centred mostly on the title of the article.… Read more

Choosing a High School in Amsterdam, Part 2

January 30, 2017February 8, 2017Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Dutch Education Explained

October 9, 2015December 11, 2016Sarah Bringhurst Familia

When we decided to make a long-term move to the Netherlands, one of the things we had to think about was what to do for the kids’ education. Our family default has historically been homeschooling, and we’ve had a rocking good time all over the world doing that. I can’t take credit for the thoughtful, well-read, interesting, articulate people my children are; they have largely accomplished that on their own. But I like to think I’ve put the fewest possible barriers in their way. I’ve tried not to dampen any of their natural passion for learning, and they’ve spent many hours at the library, and many more outside, catching frogs, swimming at the beach, climbing trees, and playing in the dirt.… Read more

We’re Famous . . . Again!

August 21, 2012August 21, 2012Sarah Bringhurst Familia

When I was dating Tony, one of the interesting things that he told me about himself was that he had lived with his family in Indonesia as a teenager. While living there, they spent a summer visiting family in a little town in Idaho, where their exotic expatriate exploit made them instant celebrities. An article even appeared in the local newspaper about the American family who were living in Southeast Asia, and had now brought their international selves home to grace tiny Aberdeen Idaho.

It became an even better story after the same thing happened to us. In 2008, we moved our little family to Chiusa di Pesio, Italy so that we could reconnect with our Italian roots and claim our long-lost Italian citizenship.… Read more

Safe in the United States

August 13, 2012August 13, 2012Sarah Bringhurst Familia

I’ll start out this post with a story from when we were living in Ireland a couple of years ago. We had taken the children to the park down the street, and while we were watching them play, we struck up a conversation with a fellow parent. We never did get down the Irish accent, so as always, it came up pretty quickly that we were American. He remarked that he had considered visiting the United States. We smiled and nodded, since most people responded to our nationality with either an account of their visit to America, or an expressed desire for such a visit.… Read more

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