Photo of Dale Chihuly piece displayed in Las Vegas, by Nicole de Beaufort

The trip begins tomorrow in Washington, D.C., my erstwhile home. The city of my youth. A monumental city, I always would say, when asked to describe it. Many people gather here because it’s the center of the free world. And during the 1980s, when I was still a kid, it was where my father went to work every day. At the American Red Cross, behind Constitution Hall and near the White House.

This trip, the one I’m on, begins in Washington and then lands me in Europe. First in Belgium, then Germany, Greece, Macedonia and Poland. I’ll be traveling for 24 days and will be part of a cohort of American Marshall Memorial Fellows, of which I am one.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States has organized this journey and I am one of many people who has been chosen to represent the United States; Detroit, in particular, as we travel abroad to increase our intercultural understanding.

This blog will chronicle the voyage and with any luck, will outlive it. Named after a line in a Mary Oliver poem about crows, it seemed fitting to me to call this Glossy & Rowdy. Yes, this would be a better name for any Garrison Keillor Prairie Home characters. In truth, crows are interesting creatures, intelligent in flocks (or murders) and (according to Hindu beliefs) carriers of information.