Joel Petrow is an expatriate nuclear engineer visiting Williamsburg who decided to brush up on his sailing skills with an informal lesson on a bright afternoon along the York River. He and his family live in Friedrichsdorf, Germany, outside Frankfurt. He found one big difference with America to be the walk-ability of German towns and much of Europe, vs. having to drive everywhere here. Some New England towns still have it, and the Petrows are thinking of retiring to Park City, Utah, where he can ski every day and enjoy a sophisticated small town. The family has become so assimilated in Europe that the Swiss Alps are also on the retirement list. (We should be so lucky.) One similarity he found is that American pop culture and media are pervasive in Europe, largely through the Internet.

Chicken Sailors
A Chesapeake family went on a week’s vacation at a B&B rental in Reedville, atop northeast Virginia. Then they went sailing. “We like it a lot in Reedville,” said the matriarch, Mary Gagnon. “We work very hard and needed time off. It’s very quiet in Reedville, and the kids can