Tracy Brown Hamilton

Walk in the footsteps of this great writer. Oscar Wilde died in Paris’s dingy, flea-ridden Hotel d’Alsace on November 30, 1900, at the age of 46, while attended by a loyal friend and a priest. After his passing, it took a healthy dose of liquor and a…

A bookmark Download the app I've had three children in the Netherlands, two were born in the hospital and one in my bed. I signed up for a postpartum-nurse service and had someone with me for six hours every day. They helped me recover and relayed…

AMSTERDAM — In December, over the objections of many locals, the Dutch farming community of Zeewolde approved an enormous data center for Meta, the Silicon Valley parent of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The data center, to be built on farmland…

Five years ago, Arranmore, an 8.5-square-mile island situated 3 miles off Ireland’s Atlantic coast, was facing a serious crisis. The 2016 census showed that the population was 469, down from more than 600 in 2006, with 45 percent of residents 65 or…

Despite having never been in a band or actually showing any real aptitude for playing the drums, I've always in some small way identified as a drummer. I got my first drum set when I was 16, with heavy metal dreams and a touch of teenage angst.…

Alcohol has always been a regular part of my social life. As a freelancer and mother of three who works from my home in the Netherlands, where neither my husband nor I have family, I have valued getting together to have a drink, celebrate,…

Years ago, a friend of mine, at the time a clothing designer for the snowboarding line of an athletic apparel company, was working from home. Her then 7-year-old-son saw her at her laptop, and asked what she was doing. She said she was working. “No,…

When my son was 5, I took him to see the World Press Photo exhibit. I’d taken him every year since he was a baby, but that year — 2015 — he was noticeably more cognizant of what he was seeing and had many more questions. The recipient of the World…

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AMSTERDAM—Every second Saturday in November, according to Dutch folklore, Zwarte Piet, or Black Pete, arrives in the Netherlands, having traveled by steamboat with Sinterklaas, the Dutch version of Santa Claus, from their home in Spain. The duo…

In the days after my first child was born, I was lost in him. I spent so many hours staring at his little features that when my husband returned from work each day, it seemed almost freakish how big his face was. What I most remember feeling for my…

“Ik ben ik”—I am me—was the classroom theme when my son started preschool in the Netherlands two years ago. He painted a portrait of himself, with exaggerated teeth only on the bottom row and three strands of wiry hair on his head (“hair is hard,” he…

In 1966, Dutch writer Gerard Kornelis van het Reve was called before a judge in Amsterdam for violating his country’s anti-blasphemy law. Although it would take decades for the Netherlands to decriminalize blasphemy, the outcome of Reve’s case —…

It’s fair to say I did not respond to Donald Trump’s election with anything resembling grace. I was too optimistic. Naïve. I had organized a group of international women to meet on election night at a Mexican restaurant in my adopted city of Haarlem,…

Far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders doesn’t hate Muslims—he just hates Islam, or so he said in 2008. And his feelings haven’t changed: In a television interview earlier this year to mark the 10th anniversary of the founding of Wilders’…

Erin Schrode is a community organizer and environmental activist from Marin County, California. At the age of 13, she cofounded Turning Green, a national non-profit organization devoted to education and advocacy around environmentally sustainable and…

It is early morning in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. In a few hours, the corridors of this national gallery will be filled with thousands of visitors who flock daily to witness the works of Rembrandt, Vermeer and Van Gogh, among others. But, for now, the…

In medieval myth, Cockaigne was a land of plenty, where work was outlawed, houses were made of pie and sausages, rivers of wine flowed, and ready-roasted geese and grilled fish followed villagers around, eager to be eaten. To the poor of the Middle…

Rachel McCormack arrived in Europe last November to research international schools catering to English-speaking students, but her plans were overwhelmed by the magnitude of the continent’s refugee crisis. Now, she’s spearheading a campaign to deliver…