My journalistic mission was straightforward: to await the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Nobody knew quite when this would be. But the diplomacy - the meetings in the U.N. security council, the allegations about weapons of mass destruction, the martial language of Tony Blair and George W. Bush - all suggested a war was brewing.

Two decades after communism and the alleged end of the Cold War, Russia is still a cash economy. The preferred currency is dollars, though euros are also acceptable.

The FSB's invisible presence continued; the agency became an intangible part of my Moscow life - sometimes loudly, sometimes quietly, with someone in a back room clearly turning the volume of minor persecution up and down.

Taking your clothes off in front of strangers is something of a hobby in Germany, among both men and women, especially in the former communist East, where it was one of the few freedoms allowed.

This journey is not over. Our education initiatives have so much momentum, and we're committed to sharing even more stories from the Arctic when we return.

You learn a lot in life but there are a lot of tools and resources in school that help you grow professionally and personally for whatever goal you may want to achieve.

What I'd like to pass on to my children is the thirst for knowledge. It's something I experience every day that I learned from my father. He always taught me that no matter how long you've done something, you can always learn something new and be better at what you do.

My dad remembers being in school with my uncle, and the teacher would say outright to the class that the Japanese were second-class citizens and shouldn't be trusted.