Author: Admin_user1

​One recent Sunday, Rich and I took a midday stroll out of Seville’s old centro into the more modern district of Nervion and chose, more or less at random, a bustling café-restaurant for lunch. Our waiter (who turned out to be the chef) leaned in confidentially and said, “I recommend the wild boar.” ​You don’t…

“Would you and Rich be interested in going on the test run for a new food tour a friend of mine is starting here in Seville?” an expat pal asked me a few years ago. Tough work, but somebody has to do it! “If it’ll help,” I replied graciously, thinking Hot damn! This is gonna…

Of all the stamps in my passport, the one that gives me most delight is the one for a country I’d never heard of till I got there, and that may or may not actually exist. Two years ago, Rich and I were wandering around Vilnius , Lithuania’s engaging capital, when we suddenly found ourselves…

“I never travel without my diary,” Oscar Wilde once said. “One should always have something sensational to read in the train.” Today, he’d no doubt say, “I never travel without my phone. One should always have sensational images to scroll through on a plane.” Taking sensational travel photos has become an international obsession. Witness the…

One of the most ghastly surprises of my expat life occurred during a convivial country barbeque shortly after we’d moved to Seville. Without warning, a Spanish friend called for attention and announced, “Now our American friends, Karen and Rich, will sing.” This was horrifying on so many levels. I’m the least musical person on the…

Nearly all my American friends and relatives think I’m bonkers to live abroad. “But you’re from California ,” they point out in bewilderment. “That’s where people move to . Why live anywhere else?” No doubt some suspect that I’m hiding out in foreign parts because I’m secretly up to something, like the expat writers in…

“Have you bought your miners’ headlamps yet?” a friend asked me. “You mean, those lights you strap on your head? Do we need them?” “They’re really great if you have to pick through rubble looking for survivors,” she said matter-of-factly. Yikes! Perhaps the scariest part of that conversation was the way swapping tips for coping…

The first thing they always tell you about Napoli (aka Naples, Italy) is, “Don’t go.” And for a lot of travelers, that’s good advice. The city is insane. Every cab journey is “Mister Toad’s Wild Ride” from Disneyland. Attempts to cross the street on foot are like traversing the Grand Prix. The lodgings are tricky…

“This is it!” I said to Rich, wafting the sample under his nose. “This cheese actually smells like the feet of angels.” We’d adopted this new benchmark for gloriously overripe cheese while watching a TED Talk by travel guru Rick Steves . In France, he says, “you step into a cheese shop and it’s just…

“Well, that’s another restaurant we’re never going back to,” Rich said. We were peering in the front window of El Traga, a Seville eatery in which we’d whiled away many happy hours with great friends and passable wines. Inside, a mob of twentysomething Americans and Asians perched on our old familiar bar stools, shooting selfies…