Category: Uncategorized

“I just need three more days of this!” Thailand 1992 “I just need three more days!” Rich used to protest at the end of every two-week vacation from corporate life. We once managed a month in Asia, and the final week, sitting in café overlooking a bus station in India, he said, “I could definitely…

At a party in Bucharest last fall, I met a stocky, middle-aged Austrian who hinted broadly that he’d had sex with all the best women in the city. Not for the first time, I reflected that one of the enormous advantages of getting older was not having to worry that he would attempt to add…

My café con leche this morning I always thought Americans drank a lot of coffee, but when I moved to Spain, I realized that most of us are total lightweights compared to my new espresso-swilling amigos. Sevillanos drink their coffee strong enough to reanimate the dead , late enough in the evenings to cause permanent…

I’ve learned to believe a lot of impossible things since I moved to Seville: eating more often helps you stay thin , for instance, ham lowers your cholesterol , and afternoon siestas make it easier for you to sleep at night . But I had to scoff last week when my friend Rena said, over…

WARNING! DANGER! I read recently that babies cry and couples quarrel more often in bright yellow kitchens . Maybe that explains why, when we painted our bathroom bright yellow some years ago, Rich and I loathed the new look yet argued for days about whether we should repaint or try to live with it. Somehow…

NASA’s rocket scientists have finally caught on to something that Spanish grandmothers have been saying for centuries:  Siestas are good for you. “A recent NASA study showed that when pilots were allowed to take a nap for 26 minutes during their working hours, their efficiency increased by 34 per cent ,” the Telegraph reported last…

I’m often gobsmacked by the health advice I’m offered by Spanish health care professionals. High cholesterol? Consume more dark chocolate, red wine, and good Spanish ham. Taking cold medicine? No orange juice for you! Your prescription says avoid alcohol? Oh, go on, two or three beers won’t matter. Obviously, this kind of health advice is…

I have this vivid memory of a night in a Kenyan village, where Rich and I had gone with a friend from an NGO to sort out a project providing food for orphans. It had taken us days to get there, and all three of us were hot, tired, and a trifle preoccupied with our…

It wasn’t the Full Monty , but it was close. When Seville’s firefighters decided to perform el streaptease in last Friday’s protest at City Hall, they peeled off their uniforms, piece by piece, until, as the newspaper ABC put it, “the boys showed everything except the hose.” As a soundtrack, they chose the popular song…

Some of my European friends think it’s extraordinary that I am an American and yet, inexplicably, I don’t chew gum, carry a gun, or claim to have been abducted by aliens. Our images of other cultures are often very loosely tethered to reality. But during my ten years in Seville, I’ve also experienced strange and…