Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Don’t you just hate getting stranded in crocodile-infested waters? Me too. Like the time in Belize, when our flat-bed boat – more of a motorized raft, really – kept getting its propeller tangled in the weeds. “Run to the front of the boat,” our captain would shout, and our little group would rush forward until…

“Have you seen what they’re charging for laundry here?” I said to Rich, aghast. “It’s more than we paid to buy these clothes.”  We were in Hong Kong’s legendary Peninsula Hotel, splurging on two nights of luxury on a long road trip. The glamor of our surroundings, and the prices, were stunning. “I think we…

If you google the phrase, “don’t let your vacation be ruined by…” you get 23,100,000 results earnestly explaining how to avoid flood season, hurricanes, burglars, pickpockets, sub-standard hotel rooms, the stress of traveling with your family, the stress of traveling without your family, ghastly intestinal parasites, jet lag, lost luggage, mosquitos, scams, kidnappers, fire, bedbugs……

The great thing about living abroad is that it provides so many fresh new ways to screw up. Any gravitas you might feel you’ve accumulated over the years goes right out the window as you start taking the inevitable social and linguistic pratfalls. Every foreign language is studded with sneaky little trip wires, such as…

Looking for advice about getting along with your mate during long trips? Oh sure, you can consult self-help books, counselors, psychiatrists, even (carefully selected) clergy. But Rich and I have often found the best sources for realistic, marriage-saving ideas are B-movies and so-so TV shows. Photo by tommipictures.de/flickr For instance, late one night we were…

When you’re invited to an American home for dinner, you can arrive in the happy confidence that little more is expected of you than praise for your hostess’s cooking, a few carefully chosen quips about what’s wrong with the world, and, if enough wine flows, one or two of your more amusing stories. In other…

​So I’m paddling along in a canoe in the Amazon rainforest, with every sense so keenly ­– almost obsessively – attuned to signs of piranhas, electric eels, tarantulas, pit vipers and other local hazards that I neglect to get my hand out of the way when our boat smacks up against another, and I break…

Have I ever told you about the miracle cure I performed on Rich? Years ago in Mexico, in a moment of misplaced confidence in the standards of our rural hotel, Rich ordered a plate of shrimp. As he popped the last glistening morsel into his mouth, he got the first inkling he was in trouble.…

After 20 years in Ohio, following an early-to-bed, organic-vegetables-fresh-from-our-garden kind of lifestyle, adapting to Seville’s uproarious social scene was a bit of a shock. The Sevillanos consider it their God-given birthright – practically an obligation – to enjoy themselves. Even a simple tapeo (sampling of the city’s tapas bars) can run until the small hours…

I’m not saying I’m jealous, but back in August, when Rich first bought his iPad, he was holding it in his lap all day, taking it to bed every night and occasionally getting into spats with it when it exhibited annoying behavior. But I didn’t get seriously worried until he started buying it gifts. “Look…