…And why does Europe shut down for a month in August? Two years ago, I wrote a post called August in Milan about the Italian holiday period of Ferragosto, and how the city heats up and empties out. I was half complaining at the time, but now – as a freshly repatriated expat in hard-working […]
culture shock
Ups and Downs of Travel Blogging and Expating
Getting back to writing and contemplating the blogging business, living abroad, and the elusiveness of ever feeling like I’ve got it all together. The more I learn about the industry, the more I believe the most important factor in blogging – and maybe in any writing or creative endeavor at all – is confidence. Just […]
Ship’s Log
1:20 p.m. My tuk-tuk driver leaves me where he thinks I probably want to go: in front of a quiet guest house occupying a few yards of land between the pot-holed road and the Bay of Thailand. As I had been told to do, I walk a few doors down to the unremarkable Restaurant #41 […]
Honeymooners and Burnouts
My first month in China was not a honeymoon. It was a month of confusion, nerves, and stress – the good kind and the bad – peppered with lots of fun. (Like the mouth-numbing peppercorns in nearly every dish here – surprising, not entirely comfortable, but intriguing.) The amount of work that went into that […]