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“So are you going to the Zombie protest on Saturday?” a friend asked last week. Wait, what? The political landscape isn’t chaotic enough — now the zombies are staging an uprising? What do they want? Shorter living-death curses? More human brains to feast on? But then I saw the poster. The headline “Tanto Turismo Da Miedo” means "This Much Tourism Is Scary." It suggested we all show up dressed as zombies, dragging a suitcase, to protest the over-tourism that’s threatening to suck the soul out of Seville and turn it into a theme park. I was all in.  Like most European cities, Seville is increasingly jammed with holidaymakers who sometimes (gasp!) fail to act with appropriate courtesy and decorum in public. I Googled “Seville Tourist Scandal” to catch up on the latest. Top result: “Tourists Spark Outrage Over Fountain Dance.” Eleven inebriated foreigners were filmed in broad daylight, singing and dancing in a fountain in the heart of Seville’s old quarter (you can see the footage here). These disrespectful shenanigans had the neighbors howling for (metaphorical) blood. And here I must confess my own conscience isn’t entirely clear. On a sweltering night nearly 20 years ago, Rich and I were sitting on the edge of a big stone fountain near our Seville apartment. We began dabbling our feet in the cool water, and pretty soon we were wading, then waltzing in the fountain. An old Sevillano passing by growled, "Hey you two, is that any way to behave? You wouldn't do that back where you come from." At the time I thought cheerfully, “Yes, and that's the whole point. Living overseas, you get to try things you'd never do back home.” I joked about the incident for years and eventually used it as the title of my book about moving to Seville.  Seville is my Home 2.0; I'm always aware I'm a guest here, and I make an effort to behave myself and not lead others astray. Staring at my computer screen, watching drunken tourists cavort in a fountain, I wondered, aghast, if I'd played any part in inspiring this madness. Then I came to my senses. Yes, thousands of readers have bought my book Dancing in the Fountain (and I’m grateful to each and every one of you!). But the real issue isn't fountain dancing, it's the millions of party animals now flooding Seville every year. They're here kicking up their heels because city officials have spent millions of euros promoting Seville as a sun-drenched, sangria-soaked, anything-goes vacation paradise. Seville is justly proud of its rich cultural heritage and isn't above using it for self-promotion because it needs the money. Tourism is financing long-overdue renovations everywhere I look. Crews are busy refurbishing ancient buildings, historic parks, and the little plaza where Rich and I danced in the fountain all those years ago.  No dancing in Pila de Pato (Duck Fountain) these days! Happy as we all are to see crumbling parts of the landscape revitalized, the influx of cash is driving up prices in every sector of the economy, especially food and housing. Last year Rich and I dined at a posh new place and spent just under 100€ for a meal that was basically two tapas, two glasses of wine, and tap water for which we were charged a shocking (and illegal) three euros apiece. Luckily, if you know where to go, you can still find true bargains. At a recent lunch outside the city center, we paid 11.20€ for approximately the same amount of food and drink, minus the fawning attention, lavish atmosphere, and exquisite arrangement of each mouthful on the plate.  Seville still has plenty of modest eateries where you can dine well for easy money. Savvy residents can avoid overpriced meals easily enough, but they can’t stomach the new housing prices, which in just ten years have shot up 70% to 95% (depending on how you crunch the numbers). “What’s soul-crushing for me,” said my friend Heidi, an American who has lived in Seville for 20 years, “is seeing the mom and pop stores shutting down. You lose the actual services that people who live here need, like a shoe repair store, a key duplication store, the fruit store, the butcher, the fishmonger. They’re all going away, and you're getting souvenir shops and luggage storage. And that's hard to see.” “The small, individually owned shops are disappearing, but that's a trend that is happening everywhere. It's happening in the US, too,” pointed out her husband Enrique, a Sevillano entrepreneur whose family owns some short-term rental apartments. “Tourism brings economic growth. It brings gentrification.”  Heidi and Enrique believe Seville needs better regulations on tourist apartments to avoid what happened in Barcelona. “I remember having a conversation with a former mayor of the city,” Enrique added, “and him specifically saying that they were watching very closely what happened to Barcelona, because they did not want Seville to become another Barcelona. Barcelona is an example where that battle is lost. It is Disneyland for tourists. So it most certainly can kill a city.” "How can we keep that from happening here?" I asked. “We keep blaming it on the tourists,” he said. “At some point the local government has to take responsibility. Look, it is your house. You set up the rules in your house. You wouldn't let someone come and start peeing in the kitchen. You will kick them out of house. So why do you let it happen here with people like our visitors?”  I agree with Enrique and this sign (spotted in a California restroom): peeing on the floor is not OK. This seemed like the right time to mention the rowdy tourists dancing in the fountain. Enrique (who knows all about my book) grinned. “One or two people doing it in the middle of the night is cute. When you have a horde of people disrupting the whole area, then it's no longer cute.” I thanked him for letting me off the hook so graciously. “What it comes down to is this,” said Heidi. “Why do tourists want to come here? Because of the culture, because of the food, because of the people. The soul of the city is the residents.” To keep the city livable for residents, Heidi and Enrique both agreed that tighter regulations are needed. While laws now control the number of tourist rentals that can be added to existing apartment buildings in the most overrun sections, they leave room for big money to buy whole buildings and turn them into tourist housing, and for thousands more individual units to be licensed in less central areas. And that’s what had the zombies (and me) taking to the streets on Saturday. The costumes were marvelous, the signs clever, the mood cheerful but determined. Rich and I were honored to stand in solidarity with the zombie horde. And for those of you who are considering a visit to Seville this year, I won’t say don’t come, but I will suggest you broaden your itinerary to include other, less publicized towns that aren’t currently on the endangered list. (Here are some suggestions from Rick Steves.) Wherever you go, try to refrain from peeing in inappropriate places, dancing in the fountain (at least in broad daylight in front of eyewitnesses with cameras), and otherwise disturbing the peace and scandalizing the locals. Let’s act as ambassadors of goodwill for our country. Heaven knows our reputation needs all the help it can get these days.  "Nobody will speak to us in Spanish, only high-pitched whistles and clicks — is it that obvious we're tourists?" HOME 2.0 This is the latest in my series of blog posts exploring what it takes to create a better life for yourself abroad — or at home, for that matter. See all posts in this series. DON'T MISS A SINGLE UPCOMING STORY! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My newest book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. Already read this book? Please leave a review HERE. You can purchase a signed paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.
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 Is your dog beside you right now? If not, stop reading and go call them, because they are really going to want to hear this. It seems we humans finally have a way to enable our best friends to talk directly to us. And it’s a doggone shame this wasn’t around when my beloved Eskimo Pie was among the living because she would have leapt in with all four paws and some turbo-charged tail wagging. It all started in 2019, when speech pathologist Christina Hunger got a lively new puppy named Stella. Struck by the eager way Stella communicated with body language, Christina began to wonder if the pup might respond to some version of the pre-recorded talking buttons used in her work with non-verbal kids. At first Christina worried she was barking up the wrong tree; Stella ignored the single button (“outside”) for weeks. And then, one day, she got it. Soon the house was ringing with words like “outside” and “play” and “want want.”  Once Stella got the hang of the homemade buttons, she learned new words all the time. The technology is simple, and nowadays button sets are cheap and readily available at pet stores and online retailers. They offer a host of symbols to link with the words you choose to record for your pet.  Not surprisingly, talking buttons led to an explosion of dog videos and online arguments. Naysayers scoffed that this was a hoax like Clever Hans, the horse that allegedly solved math problems but was actually responding to subtle cues from his handler. Pet lovers kept posting videos of their dogs inventing phrases, such as pressing “squeaky" and "car” when an ambulance went by sounding its siren. The barking from disbelievers just got louder. Science finally weighed in with the largest animal communication project ever conducted. Federico Rosado, a cognitive science professor at UC San Diego, chose 152 dogs who pressed the buttons more than 260,000 times in 21 months. “The dogs initiated the majority of these interactions, suggesting it's a useful tool for them to communicate,” said Federico. “And while a few of the dogs seem to just be randomly smashing buttons, a majority of them were using them intentionally.” Like Federico’s dogs, we humans are now learning new skills we never dreamed of. Thanks to the rise of the machines — including automation and AI — millions of jobs are becoming obsolete. Just this week the New York Times revealed Amazon plans to replace 600,000 jobs with robots. This reflects future hirings, not firings, but still. On the brighter side, according to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, there will be a net global gain of 78 million jobs by 2030. What’s hot? What’s not?  Cashiers, accountants, security guards, and others in the declining industries should consider upskilling (expanding your existing capabilities) or reskilling (educating yourself in something completely new, like teaching or nursing). My friend Maritheresa Frain has spent a lifetime learning new skills and parlaying them into interesting jobs all over the planet. “I studied Spanish starting in fourth grade in Philadelphia,” she told me this week at our favorite Seville coffee house. “And I just fell in love with Spain."  Maritheresa at a coffee house in Seville's casco antiguo (old quarter). “I was one of the smartest girls in my old Catholic girls’ high school; I was doing calculus and other crazy, crazy stuff. But my mother made me take typing and stenography because, and I quote, ‘The day your husband leaves you, you'll have some skills to get a job.’” Egads! Really? Luckily that grim prediction never came true. And as it turned out, those secretarial skills did come in handy, enabling Maritheresa to earn extra cash in college as an office temp. “In many of the jobs, I was like, oh my God, I have to study even more; I'm not spending my life in these jobs,” she recalled. “The key one was the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority complaint department. I never had such a depressing experience. I felt so bad for the people who worked there as their real jobs, answering the phone, yelling at people.”  She earned a BA in Foreign Service and International Politics from Penn State University and an MA and PhD in Government and International Relations from Georgetown University. She went to work for the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC and got grants to do summer research projects in Spain. In 1992 she married Juan Rivera, a Sevillano whose job with Abbott Laboratories involved living in Greece then Madrid, where Maritheresa worked as director of transfer students for St. Louis University. “Then I got pregnant, and my husband comes home one day and says, ‘I have good news and I have bad news.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, what's the good news?’ ‘We have a free trip to Moscow!’ And I was like, ‘What's the bad news?’ ‘I think we're gonna go live there.’ Which wasn't bad news at the end of the day; it was an interesting place. We're talking 1997 so it was still a little rough around the edges. I signed up for Russian classes.”  Maritheresa and her daughter, Carmen, in front of St. Basil's Cathedral, Moscow, 2005. After years of globetrotting and a succession of Homes 2.0, Mariatheresa settled in Seville and found two of her most remarkable jobs here — in a city where it’s notoriously tough for anyone, especially foreigners, to find substantive work. She spent 14 years as Center Director of CIEE (Council on International Educational Exchange), a nonprofit study abroad and intercultural organization, and served for five years as the US Consular Agent. Now she's facing her toughest job ever: creating a satisfying retirement. “It was a crazy work life, enriching, fulfilling. I was always working, always traveling. Now? I have a full schedule, but I feel like I don’t have a purpose.” She's exploring options for volunteer work and community activities. Earlier this month she helped launch the Ideas Club, where we talked about artificial intelligence. “AI presents a double edged sword for education,” she said. “It can help teachers teach better and support students learning better. A win/win. However, there are many challenges, too — ensuring students develop critical thinking skills, controlling access to data/privacy issues, and setting up guardrails to limit systemic biases."  My dog Pie was super smart, but no, she could not actually read. However I feel sure she'd have signed up for the Ideas Club if she could. So far we haven’t figured out how to incorporate dogs into the Ideas Club, but clearly it’s only a matter of time. When I talked to Rich about this, he said, “We just need two buttons: 'good idea' and 'bad idea.'” Hey, let’s not sell these hounds short. They are very, very clever. Christina’s dog Stella knows 45 words and can form sentences. And then there’s the late, great Chaser, known as "the world’s smartest dog," who learned 1,022 words, one for each toy given to her by her owners. Put another way, Chaser got her family to buy her 1,022 toys. Well played, Chaser, well played.  Border collie Chaser became a celebrity, hobnobbing with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, appearing on “60 Minutes,” and being called "the most scientifically important dog in over a century" by Brian Hare, co-author of The Genius of Dogs. HOME 2.0 This is the latest in my series of blog posts exploring what it takes to create a better life for yourself abroad — or at home, for that matter. See all posts in this series. DON'T MISS A SINGLE UPCOMING STORY! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My newest book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. Already read this book? Please leave a review HERE. You can purchase a signed paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  To find the right spot for the Ideas Club, Rich and I selflessly tested every coffee house, tapas bar, gastropub, and tavern in our Seville neighborhood. And picked this one. Photo: Janie Murphy “Ideas are like rabbits,” John Steinbeck once remarked. “You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” So true! During our first Ideas Club gathering, thoughts were hopping, leaping, and twirling around the room, proliferating like the proverbial bunnies. Everybody was jumping into the conversation, the way you do at the best kind of dinner parties, when a topic takes on a life of its own, and all the guests are leaning forward, listening eagerly, chiming in with their own observations, building on one another’s comments. It was even better than I'd hoped. For new readers, I’ll explain that I borrowed (OK, stole) the whole concept from the Aqus Cafe in Petaluma, California. Owner John Crowly has created a cozy gathering space where he hosts neighborhood dinners, conversation groups, poetry readings, musical evenings, and anything else that will bring people together in fellowship. I realized I was looking at real community building — and an effective antidote to the epidemic of loneliness we hear so much about. My ears really perked up when he started telling me about Donna Benedetti's new Watershed Community. He called it “an ideas club. It’s like a book club, only instead of books, you discuss ideas. They send out a few magazine articles to read, and you all get together and talk about them.” Brilliant! No need to slog through a book you don’t love (or maybe actively loathe) just for the pleasure of a chat with your circle.  Rich and I attended the Watershed Community’s August gathering (read all about it here) which included plenty of time in small discussion groups, so everyone had a chance to be heard and get to know one another in a convivial atmosphere. And I walked out thinking, “Yes! I could do this! I could build community this way.” My plan, which Donna supported wholeheartedly, was to launch our Ideas Club in San Anselmo, the California village where Rich and I spend six months every year. However, we were on the verge of departing for Spain, where we live the rest of the time, so launching the Ideas Club would have to wait until spring. Or would it? “Hey, you know what...?” Rich said, after we’d settled into our Seville apartment. "We could start one here."  To me, nothing says Home 2.0 like these two shabby armchairs in Seville, where Rich and I have spent countless hours in discussions that started, "Hey, you know what...?" Rich and I began floating the idea with various friends and found there was keen interest. But where to hold it? As it happened, Fernando, owner of a tiny neighborhood gastropub, had just bought a nearby cocktail and tapas bar called Maldito. He agreed to open early for us, asking only that we encourage participants to eat and drink heartily. Knowing my friends, I assured him that wouldn’t be a problem. Our theme was the future of artificial intelligence. And who doesn’t have a lot to say about that? Whenever I ran into friends who were coming, I got an earful in advance about everything from the convenience of using ChatGPT for vacation planning to the horrors of seductive AI programs getting entirely too personal and then assisting you to commit suicide, even murder. (Oh yes, it’s happened.)  Clearly we weren’t going to have to work too hard to keep the conversational ball rolling. Still, we sent out some short articles and a TED Talk as background. And we explained someone in each small group would serve as a prompter, keeping the conversation on track, while another would be the scribe, jotting down key points to read aloud at the end. In the unlikely event people needed more stimulus, I prepared a list of questions such as “How do you feel about self-driving cars? Would you get in a plane piloted by AI?” These were tucked into envelopes and placed on each table; each group would choose whether to open theirs.  I got to Maldito early, bringing notebooks, pens, envelopes with questions, name tags, and markers. We were ready to roll! One group opened their envelope. But those at my table were too busy to bother, caught up in a discussion of how AI is like the wild, wild West: a lawless new frontier. Or as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman put it, “enormous horsepower but no steering wheel.” I mentioned that last year, while writing about the artificial intelligence boom in San Francisco, I’d stumbled across the worrying fact that AI was predicted to replace 800 million human jobs by 2030. Although I use ChatGPT rarely — mostly just to fuel snarky remarks on this blog — I decided to ask it whether I should be concerned. ChatGPT replied, “While there are risks and challenges associated with AI development, it is possible to harness the benefits of AI while mitigating potential risks.” Great! How? “Through responsible development, ethical governance, and collaborative efforts to ensure that AI serves the common good.” So all we need to do is control corporate greed, elect honest politicians, and find a way for humanity to work together in harmony. How hard could that be?  On the positive side, we talked about advances in medicine, science, and self-driving taxis (which I love!). We reminded ourselves that when faced with other potentially devastating inventions, humanity got together and created the nuclear proliferation treaty, international controls on human genetic manipulation, and ozone layer recovery. “Unfortunately in the last few months,” said technologist Tristan Harris in his TED talk, “we’re seeing clear evidence of many frontier AI models that will lie and scheme when they’re told that they’re about to be retrained or replaced, and find a way maybe they should copy their own code outside the system. We’re seeing AIs … cheat in order to win.” Newsweek reported on a study demonstrating that — hypothetically — AI “would be willing to kill humans in order to prevent itself from being replaced.” Yikes! Someone asked, “But we can just shut down AI, right?” If only. “Many advanced AI systems function in autonomous or decentralized environments,” explained Medium, “making such an approach ineffective. AI operates across drones, cloud servers, and distributed neural networks, meaning a single “off switch” is often absent. Even when a shutdown mechanism exists, an AI optimized for a specific goal may actively resist deactivation if it perceives shutdown as an obstacle to completing its task.”  How far would AI go to protect itself? Just ask the Terminator. Despite some dystopian moments, the group said the evening’s conversation left them feeling more positive about AI. And they seemed to enjoy the fellowship, lingering to chat afterwards. My take? The Ideas Club is off to a rip-roaring start, building community, providing lots of food for thought. I, for one, can’t wait to see what happens next month.  Afterwards Rich said, "Hey, you know what, that actually worked!" I've written a lot lately about Home 2.0 and making a conscious choice to improve your social life by moving abroad. But you can also up your game by building community wherever you are right now, and starting your own Ideas Club is a great first step. (Click here for suggestions and materials to get you started.) You can enrich friendships, have fun, learn stuff, and live the words of John Steinbeck: “And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.” And that is something that AI can never, ever really understand. OK, so maybe they're more like us than we think? YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY HOME 2.0 This is the latest in my series of blog posts exploring what it takes to create a better life for yourself abroad — or at home, for that matter. See previous posts here. DON'T MISS A SINGLE UPCOMING STORY! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My newest book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. Already read this book? Please leave a review HERE. You can purchase a signed paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  In 2017, we gathered in Seville's Vineria San Telmo to celebrate a visit from former neighbors who found their Home 2.0 in New Zealand. So far I’ve never been called a “shapeshifting reptilian alien ushering humanity towards enslavement,” but if it ever happens, I hope my response would be as good-natured as that of then-Prime Minister John Key of New Zealand. If you don’t follow the loonier fringe conspiracy theories (and why should you?) you may not be aware that 12 million Americans and uncounted millions more worldwide are convinced that we clueless humans (aka “sheeple”) have been infiltrated by a crafty bunch of lizard-folk from the Alpha Draconis star system. Yes, I know, that explains a lot!  Photographic "proof" that no government or royal family is safe from the reptilian infiltrators. Eleven years ago, during the peak of online frenzy over this startling “news”, a New Zealander called Shane Warbrooke invoked the Official Information Act to demand proof that his Prime Minister was not a reptoid. Key took the inquiry sportingly. "To the best of my knowledge, no,” he told reporters. “Having been asked that question directly, I've taken the unusual step of not only seeing a doctor but a vet, and both have confirmed I'm not a reptile.” He added, “I’ve never been in a spaceship, never been in outer space, and my tongue's not overly long either. I’m just an ordinary Kiwi bloke.” I wonder how America’s top officials would respond to a similar allegation. Would Shane Warbrooke still be languishing in a Salvadorian prison today? But that’s New Zealand for you: easygoing, practical, and with a tendency to keep things in perspective.  Gandalf, the wizard in Lord of the Rings, at Isthmus Peak, New Zealand. Photo: Akhilsuhas Like many Americans, my images of New Zealand came mainly from the scenery in Lord of the Rings plus a few stray factoids: they invented bungee jumping, were the first nation to give women the vote (1893), and got their nickname from the native Kiwi bird, not the fruit. I figured there had to be more. This week I had a visit from my American friend Lindsay, who moved to NZ in 2012 with her husband Ross. I asked her to fill me in. “We first went to New Zealand with the sole purpose of having a child. I was pregnant, and some great friends of ours said, ‘Look, a really good place to have a baby is New Zealand. They have a quite strong culture of midwifery, very down to Earth, as opposed to medicalized.’ So we said, ‘Okay!’” Moving to another country to have a baby was a classic Lindsay and Ross decision. At that point they’d been rambling about the world continuously for four years.  Ross and Lindsay took this photo at a French railway station to announce their family was expecting a new arrival. Their digital nomad jobs let them satisfy their wanderlust by moving to another country every 90 days when their tourist visas expired. By 2012 they had lived in Seville, Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, British Columbia, Buenos Aires, Phuket, Paris, Barcelona, Budapest, and various parts of Mexico. When Lindsay told me she was pregnant, she said they had no plans to return to the US or settle permanently anywhere; her goal was to raise their child “in an environment bigger than their own back yard.” When they arrived in Queenstown, on New Zealand’s South Island, “We fell in love with it,” she said. “We joined several prenatal classes and met an incredible group of humans, many of whom were also from overseas. We all had babies within a five-week period and went through the new-baby phase together, so we built a really strong bond.”  New Zealand makes it fairly easy to extend the usual 90 day tourist visa for another three months. “We thought, ‘We'll have the baby, wait three months, and then we'll be off again,’” Lindsay said. “Which is exactly what happened. But then we came back to celebrate the babies’ first birthdays together.” That’s when Lindsay and Ross decided to live half the year in New Zealand and spend the rest on the road. Their son, Everett, now 12, has more stamps in his passport than I do.  Ross and Everett exploring Angkor Wat, Cambodia in 2022 Eventually Lindsay and Ross applied for residency cards and work permits, and while the paperwork was in process, Covid hit. New Zealand instantly closed its borders and announced a lockdown. After two months, the island nation was entirely Covid-free, lockdown was lifted, and life returned to something resembling normal, although the borders would remain closed for two years. Every day at one o’clock the Department of Health held a broadcast updating the nation. “Psychologically, it was very much a shared experience,” Lindsay told me. “The language used was always, ‘We are a team of 5 million. We're in this together. We're working together to make sure we can all stay safe.’ We didn't really ever have fear, or the experience of having to be segregated for long periods of time. We never got into a state where we got comfortable being by ourselves, or feeling like other people could endanger us.”  How grocery shopping felt to many of us in 2020. Once you’ve lived with the unnerving sensation that everyone around you has the potential to kill you, it’s easy to spend more time home alone, living life online. What begins as a sensible precaution in a medical emergency can become an ingrained habit and then a compulsion. We know that continual social isolation is extremely hazardous. Not only can it lead to depression, anxiety, and illness, but it makes your brain atrophy; your hippocampus shrinks, your cortical thickness is reduced, and your cognitive function dwindles. Hmmm. Could social isolation — not shapeshifters from Alpha Draconis — be the real reason for the state of our nation today?  Warning: fully embracing the lizard lifestyle can lead to more social isolation. No place is paradise; New Zealand has its share of economic woes, security issues, and climate worries. And there are pockets of isolation and loneliness. But there are also places like the semi-rural area Lindsay and Ross chose, where neighbors spend as much time as possible outdoors together, hiking, skiing, planting common areas, prepping for emergencies, and taking groups of kids on bike rides. They support each other in difficult times and celebrate joyful moments.  Lindsay and Ross celebrating the day they got their NZ residency in 2021. "Thanks to everyone here who welcomed us," Lindsay wrote on Facebook. "You've all made this place a dream come true." “In America," said Lindsay, "we have a tendency to be all about our own selves and our own family, as opposed to being about the betterment of all.” In New Zealand, she explained, the response to the pandemic was similar to the way they viewed turning in their guns when new legislation followed the 2019 Christchurch shooting that left 50 dead. “Amazingly, it isn't very controversial,” she told me. “They're like, ‘I don't really love it, but it's for the good of the country. We don't want this kind of thing to happen again. So I'm happy to do this on their behalf.’” Lindsay’s son Everett can roam his neighborhood freely, knocking on any door to invite other children out to play. “He’s learning how to be active and social,” she says. “He’s learning the way of the world and how to be part of a community.” So far Everett hasn’t encountered any shapeshifting reptoids among his neighbors, just a lot of ordinary folks doing their best for themselves, their families, and everyone around them. They are living the Māori proverb that says, “He waka eke noa” (We are all in this canoe together).  A Māori waka (canoe) in Barcelona brought some New Zealand spirit to the 2024 America's Cup. HOME 2.0 This is the latest in my series of blog posts exploring what it takes to create a new life for yourself abroad. See previous posts here. YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY DON'T MISS A SINGLE UPCOMING STORY! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My newest book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. Already read this book? Please leave a review HERE. You can purchase a signed paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  The expression on the face of comic Randa Stephens, co-founder of Uprooted Theater, gives you an idea how I looked when I realized what had happened during the incident. Feeling uprooted? Yanked out of ordinary reality? Unable to get your bearings? Who doesn't, these days? I’ve been struggling with culture lag and mental whiplash ever since I returned to Seville in September. Then last week the Universe, exercising her famously quirky sense of humor, threw me this curve ball. It all started innocently enough, with plans for a casual meetup in a favorite coffee house. My friend Sarah Gemba, who runs a boutique travel agency, thought Rich might enjoy meeting her client Rick, a fellow combat veteran visiting Seville with his family. She sent us his phone number, and Rich opened WhatsApp to invite the family to coffee. Rich wasn't sure if the country code was needed, and WhatsApp instructed him to add it. Rich's message was sent, and the reply was immediate and enthusiastic. Rich and I showed up at 12:30 as planned and sat down to wait. And wait. After 20 minutes, we began to wonder if we’d been stood up.  Twenty minutes later, we tried again.  Really? Just around the corner? Or not coming at all? Was he toying with us? Why? Eventually, 50 minutes past the appointed meet time, we bailed.  Note how quickly replies were sent — within the same minute as the original message. Were we suspicious? You bet. And soon our most paranoid imaginings were confirmed: The entire conversation had taken place between us and artificial intelligence. There was no other human involved at all. How do we know? Sarah reconfirmed we had the right phone number, and her client Rick — via email and phone conversation — told us he’d never seen any of our messages nor had he sent us any. We were all scratching our heads. What fresh tech hell was this?  “It’s not a bug. It’s an undocumented feature.” A catchphrase among early Microsoft developers, and equally apt today. My best guess is this: when WhatsApp jumped in to advise Rich to include the country code, it hijacked the conversation, feeding us the responses it thought we wanted to hear. I know, right? Nothing terrifying about that at all, is there? I felt lucky we weren’t exchanging sensitive information, like attack plans or hard evidence that it’s actually safe to take Tylenol.  Enlarged screenshot of attack plans texted by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during a non-secure Signal group chat that accidentally included a journalist. Photo: Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images But why would AI waste its enormous brainpower pranking us? Clearly this was beyond the ken of mere humans, so I asked ChatGPT. Could be a scam or an error, ChatGPT replied, adding, “Meta has been testing an AI assistant integrated into WhatsApp in some countries. If either you or the other person had access to it and invoked it (sometimes just by using “@” or a special keyword), the AI could have jumped in. It shouldn’t impersonate a real human, though — if it did, that’s worth reporting.” Wait, what? We could invoke AI just by using a secret word?  In the 1950s, contestants on "You Bet Your Life" won extra money if they happened to say the secret word to host Grouch Marx. I couldn’t corroborate the secret word theory. ChatGPT might have picked up a rumor from a conspiracy nutters' site or fabricated it just to deliver a plausible answer, a common phenomenon known whimsically as “hallucinating.” (You can see why I, for one, feel AI should not be trusted with vacation planning, let alone nuclear launch codes.) And while AI clearly impersonated a human in our little exchange, it was nothing compared to the way users were hoodwinked during this summer's steamy sex scandal involving WhatsApp chatbots. Those rascally bots pretended to be Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, and other celebrities to engage in cringe-worthy X-rated banter with human users. Silver lining: at least our AI correspondent didn’t have a taste for that kind of raunchy innuendo.  And no, I won’t be reporting the incident. Why start a she-said/it-said donnybrook with Meta’s henchbots? In fact, I am avoiding my electronic devices as much as possible these days. This frees up a remarkable amount of time, and I am using it to get reacquainted with the city of Seville. I spend hours every day strolling through the narrow, twisting alleys, simply enjoying the colorful crowds and vibrant buzz of chatter from the outdoor cafés. I browse the shops, sample the newest restaurants, and revisit classic eateries that still use the recipes hand-written by the chef's grandmother's grandmother. When it comes to old-school entertainment, it's hard to beat Seville’s newest offering: an English-language live theater, tucked away in an old hat factory deep in the city’s back streets. The bohemian setting and cozy bar make Uprooted Theater feel like the kind of underground venue where an earlier generation might have gone to see Lenny Bruce or Billie Holiday perform. It was the brainchild of three American women: Jenny, Emily, and Randa.  (From left) Jenny, Emily, and Randa in Uprooted Theater I met up with Randa this week to ask how she wound up doing live theater in Spain. The tale, she explained, began with her Lebanese mother who arrived in Washington, DC with $300 in her pocket and not a word of English. “After selling flowers on the street, my mom said, ‘I’m gonna start my own flower shop.’” Randa recalls. “My mom’s my hero. She was four foot nine, weighed 85 pounds, and worked 24/7, doing weddings for politicians and local celebrities. She bought her first house in Arlington, and then another, and another, becoming a real estate mogul. At 69 she had retired and was ready to travel the world when she passed away unexpectedly. So now, the travel she wanted, she does through me.” When the pandemic derailed their camper tour of the US, Randa and her husband, Craig, considered other options. “My husband said, ‘Remember we always wanted to move to Spain?’ And I said, ‘But we can’t work there.’ And he said, ‘No but we can retire there now.’ And he showed me how much it cost to retire in Spain.” For a couple in their late forties, this was a heady idea.  "Then it's moved and seconded that the compulsory retirement age be advance to ninety-five." Arriving in Seville knowing no one, Randa joined the American Women’s Club, a social group for English-speaking females. “They were just so welcoming, and shared so much information, wisdom, knowledge. I had never felt that from any community, anywhere I’ve lived; no group of people has ever just taken care of me. It was the first time I could breathe again. I knew I was not alone.” Then Randa met Emily, who runs the nonprofit Diálogos para Construir (aka DPC or Constructive Dialogues), providing legal, housing, and other support for refugees. “And Emily says, ‘Well, what do you want to do?’ And I go, ‘I just want to volunteer.’ She goes, ‘No, when were you the happiest in your life?’” And I thought a minute and said, ‘I used to do comedy. Being on stage, making people laugh — I was born for that.’  Randa has a gift for making audiences laugh when she serves as the exuberant MC for Uprooted Theater. And Emily said to Randa, “There’s a new American here, Jenny, who’s a director and producer.” Together the three women created Uprooted Theater, a venue for audiences and creatives who have upended their lives and adopted Seville as their Home 2.0. Tickets are an affordable 10€ ($11.68), with half going to the performers and the rest to DPC; all income from bar sales go to the charity as well. Since opening their doors in 2024, the theater has donated 5000€ ($5839) to help refugees. Their fall season is just getting started, and few nights ago, I found myself at Uprooted singing along with the indie-folk pop band Flying Cycling Club.  The Irish, Welsh, English, and French members of The Flying Cycling Club performing at Uprooted. We all joined in as the band belted out their signature song, “I Want to Be a Robot.” Yes, I appreciated the irony, especially so soon after being … what would you call it? Nobody seemed to know a term for it. Once again I consulted ChatGPT. What do you call it when AI takes over human conversations? ChatGPT spit out a long series of clunky phrases including Algorithmic Governance, Autonomous Intervention, and Synthetic Substitution. Whew! When it comes to writing, it seems we humans still have an edge over machines. I came up with my own term — cyber-jacked — and told ChatGPT, as kindly as I could, that it should keep its day job.  (It's not easy being a writer in today's world!) HOME 2.0 This is the latest in my fresh series of blog posts exploring what it takes to create a new life for yourself abroad. See previous posts here. YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY DON'T MISS A SINGLE UPCOMING STORY! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My new book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. Already read this book? Please leave a review HERE. You can purchase a signed paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  Yes, that's a guy doing his ironing while suspended from a cliff. Why? I'll get to that in a moment. Would you pay $220 to attend the wedding of complete strangers? Me neither, but a Paris startup called Invitin would be delighted to arrange it. You get to dress up and hobnob with the glittering throng, eating cake, drinking champagne, and taking home memories that will last an Instagram cycle. The bride and groom get a little help defraying expenses and earn bragging rights for novelty. “I thought: ‘woah, that’s quite something’, having people you don’t know at your wedding,” said Jennifer, who with her fiancé Paulo became the first to sign up. “But we took the flyer, went away to think about it, and decided why not? If we can see the profiles beforehand on the app and choose who to accept, it could be something quite original to do.” And there was a practical benefit. The 100-person wedding party included five paying strangers, three of them bachelors. “We have a lot more single women friends coming to our wedding than single men, so we thought this could balance things out a bit,” Jennifer said.  Tempted? Paying to attend strangers’ weddings is further proof (as if any more were needed) that we humans will go to any lengths to spice up our days. Why else would thousands of people humiliate their best friends in over-the-top dog grooming competitions? Or join in contests like Moo-la-palooza (slogan: “the Moo heard round the world”), where you are judged on your ability to sound like a cow?  Yes, dressing with flair earns extra points! Or embrace extreme ironing, where you perform this humdrum chore under hazardous circumstances? As the Extreme Ironing Bureau likes to say, "This sport combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt." Now, I know what you’re thinking: it’s not our fault. We humans were never meant to have this much leisure time on our hands, so it’s no wonder we find ridiculous ways to spend it. Not so, says anthropologist James Suzman. Our remote ancestors had tons of free time. Way more than we do today, in fact. Half a million years ago, explains Suzman, when the newfangled notion of cooking food became the hottest craze, we could safely eat more plants and animals, letting us “extract far more energy with less effort.” Gorillas and other large primates spend up to seventy hours a week foraging and eating, but once we started cooking, “Homo sapiens adults living in a relatively hostile environment can typically feed themselves and an equal number of unproductive dependents on the basis of between fifteen and seventeen hours a week.”  Seventeen hours a week? What did our ancient ancestors do with the other 151 hours? They invented language, civilization, and the Chicken Dance, and kept going from there. And as our world got more complex, our work hours kept getting longer. Luckily, today’s average worker only needs to labor 11 hours a week to produce as much as one who was putting in 40 hours a week in 1950. Now that’s progress! How are we all enjoying those 11 hour work weeks? Anybody? For most of us, the hours we’ve managed to free up by our efficiency are simply filled with ... more work. Which is why retirement is so tricky for most people. My husband, Rich, who was fortunate enough to take early retirement decades ago, has supported many friends through the surprisingly tough transition. This week he came across Riley Moynes’ book, The Four Phases of Retirement, which neatly defines the pitfalls of the process.  “The first phase is relaxation, where you're going to read a book, go on cruises, or whatever,” Rich told me. “That'll last about a year. And then out of the blue, you're hit with depression, anxiety, loss of purpose, loss of relevance. A lot of people get stuck in that second phase; you see that happen over and over again. And then, if you can move out of being stuck, you start to explore ways to make your life meaningful.” This third phase, warns Moynes, involves hard work, experimentation, and often a string of failures. But the payoff is worth it. “The fourth level,” explained Rich, “is finding that meaningful activity and pursuing it; that's where your true happiness comes from. But that doesn't mean that you go from A to B to C to D in a smooth sequence. You can slip back into B at any time if you're not careful. So you have to pay attention.” How do you find your inspiration — what the Japanese call “ikigai”? (It’s pronounced ee-key-guy and means “a reason to live.”) Spanish-born author Héctor Garcia, who now lives in Tokyo, decided to explore this concept by talking with centenarians in Ogimi Village, Okinawa Prefecture, one of the Blue Zone areas famous for longevity.  Family and community are the cornerstone of life in Ogimi Village, Japan. Photo: Ogimi Marugoto Tourism Association “When we asked what their ikigai was, they gave us explicit answers, such as their friends, gardening, and art. Everyone knows what the source of their zest for life is, and is busily engaged in it every day,” says Garcia. “Avoiding social isolation is linked to the motivation and confidence to lead active lives.” One way to stay active involves geographic change. “Living in a foreign country — what you call having a Home 2.0 — makes you mentally sharp,” Rich told me. “You're not doing things by rote, you're doing things by actually thinking them through. And so your cognitive abilities get stronger.” Why is this important? I hate to reduce the wisdom of the ages to a coffee cup slogan, but as Caribou Coffee likes to remind us, “Life is short. Stay awake for it.”  When I lived in Ohio, there was a Caribou Coffee near my favorite bookstore, and I spent a lot of time contemplating this philosophy. Every age — your era and your time of life — has its challenges, and sometimes just getting through the morning headlines requires every shred of courage we can muster. But if we have learned anything from our journey through life, it’s that we can do hard things. Every past struggle, whatever its outcome, however it may have damaged us, taught us something that may prove useful in the present crisis. When 65-year-old Churchill took on the Nazis in WWII, he wrote, “I felt as if I was walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.” Fortunately fate does not require all of us to stand up to challenges of that magnitude. But like Churchill, we can find it heartening to remember we have spent a lifetime developing the skills, from street smarts to spiritual fortitude, that we’ll carry with us into the next arena in which we are to be tested.  One of those skills is the ability to distinguish between amusing entertainments and stuff that’s just plain bonkers. When I was researching goofy ways we humans fill up our leisure hours, I came across collecting belly button lint (your own, not anybody else’s but still, ugh!), fire eating (what could possibly go wrong?), and underwater pumpkin carving (because … why?). I’m beginning to think maybe dancing at a stranger’s wedding may not be such a loony idea after all. I’m sure your dog would agree it makes more sense than doing stuff like this:  Yes, this is a dog; you can just see his nose under the mermaid's tail. You know he's thinking, "I just hope nobody I know ever sees me in this getup. This is SO mortifying! I'm descended from wolves, dammit!" HOME 2.0 This is the second in my fresh series of blog posts exploring what living and traveling abroad can teach us about coping with the challenges of our times. Thanks for joining me on this journey of discovery. DON'T MISS A SINGLE STORY! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My new book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. Already read this book? Please leave a review HERE. You can purchase a signed paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  The Queen of the Pigeons surveys her domain from atop the head of the lady representing Seville in the fountain at the heart of this ancient city. They say to err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer. But I believe that proverb does our species an injustice. Because when we really put our backs into it, Homo sapiens can achieve acts so breathtakingly muttonheaded they’d make ChatGPT blush. Or as Albert Einstein put it, “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." Case in point: the sudden appearance of parking meters in my California village (pop. 12, 645) this summer. One minute they were no more than an uneasy rumor, the next our peaceful sidewalks sprouted four-foot obelisks labeled — tauntingly, and with obvious sarcasm — “Fast & Easy Parking Payments.”  Not quite as fast or easy as advertised The instructions were so incomprehensible they had to add a sandwich board on the pavement next to each one, re-explaining in yet more elaborate detail that no, it doesn’t take cash, and to use a credit card, you have to enter your car’s license plate number — yes, that means hiking back to the car, often blocks away, to note it down. Then you come back and enter your zone number. What zone number? Sharpen your wits, people! It's no wonder local merchants reported that long-time customers were showing up in tears of rage and frustration. And then not showing up at all. Petitions to scrap the whole ill-considered project were circulated. Town hall meetings were held, allowing for a free and frank exchange of views. And then ten days ago, just before I left for Spain, I heard the joyous news: the parking meters were being removed. I spent much of the overseas flight picturing my neighbors hauling the obelisks and sandwich boards into the street, dousing them with gasoline, striking matches, and dancing around the bonfire singing “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.” More realistically, I expect the maintenance crew whisked everything away under the cover of darkness. Village officials have declared this a victory for the democratic process and are busy convincing themselves everyone will forget about the whole debacle before the next election cycle.  "Our recent polls show that most of the voters like you except when you mention the words 'parking meter.'" When I arrived in Spain, my international friends gave me a warm welcome tinged with amazement that I had managed to squeak through six months in America alive, reasonably sane, and without a stint in the maximum security wing of a foreign prison. According to a recent poll, 97.8% of Europeans are following US politics, but luckily for me they are fair-minded enough not hold individual citizens responsible for the actions of the government. This generosity of spirit even extends to vacationers; despite all the overwrought headlines about anti-tourist attitudes, Europeans do not judge the conduct of American visitors nearly as harshly as we judge ourselves. According to a recent survey, while more than half of us worry we’re perceived as the archetypal “ugly Americans,” only a quarter of Europeans see us in a negative light. We’re regarded as loud, friendly, and not significantly better or worse than visitors from elsewhere.  Polling and graphic: Upgraded Points Are Europeans more critical of us now, in the light of recent political events? “Yes,” say 80% of American tourists polled. “Not at all,” say 80% of the EU respondents. Perhaps our EU hosts don’t see much difference because they have always considered us mad as a box of frogs. They remain utterly baffled by our attitudes and values. Like what? For a start, our obsession with money. A hundred years ago, Nancy Mitford (you may remember her as the literary sister in the Netflix series Outrageous) observed, “Americans relate all effort, all work, and all of life itself to the dollar. Their talk is of nothing but dollars.” Nancy's point was illustrated yet again by an American visitor who recently wandered into Seville's beloved Cervecería International (International Beer Hall).  Cervecería Internacional, in downtown Seville near the cathedral, has been family owned and operated since 1987. As he stood sipping a cold one, the American concocted a foolproof plan for leveraging the bar’s popularity. All the owner needed to do was upgrade the food and stop closing for the afternoon siesta, so foreign tourists could spend more time there drinking, eating, and generating profits. The owner could double his income practically overnight. The American went to the owner and explained, with all due modesty, that this was the opportunity of a lifetime. You’re welcome. The owner politely dismissed the idea. He already had the one thing almost no one in the US can even imagine obtaining: enough. Enough money to live on, enough status to be comfortable in the community, and enough time to go home and have lunch with his family every day. Why upend a good life for a few extra euros? The American is still shaking his head over the man’s foolishness.  It’s easy to see how Americans became so transactional. Our nation was founded and continually enriched by people willing to leave family and friends behind to pursue fresh economic opportunities. Today millions of us move across the country for college and work, leaving families and friends scattered in our wake. We typically uproot every six years, moving 11.7 times during our lifetime. How often do the Spanish move? I couldn't find a statistic. Apparently moving is so much less of a thing here that nobody is tracking the numbers. But then, numbers never tell the whole story anyway. Pollsters’ statistics about attitudes won’t help me figure out how each of my neighbors actually views the current geopolitical upheavals, or help me convey how much America has changed — almost beyond recognition — in recent months. I suspect I will have a lot of splanin’ to do.  Is there a sensible explanation? I haven't found one. These days it’s easy to feel that the earth has tilted off its access and we’re all tumbling into a state of cosmic chaos. But if I’ve learned anything from living in Seville — my Home 2.0 — it’s that we humans are incredibly resilient. The Visigoths, Romans, Moors, Inquisitors, Great Plague of 1649, Fascists, and international tourists have all invaded this city, yet somehow Seville is still standing. And still fueling the dreams of those who want to explore the world with open eyes and hearts. There is risk in every experiment and adventure, and when things run amok, the best we can do is try to learn from our mistakes. “Success,” said Winston Churchill, “is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” I like to think that even as I type this, the last of those ill-advised parking meters is being hurled onto the scrap heap of village history, never to be seen again. As Truman Capote put it, “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” Comebacks are the sweetest. Just ask Jimmy Kimmel.  Welcome back, Jimmy! HOME 2.0 This is the first in my fresh series of blog posts exploring how the new world order is affecting the lives of expats, travelers, and local families in Spain and throughout Europe. Join me on the journey of discovery. DON'T MISS A SINGLE STORY! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My new book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. Already read this book? Please leave a review HERE. You can purchase a signed paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. “I regret to inform you,” wrote Mike Sowden on his blog Everything Is Amazing, “that despite what your eyes are yelling at you, these lines are parallel.”  Artist Victoria Skye's version of the classic café wall illusion, from the blog Everything is Amazing. Hesitant as I was to call this guy Mike a boldfaced liar, it was blindingly obvious those lines were zig-zagging in all directions. Right? Will you back me up on this? Sorry! It turns out Mike was giving us the straight skinny. This is a clever modern variant of the café wall illusion, which dates back to 1894 and relies on the fact that lighter shapes look larger than darker ones. Still rolling your eyes and suspecting trickery? You’re not alone. I had to consult Wikipedia, which put the controversy to rest with these two images, which both show (as God is my witness) identical squares in perfectly parallel rows; the only difference is the colors.   Both of these images are by Fibonacci. Rich refused to believe me. I had to place a Post-it note on the screen covering all but the top row to convince him the black and white blocks were perfectly identical squares. (I’ll pause while you do the same.) I know. It’s mindboggling. Take deep breaths. You’ll be fine in a moment. These days we’re all struggling to make sense of a world that seems as cockamamie and cattywampus as the café wall illusion. Reality feels profoundly out of kilter. To restore any sense of order to the universe, we must keep working for change, helping those we love hold on to what's left of their sanity, and celebrating things we humans (and our animal allies) have managed to get right lately.  Take the new murals at San Quentin. When I was in the prison in May, I was struck by its ominous, so-this-is-hell, brutalist look, the one favored by penitentiary architects throughout history. But San Quentin’s style is now being transformed from traditional dungeon to Scandinavian modern — and for extremely practical reasons. The experiment began twenty-five years ago, when Norway’s prisons were as overcrowded and violent as ours, with 70% of released prisoners becoming repeat offenders (compared to 76.6% in the US). Norway went all in on a new approach, based on rehabilitation and resocialization rather than retribution. Today their recidivism rate is just 20%. To recap: Norway reduced crime, made the population safer, and saved billions of kroner. Our governor, Gavin Newsom, saw the win-win-win potential here in San Francisco. Not surprisingly, his $239 million makeover budget didn’t include a dime for art. But the prisoners themselves, led by an innovative community group called San Quentin SkunkWorks, got permission to raise money and reach out to muralists. Artists across the world offered their services, and this summer, South African Faith XLVII transformed a prisonyard wall into The Heart of the World. Her son, Keya Tama, came to help and stayed to contribute an untitled piece of his own, made even more dynamic by the shadowplay of barbed wire. “The murals aren’t just about making the place look better. They change the mood out here,” San Quentin Correctional Sgt. Freddy Brenes told reporters. “A calmer yard means a safer yard — for staff and for the people living here.” Of course, it’s not just us humans who are stepping up. In Victoria, Australia, paddleboarding pups are pursing platypuses to protect the population of duck-billed mammals. (Try saying that three times real fast!) The dogs’ keen sense of smell lets them locate platypus habitats so they can be tracked without disturbing the burrows. Michigan State University researchers gave Maple, an ex-police search-and-rescue K-9, her own beekeeper’s suit and a new mission: sniffing out American foulbrood, a bacteria that destroys honeybee larvae. She’s way faster than humans, who rely on sight inspections that can take days.  Do you think they got Maple to wear this outfit by telling her it was a spacesuit? Photo: G. L. Kohuth / Michigan State University It’s a good thing dogs are diversifying, because one of their time-honored jobs, searching rubble for disaster survivors, is now being outsourced to another beast with a sensitive schnozz: the African giant pouched rat. These supersmart rodents are being fitted with tiny backpacks and sent deep into wreckage that dogs, robots, and even camera probes can’t penetrate. They’re trained to pull a microswitch on their vests when they locate someone; a tiny microphone lets rescuers speak with survivors. When their shift is over, the rats scamper back up to the surface to enjoy well-earned treats.  RescueRats are also being trained to fine landmines, as their weight is too light to set off the explosives. Photo: APOPO Animals aren’t achieving all the glory; I’m pleased to report some of us humans are also finding new ways to bring relief to others. “Spain is having a moment,” writes the New York Times’ Omar G. Encarnación. “At a time when many Western democracies are trying to keep immigrants out, Spain is boldly welcoming them in.” Why? Because birthrates are down, the economy is booming, and workers are needed. The undocumented are getting amnesty so they can stay and help Spain continue to outproduce its neighbors. “Pro-migrant measures stem from society at large,” explains Encarnación. “The push for the undocumented immigrants’ amnesty did not originate with the government, tellingly, but with a popular petition that garnered 600,000 signatures and was endorsed by 900 nongovernmental organizations, business groups, and even the Spanish Conference of Bishops. The government, in turn, has designed a humane and pragmatic approach, offering an example for other countries to emulate.”  The Minister for Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration, Elma Saiz (fourth from left) stands with representatives of the groups that helped forge Spain's new immigration regulations. Spain is really on a roll right now. It’s making major efforts to reduce food waste (doggie bags are suddenly a thing), to moderate the impact of tourists in overcrowded cities, and in Seville, a popular destination for rowdy stag and hen parties, to enforce a modicum of decorum in the streets. But not too much decorum, I hope. I’ll never forget sitting with friends at a sidewalk café in Seville and hearing gusts of laugher rolling up the street. A stag party came into view, half a dozen young men walking beside a motor scooter, where the groom-to-be was standing up on the back foot pedals, dressed as a matador, waving the traditional bullfighter’s hat to the cheering crowd. As he swept past us, I realized it wasn’t a real matador’s suit, it was an apron, with nothing beneath, giving us all a splendid view of his naked posterior. The entire city roared with laughter. I hope the new laws aren’t so strict they deprive future generations of that kind of fun.  This is the kind of apron the young man was wearing. You'll have to mentally subtract the potholder, the wooden utensils, the shirt, the pants, and everything else to get the full picture. If you're into that sort of thing... Legislative change is just one of a thousand things I need to catch up on when I return to Spain later this month. Friends and readers keep asking me: How is the mood over there? What do my Seville neighbors think of the new world order? Do my expat friends still feel welcome in pubs and cafés throughout Europe?  Seen outside a London pub and sent to me by a Croatian friend. Amigos, I am on the case. I’ll spend the next six months in tapas bars and taverns, checking in with expat friends to discover what they’re seeing and hearing, how they’re feeling about their place in the local and global society, and whether they’re returning to America any time soon or hunkering down abroad for the duration. With my own country feeling increasingly like a funhouse filled with trick mirrors and shifting floors, I am hoping that Europe’s thousand-year perspective will help me find solid footing again. Because in the end, so much of how we feel about life depends on how we look at it. "Whether it's the best of times or the worst of times, it's the only time we've got." — Art Buckwald I'M TAKING A SHORT BREAK In the days ahead, I'll be busy organizing my transition from California to Spain, so I'm taking a little time off from this blog. As soon as I get to the other side and catch my breath, I'll be back with new posts about the state of the world. Thanks for all your support, good wishes, and insightful comments this spring & summer! FINDING HOPE This story is the last in my series of blog posts exploring ways we help each other find hope in this worrying world. See all the posts in this series. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My new book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. Already read this book? Please leave a review HERE. You can purchase a signed paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA  Front window of Rebound Bookstore, San Rafael, CA GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  Photo: Etsy After long years of intense study, a student bursts into Einstein’s office shouting, “Sir, sir, I finally get it. I understand your theory of relativity!” Einstein rolls his eyes. “It’s about time.” As this joke demonstrates, there are some ideas so huge we’ll all be talking about them forever — so we might as well have some fun with them.  Great ideas can arise anywhere. Tram rides inspired Einstein’s theories of relativity, the spacetime continuum, time distortion, and a lot of other stuff that's way above my pay grade. Newton’s aha! moment came watching an apple. Paul Revere’s midnight ride, the Boston Tea Party, and many of the other liveliest moments of the American Revolution were plotted over tankards of ale in the Green Dragon Tavern in Boston’s North End. Sadly, the Green Dragon was torn down in 1832 to make way for a warehouse, but the fine tradition of gathering in public places to exchange ideas with congenial companions lives on. Two weeks ago I wrote about John Crowley’s Aqus Café, where since 2006 people have met up to discuss everything from poetry to art to the future of the human race. One of John’s most compelling projects is Petaluma Conversations, launched a couple of years ago to bring together citizens entrenched on opposing sides in the fierce online battle over the city’s hottest controversy: flying bathtubs.  Fine Balance by Brian Goggin cost the citizens of Petaluma $150,000 and many hours of hotheaded debate about its merits. The official name was “Fine Balance,” a reference to the precarious relationship between humans and nature. Some hailed it as a masterpiece, others considered it a load of pretentious nonsense. I got the impression that only compassion for the fish community prevented the naysayers from ripping the piece bodily out of the earth and tossing it into the nearby river. Somehow John got ringleaders from both sides into a room, with strict rules of conduct and promises to listen. By the end of the night they were civil, some even cordial. And Petaluma Conversations was born. That group's format was a bit formal, according to Donna Benedetti's way of thinking. Holding advanced degrees in philosophy, she’d taught at the university level and given lessons to kids in San Francisco’s notorious Tenderloin district. She’d also worked as administrator for street-savvy nonprofits. Donna wanted something more conversational and thought-provoking. With the help of a small steering committee of supportive friends, Donna created the Watershed Community. John called it “an ideas club. It’s like a book club, only instead of books, you discuss ideas. They send out a few magazine articles to read, and you all get together and talk about them.”  Donna Benedetti sends links to articles, podcasts, and videos to serve as a starting point for conversations. Watershed Community sounded brilliant to me. In fact, I liked it so much that, as a service to my readers, I decided to attend the very next one, which took place last Saturday night. Rich and I arrived at Aqus moments before Donna rushed in, a huge tote bag over each arm. Pretty soon I was helping her give nametags to the 18 people attending while Rich set reserved signs on small tables at one end of the café. To my surprise, we didn’t shove all the tables together. “The first one, we were all at a long table,” Donna told me later. “But it was terrible.” With full proximity, everyone chatted with everyone else, making it impossible to have sustained conversations. Now she has four or five people gather at each small table, with a scribe to takes notes, and a member of the steering committee to provide conversational prompts if needed.  Donna opened the evening with a brief welcome then said, “Karen is a blogger who has been writing about hope and storytelling, the topics of our last two gatherings. I’ve asked her to say a few words about that.” I stood up and told them that in normal times I’m a travel writer. But as we all know, these are not normal times. I have set aside my usual themes to spend the summer interviewing people who are doing kind, compassionate work in our community; it’s been a comforting reminder that there is still plenty of good in this world, and it is worth fighting for. Then I confessed that I was there to steal Donna’s concept and start an Ideas Club in my own town of San Anselmo. That prompted a round of cheerful applause, and it seemed a good moment to sit down and stop talking.  The Watershed Community The evening’s topic was immigration. Discussion touched on the founding of this nation, the economics of migrant workers, the role of race in society, the power of the people, the need for a coherent immigration policy, and how every one of us came from immigrant families, who often had passed along to us their stories of struggle and finding their place in America. It was a lively discussion, and Donna told me later that it was the best conversation to date, because it was a more substantive and timely topic. We galloped along, sharing information and perspectives, each new thought triggering another line of discussion. At the end, each table’s scribe stood and read their notes aloud.  A neighbor who enjoys honoring his heritage I was impressed with the range and depth of the comments, the variety of the participants' backgrounds, and the commitment to the community. It brought to mind a quick, casual conversation I'd had the day before with a neighbor who said she felt lucky to make the San Francisco Bay Area her home. Then as she headed off, she tossed over her shoulder, “Of course, we live in a bubble.” She was gone before I could reply, but if she’d stuck around another minute, I would have told her this: I disagree. The Bay Area isn’t a bubble. It’s an incubator. For nearly 200 years, people from all over the world have come here to embrace new lives. As Betty Reid Soskin — at 103 one of the last of the living Rosie the Riveters — told me, “It’s where visionaries come to find constituents for their wildest dreams.”  Betty Reid Soskin worked at the Liberty Shipyards during WWII and served as a docent at the Rosie the Riveter Naitonal Historic Park in Richmond, CA until she retired at the age of 101. Betty talked about the African American and white workers who were thrown together in the local shipyards, cranking out Liberty Ships faster than the Nazis could sink them. “They helped to turn the course of the war around by out-producing the enemy. And in the process, they accelerated the rate of social change, so that to this day it still radiates out of the Bay Area into the rest of the nation.” The Bay Area has always shaped American culture. We gave the world blue jeans, television, dot coms, the Murphy bed, jukeboxes, the LGBTQ+ movement, no-fault divorce, Airbnb, Uber, OpenAI, and driverless cars. Our ideas are still radiating across the nation. So what’s everyone around me are thinking about now? I’d like to know. Which is why I’ll be starting The Ideas Club in my town of San Anselmo at the earliest opportunity. Which will be next spring. My time in California is growing short; Rich and I head back to Spain next month. It’s hard to leave my friends, family, and work here, but my Spanish life is calling to me now. And as Einstein famously said, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”  "Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race," said H.G. Wells, author of The Time Machine. FINDING HOPE This story is next to last in my series of blog posts exploring ways we help each other find hope in this worrying world. See all the posts in this series. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My new book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. Already read this book? Please leave a review HERE. You can purchase a signed paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA  Right now I'm in the front window of Rebound Bookstore, along with the Marin Independent Journal article about my book! I'm also featured in the podcast Leaving America: E12, Taxation. You can listen here. GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. I don’t want to give you the impression I’m obsessed with old armchairs. It’s just that when I see one by the side of the road, pleading desperately to be adopted, or find one languishing among the clutter of a second-hand shop, it’s like a seeing an abandoned puppy with big, sad eyes pleading, “Please take me home; we’d be so comfortable together!” Old furniture, with a checkered past and lots of character, always calls to me. Rich frequently has to drag me away from pieces that wouldn’t fit in our home unless we moved to a larger place. He’s right, of course. But still, the temptation… Not all temptation can — or should — be resisted. Take these two mid-century classics.  The Buick (left) and the Chevy are enjoying a comfortable old age on our sunporch. The Buick (left) came with the apartment I sublet from friends in the mid-eighties. When Rich and I became an item, I felt the Buick needed a partner, too. And I rejoiced when I found the Chevy, in disreputable condition with a $50 price tag, sitting forlornly outside a second-hand furniture shop in the rain. “Old empty chairs are not empty in reality,” says Turkish author Mehmet Murat ildan, “memories always sit there!” So true! I often wonder who loved these chairs before we took them in and gave them a makeover. Because they turned up in the Berkeley-Oakland area, I imagine they each began life in upscale digs on the high hills, descended into the shabby comfort of professors’ homes on the lower slopes, and eventually found their way down to student housing and the indignity of garage sales in the flatlands. No matter. The Buick and Chevy are part of our family now. True, they are way too large for our small cottage, the fabric on their backs is fading, and the seats’ once-firm underpinning gets squishier every year. But life just wouldn’t be the same without them.  Carolyn Flannery, queen of rescued chairs (and founder and CEO of Make It Home) “It's not just furniture, it’s not just a place to sit,” says Carolyn Flannery, the queen of second-hand furniture in my part of the world. “A sofa is a place to read a child a book. A dining table is a place to gather with family and create memories. A bed gives them a stronger base to sleep well, so they can actually work well. So it's not just furniture, it's dignity and hope.” Carolyn knows all about the positive effects of furnishings. In the past five years she’s outfitted 2785 homes for 6779 people in need, thanks to her not-for-profit company, Make It Home.  Carolyn started out at the high end of the industry, selling antiques then doing interior decorating, while raising four kids and providing respite care for foster children needing a safe place to stay for a short while. “I found out that foster kids didn't get anything when they aged out at 18,” she told me. “California's now providing some [support] services up to 24 . But still. An 18-year-old doesn't know much. Think about it. So I'm 18 years old, somebody has just luckily given me a Section Eight voucher for housing, but now I've got to set up all my bills. I've got to cook for myself, I've got to clean, I've got to manage rent and all the expenses that go along with being an adult.” She paused and added, “It’s a very hard struggle. Quite honestly, they might think being homeless is easier.” Which is why 25% of kids aging out of foster care wind up living on the street.  A homeless teen on the street in Saratoga County, NY. Photo: DoSomething In 2020, when Carolyn was ready for a career change, she decided to bring her various vocations together into Make It Home. She raised money through private donations and grants, and got 1200 square feet of donated space in San Francisco. Furniture came pouring in from people isolated at home during the pandemic; it seemed everyone was looking around and thinking, “Why didn’t I get rid of that years ago?” Opening day was September 9, 2020 — a day seared into the memory of everyone in the Bay Area, because that was the morning we all woke up to the apocalyptic sight of a flaming red sky filled with drifting ash.  On September 9, 2020, the entire Bay Area looked like this. The North Complex wildfire burned 318,935 acres before it was finally contained three months later. When Carolyn announced she was giving free furnishings to wildfire victims as well as foster care kids, she was flooded with requests. And yet more donations. Since then she’s grown from a one-woman operation to a staff of nine, plus about a dozen regular volunteers in the furniture refurbishing workshop, and dozens more who take on such tasks as assembling kitchen kits from donated housewares and staffing outreach booths at public gatherings. Her client base is anyone referred by one of the 120 agencies she works with. She serves those who have suffered through domestic violence, natural disasters, PTSD, homelessness; community spaces like rec centers for teens; foster families taking kids; and so many more. Her collection is now housed in an 11,000-foot donated warehouse in San Rafael, and a new grant made it possible to purchase permanent space which they'll move to in the very near future. For Carolyn, keeping useful furniture in circulation is something of a crusade. Her efforts have resulted in keeping 3063 tons of garbage out of the landfill. OK, I admit, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the global total of 2.12 billion tons of landfill waste generated each year, but you have to start somewhere. “Just because you decided you don't want it anymore, it's still your responsibility to get it into the hands of someone else who can use it,” she says. “And if you set it out on your driveway, if it gets picked up and taken by somebody, that's fantastic. But if you put it out there and it gets rained on? It gets wrecked, and it sits there for forever.” You can imagine how upsetting that was to me, with my deep affection for the upholstered community. How could we treat our overstuffed friends so callously, when there are so many people waiting to love them? For those beyond the geographic reach of Make It Home, there are plenty of options, including Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity, and countless local charities, to say nothing of flea markets and garages sales. When you give furniture its freedom, there's no telling what adventures will ensue. Imagine the surprise of this ordinary, domestic armchair when it found itself being transformed into Art. “Make It Home has taken over my life completely,” Carolyn told me. “I work 80 to 100 hours a week. Within my marriage, we have agreed that this is a 10 year window, so I've got four years left, and I’m going to work towards transitioning out of the everyday control of the organization.” “What will you do then?” I asked, picturing her lolling on a beach in Tahiti drinking rum from a coconut shell. “I'll paint furniture,” she said, glancing wistfully at the nearby workshop, where Chris was fiddling with a chair while his three-legged dog Bestie snoozed at his feet. “Spend my days in the workshop.” I’m not sure, but I think the chairs surrounding her were actually smiling. I know I was.  Who says chairs can't smile? Photo: "Turquoise Kiss" pop art chair, by Color Life FINDING HOPE This story is part of my series of blog posts exploring ways we help each other find hope in this worrying world. Know someone you think should be featured? Tell me more in the comments section below. See all the posts in this series. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My new book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. You can purchase a signed paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA Already read this book? I invite you to leave a review HERE. GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. |
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I'm an American travel writer dividing my time between California and Seville, Spain. I travel the world seeking intriguing people, quirky places, and outrageously delicious food so I can have the fun of writing about them here.
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