 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.
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 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. |
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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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Winner of the Firebird Book Award for Travel
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