Orlando's fake Eiffel Tower at Epcot theme park
Hot news! Orlando, Florida has now replaced Paris as “the world’s most disappointing city.” Congratulations, Orlando! It’s not easy to beat Paris at anything. For years I’ve been reading about “Paris syndrome,” a form of extreme culture shock experienced by visitors who expect the movie version of the city — quaint, charming, and full of great art, marvelous food, intelligent conversation, and sexy side glances from attractive strangers — and encounter a somewhat less adorable reality. “A small percentage of those who venture to The City of Light experience ‘Paris syndrome," reports LiveScience, “a psychological condition with symptoms including nausea, vomiting, hallucinations and increased heart rate.” 
Now a brash American city has toppled Paris from this particular perch, according to a 2022 study of 826,000 TripAdvisor reviews. The goal was “to find out which city is most guilty of not meeting tourists’ expectations.” Wait, what? Cities are now supposed to feel obliged to meet the Hollywood stereotypes of out-of-town guests? And for crying out loud, what exactly were Orlando’s visitors anticipating, if not a tourist trap? Paris? As Rich said, when I told him all this, “Let’s face it, you don’t go to Orlando for reality.” 
And here we get to the seriously worrying part of the story: the casual assumption that travel destinations should be predictable, with everything organized for our amusement in what some call “curated reality.” Ten years ago, when we were still adapting to living online, Cyborgology wrote, “Social media allows us to essentially ‘curate reality,’ cultivating an environment in which we generally see what we want to see.” By now that expectation has spread so deeply into all facets of our lives that some travelers are demanding the same predictability from cities they visit. Where’s the fun in that? For me, the whole point of travel is to experience the glorious rush of surprise that comes with stumbling upon something completely unexpected, such as Albania’s warm hospitality, the zingy coffee culture of Greece, and Sarajevo’s 500-year-old public restroom (which is nicer than you’d think!). 
The sign explains this public WC was given to the people of Sarajevo by their Ottoman ruler in 1530, destroyed in 1992 during the siege, and rebuilt in 2001.
Luckily, most of the world hasn't undergone a makeover to satisfy the tourist industry. I’ve been to sections of Paris — yep, Paris, France! — that are delightfully quirky, and I have no doubt there are plenty in Orlando, too. They’re just not conveniently located right next to Disney World or Epcot. So how do we find these great experiences? I’m glad you asked. When selecting destinations, get skeptical. When you read “fairy-tale atmosphere,” “feels lost in a time warp,” and “the quaint, small-town Europe you’ve always dreamed of” your Spidey-Sense should start tingling. In 2013, having read those words, I visited the medieval town Český Krumlov in the Czech Republic. At first glance, it was enchanting. Meticulously restored ancient buildings lining winding, cobblestone streets leading up to a 13th century castle — what’s not to like? Then I noticed the garish signs protruding from every possible surface, shouting at me, "Try the mead!" and "Enjoy two-for-one drinks at a real medieval alehouse!" The only townspeople I saw wore cotton-polyester folk costumes to promote ye olde souvenirs. The town was no longer a living community but frozen in time, a propped-up relic as scary as Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Bette Davis played a former child star who couldn't let go of the past in this spine-chilling 1962 thriller that launched the subgenre of horror films known as "psycho-biddy."
Of course, tourism brings in useful revenue, so it’s only practical for cities to welcome paying guests and adapt to their (reasonable) needs and wishes. Spain, for instance, has devoted millions to improving the quality of its roads and restrooms. And I, for one, am deeply grateful. When I first moved to Seville, lots of older bars only had men’s comfort stations, because during Franco’s dictatorship women didn’t get out much. (Don’t get me started.) If I had to answer the call of nature at one of my early hangouts, Los Claveles, I had to discreetly express my request to one of the owner/bartenders, who would summon his grandmother from the kitchen, and she would escort me to the tiny cubicle reserved for female needs in the far back. When a proper ladies’ room was finally installed, I was cheering. 
Los Claveles
Fortunately, like many ancient cities, Seville knows how to adapt to changing times without losing its character. It remains vibrant and is unlikely ever to degenerate into a Český Krumlov -style backdrop designed for what the tourist industry now calls “instagrammable leisure.” I've learned the secret to enjoying anyplace is simply to pay attention, so you don’t miss the small, interesting moments happening all around. For instance, last Saturday Rich and I were strolling through Seville during an unusually dense and chilly fog. “Hypothermia is setting in,” I muttered through chattering teeth. “Let’s duck into the next café.” This turned out to be the Bar Algabeño, one of the most delightfully unremarkable spots in Seville. No tourists. No hipsters. No angst-ridden youths with eye-popping tattoos. No trendy makeover or amusing napkins. Just a simple, old-school café-bar where a few neighbors were sitting quietly having a coffee or glass of anis liqueur to “reanimate themselves” (as the Spanish like to say) on a quiet Saturday. 
Bar Algabeño
As I sat down, I noticed an elderly Spaniard in a green jacket standing hesitantly, staring about as if unsure what to do next. One of the two camareros came around from behind the bar and gently escorted him to a table, while the other followed with a glass of beer and some chips. The old man settled into his corner with the contented air of one who is prepared to linger indefinitely in cozy, familiar surroundings. A sandwich soon appeared on the table in front of him as if by magic. And I thought, this is what I love about Seville: the kindness, compassion, the sense of community, and the complete lack of judgement about a guy in his eighties having a beer with lunch. “This is what I’m talking about,” I said to Rich. “This is the opposite of curated reality.” 
Rich warming up with a coffee at Bar Algabeño.
Nobody’s ever going to be disappointed by the Bar Algabeño, because we have no pre-conceived notions of what it should offer, beyond a place to sit and sip something and watch the world go by. It will never trend on Instagram. No one will accuse it of “staged authenticity” — another pet peeve of dissatisfied travelers who apparently want their predictability so perfectly seamless they don’t notice it's being managed. No one will ever criticize the Bar Algabeño for being guilty of not meeting expectations. And let’s face it, if Paris doesn't measure up, there’s a pretty good chance our expectations are at fault, not the City of Lights. Not the city of which Oscar Wilde wrote, “When good Americans die, they go to Paris.” So although I never make formal New Year’s resolutions, I've renewed my determination not to settle for curated reality, staged authenticity, or instagrammable leisure. Especially on our upcoming Nutters Tour. The world is full of wonderfully unpredictable, hair-brained, off-the-wall places, and every one of them is on my list. 
“You don't love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.” ― Oscar Wilde
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I thought I’d discovered all Spain’s quirky year-end traditions — red underwear and twelve grapes for luck, lentil soup for wealth, and plenty of bubbly for fun — until someone said, “Hey, look, Cristina Pedroche is about to take off her cloak.” It was minutes to midnight, and the TV screen showed a young actress enveloped in a bulky white cape. “Every New Year’s Eve she does a big reveal of her outfit,” someone else explained. “Each dress shows more skin.” All heads swiveled toward the screen as Pedroche struggled to unsnap her outer garment. When she finally shed it, what she wore underneath left me gobsmacked. And bewildered. What was that white thing splattered across her chest like a bug on a windshield? Why was she wearing painted-on white gloves? The only thing we could tell with absolute certainty was that she was not wearing red underwear. In fact… While we were debating whether she was wearing any underwear at all, I reflected on the goofy ways we humans like to ring in a fresh year. Millions of us woo Lady Luck with outlandish rituals: throwing furniture out the window, smashing plates on a neighbor’s doorstep, placing a carp’s scale in our wallet. Of course, I’m way too modern to hold with any of that superstitious nonsense. But hey, I forgot my red underwear on December 31, 2019, and look what a disaster 2020 turned out to be. I’ll never take that chance again!  I still can't believe I forgot my bragas rojas in 2019. Throughout December they're on display in every store in Seville. But could there be other, slightly more practical ways to hedge our bets? Oh yes! In fact, there are at least ten well-researched actions we can take to enhance our chances of living well according to the people who teach the Science of Happiness Course at the University of California Berkeley. Here are some of their suggestions.
 Susie Garza displays the debit card on which she received a $500 monthly stipend as part of a pilot universal basic income program in Stockton, CA. Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP Let’s take a closer look at that last point. Yesterday I learned the US spends a whopping $869 billion a year on non-medical public welfare benefits — and 97% of that money goes to operational costs. I’m going to spitball a nutty idea: what would happen if we just gave some of that money directly to those in need? Turns out I’m not the first to think of this; experiments have been going on for decades. And they've been successful. You won’t be surprised to hear a cash infusion makes struggling families happier and healthier. More unexpectedly, fears that most folks would squander the money in foolishness and debauchery have proved unfounded. “A sheaf of studies,” reports Reuters, ”show positive results. Participants in Stockton's program were more likely to be working full-time, while participants in Jackson were more likely to pay their bills on time. One survey found that recipients spent less on alcohol and tobacco than they did before.” It’s comforting to know that wealth redistribution can be managed successfully. Especially now that AI is proving it can take over so many of our jobs. And that brings me to some very hopeful planetary news. But first, a pop quiz.  If you answered 10% you’re not only right, you did better than 92% of those polled, including Nobel-Prize winners and global policy makers. Social scientist Hans Rosling spent his career factchecking our world, asking 12,000 people these kinds of questions. He was shocked to discover that nearly everyone gets them very, very wrong. We’re all operating from deeply held misconceptions about how humans are doing. (Don’t panic, we’re actually doing better than we think. I’ll get to that in a moment.) Our perspective is skewed because it’s based on data we learned in college from teachers educated ten, twenty, or thirty years earlier. Many of our most essential “known facts” haven’t been true since 1980 or possibly 1965. Our knowledge is updated randomly with media stories feeding our natural human appetite for drama.  “Every group of people I ask,” said Rosling in his book Factfulness, “thinks the world is more frightening, more violent, and more hopeless — in short, more dramatic — than it really is.” For instance, what percentage of the world population do you think lives in low-income countries? The average guess (from Earth’s best and brightest): 59%. The actual number: 9%. Chimpanzees randomly tapping bananas marked A, B, and C would score better.  Of course, to be fair, chimpanzees have the benefit of never reading Weekly World News headlines while standing in the supermarket line. When we do hear positive news, it doesn’t fit the framework of our inner narrative. Two hundred years ago, 85% of the world population lived in extreme poverty. In 1980 it was 40% and today it’s 10%. That's a triumph the entire world should be celebrating. But feeling good about it makes us uncomfortable, as if it implies we’re OK with 800 million people still subsisting on the verge of starvation. And then another horrifying headline comes along, and we’re convinced all over again that we’re sliding fast into full-blown dystopia. “Enough with the doom and gloom!” admonishes NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. “Our planet may be in better shape than you think. Human beings have a cognitive bias toward bad news (keeping us alert and alive), and we journalists reflect that: We report on planes that crash, not planes that land. We highlight disasters, setbacks, threats and deaths... But it’s also important to acknowledge the gains that our brains (and we journalists) are often oblivious to — if only to remind ourselves that progress is possible when we put our shoulder to it. Onward!” OK, I’m in. So what can we do to help the world — and ourselves? UC Berkeley happiness experts suggest it’s all about connection and compassion, and the best place to start is that first bullet point above: appreciating the little things. To help with this, they’ve created a Happiness Calendar; I’ve taped January to my kitchen cupboard so Rich and I see all day. It’s already led to some interesting discussions.  Jumping ahead to January 10, I feel the need to make amends. I started this post with snarky remarks about Pedroche’s outfit. Since then I’ve learned she wore it to honor refugees. The top is the dove of peace with an olive branch. The painted hands signify the rejection of violence. The nearly invisible skirt hasn’t yet been explained in the press; maybe it symbolizes bandage gauze or the sheer madness of war. My point is: I’m sorry I was disrespectful, Cristina! It was all in a good gauze. I mean cause. And I’ll certainly tune in next year to see your reveal. In fact Rich has voted to make it an annual tradition. FEELING BETTER ABOUT THE FUTURE? I THINK WE ALL ARE! HERE'S SOME MORE FUN STUFF: WANT MORE?
Add your name to my mailing list, and I'll let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com  Last week, as I watched Rich paint the upper reaches of my office wall, I thought — hoping it wasn’t blasphemy to paraphrase the Bible — “Greater love hath no man than this, that he picks up a paint brush for his wife.” Because verily, Rich really, really hates to paint. But he loves home improvement projects, and he’s accepted the fact that some entail changing a wall's color. As it happened, one of our first projects, back when we were newlyweds in Ohio, was repainting our boring white bathroom a cheery buttercup yellow. Our “master bath” was the same size as our closet, and I kept saying, “It’s a tiny room. How long could it take?” We labored intensely for an entire weekend, painting everything — walls, trim, even the mullions on the window — that rich buttercup. When we were finally done, we cleared away the tarps and stood in the doorway to admire our handiwork. “Dear God,” said Rich. “How did it get so bright?” The yellow bounced from one wall to the other, each reflection ramping up the saturation level until it was like looking directly into the sun or the headlights of a flying saucer.  “Yellow paint color intensifies drastically when used on the walls,” I read later in a home improvement tutorial. “Interior decorators even have a joke about this — “Every can of yellow paint should come with Caution: Handle With Care.” Sadly, our paint can had kept that little tidbit to itself. “I guess the good news is we’ll get our entire day’s requirement of vitamin D every time we walk in here,” Rich said. I kept staring at the color, aghast. “Maybe we should —” “It’ll be fine,” he said firmly. “We just have to get used to it.” But after a week of flinching and groping for sunglasses every time we opened that door, Rich finally agreed we had to fix it. The following weekend the bathroom walls became a warm, cozy ivory.  Thirty years later, the emotional scars from that incident having faded, I took it into my head to give my Seville office a perky accent wall. The idea of take-home paint chips hasn’t caught on in Seville yet, so standing under the fluorescent lights in the paint store, I chose what seemed a tasty creamy coral. On the wall, however, it revealed itself to be a howling Halloween orange. Again, the paint can failed to give me a heads-up about the danger. “Repaint?” Rich said incredulously when I voiced my concern. “It’ll be fine. We just have to get used to it.” I tried to get used to it for seven long years, but it was no good. Last week, with Rich’s help, I finally bid a not-so-fond farewell to that obnoxious orange and replaced it with a restful shade of green. I’d wisely bought paint guaranteed to cover in a single coat, so we only had to put on three to obliterate the orange completely.  While I was still celebrating that jolly transformation, our household was blessed with a new (albeit temporary) addition: Fred. A bit of background: Here in Seville, live holiday trees are as rare as paint chips and hen’s teeth. If you can find them at all, they tend to be small, spindly specimens with their roots shriveling away inside a very dry dirt ball. I can only assume they dig them up early, over the summer, to get a jump on the season. One year, ours blew over on a windy day, and when I went to heave it back into position, the needles — all of them — stayed on the floor. I rushed out and bought garlands to wrap around the pitiful sticks that remained, but it was a sad sight indeed. This year we asked our florist to reserve one of his largest arboles de Navidad for us. When we went to pick it up, we were astonished to be presented with a hulking seven-foot fir with the kind of robust girth I associate with Fred Flintstone. The florist's assistant strapped it to our dolly with endless meters of plastic tape; Fred was not going to be allowed to escape on the way to his new home! For a week Fred loitered around, hinting he was ready to branch out, until we finally had time to free him from the tape and dress him up properly. One reason live trees aren’t common here in Seville is because everybody wants the kind they see in Hollywood movies: perfectly proportioned artificial pines hung with a matched set of ornaments and color-coordinated ribbons and lights. Around here nobody has little kids coming home from kindergarten proudly bearing hideous Styrofoam orbs garnished with popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, and glitter. Vacationers don’t buy the kind of oddball ornaments that you soon realize are aesthetically questionable but hang up anyway because they are emotionally resplendent. It's not fashionable to have a glorious hodgepodge that's as messy and warmhearted and convivial as life itself. I love my rag-tag band of random ornaments. Like the angel Rich’s dad brought back for him from Bangkok back in the 1960s. Oh sure, it may be missing an eye and some of the gold trim, but its many decades of service have earned it a place of honor near the top of the tree every December.  The dog angel was purchased when we lost our beloved Eskimo Pie. She was certainly no angel, but she was fun to live with. I’ll never forget the year she found a rum cake under the tree and ate the whole thing. Rich and I came home from the movies to find her sprawled on her back, fat, drunk, and happy, with the shreds of the package all around her.  Every year we add another ornament to the collection. Twelve months ago we were feeling pretty anxious, especially as half our friends had to bow out of our traditional December 25 feast thanks to Omicron. I thought the sight of flask in his stocking might cheer Rich up. (It did.)  This year, in celebration of finally liberating my office wall from the menacing orange hue, I added this to the tree.  And then I got to thinking. Hmmm. We had an orange wall for Thanksgiving. A green wall for the year-end holidays. Maybe I should change it up every season. Pink for spring, perhaps? But for heaven’s sake, don't say anything about this to Rich. What he doesn’t know won’t give him time to come up with any reasons not to re-paint.  And in other news: today Fred got his first email. My sister-in-law Deb wrote, “Fred, meet Barney. (Yabba dabba do. Or ... yabba dabba Yule.)" YABBA DABBA YULE, EVERYBODY! Enjoy the winter solstice this Wednesday and whatever holidays you may be celebrating. Thanks for a great year. You guys always make me laugh and cry and think; my life would be much duller indeed without you. I suspect you’ll be too busy playing with new toys to read blog posts for a while, so I’m taking a short break. See you in 2023! YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY THAT WAS FUN! WANT MORE? Add your name to my mailing list, and I'll let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com  Sunday morning, while drowsily opening emails and taking my first sips of coffee, I was jolted fully awake by the sight of an ad in which machines offered to take over the pesky little chore of writing this blog. Until recently, I never considered robots serious competition as writers. In my experience, most bots seemed bent on proving they were total knuckleheads possessing zero common sense and only a passing acquaintance with the English language.  But recent improvements have culminated in the interactive super-brain ChatGPT that has inspired awe, fear, and fascination around the world. More than a million people have signed on to test its linguistic virtuosity. A spokesperson for its creator, the for-profit research lab OpenAI, warns that ChatGPT "may occasionally generate incorrect or misleading information." Ya think? Clearly we’d all be wise not to trust it too far. Not everyone shares my concern. “I’m sorry,” tweeted one Thomas Ptacek, “I simply cannot be cynical about a technology that can accomplish this.”  Jesus crust, I have to admit that’s pretty good writing, even if the author will never get why humans think it’s funny. Sadly, the AI that wants to take over my blog isn’t nearly as talented. The ad I got Sunday is full of grammatical errors — ten howlers in just fifty-two words. See if you can find any in this fragment, starting with the headline.  Alert readers will have noticed the singular subject (Writing) is inappropriately paired with a plural verb (are). Rich keeps reminding me that I’m overly picky about this stuff but hey, it’s my job. And if AI is serious about wanting my job, it’s going to have to try considerably harder than that. But truth be told, I’m not really worried machines will replace me as a travel writer. High-end chatbots are good at reprocessing existing information, and no doubt our inboxes will soon be flooded with articles about the five top things to see in this city or that, all based on TripAdvisor (whose ratings are notoriously unreliable). While bots can regurgitate content, they are never going to be able to savor mouthwatering Mediterranean comfort food or feel the transcendent joy of raising your voice in a vast, ancient space.  Rich channelling Pavarotti in Parma's Farnese Theater. Try doing that, ChatGPT! Let's face it, ChatGPT isn't about to jump on a train and seek out random adventures in strange lands. In fact, I imagine its giant brain would blow a gasket or fry an actuator if it heard about the next trip Rich and I are planning: The Nutters Tour. The idea came to me when I was writing about forged Vermeers and ran across mention of the Fälschermuseum. “Hey, Rich,” I said, “some nutter has created a museum devoted entirely to art fakes.” We got to talking about eccentric people creating wacky places, and before you could say “bonkers to the max,” we’d agreed our next road trip would be spent discovering oddball places designed by people who clearly had more than a few screws loose. “We'll call it ‘The Nutters Tour,’” I said. “But then everyone will think it means us, that we’re the nutters,” protested Rich. “Well, that’s not entirely inaccurate... OK, no, you’re right, we’ll find another name.” We’re still casting about for one, but until we find it, The Nutters Tour it is. What exactly are we looking for? Five hundred years ago, the people designing Seville’s cathedral declared, “Let’s build a church so large that those who see it will think we are mad.” Today visitors often say, “Man, this church is insane!” That’s the kind of nutter spirit I’m talking about.  The largest Gothic church in the world, Seville's cathedral is still dazzling visitors. Hearing about the trip, my friend Deborah immediately recommended the Villa Torrigiani di Camigliano near Lucca, Italy. The gardens were built in the seventeenth century, when giochi d'acqua (water games) were all the rage. On rainy days the marquis would chase his guests into the garden, where they would try to shelter in the Temple of Flora, only to find the ceiling raining water down on them. Obviously this was much more amusing for the marquis than his soggy guests. Another of the villa’s loony features is a grotto of sexually explicit stalactites. Yes, Deborah sent me a photo; if there are small children peering over your shoulder, you might suggest they go play elsewhere while you give it a gander.  Whoa! Steamy stuff! My friend Maer suggested a visit to Bomarzo, Italy, home of the Park of the Monsters. The landscape is a sixteenth-century version of a horror movie, a shocker built by the grief-stricken Prince Pier Francesco Orsini. He’d fought a brutal war, been held for ransom for years, and finally arrived home only to have his beloved wife die. He expressed his feelings by building this park of howling torment.  Inside “the mouth of hell" a picnic table stands on the monster's tongue. I’ll be sure to pack a lunch. Obviously the world is full of nutters just waiting for us to discover them. So far, our tentative route begins in Valencia, where we’ll catch the run-up to the Fallas, a loony, city-wide festival. Then we'll cross into France, stopping in Montpellier, Marseilles, and Nice before heading south through Italy; our itinerary isn’t fixed, but we’re thinking of Lucca, Bomarzo, Rome, and Naples. With luck we’ll visit Bagonregio, home to Italy’s only UFO museum, currently closed but possibly willing to open for us if asked nicely. We’re hoping to have time to continue south as far as Sicily. In May, we head to the US, flying out of … wherever we find ourselves at the time. Should I ask ChatGPT for suggestions? I don’t think so. For a start, doing the research is half the fun. I’ve passed many delightful hours browsing through the suggestions of Atlas Obscura, Rough Guides, and other sites I’m pretty sure were authored by humans. Besides, I don’t want to encourage ChatGPT, which industry insiders suggest may soon be ruling the planet, with or without my support. AI expert Calum Chace says the software will continue learning, and humans may soon discover we're "the second-smartest species on the planet. It will be the most important event in human history. Bar none. The outcome may well be fabulous for humanity, but that is not guaranteed." So when you do interact with robots, play nice with the species that’s about to become our new overlords. But what, me worry? ChatGPT may be able to beat chess experts and adopt the writing style of the King James Bible, but it will never embrace the kind of wacky, off-the-wall places and experiences that give this planet — and so many travel blogs — that nutter zing.  I'm not taking suggestions from robots, but I'm happy to hear yours. Do you know of any places I should add to the Nutters Tour? Please tell me about them in the comments section below. WANT MORE? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY 
I'm thankful to be in Seville, hanging out in tapas bars, and not in Russia's frozen tundra unearthing zombie viruses. (More on that in a minute.)
I think we can all agree, as this year staggers to a close, that we have plenty to be thankful for. Admittedly, as measurements of success, many of this year’s benchmarks of achievement are underwhelming. It’s like we’re all pilots joking about a good landing being any one you can walk away from — and a great landing being one where you can use the aircraft again. Here’s something I’m grateful for: Scientists are digging around in Russia’s permafrost, unearthing “zombie viruses” that have lain dormant for tens of thousands of years. Wait, no, that’s not the part I’m happy about. Somewhere around paragraph five of the Washington Post article, just as I was starting seriously to hyperventilate, the author casually mentioned the pathogens they found only infect amoebas. See? There’s a silver lining right there! Not for the amoebas, obviously, but it’s looking a bit better for us humans. 
Digging up a 48,500-year-old virus buried in the ice — what could possible go wrong?
Now let me ask you this: Do you feel like you never have enough time, almost as if the days were getting shorter? You’re absolutely right — they are! And my hat’s off to you for noticing the difference in the Earth’s speed, which occasionally results in a single, random June day that’s around 1.5 milliseconds shorter. It has something to do with slight irregularities of movement at the earth’s poles, technically known as the “Chandler wobble.” To put it in layperson’s terms, the north and south poles occasionally do this: The phenomenon was discovered by astronomer Seth Carlo Chandler in 1891, and his colleagues today insist they’re pretty sure we have almost no reason to think these random slowdowns will cause the planet to spin off its axis any time soon, if our luck holds. So there’s something else to put in the plus column! And then, I’m genuinely pleased about the surprising announcement from Merriam-Webster that their word of the year is “gaslighting.” I'm horrified that it's happening, but hey, at least people are noticing. The term comes from the title of an intense psychological thriller, set in 1875, in which an evil husband attempts to drive his wife insane by constantly manipulating her perception of reality — including dimming the gas lights in their house and telling her it’s just her imagination. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary explains this kind of abusive behavior “causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one’s emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator.” Ever feel like that’s happening to you? I’m sure just your imagination. 
Charles Boyer shows Ingrid Bergman more "proof" she is a kleptomaniac descending into madness in the 1944 film Gaslight.
The online look-up rate for “gaslighting,” which had been rising steadily for four years, jumped a startling 1740% in 2022. Oddly, it wasn’t sparked by any single event (as most words of the year are) but by a serious, long-term, widespread social concern about the way we are all being manipulated these days. “Gaslighting is a heinous tool frequently used by abusers in relationships — and by politicians and other newsmakers,” explained an AP article in the flurry of reaction over Merriam-Webster’s announcement. “It can happen between romantic partners, within a broader family unit and among friends. It can be a corporate tactic, or a way to mislead the public. There’s also ‘medical gaslighting,’ when a health care professional dismisses a patient’s symptoms or illness as ‘all in your head.’” 
Why is it good news that we're talking about gaslighting? “As a person who writes about honesty and deception, I felt a spark of hope Monday when I found out that Merriam-Webster had made ‘gaslighting’ the official word of the year for 2022,” said Judi Ketteler, author of Would I Lie to You? “Maybe, just maybe, people are finally ready to engage with dishonesty and how it operates in their lives.” Research suggests the average American tells eleven lies a week; obviously some are already way over their quota halfway through a typical Monday. How does all this lying affect us? A pair of psych professors at the University of Notre Dame decided to set up a “Science of Honesty” study to find out. Over a ten-week period, half the participants were instructed to make a conscious effort to stop telling major and minor lies. Both groups came in weekly to report on their physical and mental health, and, yes, take a lie detector test. “We found that the participants could purposefully and dramatically reduce their everyday lies, and that in turn was associated with significantly improved health,” said study leader Anita Kelly. She explained participants who cut down on falsehoods, including little white lies, enjoyed better mental health — feeling less tense or melancholy, for instance — and better physical health, reporting fewer issues such as sore throats and headaches. 
Why are lies so bad for us? Turns out telling whoppers increases our stress level, which is tough on our psyches and bodies. "Research has linked telling lies to an increased risk of cancer, increased risk of obesity, anxiety, depression, addiction, gambling, poor work satisfaction, and poor relationships,” says psych professor Deirdre Lee Fitzgerald. On the other hand, an excess of brutal honesty isn’t always healthy either. Telling your new lover that your ex was better at sex is not going to improve your relationship. In fact, it usually winds up with your lover saying to the judge, “And that’s when I shot him, Your Honor,” while the jury nods sympathetically. “Honesty is the best policy, right? I say no,no, no, no. And let’s add on one more no, just for good measure,” began an article in Mental Health @ Home. The author suggested that being straightforward about objective facts — yes, you do have spinach in your teeth — is great, even if it can be a little uncomfortable at times. “Then you’ve got opinions, which are inherently subjective. They don’t have any objective, literal truth to them; they’re just chitter-chatter inside our heads... There’s no need to inflict that on the world without a good reason.” Objective fact vs. subjective rant; that’s an excellent litmus test to apply before blurting out our innermost thoughts. We can ask ourselves, “Is what I’m about to say true? Is it kind and helpful? Is it likely to get me killed?” Yes, in the end, it all comes down to survival. How can we boost our chances of making this another year we can walk away from — or, if possible, dance our way through? Back in March, doing research in connection with Rich’s new obsession — sorry, I mean hobby — of birdwatching, I stumbled on this video of an American Woodcock (whose aliases include timberdoodle, bogsucker, and hokumpoke). I couldn’t resist posting it again here while talking about survival. Why did Nature endow these birds with the gift of dancing like John Travolta? What's the evolutionary advantage? Maybe it's to remind us that we'll all live longer if we stop occasionally and celebrate staying alive. That's my post for this week, folks! Thanks for joining me on the journey. A reminder that there's just one more day of discounts on The Great Mediterranean Comfort Food Tour in Kindle and paperback. Cost goes up Wednesday!
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Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com Yes, my so-called automatic signup form is still on the fritz. Now that the book is done, I'll have time to work on fixing it. Thanks for understanding.  This is one of my favorite pictures of Rich, shot during a brief rest break while we were trekking through the hills of Thailand in 1992. Tour groups often wind up in lodgings that are low-budget, even downright dubious. In 1992 I was part of a group checking into a Bangkok hotel that looked cheap, shabby, and drab, with cut-rate wood veneer paneling and furniture that didn’t begin to aspire to Ikea quality. Did I care? Nope. It was just a jumping-off place for a trek among Thailand's hill tribe villages. For the next week, Rich and I hiked all day, slept in huts surrounded by pigs, ate whatever was put in front of us, and — since it was dry season — struggled to maintain even the most basic hygiene standards.  That thin trickle of water in the middle of the photo was the entire water supply for the hill tribe village. Afterwards, I was so exhausted I slept most of the way back to Bangkok. I remember stumbling out of the van in an underground garage, wandering into a hotel lobby, and gasping at the luxury: plush sofas, carved wood, uniformed staff, the discreet clink of ice in glasses. Why hadn’t we stayed in this ultra-cool place when we first arrived in Bangkok? And then I realized we had. The hotel was the same; only I had changed. And that’s the beauty of travel: seeing things with fresh eyes. These moments on the road are vivid and precious, and it’s dismaying to feel them begin to fade the moment we hoist our suitcase onto the closet shelf. But we don’t have to lose these memories; in fact, sometimes we need a lifetime to unpack our experiences properly. “It’s only when you get back home that you can really begin to understand a trip and implement the changes it may have set into motion inside you,” says Pico Iyer, one of my favorite travel writers. He’s been thinking a lot about this lately, as in January he’s launching a TED course called “How to take a life-changing journey.”  This Bhutanese outhouse could only be reached by climbing up a ladder, clambering over a wall, then scrambling down a second ladder and walking across a small field. Try doing that in the middle of the night! Since then I've never taken indoor plumbing for granted. Iyer suggests that to get at the true meaning of our travels, whether they last a day or many weeks or longer, we should ask ourselves three questions. They’re such good questions that on Sunday, over plates of leftover turkey and glasses of Italian wine, Rich and I spent quite a while discussing them in the context of our Mediterranean Comfort Food Tour. Question 1: What moved me most over the course of my trip? Rich instantly said it was the people we met along the way. “From Carlotta in Turin, to Zina and her family in that Albanian farmhouse, to the guys who cut your hair in Heraklion — there were so many. These weren’t monumental moments, just quietly wonderful connections.”  At a farm in the foothills of the Accursed Mountains in northern Albania, Zina cooked us a feast on this wood-burning stove. I remembered the distress and heartbreak I felt, realizing that changes I’d always assumed were 100% positive — such as the fall of communism — had serious downsides as well. I’m not saying anyone wanted to return to the old days, when crazed dictators tried to create modern utopias using secret police, forced labor camps, and political assassinations (because nothing says utopia like unmarked mass graves). But many people I met spoke wistfully about the days when everyone had a job, a place to live, free medical care, a pension, and far fewer worries about the future. Change has forced many to find unexpected inner strength and a philosophical attitude. Question 2: What surprised me most on my trip? Hands down, Rich and I agreed the biggest surprise was Albania. Those who love it best call it beautiful but rough around the edges; detractors call it grim, dangerous, and dull. When I mentioned I was heading to Albania, nearly everyone asked “Why?” Followed by, “No, really, why?” And finally, “Are you nuts?” But we both absolutely loved Albania. For a start, the countryside had real storybook charm and cities teamed with vitality. And the food was some of the best in Europe.  In the kitchen of the marvelously atmospheric Bujtina Sidheri Hotel in Korçë, Albania, Griselda Korani taught me how to make Dragon Pie. We were treated as honored guests wherever we went. Possibly because they saw how clueless we were in such unfamiliar surroundings, each hotel owner, host, or driver carefully handed us on to the next person who would be entrusted to look after us. Rich said, “I thought, ‘Why can’t everyone do this?’ Why don’t we treat each other with such courtesy, remembering that we’re all connected?” Good question! Question 3: How might my trip move me to think or live my life a little differently? The moment I read that question, I remembered sitting with Rich in a little park in Chambéry, France and discussing the need to fly less frequently. This was near the end of the trip, and after nearly five months on the road, my sense of connection with the world was pretty powerful. It was a buoyant feeling but carried a sense of responsibility, too. I felt I owed it to everyone (including myself) to try to do better by the world we shared.  Chambéry, France, perched in the foothills of the Alps, provides the kind of sweeping vistas that inspire grand thoughts. Interestingly, that’s what Pico Iyer said about a trip he took to Antarctica, where he was overwhelmed by the extraordinary beauty — and by how he was contributing to its destruction, just by flying there. Every traveler with a conscience wrestles with this question, and when I brought it up to Rich on Sunday, he reminded me of a long-ago conversation we had with a priest in a poor part of El Salvador. “Visitors always ask what they can do to help,” the priest told us. “They want to build a school or dig a well, so they can go away feeling they’ve contributed and can forget about our problems. But I tell them the best thing to do is this: nothing. I want people to come down here, see what’s happening, and break their hearts — then go back and tell others what they’ve seen. That’s what will bring about real change.” I sometimes think that one conversation is the real reason I became a travel writer.  These delightful hill tribe village kids, who kindly settled us on our sleeping porch above the pig wallow, are not ethnic Thais. So they will never have full citizenship and will likely remain at the bottom of the economic ladder all their lives. ‘Promise yourself twenty minutes every day to ensure that the journey doesn’t get lost,” advises Iyer. “How might you act differently now? Ask yourself how your life is rich in ways you hadn’t imagined before [and] ask yourself how it’s poor.” Wise advice! My life is much richer for having spent 161 days on the road, meeting people, exploring the Mediterranean rim, and sampling some of the most mouthwatering comfort foods on the planet. And after all that fun, I had the sublime pleasure of describing all the best moments in my new book. Which brings me to the announcement I’ve been waiting years to make: My book The Great Mediterranean Comfort Food Tour has been published! It’s out in Kindle and paperback. Yay! And thanks to all your pre-orders, it’s already a bestseller.  These are thrilling times, my friends. After all the unforeseen detours, hiccoughs, and delays (yes, pandemic, I’m thinking of you!) I’m so happy the book is out at last. Whew! Thanks for all your support and encouragement, and for joining me on this very long and joyful journey. WELL, THAT WAS FUN. WANT MORE? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com Yes, my so-called automatic signup form is still on the fritz. Now that the book is done, I'll have time to work on fixing it. Thanks for understanding.  This photo illustrates many articles about "the world's luckiest man" escaping death. However, it's also a meme titled, "And here we see a rare sight: a wild bus drinking water from the river." We may never know the real story behind this image. Let me ask you this: Do you feel lucky? I’ve always considered myself a fortunate person; for a start, I grew up with enough to eat, a good education, and a reasonably sane family (yes, they are!). But these and my many other blessings don’t hold a candle to the karma of “the world’s luckiest man,” Croatian music teacher Frane Selak. His run of fortuity began in 1968, when he was in a train that skidded off the rails and plunged into a river; 17 passengers drowned but a stranger pulled Selak to safety. The following year, during his first and only airplane ride, one of the doors malfunctioned and blew open in midflight; Selak was sucked out but landed safely on a haystack while the plane crashed, killing 20. After that he survived two different accidents where his car — and his hair — caught fire. Then he walked away unharmed after being hit by a bus. A year later, swerving to avoid a truck, Selak struck a guardrail. It gave way and he was hurled from the car; he managed to grab a tree branch and hold on while his car dropped 300 feet into a gorge. Two days after his 73rd birthday, he won $1 million in the Croatian National Lottery.  “I just know there will be no more accidents,” Selak said after winning the lottery. “I am going to enjoy my life now. I feel like I have been reborn. God has been watching over me all these years. The Devil has moved on to torment someone else.” He was right; no more accidents were reported. "You could look at it two ways," said Selak, who died in 2016 at the age of 85. "I was either the unluckiest man in the world, or the luckiest. I preferred to believe the latter." Many details of these stories are difficult to corroborate, but the fact remains nobody who knew Selak would go anywhere with him. As one neighbor put it, “If I heard Frane had booked a flight or a train, I would cancel.” Although I am certainly not in Selak’s league — and I thank my lucky stars for that! — I’m feeling particularly sympathetic about his rollercoaster ride through life. Because I’m finally (knock wood!) wrapping a project that has had some surprising ups and downs. The project I’m talking about my book about the Mediterranean Comfort Food Tour. My long-time readers will recall that in 2019 I spent five months on the road traveling through ten countries to discover Europe’s most mouthwatering indulgences. The trip itself was sheer delight. OK, Rich and I had a few hiccoughs, detours, minor health issues, and wardrobe malfunctions along the way, but hey, compared to being blown out of an airplane, nothing to complain about. I ate glorious meals, struggled with a few oddball delicacies (yes, Italian horsemeat, I’m thinking of you), and gathered wonderful recipes, memories, and friendships. After 161 days on the road, I returned to Seville and settled in to write the book. I spent my days typing at breakneck speed, trying to corral my notes, thoughts, and recollections into some kind of coherent form. As usual when I’m knee-deep in writing a book, I mostly ignored the outside world; news and correspondence could wait. When my online inbox got too full, I’d sit down, answer emails from friends and family, and skim through the rest before deleting it. I remember casually glancing at a blog post about the worrying state of the world and coming across word I’d never seen before: coronavirus. The author sounded so alarmed I decided to look it up. That’s when I discovered a million people were on lockdown in China. Wait, what? When had this happened? And how did I not know about it? Was it possible I’d gotten just a tad too wrapped up in the book? I sat staring at the computer screen. A million people on lockdown. Should I be worried? Of course, you all know the answer to that.  I'll say this for the pandemic; preparing 21 meals a week, I really upped my cooking game. Within weeks I was on lockdown myself, and my lighthearted book about finding comfort food on the road suddenly seemed irrelevant. Worse, it seemed insensitive, even cruel, to write about flitting around Europe feasting on magnificent dishes with congenial companions in exotic settings when nobody could even go out for coffee. With regret, I set the book manuscript aside. For two years I focused on my blog, where I endeavored each week to find something heartening, helpful, and if possible entertaining to offer my readers. Then, as it happened — and stop me if you’ve heard this — the pandemic finally loosened its grip on the world. People began traveling again. My thoughts kept straying to the book, and this summer I opened up the manuscript file and dove back in, losing myself once more in the stories of culinary adventures on the road. I finished writing it a month ago. At this phase of every book, I pause and think enviously of the part in Little Women where Jo ties up her manuscript with string and mails it to a publisher. Almost immediately she receives the beautifully produced leather-bound volume and a nice fat check. If only!  Jo's manuscript, from the 1994 version of Little Women. Somehow uploading a file to Amazon's print-on-demand Kindle Direct doesn't have quite the same romance. Nowadays, of course, we self-published authors do all our own production legwork, starting with cover design. After various false starts, this is what we came up with. Rich was the lasagna chef, and I must say, it tasted even better than it looks.  Soon to be available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback One of the big decisions was whether to include all the recipes in the book. I’d originally planned to, but then I realized that would make the print edition enormously long and ridiculously expensive to produce. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve never figured out how to download or print a recipe from my Kindle, and I like hard copies so I can make notes. So I decided it would be more practical, and useful for my readers, to make everything available online: recipes (in metric and US measurements), videos, photos, links, notes. My free online comfort recipe cookbook is available now on my website. Have a look, and if you try any of the recipes, please send comments and photos to enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com.  I’m just about ready to publish, but I figure with Thanksgiving on the horizon, my American readers are preoccupied trying to find a big enough turkey and work out a seating arrangement that will keep the peace (or at least a ceasefire) in the extended family. I don’t want to get in the middle of any of that! So the book’s launch date is now set for Tuesday, November 29. Of course, there are no guarantees in this world, and after being clobbered by the pandemic, I’m prepared for anything — alien invasion, zombie attack, WWIII — that could sabotage my plans. So I’ll just say that whenever fate allows this book to make its debut, I promise you’ll be the first to know. And after that, I’m going out and buying a ticket in the Croatian National Lottery. WELL, THAT WAS FUN. WANT MORE? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish the book and weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com Yes, my so-called automatic signup form is still on the fritz. Thanks for understanding.  Why is the straightest street in Seville's shopping district called Snake Street? I'm so glad you asked. When I first moved to Seville, Halloween was not on Spain’s social calendar. Oh sure, everyone had heard of it and seen it in the movies, but celebrating it themselves? That would have felt as alien to them as we’d feel about holding the running of the bulls in New York City. But that was nearly two decades ago, and since then, little by little, Halloween has crept into Seville’s culture. In a way, it’s a natural fit. This city can never resist the chance to party, especially in fancy dress. And everyone here loves a good, blood-curdling ghost story. Tall tales and legends have been passed down for generations — and I suspect get more dramatic with every re-telling.  A Spanish friend told me why a long, straight street in Seville’s maze-like shopping district is called Calle Sierpes, meaning “Snake Steet.” The backstory begins during a terrible time the late 15th century when little kids began mysteriously disappearing without a trace. Families were inconsolable, civic leaders baffled. Then Quintana, a young political prisoner in a nearby jail, offered to solve the mystery and reveal the culprit in exchange for his freedom. The authorities agreed. Quintana explained he’d dug a tunnel out of the jail and was making his escape along ancient Roman subterranean passageways when he came upon the villain, surrounded by the bones of many children. Being armed with a dagger, Quintana slew him and fled back to his cell, having decided against a life on the run. When he took authorities to the spot, they found the murderer wasn’t human but a giant snake. They put the serpent’s corpse on display in the street that soon became known as Calle Sierpes.  Seville's cathedral is said to be haunted by a woman in white who disappears into a thick fog. Nope, I've never seen her. But I keep looking. Another famous legend from that era involves Susona, the beautiful young daughter of a wealthy Jewish merchant. She was in love with a young Christian aristocrat, which didn’t sit well with either family; the Spanish Inquisition had just started, and the Christians were carrying out persecutions and pogroms against the Jews. One night, Susona overheard her father and his friends discussing the likelihood of being attacked by the Christians and debating whether they should arm themselves for a preemptive strike on the aristocracy. Fearing for her boyfriend’s life, Susona told him what she’d overheard. That night, a group of Christian knights went into the Jewish quarter, seized the conspirators, and turned them over to the authorities; by dawn, everyone who’d attended the meeting was dead. Horrified, and knowing the community would rightly suspect her of being the informant, Susona ran to her beloved and pleaded with him to marry her right away. "Me? Marry you!? You, who have betrayed your family, your community,” he said. “Do you think I can trust you? No, leave, you will never be my wife." At this point in the story, I always expect Susona to say, “And that’s when I shot him, Your Honor.” Instead she entered a convent. After she died, her head was hung on the wall outside her family’s house, where it stayed for 300 years; a picture of a skull still marks the spot. Everyone started calling that street Calle de La Muerte (Street of Death). Not surprisingly, this had an adverse effect on real estate values, so eventually the street was renamed Calle Susona.  Yes, who wouldn't want to live on Calle de la Muerte (the Street of Death)? I don’t know for sure which convent Susona took refuge in, but it was quite possibly nearby Santa Inés, which has its own ghostly tale. This humble convent was blessed with a magnificent organist, the blind Maestro Peréz. His playing was so spectacular the Archbishop (and crowds of lesser folk) used to come every Christmas Eve to listen. Nearing the end of his life, Peréz still insisted on performing, even when he had to be carried in on a litter. At the age of 76 he expired just as he finished the Christmas Eve service; they found him dead at his keyboard, as he would have wanted. The following year another organist was hired, but of course, he could not compare. The Archbishop went to Christmas Eve mass at the cathedral instead of Santa Inés, and the much-reduced congregation grew restive at the poor performance. And then suddenly, the glorious music they remembered filled the church. Everyone was mystified. Then a woman screamed. People rushed up to the organ loft and saw that the bench was empty, but the organ continued playing. It was a miracle. The Archbishop was furious at having missed it.  The organ at the Convent of Santa Inés was recently restored to its former glory. Half the buildings in Seville have some sort of ghost stories, and that includes the old Hospital of the Five Wounds. No, you didn’t need to have five wounds to go there, the name refers to the wounds of Christ on the cross: hands, feet, side. It was originally built in 1546 to care for sailors returning from the New World with exotic diseases. A century later came the Great Plague of Seville, which claimed a quarter of the city’s population. The hospital admitted 26,700 patients; medicine being what it was in those days (no vaccines, no Paxlovid, etc.) 22,900 of them perished. The hospital closed in 1972, and twenty years later became the seat of the Andalucían Parliament. To this day, people report sightings of the malevolent nun, Sister Ursula, who stalks the corridors looking for her patients. Politicians working in the building say they’ve heard fiendish laughter, hysterical screaming, and agonized wailing, but that could just be parliament in session.  When it was built, Seville's Hospital of the Five Wounds was the largest building in Spain. Every culture and every generation has its own ghost stories. When my nieces and nephews were younger, I’d spend family vacations at the lake telling them such classics as the man with the hook, the babysitter, and the vanishing hitchhiker. “It was a night just like this one…” I’d begin, watching them lean forward, shivering in delight and apprehension. “Thanks a lot,” my sisters always said afterwards, as they loaded sandy, overexcited kids and damp towels back into the car. “Nobody’s going to sleep tonight.”  Many of the people in this photo have been scarred for life by my ghost stories. Sorry, kids! Sometimes I worried that scaring the living daylights out of these youngsters was wrong, even a form of child abuse. But learning to confront fear is one of the basic building blocks of life. It’s why, in spite of all the worries about sugar overload, unwholesome themes, and fears of fentanyl in the candy, we still celebrate Halloween every October 31st. It’s why Seville will continue to relish the fun of passing on its old legends until the end of time. “All across the world, ghost stories are designed to evoke the same thrill of unease,” wrote journalist Dylan Brethour. “Being afraid isn’t the price we pay for ghost stories, it’s part of the package… We’re animals that are made to be afraid, our survival premised on the awareness of danger. The compensation for that fear is how it also makes us feel alive… In the end, ghost stories are a good way of holding on to something slippery. They give form to our nightmares, both petty and complex, and offer catharsis in return. And that, whether you believe in ghosts or not, makes their stories worth telling.”  Rich and I like to do our bit to get Seville into the Halloween spirit. WELL, THAT WAS FUN. WANT MORE? If you would like to subscribe to my blog and get notices when I publish, just send me an email. I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com Yes, my so-called automatic signup form is still on the fritz. Thanks for understanding. YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY  "I need a sense of adventure in my life," says Rich, shown here in Ikaria, Greece. "Travel is all about dreaming up new possibilities and looking forward to the future." “Look at this island! People there live longer and healthier than just about anywhere. We should go. Maybe it will rub off on us,” I said to Rich a few years ago, while researching our Mediterranean Comfort Food Tour. “They did a study and 80% of the men between 65 and 100 still enjoy an active sex life.” Impressively, these guys still had plenty of energy leftover to get out on the dance floor as well. The island was Ikaria, Greece, one of the Blue Zones, regions famous for vitality and longevity. I went to an all-night party there, and the 93-year-old who opened the dancing was still at it when Rich and I stumbled out the door in the small hours of the morning. Yowza!  The 93-year-old life of the party is the guy on the right. Young tourists get a kick out of dancing with the islands famous oldsters, and the guys don't seem to mind. There's a famous story about one island resident's powers of recovery. Several people on Ikaria told me the tale, and Dan Beuttner wrote about it in The Blue Zones. During WWII, a young Ikarian named Stamatis Moraitis had an injury that required treatment in the USA. He stayed there, married, and raised a family. At 60 he learned he had lung cancer; his five doctors gave him six to nine months to live. He decided to go back to the island so he could die among his own people; he and his wife moved in with his parents, and Moraitis retired to bed to await the inevitable. Old friends dropped by to share a glass of wine. Occasionally Moraitis would sit in the garden. One day he planted a few vegetables. He started puttering around tidying the vineyard. Pretty soon he was building an addition on the house. “Today,” wrote Buettner, “35 years later, he is 100 years old and cancer-free. He never went through chemotherapy, took drugs, or sought therapy of any sort. All he did was move to Ikaria.” Buettner asked Moraitis if he had any idea how he’d recovered from lung cancer. “It just went away,” he said. “I actually went back to America about ten years after moving here to see if the doctors could explain it to me.” Buettner asked what happened. “My doctors were all dead.”  Stamatis Moraitis healed while puttering around the family garden on Ikaria. He lived to 102. Stories like these are inspiring headlines asking, Should I Retire in a Blue Zone? The short answer is probably not. There are five identified Blue Zones: Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece; Okinawa, Japan; and the Seventh Day Adventist community in Loma Linda, California. Although they all enjoy good weather, a laid-back lifestyle, and healthy eating, each has drawbacks. Ikaria, for instance, has no major airport or hospital and is a long ferry ride from anywhere. What the Blue Zone folks have discovered isn’t a fountain of youth, it’s a lifestyle that removes major stressors that make us age faster: time-pressure, isolation, unhealthy food, and the self-fulfilling expectation that at 65 we’ll begin to deteriorate in a variety of embarrassing and debilitating ways. People in the Blue Zones don’t share those habits and attitudes, and maybe it’s time we got rid of them, too. You don’t have to move abroad to do it, although there are places — like Seville — that do make it easier.  Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, Duquesa de Alba, was the richest and most titled aristocrat in Spain. Here she is dancing barefoot at her third wedding, which took place in Seville when she was 85. Personally, I am doing my best to adopt these eight elements of the Blue Zone approach. 1. An active social life. In the US, we tend to live further apart, and everyone’s so busy even dinner with close friends requires planning weeks in advance. On Ikaria, people tend to stroll out most evenings after dinner and drop in on their neighbors for a casual chat. Likewise, in Seville impromptu gatherings are common. New expats join social clubs such as the American Women’s Club and InterNations to find kindred spirits. This is vital, says psych professor William Chopik, because “as we get older, our friends begin to have a bigger impact on our health and well-being, even more so than family.” 2. The Mediterranean Diet. All Blue Zoners follow some version of it, bucking the American fast food trend spreading across the globe. Here in Spain, it’s much easier to eat a natural, plant-based diet. I follow Michael Pollan’s shorthand definition of this approach: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” 3. A little wine every day. A few glasses of wine in the evening is standard on Ikaria. I generally have just one, but I am considering upping my game. Strictly for health purposes, of course.  I'm doing my best to meet the recommended daily dose of vino. Rich is very supportive about helping me stick with my regimen. 4. No gym, just natural exercise. I remember years ago dragging myself to brutal fitness classes. Never again. In Blue Zones, daily life includes a lot of walking and other gentle exercise, such as gardening. A large Swedish studied showed gardening and similar forms of puttering around can increase longevity by 30%. Put the money you save on gym fees into tomato seedlings. 5. Daily siestas. People in the Blue Zones tend to rest after lunch. They don’t always sleep; sometimes they read, meditate, or do something equally relaxing. But they hit the pause button and feel better for it. “Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day,” said Winston Churchill, who lived to 90. “That’s a foolish notion held by people who have no imaginations. You will be able to accomplish more. You get two days in one — well, at least one and a half.” 6. Sense of purpose. "Everybody needs a passion. That's what keeps life interesting,” said Betty White, who lived and worked to the age of 99. You'll never lack for things to do during a move abroad, but eventually you will settle in and then it's time to develop other interests. Travel is top on my list, with writing and painting in the offseason. Rich has taken online classes on happiness, grumpiness, memory, justice, and astronomy. He arrives at every meal with lots to talk about.  "If you live without passion, you can go through life without leaving any footprints," warned Betty White in her memoir If You Ask Me (And Of Course You Won't). 7. No retirement from life. I start worrying whenever I hear recently retired friends say, “I never do anything. I have six Saturdays and a Sunday every week.” Leaving a job can be liberating; becoming a couch potato is less so. George Burns, who lived to 100, agreed. “Retirement at 65 is ridiculous. When I was 65, I still had pimples.” 8. Positive attitude. Blue Zone people don’t fret about aging because they don’t view old age as God’s waiting room but rather as having more time to do things. “Get busy living or get busy dying,” says Morgan Freeman, actor, producer, and political activist. He got his pilot’s license at 65, and at 85 is still having fun doing guest roles on shows like The Kominsky Method.  "You gotta keep dancing, you gotta keep your feet moving," says Morgan Freeman. So to recap: No, you probably don’t want to live in one of the Blue Zones. Yes, their lifestyle makes sense, and it’s not a bad idea to see if you can adopt some elements of it wherever you may be. If you're dreaming of living abroad, see how many of these eight elements you’ll find in destinations you’re considering. Maybe someday you’ll be the 93-year-old life of the party on an island somewhere. It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it. I'd love to think Rich and I could learn to do this, but to be honest, I couldn't dance like this on my best day at any age. Dietmar & Nellia, you rock! WELL, THAT WAS FUN. WANT MORE? If you would like to subscribe to my blog and get notices when I publish, just send me an email. I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com Yes, my so-called automatic signup form is still on the fritz. Thanks for understanding. YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY  One of my best strategies is recombobulating with a cup of espresso when I feel flummoxed. On Saturday, the young waiter at the sidewalk café wanted to practice his English. This is common now in Seville, and at first he did well. Rich and I ordered a platter of scrambled eggs with asparagus, ham, and shrimp that was big enough to share. The waiter nodded, returned with two plates and a bread basket, then said, “You do not need forks, do you? Instantly I pictured myself scooping up handfuls of scrambled egg and stuffing stray asparagus spears into my mouth with my fingers. I stared at him blankly, he repeated the question about the forks, and then added something that I swear sounded like, “For the sex.” Huh? What exactly did he think we were doing with those eggs? Glancing in the bread basket, I saw we already had forks, and pointed this out. He looked mortified and said, “No, no, I am very sorry, I meant knives. You do not need knives.” I agreed we did not. And decided not to press him further on the question of sex. Young people are so easily embarrassed.  When I saw this sign in Hawley, UK, I thought, "I know just how that door feels! Aren't we all?" The really astonishing thing about this conversation was that it was somebody else butchering the language. I’ve been on the other end of countless similar confusions over the years. How well I remember one Spanish class that went like this: Teacher, holding up a flash card: “¿Que hace ella?” (What is she doing?) Me, after a long pause: “¿Cepilla su pollo?” (Brushing her chicken?) Rich, after a longer pause: “¿Camino su pelo?” (Walking her hair?) Whenever I get lost in a welter of linguistic or cultural confusion — and yes, even after all these years, it happens — I pause a moment, recall that day in class, and picture a woman brushing her chicken. It makes me chuckle, if only to myself, and then I’m calm enough to marshal the known facts so I can get a handle on the moment. On Saturday I knew that A) this was a respectable, old-school Spanish eatery, B) nobody in Seville eats scrambled eggs with their fingers, and C) whatever else was about to happen, it was unlikely to involve sex. At least not right there at my café table.  Confusion is commonplace when we travel. What does this Corfu sign mean? Who knows? I made a mental note not to tie any donkeys to stop signs while I was on the island. Like that conversation with the waiter, I find much of the world feels nonsensical and cattywampus these days. How do we keep from feeling confused and bumfuzzled? The New York Times recently polled its readers about small rituals that help them keep their mental and emotional balance. One woman reads a Nancy Drew book for five minutes before bed. Another sits in a recliner, petting her cat, after dinner. There’s a reader who counts yellow doors, keeping a tally during daily walks. One couple spends a half hour each morning watching birds flutter around the backyard feeder. Everybody had some small daily ritual they considered vital for keeping their sanity.  Taking Nancy Drew along on your e-reader? Blogger Michelle demonstrates how to make a Kindle sleeve showing the classic silhouette of the plucky young detective. Find it here: https://mychellem.blogspot.com/2012/10/nancy-drew-book-or-kindle-sleeve.html Rich recently revealed he loves doing the dishes after every meal. “I don’t think of anything,” he says. “It’s very relaxing.” Being a supportive wife, I am naturally encouraging him to indulge in this habit frequently. Three times a day, in fact. For his own good, of course. Unfortunately, our routines tend to go out the window when we travel. Rich doesn’t always have a kitchen full of dirty dishes available. It’s not practical to bring your cat everywhere or pack the backyard birdfeeder in your carry-on. We travelers have to get creative about coming up with alternatives. “We’re allowed to make up rituals,” said author Elizabeth Gilbert. “We’re here to find meaning, and meaning is the way we make sense out of chaos. Do whatever you need to do to transition safely from one point in your life to the next.” Of course, there’s a fine line between ritual and superstition. Actress Jennifer Aniston, Duncan James of the boy band Blue, and Kit Harrington, who played Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, all tap the outside of the airplane before getting on board; each has their own specific number of raps, and Aniston always boards right foot first. Hey, whatever gets you through the flight.  One of my rituals is well known to my regular readers: the recombobulation coffee. The moment I step off a plane or train, I’m looking for a café where I can sit down, sip something, and regroup. There’s the practical side, such as making sure I have the address of my lodgings and enough local currency to get there. But it’s also a way of reminding myself the headlong rush of getting there is over. Now it’s time to be there; I try to tune into the moment and connect with my new surroundings. I have another small ritual for settling into my room: I immediately place my Kindle and sleep mask next to the bed. I may not need nightly doses of Nancy Drew (although she and I are old and dear friends), but reading before sleep is a deeply ingrained habit. And how’s this for luck? I get to do it twice a day, as my most essential ritual is taking siestas. American friends tend to roll their eyes and suppress a snicker when I say this. But just ask the NASA astronauts, executives wanting to boost productivity, and the longest-living people on the planet about the value of resting each afternoon. It’s a lifesaver, and thankfully it can be done just about anywhere.  A carriage driver in Seville takes a quick siesta between customers. Whatever our personal rituals, they are vital to our happiness. Why? Scientists and spiritual teachers agree it’s because they offer a sense of predictability in a topsy-turvy world. They let us know we are exactly where we need to be, doing just what we need to be doing, at precisely that moment. We come away more grounded, relaxed, and confident, able to see things more clearly, from a broader perspective. Harvard research shows that rituals alleviate the natural grief that comes with loss, including homesickness and the head-spinning, out-of-control, what-happened-to-my-reality sensations we sometimes experience in foreign places. Especially while having surreal conversations with strangers about eggs, forks, sex, and brushing chickens. Taking time to identify our own rituals, or create new ones to take with us on the road, can help us relax and reconnect with the sense of joy and adventure that caused us to travel in the first place.  Now, thanks to that NY Times article, I find myself counting yellow doors when I go out. You too? WELL, THAT WAS FUN. WANT MORE? If you would like to subscribe to my blog and get notices when I publish, just send me an email. I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com Yes, my so-called automatic signup form is still on the fritz. Thanks for understanding. YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY |
Winner of the 2023 Firebird Book Award for Travel
#1 Amazon Bestseller in Tourist Destinations, Travel Tips, Gastronomy Essays, and Senior Travel
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Karen McCann
TO I'm an American travel writer based in Seville, Spain.
Wanderlust has taken me to more than 60 countries. Every week I provide travel tips and adventure stories to inspire your journeys and let you have more fun — and better food — on the road Don't miss out! SIGN UP HERE to be notified when I publish new posts. 
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