Meeting People & Making Friends Overseas

One of the joys of friendship is laughing together over goofy greeting cards.

​I love this greeting card but have to admit I’m puzzled; who are you supposed to send it to? A friend or relative who identifies as a psychopath? Your barista, with a note thanking her for not shooting your companion when he actually did order a quad shot, non fat, vanilla soy, extra foam light whip with caramel drizzle?
 
Even as I pondered this mystery, I knew exactly what to do with the photo of this card when a friend sent it to me. I printed it out and taped it up in my kitchen, on the cupboard door where I keep a motley collection of cartoons, memes, and sayings. It sits just above this one.

“Laughter is an instant vacation,” said comedian Milton Berle. And couldn’t we all use a little time off from the world right now?
 
“Happiness is laughter that’s shared,” observed Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk. And that’s why our friendships are so precious. I no longer remember the details of the flamingo-covered moment shown below, but I vividly recall collapsing into helpless laughter with our friend Pete.
​

Karen, Rich, Pete, and a flock of feathered friends make merry.

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​Sharing loony moments with pals is one of life’s great pleasures. “A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows you are slightly cracked,” said radio host Bernard Meltzer. Or as Groucho Marx put it, “When you’re in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, ‘Damn, that was fun.'” 
 
But how do you form that kind of closeness in a foreign country, when you arrive alone, knowing nobody?
 
It’s all about reaching out to those you find around you.
 
Eleven years ago, Donna Wolski was a 62-year-old widow living alone in Florida. When a vacation brought her to Seville for three days, she suddenly saw a way to build a new life and realized she was ready to make a bold change. “On my flight home, I said to myself, ‘I think I’ll move to Seville,’” she told me.

It's not hard to see why Donna fell in love with Seville.

​Friends urged her to make a second visit to the city before doing anything rash. “I came back in September; it was hot as holy hell, and I was staying in an apartment with no air conditioning. And despite that, I went home, put my house on the market, and sold or gave away everything. I was back in a couple of months with two big suitcases and that’s all. I came intending to be here the rest of my life.”
 
“Did your family and friends think you were nuts?” I asked.
 
“They were happy that I was doing something with my life. My really good friend said to me, the last day I was there, ‘Go to Spain and live Donna 2.0. Leave the rest behind you.’ And that’s what I’ve done.”
 
To connect with people in the community, she joined the American Women’s Club of Seville, a lively social group open to all English-speaking women. (Similar clubs exist in 45 cities around the world.)  Donna became the AWC’s Membership Coordinator, helping people sign up and pay the modest annual fee. “For me it was great, because it meant I met everybody. Being alone, I would always say, ‘You want to meet for coffee?’”

Donna dressed for Seville's Feria de Abril (April Fair)

​Social friends soon became a lifesaving support network. “At the end of my first year here, I had spine surgery,” Donna said. That’s terrifying under any circumstances, let alone when you don’t speak the language or have experience navigating the medical system. Her AWC friend Christie stepped up, saying, “I'm going to put together a group of people who will help.” She reached out to bi-lingual members of the AWC and began organizing a timetable.
 
Throughout her five-day stay, “these incredible women would just show up in my hospital room; five of them volunteered to spend the night," said Donna. "In the US you’d be lucky to get a family member to do that, let alone strangers.”
 
In the decade that followed, Donna became an integral part of the community, serving four years as AWC president and creating a strong, active friendship circle.

Last December, while she was on vacation in Morocco, a dog ran out of nowhere, tangled in Donna’s feet, and sent her tumbling hard onto stone paving, breaking her knee in three places. For the past two months her friends have been showing up daily, bringing groceries, translating medical advice, taking her out for coffee, keeping her involved and cheerful.
 
“My brother said to me tonight, ‘Donna, what would you do if you were in the States and you were laid out for twelve weeks with a broken knee? Your friends are still going to work, they live in different suburbs. You wouldn't get that kind of daily support.’” 

---

I always tell newcomers, and snowbirds who winter in Seville, about the AWC. And they nearly always draw back, saying, “I’m not a joiner.” Neither was Donna, I point out. Neither was I. But you’re here now. This is You 2.0, capable of great changes. Isn’t that why we travel?

When I’m on the road, one way I like to connect with people is via EatWith, an organization often called “the Airbnb of dining.” Local (carefully vetted) chefs invite you to their home for a meal; an app shows the menu, cost, and setting. My hosts have always provided great food and conversation; some have become friends.

Paolo and Carlotta, our EatWith hosts in Turin, Italy, later visited us in Seville.

Traveling through Greece a few years ago, I met two sisters (siblings, not nuns) who had just spent a day working in a soup kitchen in Athens. I asked how they’d arranged it. “We found them online,” one explained, “and just wrote and told them we wanted to come by and make a small donation. And while we were there, we’d like to volunteer for a day.”
 
Rich and I did the same and were welcomed with open arms.
 
My post Breaking Bread with Strangers in Athens describes that experience, an unforgettable mix of comfort, heartbreak, good food, and hard work. It not only reminded me to count my blessings, it gave me the deep satisfaction of knowing I was doing a (tiny) bit of good in the world. It was the kind of day, as Rich put it, “that lets you know that you are useful, that you matter, that your actions count for something.”

At the Athens soup kitchen, my main job was scrubbing trays for reuse. Not exactly glamorous, but hey, somebody had to do it.

We live in an age of isolation and loneliness, so any chance to connect is heartening — and can be a lifesaver. “A new study suggests that lifestyle and living conditions affect aging significantly more than genetics,” reported Nice News, quoting a major Oxford University study of the “architecture of aging.”
 
Life operates on the buddy system. We all need convivial companions to help us navigate traumas, celebrate joys, and send us silly greeting cards that spark laughter. Fortunately, we can build a friendship circle at any age, wherever we are. “If I can do it,” said Donna, “so can others.” And the effort is richly rewarded. As Salman Rushdie so wisely observed, “In the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips.”

Monday, August 4 is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day. It's not too soon to start training for it!

​​THE AMIGOS PROJECT
This post is part of my ongoing exploration of how to enrich our lives while living or traveling abroad, finding new ways of avoiding the isolation that's become a global epidemic.
See all my Amigos Project posts here.

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