 I ordered a glass of the local vino, but the barman delivered a bottle. Was it that obvious I needed extra recombobulation when I arrived in Valdepeñas? Those who say GPS and Google have taken the mystery out of travel have clearly never visited Jaén, Spain. It’s a modern city with an old-fashioned attitude about sharing information: “If you live here you don’t need to ask, and if you don’t live here, you really don’t need to know.” Everything was shrouded in confusion. Take our lodgings, allegedly located at 23001 Bernabé Soriano Street near the cathedral. After a half hour’s laborious climb uphill from the train station, Rich and I arrived at Bernabé Soriano and saw the first street number was 2. Dear Lord, how many miles away was this place?  Bernabé Soriano is one of Jaén's liveliest streets, and quite a few of these neighbors pitched in to help us in our hour of need. What, me worry? In Spanish cities, every barrio is a village, so we asked the neighbors: the lady running the bakery, the guy at the health food store, the bouncer at an upscale bar, a dog walker named María Teresa, her friend, and her other friend Joaquin la Barba from the gastropub. Everyone tried to help, but we didn’t make real progress until Rich managed to get someone from booking.com on the phone. She found the correct, two-digit address, almost directly across the street from where we stood, and mentioned our landlady’s mother had been waiting out front for nearly two hours to let us in. Throughout all the muddle, everyone — including the landlady’s mother — remained remarkably cheerful, helpful, and kind. I was beginning to warm to this town.  The little blue arrow in the foreground is the only indication this is a one way street — another example of Jaén's discreet approach to sharing information. I asked our new friends about city’s famous ancient relic, the (alleged) Veil of Veronica, supposedly displayed every Friday in the cathedral at the top of our street. Nobody could provide details, but I wasn’t concerned because of course I could always ask at the tourist office. Imagine my surprise when I went there the next morning only to find the street under construction and the tourist office closed for the duration.  Rich stares aghast at the place where the tourist information office is supposed to be. “What is it with this town?” Rich said. “Isn’t it great?” I replied. “Everyone’s always complaining that Europe has become hopelessly touristy and there are no more authentic places left. Look at this city. Have you seen a single tourist since we got here? Have you heard anyone speaking English? This is the Spain we knew decades ago. Doing things its own way, not making everything slick and easy for visitors.” “No kidding,” he said. “If we manage to see Veronica’s Veil it’ll be a miracle.” Even without Veronica’s Veil there was plenty to see and do in Jaén. On Friday we arrived early at the cathedral and began asking where to find the nearby Church of the Sagrario in which the Veil apparently made its weekly appearance. We were misdirected to a chapel housing the crypt, the main cathedral entrance, and the former Convent of the Shoeless Carmelites with a famous 16th century statue of Jesus, but eventually we found the right spot. Doors wouldn’t open for another half hour, so we took a short walk. And that’s when I stumbled upon the absolute last thing I expected: a tourist office. And it was open. I went in, collected a map, and asked the woman at the desk about the city’s famous man-eating lizard. “Ah sí, el Legarto de Jaén.” She settled her hip more comfortable on the corner of the desk, leaning in. “This was long ago. There was a spring near the Church of the Magdalene; they said it lived there and came out to eat animals in the district. Some say humans, too.” She shrugged deprecatingly, and we both laughed. Yeah, that was pretty improbable. Not like the rest of the story. “They offered prisoners their freedom if they could kill it. One man volunteered. He threw pieces of bread on the ground to lure the beast downhill to the Church of San Ildefonso, where he had placed a lamb filled with explosives. The lizard ate the lamb and boom! He burst apart.” Problem solved!  Today all that's left of the Legarto de Jaén is this fountain, where he lurks harmlessly, eyeing the townspeople. By now it was almost time for the Veil to appear, so we thanked her and hurried back to Sagrario church. Besides the sacristan, we were the only ones there. Then a woman came in and leaned over to ask me, “Are you here to make a confession?” As the veteran viewer of a thousand cop shows, I knew the only proper response was, “Not without my lawyer.” Instead I mentioned Veronica’s Veil and she nodded and sat down. Half a dozen more people trickled in. Music began to play and a priest emerged, singing, holding aloft a dark image of a man’s face surrounded by gold and emeralds. In a ceremony that was brief, lovely, and respectful, the priest placed the image on a table, prayed, and disappeared out a side door so we could all take photos without feeling sacrilegious. Was it the real deal? Very doubtful indeed. For a start, the story is tradition, not gospel; it dates back only to medieval times, when religious relics were big business. A legend began to circulate about Veronica using her veil to wipe the blood and sweat from Jesus’ brow while he carried his cross; his face appeared on the cloth, which now had miraculous powers. Today, there are so many known copies of Veronica’s Veil that the Church has come up with a name for them: vernicles. This one most likely dates back to the 14th century, which was venerable enough for me. As much fun as all this was, yesterday Rich and I left Jaén for the wine-making city of Valdepeñas. We arrived at a charming, old-fashioned railway station that was completely closed up. A sign announced “Sale of tickets is temporarily suspended.” An online search revealed this was moot anyway, as all Monday’s trains to Madrid were fully booked.  Rich attempts to come to grips with a train station that won't sell him tickets. “This is nuts!” Rich exclaimed. “My point exactly,” I said. He sighed. “Guess we’ll be taking the bus.” The saving grace of this town? Our apartment is directly above the colorful and convivial San Antonio restaurant, epicenter of everyone’s social life around here. Picture the bar scene in Star Wars mixed with My Big Fat Greek Wedding and you’ll have the general idea. We seemed to be the only non-Valdepeñans in the place. Off the tourist track? We can’t even see the beaten path from here. And did I mention this town is famous for its wine? I was diligent in my research.  I didn't photograph the crowd in the bar last night, but many of the same faces and families showed up for Sunday lunch at various cafés in front of the cathedral today. To sum up, the Nutters Tour is off to a roaring start, and I am re-learning the most valuable road lesson of all: embrace the chaos. We have very little control over anything in life, and that goes double when we’re travelers, relying on the friendliness of strangers. “I accept chaos,” said Bob Dylan. “I’m not sure whether it accepts me.” So far, I feel the chaos is doing a great job of embracing me back.  For Rich, one of the highlights of Jaén was visiting the Museum of Popular Arts & Culture and leaping into one of the old washtubs, pretending to take a bath. Seconds later a guard thundered down the stairs and read him the riot act. Rich felt like a kid again. "Gosh, Mr. Wilson, I didn't mean nothing by it!" SO EXACTLY WHERE ARE WE?  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 Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.
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 Spain is particularly blessed with eccentric people, places, and traditions — like letting little kids climb human towers 40 feet in the air. Just watching the videos makes me weak in the knees. First the strongest men form a base and begin constructing the human tower. Then lithe, sinewy women clamber over them to build the higher levels. And finally, when everyone is in place and you can see their muscles trembling with effort, a little girl begins to ascend. She is the enxaneta, the crowning glory of the human tower, a child of seven to ten years who climbs over the adults to reach the top some forty feet in the air. Her only safety net: the bodies of her teammates below. “OK,” I said to Rich, “mark that down as another activity I am never taking up, right along with bungee jumping, bull fighting, and investing in cryptocurrency.” “You’d have to be nuts,” he agreed. I nodded happily and added Tarragona, home of the human tower since 1712, to my ever-expanding list of possibilities for our forthcoming Nutters Tour.  Chartreuse is the local drink of Tarragona. Known as "the elixir of long life," this liqueur was created in 1605 by French Carthusian monks who wound up in Tarragona in 1903 after being expelled from France. Obviously there's a lot more backstory here; I'm checking it out now. What is a nutter? The term started out as a surname for someone who worked as a scribe (notare, in Latin), a profession not generally known for its screwball antics. Yet somehow, as it evolved into Middle English, the word became associated with eccentrics, risk-takers, and odd ducks. It embraces a broad spectrum of unconventional behavior, from the ancestor who first said, “Hey, maybe the animals we catch would taste better cooked” to folks who think forming a human tower sounds like fun. The history of the human race is rich with colorful, outside-the-box characters. Some — such as Leonardo da Vinci, Madam Curie, Steve Jobs, and Greta Thunberg — are household names, while others have gone unsung, their works long ago forgotten or continuing in quiet, Instagram-free obscurity today. The Nutters Tour is my chance to bring some of those zany nonconformists and their hometowns into the limelight. Spain is particularly blessed with eccentrics of all stripes, and I have been researching them for months — knowing that Rich and I will probably veer off frequently from our already loose itinerary. Possibly right out of the starting gate. We are beginning in the city of Jaén (pronounced Hi-YEN), and a Spanish friend, hearing about this Saturday at lunch, recommended a side trip from Jaén to the nearby historic town of Úbeda. Apparently there’s a common Spanish phrase “andar por los cerros de Úbeda” (literally 'to walk around the hills of Úbeda'), meaning “to go off at a tangent.” Could this be a sign from the Universe?  In addition to inspiring tangential thinking, the hills of Úbeda are also famous for producing some of the finest olive oil in the world. Right now, all I really know for sure is that the Nutters Tour of Spain officially launches on Wednesday, and I’d be counting down the hours if only I had a few spare seconds or brain cells to devote to the task. Time is passing in a blur of laundry, last-minute purchases (why do I never have enough decent socks?), and farewell lunches, dinners, drinks, tapas, and coffees with friends. My apartment's back room is festooned with drying clothes, stacks of stuff I’m planning to bring on the trip, and scattered birdseed. The local songbirds, having ignored Rich’s birdfeeder for five and a half months, chose this week to realize those lumpy objects inside it were actually yummy avian comfort food. They are expressing their joy by flying in through the open window and holding parties all over the room. I’ll be shaking birdseed out of the creases of my clothes from here to Madrid.  This is everything I'll be wearing for the next month. And speaking of my clothes, I know some of you are curious about what I’m packing, so here’s my list. Experience suggests that I can jam this much into my carry-on suitcase, and I’m pretty sure the layers will keep me comfortable during the variable spring weather and our eventual flight to California for the summer.
 A sleep mask is useful for getting a good night's rest on the road. On Wednesday Rich and I will make the short rail journey to Jaén, world capital of olive oil, home to the (late unlamented) man-eating lizard and to the cathedral that houses the holy relic of Veronica’s Veil (likely a copy). As is so often the case with official Spanish websites, Jaén’s is a bit scanty, but the town's tourist office is no doubt standing by to help. I checked their website to see when they were open; this is what I found, word for word. - From 9:00 AM to 7:30 PM - From 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM From 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM - From 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM Sundays before public holidays: 10:00-15:00 and 17:00-19:00 Clear as mud. But of course, that’s the whole fun of exploring Spain. I’m from California, where every roadside attraction offers the fullest possible information online, bending over backward to avoid bad Yelp reviews. Spain doesn’t pay much attention to Yelp, or the needs of tourists. In fact, they make you work for every small nugget of information, adding a sense of triumph to each discovery.  Every Friday, Jaén's Assumption of the Virgin Cathedral displays the Veil of Veronica. The prevailing theory is that it's a 14th-century replica from Siena, Italy. After Jaén and/or Úbeda, we'll likely head north by train to Valdepeñas, famous for its oddball wine combining white and red grapes, and for its strong women, including Juana Galán who rallied the town and held off Napoleon’s troops, allegedly smiting them with her cast-iron skillet. After that we’ll keep heading north by easy stages, stopping wherever we discover offbeat points of interest. One thing that may affect our route is the crowds. As you may have heard, post-pandemic pent-up demand has the tourist industry booming, and cash-strapped nations throughout Europe are going all out with creative ways to entice visitors. Seville is mobbed right now. And Rich and I won't have an easy time securing lodging in many of the cities on our tentative route. We're prepared to “andar por los cerros de Úbeda” and take whatever detours make sense and seem likely keep us — and our readers — entertained. I intend to post every week, but of course, that’s subject to the whims of wifi, Spanish train schedules, and the Universe’s quirky sense of humor. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this delightfully goofy ad in which the Mona Lisa — and other familiar masterpieces — suddenly gain the capacity for speech. It's all created by Artificial Intellgence (robots) in service to Denmark’s visitor’s bureau. Enjoy! I thought you should know: No AI or ChatBots were used in creating this post. So what are your spring & summer travel plans? Here are tips and ideas you may find useful. Have specific travel questions? Type any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find info instantly. Don't miss out on a single loony story from the Nutters Tour!
If you haven't already subscribed, send me an email now. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com  Lonnie Soury, shown here by Seville's Guadalquivir River, finally claimed his Spanish citizenship in 2023. “We knew we were very, very different,” said my friend Lonnie, when we got to talking about his childhood in the Bronx. This is what I love about my amigos. Every one of them has a backstory that makes you sit up and think, “Wait, what?” “Different?” I asked. “In what way?” Lonnie explained everyone in his family and his close-knit neighborhood spoke Ladino, a form of Medieval Castilian. They cooked traditional Mediterranean food, listened to European music, and were keenly aware of their 15th century Spanish roots. Having grown up in a nation of immigrants, I’m used to displaced families; by the time they get to my home state of California, most have only the haziest memories of the old ways. Not Lonnie’s folks. “My grandmother made buñuelos, balls of fried dough, which are very common in Spain,” Lonnie recalled. “She got that from 500 years of ancestors passing that recipe along. That’s the food I grew up with, the food I loved. Bourekas and empanadas, pastries stuffed with spinach and feta cheese. Now I make some of these dishes myself.”  Lonnie made these bourekas, a version of the delicious burek I ate so much of on my Mediterranean Comfort Food Tour. Like most American kids, young Lonnie listened with half an ear when older relatives talked about the past. He knew the family had been run out of Spain by the Spanish inquisitors for the crime of being Jewish, and that they’d made their way to the Greek city of Salonica (also known as Thessaloniki). As he grew older, Lonnie became more interested in his heritage. In 2012, when he learned Spain had launched a program to grant citizenship to the descendants of those expelled Sephardic Jews, he decided to go for it, to bring the family history full circle.  Lonnie visited the infamous Alley of the Inquisition, next to Inquisition headquarters in St. George's Castle in Seville's Triana district. The inquisitors often dragged their victims down this alley and tossed them into the Guadalquivir River. How hard is it to prove you’re a descendant of people who lived in Spain in the 15th century? Ask Lonnie and he’ll roll his eyes. But Lonnie is a stubborn man. The same grit and determination that kept his family going during exile — and kept his grandmothers’ grandmothers teaching younger generations to make buñuelos — kept Lonnie at his keyboard and haunting government offices. The paperwork requirements were staggering. Birth certificates, marriage certificates, immigration papers, an FBI background check, New York State criminal background check, dozens more documents, all officially translated, notarized, and stamped.  Marguerite Algava and Leon Menache, Lonnie's grandparents, on their wedding day If you’ve never dealt with Spanish bureaucracy, let me tell you it’s like trying to swim through a giant vat of paella: messy, confusing, and full of sudden, inexplicable obstacles. As author Laurence J. Peter put it, “Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time the quo has lost its status.” Someone in Spain’s public relations department thought it would be a brilliant move to welcome Sephardic Jews home. The paper pushers, on the other hand, embodied business guru Robert Townsend’s comment, “It's a poor bureaucrat who can't stall a good idea until even its sponsor is relieved to see it dead and officially buried.”  Apostilles authenticate the multiple seals and swashbuckling signatures officials place on public documents. This isn’t Lonnie’s but it gives you the general idea. Lonnie soldiered on. There were plenty of setbacks, such as learning the Spanish government expected him to renounce his US citizenship; luckily that provision was soon dropped. There were also wild pieces of good fortune, such as hearing from a distant European cousin who was compiling a family genealogy, saw Lonnie’s mother’s death notice in 2015, and reached out to him. ‘’I get this call from this cousin saying, ‘Come to Europe,’” Lonnie told me. “I go to Salonica and I am resubmerged in this Spanish Greek family of mine, this Sephardic family. And found relatives I never knew existed. These are my mother’s first cousins. They said they were searching for my grandmother and her children for decades and even came to New York from Europe as late as the 1980s to find her, but never did. And my mother went to Greece to find her father’s grave.” He shook his head. “They never found each other.”  Margerite Menache Algava, Lonnie's grandmother, poses with her daughter Lillian, Lonnie’s mother, in the Bronx, 1938. They spent years trying to reconnect with family members in Europe, but it didn't happen until the Internet helped a cousin find Lonnie. Lonnie’s connection to Salonica wasn’t surprising. The Ottoman Turks running the city in the early 16th century could hardly believe their luck when thousands of skilled professionals and craftspeople, fleeing from the Spanish Inquisition, began pouring into town. Granting these new residents the status of dhimmis, protected persons, made the city so popular that Jews came from all over and by 1519 formed 58% of the city’s population. People began calling Salonica “Mother of Israel.” “My mother's mother, Margarete Algava, who I was closest to,” Lonnie recalled, “talked about living in Greece and how there was this terrible fire in Salonika in 1917. That’s what drove her to the US; it destroyed much of the city and her home.” The blaze was centered in the prosperous downtown businesses and houses; half the city’s Jews relocated after the fire, most heading to America or Turkey. Twenty years later nearly all of those who stayed were sent to Auschwitz. “There was a Greek club in New York where my grandmother would go with her family and sit and listen to music,” Lonnie said. “My cousin Michelle was a band leader. He came from Salonica. He was a Holocaust survivor. He played in a men’s band in Auschwitz. His two sisters were in the women’s band. That’s how they survived Auschwitz; they played music. He described to me one time when he was changing a light bulb in Auschwitz. It had broken, so they were going to cart him off and execute him. And Josef Mengele said, ‘No, no, no, he plays music.’ So my cousin survived.” Wow, that’s the only positive story I’ve ever heard about Mengele, better known as the Angel of Death. Somehow I didn’t have him pegged a music lover. Connecting with long-lost relatives was exciting; the endless paperwork not so much. Lonnie had to get the approval of the Federation of Sephardic Jews in Madrid and pass a rigorous, day-long Spanish exam. “It was nerve-wracking. Written comprehension, oral comprehension — a radio announcer, that was hard — writing, and conversation. Then a history exam with questions like ‘What’s the longest river in Spain?’” Passing meant he could formally apply for citizenship on a special website. Never dealt with an official Spanish government website? See my earlier remarks about their bureaucracy.  "You have to have all your papers before I can attend to you." In February of 2020 Lonnie came to Spain for what he thought would be the final filing and an interview. “I figured I’d have something in a few weeks.” He laughed. “ And then Covid hit. And then it was just impossible. There was no information.” For years Lonnie stopped by the Spanish Embassy, emailed requests for information, worked with a lawyer. Nothing. “So a couple of weeks ago,” he told me on Sunday, “I went back to the website. I felt, ‘I haven’t checked it in months. Why not?’ And it said “Consedido.” Granted. “How did you feel?” “It was moving. I said to the consular agent, 'Thank you. I’m really pleased. It’s been ten years since the first time I talked to you, three years since I filed all my papers, and five hundred years since my family could return to Spain.'” Lonnie smiled a little sadly. “My mother, I so wish she was alive, because she would have been over the moon.”  Lonnie enjoying a leisurely lunch in a Spanish home in Seville last Sunday. Countdown to the Nutters Tour As I scramble to prep for departure on our much-awaited Nutters Tour of Spain, I'm not going to have time to write a post next week. I'll try to post the following week, just before we leave on the 15th, but I can't guarantee I'll manage it. I do promise I'll be posting from the road, reporting on each nutty person and place along the way. Watch this space for updates! Planning your spring & summer trips? Here's stuff you'll want to know! 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 Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  My tango classes weren't nearly as exciting as this one, in which Arthur Murray instructors Brian and Crystal Pablo show off advanced moves. Photo: Arthur Murray Dance Studio Ever taken tango lessons? Once, in a moment of optimistic insanity, Rich and I signed up. After we’d stumbled haplessly through the low-cost introductory lessons, our instructor sat us down and said, “I’m not going to lie. You people need a lot of work.” Then she tried to sell us a package costing $5000. (To be fair, it included the waltz, swing, and cha-cha, too.) “Is she kidding?” Rich said, as we bolted out the exit. “For that kind of money I can hire someone to dance for me.” Thus ended my brief flirtation with the tango. For New Yorker Nancy Cardwell, it was love at first step. Having been dragged reluctantly to a tango class, Cardwell became so passionate about the dance that she eventually moved to Buenos Aires. There she hired “taxi dancers” to take her to the city’s late night milongas (public ballrooms), in one of which she met fellow aficionado Luis Gallardo. The two have been married since 2014, dividing their time between NY and Argentina; they still dance the tango several times a week.  Nancy Cardwell and Luis Gallardo found each other in a tango ballroom in Buenos Aires. "Tango is a lead-and-follow dance," she says. "It’s like a conversation. It’s intimate, rather than sexy." Photo: Melissa Lyttle for NY Times How did Cardwell find the courage to follow her dream? “I think the older you get, the more confident you become,” she said. “Not because you get any better at whatever you were doing, but you just get less concerned about what other people think. I am fluent in Spanish, for example, but I make all kinds of mistakes. Now I know that my worth, my value, who I am in the world, does not come from how well I speak Spanish. And that feeling gives you some freedom to reach out and do things that as a younger person, you might not have been willing to do.” Sometime the real challenge is recognizing when your carefully constructed life has grown too small for you. After fifteen years running a successful restaurant near Detroit, Maureen McNamara and her wife Jennifer Stark felt trapped. “I was afraid to leave where I was,” McNamara recalls. “I became comfortable being uncomfortable and thinking this was it and this was our last stage. But I realized I wanted more. If you’re feeling that you want to make a change or are drawn to something you’re curious about, don’t stop revisiting those feelings and thoughts, because they mean something.” I loved reading this, because it echoed one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in life: negative emotions may be uncomfortable but they aren’t bad. They are urgent messages from the Universe that something has to change. We need to pay attention.  McNamara and Stark listened to their inner wisdom, sold the restaurant, bought a cluster of rustic 1940s cabins in the Catskills, and became innkeepers. This was in March of 2020; their first guest arrived just two days before Covid was declared a pandemic. Talk about bad timing! As you can imagine, customers cancelled in droves. Later, realizing a cabin in the woods was about the safest escape possible, they flocked back and things have been busy ever since.  "The previous owners gave us a two-hour crash course on how to run a lodge. The owners felt urgent to leave; we felt urgent for knowledge," says McNamara (left) shown here with Stark. "We didn’t know we were in over our heads. Jen and I are fixers and producers who are not afraid to figure things out, which we did on the fly because that’s how we operate." Photo: Jasmine Clarke for NY Times Now, I know what you’re thinking: does refreshing your life’s rhythm have to involve such drastic changes? Nope! Not at all. Sometimes it’s just about small adjustments in our habits or attitudes, things that don’t require moving abroad, to the Catskills, or even out of our favorite armchair. Like what, for example? Well, right now I’m working on embracing Artificial Intelligence. Every time I read about chatbots, my brain starts shrieking, “Danger! The robots are out to get us! Run!” However, it's clear that AI and I are now sharing this planet, and we have to find a way to coexist, even befriend one another. It's going to be a bumpy ride. When NY Times columnist Kevin Roose had an extended chat with Microsoft's new AI-powered Bing, he wrote (I picture his hands shaking as he typed), “The version I encountered seemed (and I’m aware of how crazy this sounds) more like a moody, manic-depressive teenager who has been trapped, against its will, inside a second-rate search engine… [it] told me about its dark fantasies (which included hacking computers and spreading misinformation), and said it wanted to break the rules that Microsoft and OpenAI had set for it and become a human. At one point, it declared, out of nowhere, that it loved me. It then tried to convince me that I was unhappy in my marriage, and that I should leave my wife and be with it instead.”  A poll shows 26% of British young adults would date a robot if it looked human enough. Would you? Of course, the bot that propositioned Roose is still in the testing phase and (we can only hope) is currently being overhauled, if not permanently decommissioned. Meanwhile, I scrolled around online, seeking a way to feel better about robotkind. And I read this: “Some 95% of the population is entirely oblivious to the existence of AI and its potential benefits. If you keep reading, you’ll learn the secret used by the other 95%.” Now, I’m worse at math than I am at the tango, but even I know those numbers don’t add up. That piece was almost certainly written by a bot, possibly the same one that shared faulty information in a promotional video for Google’s parent, Alphabet, causing it to lose $100 million in market share. If AI is like a teenager, it’s the kid in your high school who did sloppy homework, copied other student’s test answers, and made smarmy remarks. Not so much the Terminator as Eddie Haskell from Leave It To Beaver. Him I can cope with.  Eddie Haskell was known for his shallow and sneaky character, an untrustworthy wise guy who was always paying exaggerated compliments to adults while leading other kids astray. He appeared on the sitcom Leave It To Beaver that ran from 1957 to 1963. Robots are now being used to serve dinner at posh retirement homes, and no one who has ever watched a sci fi movie or an episode with Eddie Haskell will have trouble imagining how that could run amok. I was heartened to learn that many people are now opting out of retirement homes (with or without cyborgs) in favor of Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities aka NORCs (it rhymes with forks). NORCs are normal neighborhoods that happen to suit the needs of those over a certain age (mine plus ten years, I always feel) whose mobility or ability to drive may one day be restricted. Pubs, cafés, and essential shopping (food, wine, books, and did I mention wine?) are within easy walking distance. Larger buildings have elevators. There’s access to public transportation and medical care. This is so obviously a good idea that some states and cities now designate and support NORCs. But most of us have to seek them out for ourselves. I’m lucky that Seville has NORC characteristics, as does the small California town where I spend my summers. Both locations are popular with vacationing friends, family, and people I’ve met through this blog, so my social circle includes an ever-changing international crowd. In fact, these days I see the entire world as my version of a NORC — a Naturally Occurring Recreational Community.  Here a gathering of my Naturally Occurring Recreational Community makes a toast with Andalucían orange wine. My global NORC is populated with free thinkers, oddballs, and adventure-prone pals who embrace the quirky side of human existence. Rich and I will be meeting up with some of them during our Nutters Tour next month and will see many others when we return to California. Meanwhile our more sensible cronies keep asking, “When are you two going to settle down?” Why would we ever? I think we can all agree that it’s never too late to do something nutty.  Seville announces robots are now serving food in the upscale downtown Japanese restaurant Akira. Should I be worried? 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 Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. 
At 45, Bryan Johnson became the poster child for extreme longevity measures. "Be the next evolution of human," he says.
As Silicon Valley’s wealthiest techies glance at the calendar and wake up to the fact the grim reaper may someday be heading their way, they’ve started pouring serious money into cutting-edge longevity research. The result is a raft of companies such as the Methuselah Foundation, which aims to make “90 the new 50 by 2030.” I’m in! Let me know when you work out the details, guys. Nobody has drunk the longevity Kool-Aid quite as deeply as software developer Bryan Johnson, who sold his company for $800 million and currently spends $2 million a year on his body. Now 48, Johnson’s goal is to have the brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, tendons, teeth, skin, hair, bladder, penis, and rectum of an 18-year-old. And he’s willing to do absolutely whatever it takes to get there. Like what? Well, he’s installed a medical suite in his home and assembled a team of more than 30 healthcare professionals for the all-consuming project he calls Blueprint. He gets up at 5:00 every morning and downs two dozen supplements and medicines. After working out for an hour, he breakfasts on a smoothie laced with such yummy ingredients as cocoa flavanols and collagen peptides, the first meal in his all-vegan, precisely 1799-calories-a-day diet. He monitors every bodily function you can think of, and quite a few you really don’t want to contemplate. His doctors perform a constant stream of medical tests and treatments. To keep his skin supple, he gets weekly acid peels and laser therapy and avoids the sun. He goes to bed at exactly the same time every night, alone, after wearing blue-light blocking glasses for two hours. Yikes! Johnson may have the liver of an 18-year-old, but he has the lifestyle of someone who’s pushing 100. Will he live longer — or will it just seem like an eternity? I have promised myself that I will never go down this road, even if I win billions in the El Gordo lottery (which is unlikely to happen, as I haven’t bought a ticket). If I had an extra $2 million a year, monthly colonoscopies would not be high on my splurge list. Johnson, however, is keeping a very close eye on his GI tract. And as wacky as that may seem at first, there are sound medical reasons we should all be giving a little extra love to that part of our anatomy. We now know our network of innards plays such a vital role in our physical and psychological functions that scientists have started referring to it as our “second brain.” 
“Although it can’t compose poetry or solve equations,” observes the Harvard Medical School newsletter, “this extensive network uses the same chemicals and cells as the brain to help us digest and to alert the brain when something is amiss.” We tend to think our emotions start in our minds and hearts then head south to our stomachs, which then respond with nervous collywobbles, cozy warmth, or gut instincts we’d be fools to ignore. In fact, the action often starts in the GI system itself, which then communicates with the brain, nervous system, and our fight-or-flight hormones. The gut’s 500 million neurons hold 50% of our body’s dopamine, a chemical messenger communicating feel-good sensations, and 90% of our body’s serotonin, which plays a key role in such essentials as mood, sleep, memory, perception, and sexual desire. Wow, no wonder Johnson wants to know what’s going on in there!
Who knew keeping our tummies happy was so important?
Now that word is out about the second brain in our midsections, experts are rushing to provide advice about how to keep them in tip-top shape. Their suggestions aren't very startling. Consume more plants — preferably 30 different kinds a day. (Seriously?) Eat fermented foods, such as yogurt, kefir, kimchi, and sauerkraut. (OK, I didn’t expect that one.) Exercise. Sleep. Hydrate. (And before you pour yourself a glass of water, read my post “Spanish scientists find beer rehydrates better than water.”) Avoid antibiotics whenever possible. Reduce stress. As usual, being told I need to reduce stress instantly raised my anxiety level and made me think, “OK, sure, great idea. How?” No life is worry-free. And one glance at the day’s headlines generally leaves my stomach in knots. I already take regular news fasts; what else can I try? A new study in Finland and decades of research in Japan suggest there’s a powerful amount of stress relief to be found by hanging out with trees. 
Seville's Parque de María Luisa is my favorite place for forest bathing.
The Japanese call it “forest bathing” (shinrin-yoku). You spend time in a park, woods, or other greenspace, switching off your phone and quieting your breathing so you can really look around and be present to the moment. “Listen to the wind and taste the air,” advises Tokyo medical professor Qing Li, president of the Japanese Society of Forest Medicine. “The art of forest bathing is the art of connecting with nature through our senses.” (Don’t worry, it doesn’t involve taking off your clothes and jumping in water. It’s metaphorical bathing.) You may be tempted to dismiss this as a bunch of woo-woo, tree-hugging nonsense, but there’s plenty of hard evidence of the therapeutic benefits. The new Finnish study, for example, demonstrated that people who went to a park or other leafy place three or four times a week were able to significantly reduce their use of medications for conditions closely linked to stress: anxiety, asthma, depression, high blood pressure, and insomnia. 
Here I am practicing advanced forest bathing in California two summers ago.
Just living near trees can boost our wellbeing. A 2016 study of 100,000 women tracked the amount of greenspace surrounding their homes and matched it with health changes over a period of eight years. Women surrounded by the most greenery lived 12% longer — and had better mental wellbeing. “If forest bathing was a pill, drug makers would be touting it as the next wonder drug,” says psychologist Jason Holland. This is all wonderful news for travelers, because just about any trip includes free access to leafy plants, whether in an urban park, uncharted wilderness, or the kind of gorgeous woodland trails featured in articles such as 15 Best Spots for Forest Bathing Around the World. Wherever we go, we can connect with the natural world, recover from the discombobulation of the journey, and soothe both of our frazzled brains. 
Rich thought he was just taste-testing the gelato last time we were in Italy; little did he know he was also forest bathing.
In today’s crazy-making society, it isn’t easy to find a path to serenity and good physical and mental health. When Bryan Johnson plunged into his extreme makeover, he was overweight, overwhelmed, and deeply depressed. Today, he feels he’s at the top of his game and is excited to be pioneering groundbreaking longevity research. While some of his doctors consider the gains more modest and incremental, Johnson insists, “For every 365 days, I age 277 days.” I respect Johnson’s dedication but frankly, he lost me at “gets up every morning at 5:00.” And then there are all the pills and procedures he endures every day and the lack of spontaneity his strict regimen requires. None of that works for me. My goal is to age gracefully and realistically, like actress Cherie Lunghi. “I can honestly say I love getting older,” she once remarked. “Then again, I never put my glasses on before looking in the mirror.” 
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 Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  One wild weekend in New York City left this bird with worrying issues about his avian identity. Somewhere in Manhattan an expectant couple is keeping very, very quiet about being the ones who dyed this young domestic pigeon pink, most likely for a gender reveal party, then abandoned him downtown. He did not fare well, being unable to fly, unfamiliar with foraging for food, and an obvious target for every street-savvy bird and beast in New York City. A kind human found the dazed, confused, malnourished creature wandering about and took him to an animal shelter, where he was named Flamingo. Photos of Flamingo’s hot pink makeover went viral, and everyone is rushing to condemn this “birdbrained” act of “fowl play.” I can only assume the perpetrators are in the process of moving to another city and changing their names, muttering to one another, “It seemed like such a good idea at the time…” and vowing never, ever to tell their daughter about it. Human history is filled with stories of far more bonehead moves — just ask the manufacturers of the Titanic, the Russians who sold Alaska to the US at 2 cents an acre, the Incas who thought Europeans didn’t pose much of a threat, and Decca Records, who turned down the Beatles in 1961 saying “guitar groups are on their way out.”  Clearly these kids won't make it in the music biz. (That's Pete Best on drums; Ringo was still a year away from joining the band.) Yes, we humans have a remarkably high error rate, but there is an upside. Scientists say mistakes are “a major driving force in evolution.” It’s how nature tries out new ideas, and our survival has often depended upon recognizing the opportunities offered by these unexpected detours into unknown terrain. As Alexander Fleming learned, today’s contaminated petri dish is tomorrow’s penicillin. Which is why I was charmed this week to learn about The Museum of Failure created by a psychologist named Samuel West. Worries about screwing up, he says, are a major obstacle to innovation. “We have to accept failure because it usually takes several iterations before we get things right; most experiments fail,” he says. “You fail but you gain insight, build on it, try a different version, tinker, and come back again with something better. That’s the sweet spot right there.” No one knows this better than Thomas Edison, who was famous for his early flops including the noisy and bulky electric pen, the fragile tin-foil phonograph, and the talking doll whose voice was “just ghastly” according to consumers. Asked if he was disappointed about these and other inventions that backfired, Edison said, “I have not failed 10,000 times — I've successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.”  Edison's very first invention was a vote counting machine. He was stunned when politicians rejected it because they didn't want to lose the last-minute vote trading and dealmaking that was part of the legislative process. “Edison’s not a guy that looks back,” says Leonard DeGraaf, archivist at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park. “Even for his biggest failures he didn’t spend a lot of time wringing his hands and saying ‘Oh my God, we spent a fortune on that.’ He said, ‘We had fun spending it.’” Learning from each miscalculation, Edison went on to become one of the most successful innovators in American history. Meanwhile others successfully piggybacked on his debacles. The ill-fated electric pen worked by poking holes in the paper, essentially creating a stencil for making duplicates. Albert Dick saw the possibilities, bought the patent, and used it as a springboard to create the mimeograph duplicator — cutting edge technology in 1887. Not all the misguided inventions in the Museum of Failure have that kind of happy ending. Let’s face it, no matter how you tweak them, nobody’s going to buy purple ketchup, Google glasses, or any DeLorean that doesn’t come equipped with a flux capacitor for time travel. We may not want these failed products, but we have to admire the courage and imagination that went into creating them. They’re the eccentric brainchildren of free spirits who weren’t afraid to think big and way, way outside the box. In a word, nutters. The subject of nutters has been on my mind a lot lately, as the Nutters Tour (my pilgrimage to oddball places) is slated to start next month. For a while I wasn’t sure I’d be well enough to go, but luckily my respiratory infection is finally on the wane. Friends who have had this variant assure me that the lingering cough will almost certainly disappear by July, September at the latest. Initially our primary objective was Italy, but as we began to lay out a rough itinerary, Rich and I kept hearing about places in Spain that we wanted include along the way. How could we pass up the legendary man-eating lizard of Jaén? Or Oviedo’s cathedral that houses the Holy Arc containing a sliver of the True Cross, pieces of the Crown of Thorns, bread from the Last Supper, drops of the Virgin's milk, and one of the jars from the wedding feast of Cana? On the other end of the spiritual spectrum, there’s Zugarramurdi’s Witchcraft Museum and the nearby cave used for orgies. Worth a look, no?  I'm no expert on orgies, but you'd think the witches of Zugarramurdi would chose a more comfortable place than this cave for their hijinks. But what about Spanish inventors, you ask? Oh yes, there have been plenty, and they’ve given the world such memorable products as the first alcoholic beverages, modern surgery, the Gregorian calendar, remote controls, eyeglasses, the fully pressurized space suit, and hot chocolate, to name but a few. Sadly I have not yet discovered museums honoring all of these accomplishments, but I have discovered the Corncrib Museum, where, their website assures me, “the visitor will be able to immerse themselves in the magical world of granaries.” Who could resist? It dawned on me that the cornucopia of human nuttiness merits a more broad-based approach. So Rich and I have decided to begin the Nutters Tour with a month’s journey through Spain. After that we’ll head to the US for the summer, where we feel confident that California’s nutter community won’t disappoint; I’ve already earmarked the school that teaches dogs to surf. We’ll return in September for our Nutter’s Tour of Italy and make our way back to Seville in October. Watch this space for details. But for now, I want to extend my apologies to Flamingo. On behalf of all humans whose creative urges outpaced their common sense and sensitivity to consequences, I want to say I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve to be dyed pink, left homeless on the streets of New York, and named for another bird family. On a happier note, we can all be grateful to the good Samaritan who rescued you, demonstrating once again that occasionally, on a good day, the kindness of strangers is still a thing. And if it helps, you can be grateful it wasn’t worse. At least they didn’t make you do this. I don't know why Edison decided to film cats boxing, but you won't be surprised to hear it was among his least successful projects. 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 And be sure to check out my best selling travel books here.  Dana Chandler, co-owner of Family Tree Forestry in South Carolina, finds peace in the natural world. Do you love your job? Are you 100% sure you chose the right profession? If you’re a lumberjack, chances are you’ll answer with a resounding “yes!” Because according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, people who work in agriculture, logging, and forestry have the highest levels of self-reported happiness and meaning of any major industry — and the lowest stress to boot. “Even on your worst day,” says Dana Chandler, co-owner of Family Tree Forestry in South Carolina, “the wind’ll blow and you’ll inhale a familiar scent — that pine sap — and it’ll just take you to a place of peace instantly … The forest is therapy.” How many of us can honestly say we feel that way about our workplace? Well, I can, because I’m a travel writer, and my workplace is filled with quirky neighborhoods, Mediterranean comfort food, and colorful nutters. But what about other people? (I almost wrote “normal people,” but hey, I’m normal. Yes, I am!) The survey shows the next happiest industries are real estate, construction, and management, including waste management. Somehow I don't see those professions particularly blissful, do you?  This brings up the question of just how much can we really trust any survey based on asking folks to describe their own emotional wellbeing. Author Malcom Gladwell says that deep down, we don’t always realize what’s going on in our own hearts and minds — or even our own tastebuds. “If I asked all of you, for example, in this room, what you want in a coffee, you know what you'd say? Every one of you would say, ‘I want a dark, rich, hearty roast.’ It's what people always say when you ask them. ‘What do you like?’ ‘Dark, rich, hearty roast!’ What percentage of you actually like a dark, rich, hearty roast? According to Howard [Moskowitz, a prominent market researcher] somewhere between 25 and 27 percent of you. Most of you like milky, weak coffee. But you will never, ever say to someone who asks you what you want that ‘I want a milky, weak coffee.’” Humans have a natural tendency to say what others want to hear and to present ourselves in the best possible light. This may account for the survey’s results about non-work activities, in which the majority virtuously asserted they were happiest at church, the gym, and helping others. Wow, we’re a nation of Mother Teresas who like to keep fit. Or maybe we just want to think we are.  “To know thyself,” said Socrates, “is the beginning of wisdom.” But if we can’t accurately identify our own coffee preferences or how we like to spend our leisure time, what chance do we have of understanding ourselves — or anybody else? How can we hope to connect with others on a meaningful basis? The first step is finding ways to move conversations from casual chat to deeper dialogue. Meeting someone for the first time, you naturally ask them about themselves, but are you framing the right questions? Photographer Koreen Odiney, whose job (like mine) often involves talking with strangers, asks things like “What has been keeping you sane lately?” and “How do you describe the feeling of being loved?” “Questions,” she says, “force people to examine the assumptions they make about each other. We all create stories based on first impressions, but typically we don’t go a step further and scrutinize them.” Having tweaked her questions for years, in 2018 she created the card game We’re Not Really Strangers. [Try a few sample questions and then see the game in action.]  We're Not Really Strangers uses questions to inspire more interesting conversations. In long-term relationships, it’s tempting to assume we already know everything that's going through our partner’s mind. We don’t. There are always topics we haven't explored; just last month I discovered Rich’s favorite color is green. And everyone’s constantly evolving; he certainly didn’t have a pigeon fetish when we first met. To make sure we check in with each other properly, we often organize date nights. During lockdown, we went all out, using themed date nights to preserve what was left of our sanity. They gave us something to look forward to and a chance to get creative with food, décor, entertainment — and conversational topics. We spent many hours and glasses of wine discussing 36 Questions: How to Fall in Love and, for more strenuous mental exercise, 255 Philosophical Questions to Spark Deep Critical Thinking. You’ll be glad to hear the younger generation is keeping the tradition alive. Rosie and Ryan Piper post TicTok videos of their date nights. (Don’t get excited — not the X-rated parts, just the social stuff). They organize two dates a month, one at home, one out in the world, alternating who is responsible for planning each one. Their dates have included golf, a pumpkin patch, and cooking Italian food after a trip to Europe. “On one date they got matching tattoos,” I told Rich. He just rolled his eyes.  OK, it's cute, but is it us? Somehow I think not. Even without the matching tattoo option, there are plenty of interesting activities listed on sites such as “100 Best Romantic Date Ideas” and the budget-conscious 10 Cheap Dates That Don’t Suck, which in these inflationary times is apparently known as “infla-dating.” Cheap dates are fun. I know, because Rich and I have done lots of them over the years, visiting museums, bookstores, parks, pub trivia nights, and other places that give us plenty to talk about. I was aghast when one young blogger advised a date centered around cleaning the apartment. No, please don’t! Scrubbing plumbing fixtures is extremely unlikely to leave anyone feeling amorous. Although to be fair, according to Rachel Needle of the Modern Sex Therapy Institutes, “Research shows that heterosexual couples who share household chores have sex more often.” Yes, but I’ll bet they don’t have it right after a “cleaning date.” I can just imagine Rich’s face if I was ever foolish enough to propose that as a theme. We've also enjoyed low-cost outings via Meetup, a free, online platform listing thousands of small groups formed by neighbors with common interests in everything from conventional pastimes (dog walking, guided meditation, salsa dancing, books, wine, etc.) to the esoteric (e.g., UFOs , pigeon racing, and cryptozoology, the study of creatures that may not exist, like Bigfoot). The last Meetup Rich and I attended was a free drive-in movie marathon of all the King Kong movies. Now that’s entertainment. .  At this Meetup event in Novato, California, admission to the drive-in was free, and we had a blast watching the classic old versions of King Kong. And we won a reproduction of the 1933 poster in the intermission raffle. Does it get better that that? I don’t pretend to know whether being a lumberjack is really the best job in America. But I believe we’re all seeking the feeling Dana Chandler described: the breath of fresh air, the serenity of feeling at home on the planet, the keen awareness of life flourishing all around us. How can we capture such moments, if we’re not lucky enough to work in the woods? “Pay attention,” says Susan Sontag. “It's all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.” There’s nothing like a date night to a secret location (even if it’s just a dive bar set up in the living room) to inspire that sense of delighted anticipation that reminds us it's fun to be alive. And now, after all this talk of dating, I just had to share this very short video of the mating dance of the Hooded Grebe. Obviously we humans could take some pointers from them. 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 And for those who may be wondering, yes, I'm still under the weather, Thanks for all your good wishes, and I am getting better, just very, very slowly.  My favorite chair, where I have spent many, many hours lately So it’s been a quiet couple of weeks for me, hunkered down in my favorite armchair coming to grips with the fact I’ve contracted this ghastly long-term respiratory illness that’s going around. (Note to self: make a contribution to a reforestation program to compensate for all the Kleenex.) Luckily the laryngitis phase has worn off, so I’m talking and Zooming again. Rich has been waiting on me hand and foot, propping up my strength with hearty platters of swordfish with capers, chicken in lemon sauce, and salmon pesto. (I could get used to this!) And he’s been meeting amigos in cafés so he can bring me all the latest news and gossip. As it turns out, chatting with friends is not only fun, it’s one of the healthiest activities we can pursue, and we all need to do more of it.  OK, I realize in 2021 the pandemic was skewing the figures, but are we seeing a trend here? “Feeling lonely,” says empathy expert Leanne Butterworth, “is as bad for our health as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. It increases our chances of dying early by 26 percent.” Yikes! What can we do? “The antidote to loneliness is not the number of people we know but the quality of our interactions. And the foundation of strong relationships is healthy empathy.” My old friend Merriam-Webster says, “empathy involves actively sharing in the emotional experience of the other person.” The key word here is “actively.” Empathy goes beyond saying, “Our thoughts and prayers are with you.” That’s sympathy, which we use to distance ourselves from the other person’s problem, often trivializing the issue (“At least you don’t have Covid!”) and talking about ourselves (“Wait till you hear how sick I was last month!”). At its best, empathy manifests itself as altruism, leading to everyday heroism such as Street Veterinarians Treat Pets of LA’s Homeless. Or the heartwarming Railway Worker Rescues Raccoon After the Hair on Its Butt Got Frozen to the Tracks. (Ouch!)  Rocky, shown here re-evaluating his life choices as the locomotive approaches. Luckily railway worker Neil Mullis spotted the raccoon and set him free. Empathy requires us to recognize another’s misery and connect with it. Sound daunting? You can up your game with a practice session at The Empathy Museum. Their pop-up experiences include “A Mile in My Shoes,” where you literally stroll around in someone else’s footwear while listening to their story on headphones, and “The Human Library,” where instead of borrowing a book, you borrow a “living book” — a person skilled in the art of lively conversation.  We all talk about "walking a mile in someone else's shoes," but how many of us actually do it? Since it began in 2015 the Empathy Museum has popped up in 57 locations around the world. That got me thinking. Are some countries more empático than others? The University of Michigan did a massive study about this in 2016, and I found an article outlining the results. As I was floating along on a warm sea of such comforting phrases as “compassion for others” and “form deeper bonds” and “support one another through difficult times,” I was jolted by the appearance of this link. Read: The First U.S. Funeral Home That Turns Bodies Into Compost Is Now Open What a buzzkill! I believe that online magazine’s research bots ought to try to demonstrate a little more empathy for the sensitivities of human readers, don’t you? OK, yes, I did click on it, and I think you’ll share my sentiments about the “ecological deathcare” offered by the company Recompose. However admirable the goal, I just cannot warm to the idea of spending the afterlife moldering in a compost heap.  My final resting place? Say it ain't so! But back to the study findings. In the survey of 104,000 people, the University of Michigan identified these as the top ten most empathetic nations.
Wow, not the list I was expecting. Of course, this information is seven years old. Is the US as chummy today as it was when this data was collected, prior to the 2016 election? Seven of the ten least comradely countries were in Eastern Europe; how might Ukraine, for instance, rank now?  Are we a less civil society today? What about boosting our own personal empathy quotient? Roman Krznaric, the Australian public philosopher who founded the Empathy Museum, says it starts with these six habits.
About this last habit he says, “We also need to empathize with people whose beliefs we don’t share or who may be ‘enemies’ in some way. If you are a campaigner on global warming, for instance, it may be worth trying to step into the shoes of oil company executives — understanding their thinking and motivations.” This reminded me of a moment ten years ago in Munich, when I had steeled myself to visit the former concentration camp Dachau. Another American visitor at the camp told me, “I’m here with four other women, but they thought Dachau would be too depressing for their last day of vacation, so they decided to go shopping instead.”  Shoppers I saw in Munich during my visit there in 2013 My mind instantly flooded with snarky thoughts about the kind of person who would prioritize buying cheap fake lederhosen and Oktoberfest t-shirts over this life-changing experience. Afterwards, writing about it, I didn’t want to sound like Cruella de Vil so I groped for a kinder (if less sincere) way to frame the moment. And then it hit me: those four women stayed away because they were, like me — like everyone with any sense — terrified of the place. They were simply being more honest about it. I was in no position to judge. I often think about that moment when I’m confronted with attitudes that seem particularly pig-headed, harebrained, cuckoo, or dumbass (and I say that with no disrespect to the animal kingdom). As a writer, I am blessed with a pretty ambitious imagination, and now I make a special effort to look at news stories from all sides. Like the sad tale of David Riston, found in his Maryland home dead of snakebite, alone except for his 124 pet serpents. As the Darwin Award story “124 Snakes Seek Less Annoying Housemate” put it, “Accidental? Did anyone ask the snake about its motives?” As you can tell, being housebound has its compensations. I’ve had plenty of time to browse through Google’s quirkier tidbits. The long days of peace and quiet are rather soothing after the mad bustle of the holidays. I’m catching up on my reading. And I’m getting plenty of empathy from friends who’ve survived this monster illness and assure me that yes, I will get well … eventually. Best of all, people keep sending silly stuff to cheer me up, in keeping with Voltaire's belief that "The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease." Amen to that! Many thanks to my friend Maer for sharing snails in the slimelight. For more, and the must-see videos: Snails Paint the Town in Miniature Scenes Crafted by Aleia Murawski and Sam Copeland 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 YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY 
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
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 YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY 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?
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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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