Living abroad

If you can’t understand what someone said, there’s one thing you can say in most countries and be understood. “Huh?” If you want to be universally understood around the world when traveling, there’s almost no phrase or even gesture that works across all cultures. A nod of the head is “no” in some places, a …

This Christmas and New Year’s Day I’m home with my immediate family, no traveling, just a normal holiday time. For us, “normal” this year is lighting a menorah one week and then putting up a Christmas tree the next. Then going to a restaurant overlooking Clearwater Beach for brunch on Christmas day. But compared to …

A few months back I met Benny Lewis, the man behind the Fluent in 3 Months blog. A year before I cited him in my Travel Writing book as someone running one of the 10 most popular independent one-person travel blogs on the web. His expertise is language learning, but of course foreign travel and …

I was writing about Mexico a lot while I was living there for a year, so I gave it a break for a bit. But I’ve been holding on to these photos ever since attending the Feria de Leon in the state of Guanajuato’s largest city – Leon. This is supposedly the second-biggest state fair …

I feel like I’ve been studying Spanish for a very long time. This year I finally got some real traction. You see, I started studying almost-worthless French in high school because I liked the way it sounded. I stuck with it after year one because I liked the people in my class. In nearly two …