Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Blogging, Change, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Emotional Resilience, Expat Authors, Expat Life, Expat Transitions & Change, Family & Friends, Life Balance, Netherlands, Sandwich Generation, Travel, United States, Writing, tagged author, blog, blogging, book, building a new life, career change, editor, fiction, home base, Jane Dean, Jo Parfitt, layout design, leaving, Lemonberry, Lisa Hall, Netherlands, publication, Repatriation, Ruth Van Reken, Summertime Publishing, transitions, US, writing on June 18, 2013 | 22 Comments »
I’ve often wondered what I would say in a post like this. I’ve played it out in my mind before, I just never thought I’d be writing this now. You see, it’s time for that kind of post. Not the kind where you tell everyone you’re moving on to another expatriate experience, although there were a [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Change, Creativity, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Authors, Expat Life, Riveting Expat Reads, Third Culture Kids (TCKs), Expat Teens, Travel, Writing, tagged adult TCK, Antoni Gaudi, architect, ATCK, author, Barcelona, Catalan, Catalunya, crime, cultural values, desperation, economic downturn, England, From Barcelona: Stories Behind the City, frustration, Gaudi, Jeremy Holland, love, Native Spain, Netherlands, pickpockets, relationships, religion, Saudi Arabia, short stories, short story collection, social mores, Spain, Summertime Publishing, TCK, the Philippines, US, writer, writing on April 11, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
Time for another review of a book written by, about or for expats. Not only does Jeremy Holland’s From Barcelona: Stories Behind the City happen to be all three, it’s also a collection of short stories. To non-literary types, they sound surprisingly simple: just rattle off a quick tale about someone who did something (or had [...]
Posted in Albert Heijn, Change, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Netherlands, Travel, United States, Writing, tagged attention, chatting, conversation, despair, dinner, expat, expat life, family, family crises, focus, friends, friendship, grief, loneliness, marriage, medical problems, missed signals, neighborhood, neighbors, newly arrived, pain, promise of friendship, separation, Southeast Asia, The Hague, The Netherlands, time, travelling, trips, welcome on February 7, 2013 | 14 Comments »
I first met Tamara 14 months ago on the sidewalk in front of our neighbor’s house. It was a cold, late Sunday afternoon in December, the air heavy with moisture off the frigid North Sea. The weak sun had managed to emerge briefly from behind large swaths of gun metal gray clouds. Husband and I had just left the house to [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Change, Creativity, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Holidays, Travel, United States, tagged American football, away from home, bowl games, bowling, Christmas, Christmas Eve, circumstances, creativity, decorations, family, holiday season, holidays, innovation, ornaments, panache, stripped down version, togetherness, travel, US on December 31, 2012 | 8 Comments »
It’s been quite a holiday season this year, in oh so many ways. Nothing about it has been ‘normal’ or ‘same old, same old’ or even vaguely familiar. Given a whole range of circumstances, some of which will go unmentioned out of respect for others’ privacy and most well beyond our control, my family has found itself [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Change, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Expat Transitions & Change, Expats A to Z, Repatriation, Third Culture Kids (TCKs), Expat Teens, Travel, tagged aware, caring, change, considerate, cross-cultural, culture shock, cultures, definitions, expat, expat transitions, expatriate, Expats A to Z, fits us to a T, global living, heedful, helping others along the way, intercultural, kind, living abroad, meanings, meditative, nomadic life, reasoned, reflective, Repatriation, TCKs, Third Culture Kids, thoughtful, traveling on December 4, 2012 | 12 Comments »
Earlier this year I introduced Expats A to Z, a new series of posts about the little things that can make a difference in how we approach some of the challenges and experiences of expat life. I’m talking about those qualities and traits that we can nurture within us not only to simply survive but thrive [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Blogging, Change, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Authors, Expat Life, Expat Transitions & Change, Identity, Repatriation, Riveting Expat Reads, Sandwich Generation, Third Culture Kids (TCKs), Expat Teens, Travel, Work, Writing, tagged Apple Gidley, blogging, continents, culture shock, cultures, expat books, expat life, Expat Life: Slice by Slice, expatriate life, expatriation, global living, globalization, languages, living abroad, living cross-culturally, living overseas, memoir, post-colonization, Repatriation, Riveting Expat Reads, TCKs, technology, Third Culture Kids, transition, travel, writing on November 29, 2012 | 8 Comments »
Time again for another Riveting Expat Read in which I shine the spotlight on a new (or new to me) book in this varied and rapidly growing niche. There has been a slow but steadily expanding upsurge in books written by and for expats/global nomads/TCKs which examine life lived cross-culturally, and we are all the richer [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Blogging, Creativity, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Travel, Writing, tagged adventures, blogging, both sides of the coin, candor, connections, cultures, expat, expat blogs, expat life, expatriate life, experience, extrovert, friendship, honesty, In Search of a Life Less Ordinary, learning, London, perspective, positives and negatives, pros and cons, Queen Elizabeth, reality, relationships, Russell Ward, upside and downside, Westminster Abbey on November 23, 2012 | 33 Comments »
It happened again. A little more than a week ago I was over at a friend’s blog, reading a post that got me thinking. The good ones always do. They intrigue and inspire, prod and provoke, query and occasionally even quarrel. A sign of a good post? For me, it’s the ones that stay on [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Change, Creativity, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Emotional Resilience, Expat Authors, Expat Life, Expat Transitions & Change, Family & Friends, Forced to Fly (2nd ed.) Book, Identity, Repatriation, Riveting Expat Reads, Travel, Writing, tagged Adventures in Expat Land, Apple Gidley, Bitten by Spain, creativity, culture clash, culture shock, Deborah Fletcher, emotional resilience, empathy, Expat Apple, expat life, expat transitions, Forced to Fly, Forced to Fly: An Anthology of Writing That Will Make You See the Funny Side of Living Abroad, funny stories, going abroad, humor, I Was an Expat Wife, identity, innovation, Jack Scott, Jo Parfitt, laughter, Linda A Janssen, living abroad, living overseas, Maria Foley, Niamh Ni Bhroin, Perking the Pansies, Repatriation, Riveting Expat Reads, Robin Pascoe, Summertime Publishing, The Singing Warrior, travel, wordgeyser on October 5, 2012 | 10 Comments »
It is an exciting day here in Expat Land: we’re madly flapping our wings for take-off, determined to catch the wind currents, achieve flight and soar. ‘What’s with the flight metaphors?’ you ask. ‘They’re flying left and right.’ Heh heh. Today marks the book launch of the second edition of Forced to Fly: An Anthology of Writings That Will Make [...]
Posted in Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Dutch Life, Emotional Resilience, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Travel, Writing, tagged adultery, cancer, culture, death, Dutch elections, dying, embarrassment, emotional resilience, expat, friendship, global nomad, gratitude, headlines, humiliation, improprieties, infidelity, karmic bitch slap, living interculturally, pain, sadness, scandal, under investigation, vulnerability, workplace wrongdoing, writing on September 13, 2012 | 14 Comments »
I swear, I wasn’t going to write today. If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s how I started my last post, written two days ago. I’ve got several posts lined up in my mind, generally upbeat topics and interesting things I’d like to share with you, and I thought I’d get to one of them [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Blogging, Change, Creativity, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Food and Drink, Global Issues, Light Bulb Moments, Netherlands, Travel, United States, Work, tagged art, artistic, blogging, connectivity, creative spark, creativity, cultural, culture, design, dreaming, entrepreneur, entrepreneurial, Facebook, family, friends, Google it, Google+, imagination, innovation, innovative, inspiration, internet, internet connectivity, jewelrymaking, LinkedIn, music, Netherlands Radio Choir, painting, search engines, social media, social media venures, Twitter, Vizify, writing on September 6, 2012 | 10 Comments »
I must confess that it still astounds me how, in this day and age and in the comfort of my own home here in the Netherlands, internet connectivity and the various social media venues it has spawned allow me to maintain contact with friends and family and build associations with others. Like the old Bell [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Authors (Other), Blogging, Creativity, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Authors, Life Balance, Light Bulb Moments, Travel, Writing, tagged A Tight Wide-Open Space, Aegean Sea, author, blogging, books, creativity, culture, epic voyage, expat, Facebook, Heathen Pilgrim, HeathenPilgrim.com, Iran, journey, Kickstarter.com, Kusadasi, Matt Krause, Soapbox, travel, trek, turkey, Twitter, video, writer, writing, writing projects on September 1, 2012 | 5 Comments »
Today is September 1st and I’m sooo excited! Not because it’s the first day of September, although I must say that autumn is my favorite season and I’m very partial to this month. Just a few moments ago, Matt Krause – writer, traveler, former expat and Heathen Pilgrim – took his first steps on his long [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Authors (Other), Change, Creativity, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Travel, Writing, tagged BigThink.com, creative thinking, creativity, CreativityPost.com, crosscultural life, culture, culture and creativity, different cultures, expat, findings, foreign travel, immersion in a foreign culture, Indiana University, intern abroad, Jia et al., Lee, Linderholm, Maddux and Galinsky, Northwestern University, out-of-the-box thinking, problem-solving, research, research studies, Sam McNerney, solutions, study abroad, study abroad and creativity, Therriault, Tom Jacobs, travel abroad, travel overseas, University of Florida at Gainesville on August 29, 2012 | 10 Comments »
Lots of interesting news in the psychological research arena these days, particularly with regard to possible links between studying abroad and creativity. According to Sam McNerney’s article yesterday on BigThink.com on Why Traveling Abroad Makes Us More Creative (Part II) first up was a 2009 series by researchers at Northwestern University (Maddux and Galinsky) which found that [...]
Posted in Change, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Authors, Family & Friends, Life Balance, Light Bulb Moments, Sandwich Generation, Travel, United States, tagged aging, Alice in Wonderland, cancer, death, dementia, doctor, dying, elderly, family, hospital, illness, living, looking glass, mortality, rabbit hole, sandwich generation, surgery, US on August 21, 2012 | 34 Comments »
That’s exactly how I’ve been feeling lately. As with Alice in Wonderland, this summer I fell down the rabbit hole and ended up in a parallel universe. It’s still my life, or is it? It all began innocently enough, back in that London hotel room on Easter afternoon. I can still visualize myself resting on the [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Blogging, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Authors, Expat Life, Riveting Expat Reads, Third Culture Kids (TCKs), Expat Teens, Travel, Writing, tagged adult TCK, ATCK, blogging, Burma, Colombia, crosscultural, cultures, David C. Pollock, expat, Expat Alien, expatriate, Families in Global Transition, Ford Foundation, global nomad, Global Nomads International, intercultural, international organization, Kathleen Gamble, Mexico, multicultural, Norma McCaig, Russia, Ruth Van Reken, Switzerland, TCK, Third Culture Kid, Third Culture Kids:Growing Up Among Worlds, United States, writing on August 17, 2012 | 20 Comments »
Last week I was away spending some well deserved time alone with Husband, Son and Daughter. After the hectic and emotionally draining summer we’ve had, it was nice to enjoy the sun, surf and sand on Captiva Island in southern Florida. It was good for us to reconnect as a family, relaxing individually and collectively as one day [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Blogging, Change, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Sandwich Generation, Travel, United States, Writing, tagged Australia, Blog Expat, blogging, cancer, Chris Marshall, email, expat life, extended visit, Facebook, family, friends, Google+, I Was an Expat Wife, In Search of a Life Less Ordinary, internet, interview, LinkedIn, online, parents, Pause and Smile, Russell VJ Ward, sandwich generation, Skype, Spain, Telegraph, Telegraph Expat, terminal cancer, travel, Twitter, visiting back in the US, wordgeyser, writing on August 4, 2012 | 19 Comments »
By now many of you may have noticed that I haven’t been posting regularly. Or much at all, if the truth be told. I’ve effectively been under an enforced ‘internet interlude’, partially of my own making, but mainly due to connectivity issues. As I’ve shared in Bite of the Generational Sandwich, the main focus of [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Blogging, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Doing What I Can to Help, Global Issues, Guest Posts, Travel, United States, Writing, tagged Africa, blogging, Ethiopia, geography, gingerbread man, going 'home', guest post, kindergarteners, Kosovo, Ohio, paper cut out, photographs, postal system, postcards, Pristina, refugee children, refugees, Tracey Buckenmeyer, travel, UNHCR, United States, writing on July 14, 2012 | 7 Comments »
Recently, fellow Adventurers were introduced to Tracey Buckenmeyer in her initial guest post here, Tough Neighborhood. Tracey has made a career of helping refugees and displaced persons, working for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She’s worked in many different countries, and currently is posted to Ethiopia. She’s returned to tell us a little [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Change, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Expat Transitions & Change, Family & Friends, Life Balance, Light Bulb Moments, Sandwich Generation, Travel, United States, tagged adolescents, babies, cancer, career, children, college, doing the best you can, economy, employment, expat life, expats, family, friends, generational sandwich, illness, jobs, parents, sandwich generation, saying goodbye, teens, travel, university, vacations, visits on July 9, 2012 | 22 Comments »
Almost three months ago I wrote about the challenges inherent in being a member of the Sandwich Generation, Expat Style. You know what I mean: being squeezed between children (of whatever age) and parents and elderly family members. Both groups may need you, albeit in very different ways. It happens to many most of us, and we [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Albert Heijn, Change, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Expat Transitions & Change, Family & Friends, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, Travel, United States, tagged America, different, driving, Dutch, English, expat, familiar, family, going 'home', going back, off kilter, Repatriation, sensory overload, travel, United States, university visits, visiting family on June 30, 2012 | 16 Comments »
I’ve been back in the United States for a week now, and I’m still adjusting. Daughter and I are here for an extended period visiting family, beginning to check out universities, attending a pre-college program (her) while I hole myself up to work on some writing projects, and so on. Oh, and eventually spending some [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Blogging, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Third Culture Kids (TCKs), Expat Teens, Travel, tagged Alan Ruck, American expats, Bill Paxton, blogging, China, cinema, culture shock, Dan Hsia, Daniel Henney, Eliza Coupe, expat adventures, expat stories, expat story contest, expats, film, Geng Le, global nomads, independent film, indie film, international film festivals, living abroad, movie, relocation specialist, Shanghai, Shanghai Calling, studying abroad, TCKs, traveling abroad, West meets East, YouTube, Zhu Zhu on June 9, 2012 | 13 Comments »
Do you hear it? That siren song, mystically seeping into your conscious mind, drawing you closer with each lilting syllable. That’s Shanghai’s calling. Shanghai wants you. Yes, you. Actually, Shanghai Calling wants lots of us. They’re conducting an expat story contest, and the winner gets to travel to an upcoming international film festival. Recently I was [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Travel, tagged Arabic, culture, fish, Italian, Malta, Maltese, Maltese Falcon, Mediterranean, Order of the Knights of Saint John's, Phoenicians, pre-Stonehenge ruins, Sicilian, travel, wine, World War II on June 6, 2012 | 8 Comments »
The software on my website decided to be difficult, so I wasn’t able to add all the photos of Malta that I wanted to share. For the initial set, please check out Marvelous Malta. Here are the rest, enjoy. BTW, the sun’s come out here in The Hague so obviously the pictures have worked their [...]
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