An ordinary day in the mysterious Caucasian land called Armenia (where I expatted for six years) — a day I toiled away at writing a romance novel. An ordinary day without a world crisis but featuring a dead body and a bit of dancing and drinking in the end.

As many of my readers around the world probably know, I grew up in the Netherlands. Happy as I was there, I had a travel bug and luckily ended up…

Cooking disasters, anyone? I was once faced by a culinary fiasco of mystifying proportions while living in an African village. Defeated by a pan of petrified green split peas, I was flummoxed and distraught, until enlightenment struck.

After years of living as an expat in the US, I still have trouble subduing my inner Dutch girl with her opinions and judgments and directness. So if you’re an American, you’ll want to stop reading, because here’s my list of 7 American things I don’t do . . .

The mystery of sex: How can you be grumpy on a Italian summer evening sitting on a moonlit terrace with a stunning view of the Bay of Naples? At the table next to us sits an American couple in their sixties with bad body language and no love hormones running rampant . . .