Foreign Cultures and Customs

The Far East is full of mysteries. I’m sure you’ve heard. For expats and travelers this can be fun, fascinating, frustrating, or infuriating as I discovered myself. For two years…

What do you want to see and do when you are abroad? St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow. No, I haven’t been there. Do you visit museums, famous buildings, cathedrals, mosques…

I trust you are familiar with the famous books by Peter Mayle about restoring a ruin of a house and living in the Provence, and the ones set in Tuscany…

For reasons only known to the gods of cyberspace, I came upon multiple posts last week dealing with expat nightmares and struggles concerning foreign toilets or facsimiles. Once caught in…

Happy New Year!   On New Year’s Eve in my native Holland (properly called The Netherlands) people go out into the streets — no matter what the weather — and…