The Bittersweet Life

Monday's Conversation Starters episode just didn't cover all the things we want to know about each other! In today's mini-episode we continue the question-and-answer drill to delve deep into what makes us us...and we get lost in several tangents along the way. --------------------------------------- ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email...

Whether you're looking for a great question to break the ice on a first date or just want to get to know your best friend, parent, or spouse even better, today we ask each other odd and unusual questions that cause us to reflect on our own lives, desires, and idiosyncrasies. In this episode, we prove that even after 30 years of friendship, there are still new things you can learn about a person......

When our listeners reach out to us to share how we've inspired them, delighted them, challenged them, or simply kept them company—well, it doesn't get much better than that for a podcaster. On this week's mini-episode, Katy shares some of our most heart-warming recent listener mail. And we always look forward to receiving more. Write us, or send us a voice memo, and maybe we'll turn the 'mail bag'...

A record number of Americans—42%—now hold passports (up from 27% in 2007) but much good it will do them. In the wake of this unprecedented pandemic, there are only a handful of countries in the entire world that are welcoming Americans with no quarantine requirement. As a result, most US residents have traded in their passports for camping gear this summer. On this episode, we chat about how trave...

Tiffany is 19 and desperate to meet up with her boyfriend in Italy in the final weeks of summer before heading back to university in the fall. She's worked all summer and saved enough for the flight. She's got the tickets and a place to stay... what could possibly go wrong? Five flights, a bus ride, two train rides, and a taxi later...  Suffice it to say, back then she was not yet the expert trave...

The uncertainty of the expat life is magnified by life during a devastating global pandemic. But how often to you get to hear from the same person, just before and then during a major catastrophe that touches virtually every person in the world? Today we're joined by Stephanie Fuccio, Italian-American long-term expat (mostly in Asia), and host and creator of the Geopats podcast network . Through t...

A lot of us are walking more these days, in some cases, around and around the same neighborhood. On today's mini-episode, Katy takes us outside to the blocks around her Seattle home, exploring and commenting on the tiny little creative things that are happening in her neighborhood. --------------------------------------- ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the wo...

Sometimes you just need to tune out the cacophony of terrifying news and the anxiety over an uncertain future, and play a silly game. Don't you agree? This week, Katy and Tiffany take a much-needed break from the craziness that is life in 2020 to play an old favorite: This or That? And in this case, it's a summer themed version! Find out Tiffany and Katy's preferences on all things summer, and see...

On a magical summer evening in Rome to celebrate her birthday, Tiffany has a sudden revelation. She shares it—and what Christian Dior's cologne Fahrenheit has to do with it—on this week's mini-episode. --------------------------------------- ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started. BECOME A PATRON: Pledge yo...

Is Rome back to normal? Is that "new normal" what we expected it to be? This week's topic was sparked by an article in Esquire Magazine, "Things Are Not As Expected": Inside Rome's New Normal . We dissect the writer's claim that the only people who go out are teenagers and that the city's police are taking advantage of new-found powers to constantly harass anyone who dares to go out. Maybe, in rea...

In response to a listener question, Katy talks about what she's doing during the pandemic and the ensuing lockdown to keep her spirits up and get through the day. On this intimate and personal mini-episode, Katy shares the books she's been reading, the podcasts she's listening to, and the writing projects she's working on. She even shares the opening of an essay she wrote the last time she was in...

What's the difference between having fun and having a happy life? This week's guest, award-winning journalist and author Diane Cardwell, tackles this and many other life questions when she joins us for our latest author interview. After ending her marriage and giving up her attempts to have a child, Cardwell realizes that the thing that was missing from her life was the last thing she would have e...

Tiffany finds herself just outside the walls of Vatican City on a summer morning and marvels at the dramatic change in the neighborhood. In an area that once fed almost exclusively off of tourist dollars, from cafes to restaurants, from souvenir shops to tour agencies, even now, the dearth of tourists is disconcerting—and it's not clear how the area's businesses will survive. The biggest shock for...

If you tuned in last week, you heard us commiserate about the awful and sometimes destructive teachers of our past. If that episode left a little blue (it did us!), then take heart because today we're talking all about the best teachers we ever had (and there are a lot more of them!) From teachers who made us believe in ourselves, to teachers who inspired us to consider a profession we'd never ima...

Today Katy looks at collections, and the people who keep them. What makes people collect things—or not? After asking our listeners to write in about their own personal collections, she realized that unprecedented time we are living through might be more conducive to letting things go rather than collecting them. Nevertheless, she talks about her collections, both permanent and fleeting, and we hea...

We all remember our favorite teachers, but what about the horrible ones? The ones who crushed our ambitions, treated us unfairly, or were just plain mean. Tiffany tells the story of her abusive voice teacher in grad school, an experience that may have changed the trajectory of her entire life, and Katy talks about the high school biology teacher who carelessly quashed a beloved career dream. (Don'...

Have you noticed the birds more during lockdown? If your lockdown is over, do you find you're more aware of them than you were before? On this mini-episode, Tiffany and Aurelio stop to watch (and listen to!) the birds, and Tiffany takes the opportunity to talk a little bit about one of her favorite places in Rome: Villa Doria Pamphilj, a massive public park that once belonged to a single family, a...

Has anything traumatic ever happened to you when you were traveling—a natural disaster, a personal tragedy, or maybe even a global pandemic—and as a result you never want to go back there? Today we hear from a listener who had an encounter with a traumatized young student as she was "evacuating" Italy back in March at the outbreak of Covid-19. And that got us thinking about how places can sometime...

Do podcasts put you to sleep? Well, there's one out there that aims to do just that, Drew Ackerman's Sleep With Me podcast. Sleep with Me tells "bedtime stories to help grown ups fall asleep in the deep, dark night," perfect for podcast-lovers who are also insomniacs. This week, Drew put his own sleepy spin on our recent episode, Virtual Tour of Rome . Make sure you check it out to hear our audio...

We all think we know if we're an introvert or an extrovert. But what does it really mean? On this episode, we dig into the true meaning of these pervasive personality types, and they might not mean exactly what you think they mean. We also explore how the Covid pandemic and its resulting quarantine might have changed your personality type, or at least brought out another aspect to it. And we ask o...

What's it like to visit the Colosseum in the time of corona? This iconic monument usually crams thousands of tourists in at a time, making the experience hot, sweaty, and often uninspiring (even if it is one of the most inspiring sights in the whole world.) Now that the Colosseum has reopened after months of quarantine, there are strict regulations on how many people can visit the site at the same...

What is the reality of living alone during this pandemic, when your entire town, state, or even country goes into a strict quarantine? What are the worst days like, and how do you stay healthy, safe, and sane when loneliness and the longing for human connection are prominent parts of every day? Today we talk with Nicole Hardy, a Seattle-based writer who has been living in complete isolation since...

Wondering what's going on in Seattle's police-free zone? The national media's reporting on the CHOP (Capital Hill Organized Protest) has, at times, been inaccurate. Today you can hear the truth from someone who's there every day. On this mini-episode, we are joined again by Seattle-based NPR reporter Casey Martin for the inside story. Casey has been on Seattle's Capitol Hill since the protests beg...

Whether you regularly contemplate your own mortality (like Katy), or give it very little thought (like Tiffany), we all have death on the mind more than usual during this time of pandemic. We may be worried about losing the older members of our families, overwhelmed by the staggering number of lives Covid-19 has already claimed, or are simply more aware that life is all too fleeting. Today we're j...

You've heard all about how Katy and Tiffany spent their quarantines (or are still spending them, in Katy's case), but what was quarantine like for a someone living alone in Rome's lively and quaint Trastevere neighborhood while working from home? On this mini-episode, Tiffany checks in with her friend Amy Knauff (who appeared on Episode 27: UNSURE , way back in Season One), about her experiences w...