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WARNING! DANGER! I read recently that babies cry and couples quarrel more often in bright yellow kitchens . Maybe that explains why, when we painted our bathroom bright yellow some years ago, Rich and I loathed the new look yet argued for days about whether we should repaint or try to live with it. Somehow…

NASA’s rocket scientists have finally caught on to something that Spanish grandmothers have been saying for centuries:  Siestas are good for you. “A recent NASA study showed that when pilots were allowed to take a nap for 26 minutes during their working hours, their efficiency increased by 34 per cent ,” the Telegraph reported last…

I’m often gobsmacked by the health advice I’m offered by Spanish health care professionals. High cholesterol? Consume more dark chocolate, red wine, and good Spanish ham. Taking cold medicine? No orange juice for you! Your prescription says avoid alcohol? Oh, go on, two or three beers won’t matter. Obviously, this kind of health advice is…

I have this vivid memory of a night in a Kenyan village, where Rich and I had gone with a friend from an NGO to sort out a project providing food for orphans. It had taken us days to get there, and all three of us were hot, tired, and a trifle preoccupied with our…

It wasn’t the Full Monty , but it was close. When Seville’s firefighters decided to perform el streaptease in last Friday’s protest at City Hall, they peeled off their uniforms, piece by piece, until, as the newspaper ABC put it, “the boys showed everything except the hose.” As a soundtrack, they chose the popular song…

Some of my European friends think it’s extraordinary that I am an American and yet, inexplicably, I don’t chew gum, carry a gun, or claim to have been abducted by aliens. Our images of other cultures are often very loosely tethered to reality. But during my ten years in Seville, I’ve also experienced strange and…

Croatian ATM (by Pudelek/Marcin Szala) “It all happened so fast,” said my friend Debbie at a recent dinner. “I’m standing at an ATM, this woman comes up and asks me a question, and then I glance down at the ground and my backpack is gone ! My passport, credit cards, tickets, cash, everything!” Driving home…

What, me worried? Few things can make my eyes glaze over faster than looking at other people’s vacation photos. I’ll never forget the Christmas when a friend gave her husband a video made from home movies of his graduation trip to Europe thirty years before. After a long, wine-soaked dinner, we settled into soft sofas…

Driverless cars: now being road tested near you “Driverless cars? Sure, I see them on the road all the time,” said my friend Susan, who lives and works in Silicon Valley. “They’re testing them on the freeway now.” “Are they safe ?” I asked incredulously. She looked at me strangely. “They’re safer than cars driven…

Civilized air travel has disappeared like the dodo. “You know what I hate about flying?” my friend D. once told me. “Knowing that the stranger sitting next to me paid half as much as I did for my ticket. Or a fifth. Or a tenth .” Pricing, and practically everything else about air travel, has…