My blog has migrated to a new host and is being painstakingly reconstructed here. Please bear with me as I iron out wrinkles, hammer out the dents, and apply enough spit and duct tape to hold it all together.— Karen
The times were pretty wild when I was at the University of California at Berkeley, especially for one friend who called himself after a popular cartoon character; I’ll refer to him here as “Roadrunner” (not his real nickname). By spring of our freshman year, the combination of the rigorous academic schedule, various romantic complications with…
I don’t know how you feel about books, but to me, the prospect of having nothing to read is right up there with being deprived of oxygen. So whenever I move, I immediately make a beeline for the public library. Sadly, Seville’s public library turned out to have a paltry supply of books, most of…
Leaving Ohio for southern Spain, Rich and I were delighted to give up our rural lifestyle and embrace the civilized pleasures of an ancient European city. What would our lives have been like if we’d chosen the country instead? Expat Victoria Twead and her husband, Joe, wanted mountain views, wildlife, big open spaces and the…
They call it Casa de la Ciencia, the House of Science, but it’s more like a House of Horrors. Rich and I were passing through Seville’s Maria Louisa Park on Saturday morning and noticed the open door. We knew the building, the spectacular Peruvian Pavilion from the 1929 Latin American Expo, but we never realized…
Thanks to the many, many blog and Facebook friends who voted on the cover layout! Although every entry had its supporters, by far the most popular was the version with the white lettering. Experts have told me that it will also be the most readable in small formats, such as Amazon listings. So it’s a…
Coming soon: my book Dancing in the Fountain: How to Enjoy Living Abroad . The title comes from the story about a blazing hot night when my husband and I were sitting on the edge of a big stone fountain. We began dabbling our feet in the cool water, and the next thing I knew, we…
A late entry! Looking for something else on the Internet, I stumbled across a picture of this fountain at a nearby Seville hotel. I ran down to take a look and this photo. I love the tile work, which is SO Spanish and would add a lot of color to the cover of my book.…
So I’m in this temple in Nepal, walking through a maze of crumbing shrines, throngs of worshippers, monkeys underfoot like kids at a church picnic and clusters of holy men. Many are ascetics who have renounced society to seek enlightenment through self-deprivation, such as wandering the world nearly naked, smeared with ashes and refraining from…
This interview just appeared on the popular expat website, Costa Women . As it’s a members-only site, I got special permission to reprint it here, so you’d all have the chance to see it. Introducing Karen McCann Did you find Spain, or did Spain find you? I kind of stumbled across Spain on my way…
Remind me again, does the ladies’ room sign start with a character that looks like cross stitching, or is it the character kind of like a stick figure with a window for a head? In a visit to Japan years ago, I found it so difficult to decipher the kanji signs that I usually just…
CELEBRATING GOOD NEIGHBORS These days I’m writing about Good Neighbors, exploring how the people around me are working to help each other get through these challenging times. My weekly posts appear on Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on my travel and research schedule.
THIS BLOG IS A PROMOTION-FREE ZONE. As my regular readers know, I never get free or discounted goods or services for mentioning anything on this blog (or anywhere else). I only write about things I find interesting and/or useful.
