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Book and Movie Reviews

The Best Resource You’ll Ever Find for Planning Your Overseas Retirement

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A Review of How to Retire Overseas by Kathleen Peddicord I’ve been following Kathleen for a few years now, and she definitely knows what’s what when it comes to living the expat life. She’s been in the business of helping people find new lives in new countries for 23 years, and has moved – with children! – from the US to Ireland to Paris and most recently, to Panama. [ad#Google Adsense Double] In How to Retire Overseas, she breaks the process of deciding on a retirement destination into …

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From New York to New York

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Kate & Leopold Starring Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman Leopold, Duke of Albany, is spending 1867 in New York City, sent there by his family in disgrace because he is 30 and not yet married. While watching a speech by the designer of the Brooklyn Bridge, Leopold sees someone behaving oddly in the crowd. Later that evening, at the ball where he has promised his uncle he would announce an engagement to some wealthy young lady to be determined, Leopold again sees the stranger. The man turns tail and …

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Almost French/I’ll Never Be French

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Last week my youngest daughter flew from Orlando, FL to Europe. She’ll be spending about 2-1/2 months in Lille, France to round out her gap year between high school and college. In honor of her French adventure, I decided to review a couple of books by expats in France. Almost French, subtitled Love and a New Life in Paris, was written by Sarah Turnbull. An Australian journalist, she met Frédéric while traveling in Eastern Europe, visited him in Paris, and ended up making a life with him. She …

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A Hundred Million Miracles

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A Review of the Movie Flower Drum Song "A hundred million miracles are happening every day." That’s the opening song in the movie, Flower Drum Song, and the theme that sparkles throughout the entire musical. Flower Drum Song is also the story of cultures on collision courses with each other – East vs. West, traditional vs. modern, elegance vs. tawdriness, classical music vs. rock ‘n roll – and the resolution of those cultural conflicts is the real miracle. Mei Li and her father arrive in San …

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Expat Experience Gone Bad: A Passage to India

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EM Forster’s classic novel of India under the British Raj examines the dark side of the expatriate experience. Although not absolutely necessary, it helps to understand a little of the history of England’s presence in India, because, central to the novel’s core, is the oppressor’s fascination with and repugnance of the oppressed – and vice versa. Cast of Characters Forster introduces his characters in order of importance, beginning with the Marabar Hills, 20 miles away from the city of …

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Two Big Fat Greek Movies

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My Life in Ruins, starring Nia Vardalos, looked like the perfect choice for an expat movie review: American-Greek classical scholar takes a job at Athens University, gets downsized, does a stint as a tour guide. Perfect! Well, not so much. Great idea, good cast which includes Richard Dreyfuss, one of my all-time favorite actors, but not so well executed. The writing is schmaltzy and heavy handed, the plot is predictable, and outside of a few gorgeous shots of Greek ruins, the movie pretty much …

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