A few days ago I had a long phone call with my mother, and told her about our plans to move overseas. She handled it better than I expected, and I give her a lot of credit. (She expressed far more unhappiness years ago when we told her we were moving from upstate New York, about five minutes away from her, to Florida.) Of course, that was 22 years ago, so she's certainly had a chance to adjust to our being far away. I explained, as calmly as I could, our reasons. The biggest one is that we …
At Home in a Spaceship
Expat TV Series/Movie Review: Firefly and Serenity I'm not a big TV watcher. In fact, I almost never watch TV. But once in a while a show comes along that really catches my fancy. My kids introduced me to Firefly, sadly after it had already been cancelled. (That's common with shows I like, I might add.) However, Firefly still has an extremely active fan base, enough so that they convinced Universal Studios to release the movie Serenity. I've just re-watched both the series and the movie on …
Top Quality of Living Cities for 2010
Every year, Mercer conducts a Quality of Living survey. Results for 2010 were announced a couple of days ago. Vienna, Austria, keeps its #1 spot for another year. Top 10 cities worldwide for quality of living are: Vienna, Austria Zurich, Switzerland Geneva, Switzerland Vancouver, Canada Auckland, New Zealand Dusseldorf, Germany Frankfurt, Germany Munich, Germany Bern, Switzerland Sydney, Australia The first US city on the list is Honolulu, at #31. Singapore, at #28, tops the list …
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It’s Official: US Health Care IS Driving Americans to Move Abroad
Last October I asked the question, "Is US health care driving Americans to move abroad?" You can read the original post here. I followed up the question and post with a poll. When the poll closed, 19% of respondents listed health care as the "most important" reason for their move and a whopping 69% rated is as "very important." Not a single respondent indicated health care was not a consideration. [ad#Google Adsense-1] The prestigious magazine for expats and would-be expats International …
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Totally Unprepared for the French
Guest Post by Catherine Perkins When I left the United States in February for a two month stay in France, I was very prepared. I had a bag loaded with French language resources (a dictionary, a phrase book, a traveler's guide), and some new cold-weather clothing. Living in Florida my entire life, I'd never had much need for a heavy coat before, but I purchased a lovely blue parka just before I left. I never once used the language books, and I ditched the parka my first week there (too …
The Sin of the Blogger
Well, I've done it. I've committed the unforgiveable blogging sin: I haven't kept up with my posting schedule. Normally I put up a new article every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. But the past couple of weeks, I've only done two, and not on schedule. My bad. I've gotten distracted by another project. Shame on me. I should be superwoman and do it all regardless, right? Well, er. . . no. [ad#Google Adsense-1] You see, the other project I'm in the midst of deals with health and wellness, and I …