The Bittersweet Life

After the catastrophe that was 2020, we go back and listen to the resolutions we made one year ago. Did we manage to accomplish ANY of them? You'll have to listen to find out.

We also make plans for …

It's finally the end of 2020!! We made it! But the close of what many are calling the worst year in living memory won't be rung in as many people would like to: carousing and celebrating in the stree…

Lots of out-of-work tour guides are now offering virtual tours of Rome (and, I imagine, cities all around the world), as a way to keep their businesses alive, keep their knowledge fresh, and help peo…

It's Christmas Eve and Tiffany interviews one little child who is looking forward to the big day. Enjoy this mini-burst of holiday cheer and Merry Christmas from your friends at The Bittersweet Life.

Just in time for last-minute Christmas shopping, the "world's librarian" Nancy Pearl, who is also a best-selling author herself, shares her favorite books for giving (or reading yourself) this holida…

Katy catches up with Matthew P. Woerner, the writer and director of Monday's audio play "After Midnight," who also happens to be a childhood friend. On this mini-episode, they discuss their mutual lo…

Get a cup of your favorite hot drink, find a cozy corner, and sit back and enjoy a totally different kind of show. Today we're  presenting a special radio play inspired by the Golden Age of radio dra…

In a time when leisure travel (especially international leisure travel) is all but non-existent, some brave and insistent travel-lovers are going anyway.

Today we chat with long-time listener and pas…

There are lots of new sights we are all quickly getting used to during this unprecedented time. People in masks, plexiglass partitions, ubiquitous hand sanitizer dispensers... but what about all the …

Winter can be long at the best of times. But during a pandemic with no end in sight, it can be brutal. Katy is joined briefly by author Jess Walter and the two try and come up with ways to get throug…

We all make goals—or, at least most of us do—but what happens when we decide to scratch a goal off the list without ever completing it? Whether because we're simply not interested in having a particu…

On this extra-short mini-episode, Katy and Tiffany express their thanks for things in their lives that they are unexpectedly treasuring this year. Sometimes it's the little things, sometimes it's the…

About five years ago, Clare Brown left a predictable life in the UK to move to Split, Croatia in search of writing, exploration, and adventure. A longtime listener of the show, she has been a regular…

Italy is in the midst of a wicked second wave of Covid. In fact, it makes spring's wave seem like a bump by comparison. Instead of instituting a national lockdown, as they did last spring, Italy's le…

Do you have a hard time falling asleep at night? Or perhaps, like Katy, you sleep fitfully, waking multiple times a night and having trouble falling back to sleep again. Or maybe, like Tiffany, you'r…

Katy and Tiffany send voice memos back and forth across the Atlantic as one of the most consequential presidential elections in American history is finally called for Joe Biden. For Katy, it's early …

Photographer and visual storyteller Cyndie Burkhardt was living in New York City feeling unsatisfied with her life. Rather than continue to struggle, she decided to leave. Her goal: to visit 12 count…

If you live abroad, sometimes you have to stay up all night in order to keep an eye on the fate of your home country. And then there are the rare occasions when you have to stay up all night even if …

It's the eve of the US presidential election, what the vast majority of Americans consider to be the most important election of their lifetimes. But what happens when you're an expat, living across t…

It's almost Halloween, and to assuage the fears of anyone who is afraid of rats (like Tiffany, see previous episode!) Katy shares a fascinating and little-known recording of rat laughter (yes, you re…