The Bittersweet Life

The uncertainty of the expat life is magnified by life during a devastating global pandemic. But how often to you get to hear from the same person, just before and then during a major catastrophe tha…

A lot of us are walking more these days, in some cases, around and around the same neighborhood. On today's mini-episode, Katy takes us outside to the blocks around her Seattle home, exploring and co…

Sometimes you just need to tune out the cacophony of terrifying news and the anxiety over an uncertain future, and play a silly game. Don't you agree?

This week, Katy and Tiffany take a much-needed b…

On a magical summer evening in Rome to celebrate her birthday, Tiffany has a sudden revelation. She shares it—and what Christian Dior's cologne Fahrenheit has to do with it—on this week's mini-episod…

Is Rome back to normal? Is that "new normal" what we expected it to be?

This week's topic was sparked by an article in Esquire Magazine, "Things Are Not As Expected": Inside Rome's New Normal. We dis…

In response to a listener question, Katy talks about what she's doing during the pandemic and the ensuing lockdown to keep her spirits up and get through the day.

On this intimate and personal mini-e…

What's the difference between having fun and having a happy life? This week's guest, award-winning journalist and author Diane Cardwell, tackles this and many other life questions when she joins us f…

Tiffany finds herself just outside the walls of Vatican City on a summer morning and marvels at the dramatic change in the neighborhood.

In an area that once fed almost exclusively off of tourist dol…

If you tuned in last week, you heard us commiserate about the awful and sometimes destructive teachers of our past. If that episode left a little blue (it did us!), then take heart because today we'r…

Today Katy looks at collections, and the people who keep them. What makes people collect things—or not? After asking our listeners to write in about their own personal collections, she realized that …

We all remember our favorite teachers, but what about the horrible ones? The ones who crushed our ambitions, treated us unfairly, or were just plain mean.

Tiffany tells the story of her abusive voice…

Have you noticed the birds more during lockdown? If your lockdown is over, do you find you're more aware of them than you were before?

On this mini-episode, Tiffany and Aurelio stop to watch (and lis…

Has anything traumatic ever happened to you when you were traveling—a natural disaster, a personal tragedy, or maybe even a global pandemic—and as a result you never want to go back there?

Today we h…

Do podcasts put you to sleep? Well, there's one out there that aims to do just that, Drew Ackerman's Sleep With Me podcast. Sleep with Me tells "bedtime stories to help grown ups fall asleep in the d…

We all think we know if we're an introvert or an extrovert. But what does it really mean? On this episode, we dig into the true meaning of these pervasive personality types, and they might not mean e…

What's it like to visit the Colosseum in the time of corona? This iconic monument usually crams thousands of tourists in at a time, making the experience hot, sweaty, and often uninspiring (even if i…

What is the reality of living alone during this pandemic, when your entire town, state, or even country goes into a strict quarantine? What are the worst days like, and how do you stay healthy, safe,…

Wondering what's going on in Seattle's police-free zone? The national media's reporting on the CHOP (Capital Hill Organized Protest) has, at times, been inaccurate. Today you can hear the truth from …

Whether you regularly contemplate your own mortality (like Katy), or give it very little thought (like Tiffany), we all have death on the mind more than usual during this time of pandemic. We may be …

You've heard all about how Katy and Tiffany spent their quarantines (or are still spending them, in Katy's case), but what was quarantine like for a someone living alone in Rome's lively and quaint T…