The Bittersweet Life

How do you know you're addicted to your phone? And more importantly, what can you do about it?

Tiffany recognizes the signs of a looming problem and asks Katy for some advice. This leads to a conversation about addiction in general. Be sure to stick around for Part 2 of this conversation when Katy opens up about struggling with a very different kind of addiction.

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BECOME A PATRON: Pledge your monthly support of The Bittersweet Life and receive awesome prizes in return for your generosity! Visit our Patreon site to find out more.

DONATE: Prefer a one-time donation? Click here to send financial support via PayPal. (You can also find a Donate button on the desktop version of our website.) The show needs your support to continue.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: If you have a question or a topic you want us to address, send us an email here. You can also connect to us through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Tag #thebittersweetlife with your expat story for a chance to be featured!

NEW TO THE SHOW? Don't be afraid to start with Episode 1: OUTSET

SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. Click here to find us on a variety of podcast apps.

WRITE A REVIEW: Leave us a rating and a written review on iTunes so more listeners can find us.

BOOK: Want to read Tiffany's book, Midnight in the Piazza? Learn more here or order on Amazon.

TOUR ROME: If you're traveling to Rome, don't miss the chance to tour the city with Tiffany as your guide!

Swiss cabin meets medieval hamlet meets art nouveau glass? As crazy as it sounds, this unlikely mash-up is not an abomination, but rather one of the most charming, yet little visited, museums in Rome.

Tucked away among the greenery of Villa Torlonia north of the city, la Casina delle Civette, or the Owl House, was built in 1840 for an Italian prince, and added to over the decades that followed.

It's most famous for its exceptional glass art, specifically the detailed works of flora and fauna by Art Nouveau master, Duilio Cambellotti. Take a aural tour of this one-of-a-kind place, and we bet you will want to visit in person.

Find more information on the Owl House here.

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ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

BECOME A PATRON: Pledge your monthly support of The Bittersweet Life and receive awesome prizes in return for your generosity! Visit our Patreon site to find out more.

DONATE: Prefer a one-time donation? Click here to send financial support via PayPal. (You can also find a Donate button on the desktop version of our website.) The show needs your support to continue.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: If you have a question or a topic you want us to address, send us an email here. You can also connect to us through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Tag #thebittersweetlife with your expat story for a chance to be featured!

NEW TO THE SHOW? Don't be afraid to start with Episode 1: OUTSET

SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. Click here to find us on a variety of podcast apps.

WRITE A REVIEW: Leave us a rating and a written review on iTunes so more listeners can find us.

BOOK: Want to read Tiffany's book, Midnight in the Piazza? Learn more here or order on Amazon.

TOUR ROME: If you're traveling to Rome, don't miss the chance to tour the city with Tiffany as your guide!

Is it important to be on time? What does it say about you if you are often late? What does it say about you if it really bothers you when others are late?

This week, we delve into the world of punctuality, and all of the expectations and resentments that can come with it (or the lack of it).

This idea was suggested by a listener via Instagram. We love when listeners send us suggestions! Send us yours—we might just do an episode on it! Email us here.

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ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

BECOME A PATRON: Pledge your monthly support of The Bittersweet Life and receive awesome prizes in return for your generosity! Visit our Patreon site to find out more.

DONATE: Prefer a one-time donation? Click here to send financial support via PayPal. (You can also find a Donate button on the desktop version of our website.) The show needs your support to continue.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: If you have a question or a topic you want us to address, send us an email here. You can also connect to us through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Tag #thebittersweetlife with your expat story for a chance to be featured!

NEW TO THE SHOW? Don't be afraid to start with Episode 1: OUTSET

SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. Click here to find us on a variety of podcast apps.

WRITE A REVIEW: Leave us a rating and a written review on iTunes so more listeners can find us.

BOOK: Want to read Tiffany's book, Midnight in the Piazza? Learn more here or order on Amazon.

TOUR ROME: If you're traveling to Rome, don't miss the chance to tour the city with Tiffany as your guide!

On this week's mini-episode, Katy captures the unique and festive sounds of a parade that is passing through her town. And she explains why she sometimes gets choked up when she attends a parade. She also wonders about the origins of the word "parade," and if it ever meant something different from the gleeful file of marching bands, floats, and military regiments that it has come to signify today. Lastly, Katy tells you where you can see both the longest and the shortest parades in the world.

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ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

BECOME A PATRON: Pledge your monthly support of The Bittersweet Life and receive awesome prizes in return for your generosity! Visit our Patreon site to find out more.

DONATE: Prefer a one-time donation? Click here to send financial support via PayPal. (You can also find a Donate button on the desktop version of our website.) The show needs your support to continue.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: If you have a question or a topic you want us to address, send us an email at [email protected]. You can also connect to us through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Tag #thebittersweetlife with your expat story for a chance to be featured!

NEW TO THE SHOW? Don't be afraid to start with Episode 1: OUTSET

SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. Click here to find us on a variety of podcast apps.

WRITE A REVIEW: Leave us a rating and a written review on iTunes so more listeners can find us.

BOOK: Want to read Tiffany's book, Midnight in the Piazza? Learn more here or order on Amazon.

TOUR ROME: If you're traveling to Rome, don't miss the chance to tour the city with Tiffany as your guide!

This week, TIffany fills Katy in on her recent trip to the States, the best parts of the adventure, and how Aurelio is turning out to be an awesome traveler. She also remarks on the things about American life and culture that never fail to surprise her every time she goes back.

Lastly, Tiffany reveals the surprising reaction she had upon flying back to Rome, as well as a thought she hasn't had in all her 15 years of expat life.

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ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

BECOME A PATRON: Pledge your monthly support of The Bittersweet Life and receive awesome prizes in return for your generosity! Visit our Patreon site to find out more.

DONATE: Prefer a one-time donation? Click here to send financial support via PayPal. (You can also find a Donate button on the desktop version of our website.) The show needs your support to continue.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: If you have a question or a topic you want us to address, send us an email at [email protected]. You can also connect to us through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Tag #thebittersweetlife with your expat story for a chance to be featured!

NEW TO THE SHOW? Don't be afraid to start with Episode 1: OUTSET

SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. Click here to find us on a variety of podcast apps.

WRITE A REVIEW: Leave us a rating and a written review on iTunes so more listeners can find us.

BOOK: Want to read Tiffany's book, Midnight in the Piazza? Learn more here or order on Amazon.

TOUR ROME: If you're traveling to Rome, don't miss the chance to tour the city with Tiffany as your guide!

Rome in August. It's hot, it's sticky and it's surprisingly empty. August is the month in which Romans desert the city en masse and head for the seashore or the mountains, searching for a welcome respite from the sizzling city heat. Many shopkeepers and restaurant owners take part in the exodus as well, so shuttered shop windows and the ubiquitous "chiuso per ferie" (closed the for holidays) signs are a common sight.

But if you're worried you'll have a terrible time during Roman August, never fear, Tiffany is here! After more Augusts in Rome than she'd like to admit, she's an expert on getting the most out of the city during this scorching month. Follow her suggestions and you might just decide August is the best time to visit Rome.

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ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

BECOME A PATRON: Pledge your monthly support of The Bittersweet Life and receive awesome prizes in return for your generosity! Visit our Patreon site to find out more.

DONATE: Prefer a one-time donation? Click here to send financial support via PayPal. (You can also find a Donate button on the desktop version of our website.) The show needs your support to continue.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: If you have a question or a topic you want us to address, send us an email at [email protected]. You can also connect to us through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Tag #thebittersweetlife with your expat story for a chance to be featured!

NEW TO THE SHOW? Don't be afraid to start with Episode 1: OUTSET

SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. Click here to find us on a variety of podcast apps.

WRITE A REVIEW: Leave us a rating and a written review on iTunes so more listeners can find us.

BOOK: Want to read Tiffany's book, Midnight in the Piazza? Learn more here or order on Amazon.

TOUR ROME: If you're traveling to Rome, don't miss the chance to tour the city with Tiffany as your guide!

This week, we explore the underground world with Robert MacFarlane of Cambridge University in England. Robert is the best-selling author of Landmarks and The Old Ways, and was awarded the EM Forster Prize for Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His latest book, UNDERLAND, is an "epic exploration of the Earth's underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself." The book also details the three major things that humans do with or in the underground world. You'll have to listen to the interview (or read the book!) to find out what they are.

Katy and Robert discuss fascinating yet obscure concepts like deep-time, and how instead of making our lives seem insignificant, this concept can inspire us to live every second more fully.

Robert also points out how important it is to keep cognizant of our ignorance, and never stop exploring and learning, and how spending so much time underground has taught him how much he loves the light and the living. Listen all the way to the end to find out the very scariest underground experience MacFarlane ever had.

**We will be giving away two copies of this book this month (open worldwide). Stay tuned for our #bookgiveaway post later this week.**

Find Robert MacFarlane on Twitter and Instagram. Purchase Underland here.

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ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

BECOME A PATRON: Pledge your monthly support of The Bittersweet Life and receive awesome prizes in return for your generosity! Visit our Patreon site to find out more.

DONATE: Prefer a one-time donation? Click here to send financial support via PayPal. (You can also find a Donate button on the desktop version of our website.) The show needs your support to continue.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: If you have a question or a topic you want us to address, send us an email at [email protected]. You can also connect to us through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Tag #thebittersweetlife with your expat story for a chance to be featured!

NEW TO THE SHOW? Don't be afraid to start with Episode 1: OUTSET

SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. Click here to find us on a variety of podcast apps.

WRITE A REVIEW: Leave us a rating and a written review on iTunes so more listeners can find us.

BOOK: Want to read Tiffany's book, Midnight in the Piazza? Learn more here or order on Amazon.

TOUR ROME: If you're traveling to Rome, don't miss the chance to tour the city with Tiffany as your guide!

On this week's Bittersweet Moment, Tiffany interviews an old friend, someone who has had an influence on her writing in a very concrete way.

The interview takes place in a gorgous house up in the trees on the cliff of Big Sur, but it was in Rome where Tiffany and India first met, and the place India was living ending up being one of the seeds that would lead to the idea for her first book, Midnight in the Piazza.

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ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

BECOME A PATRON: Pledge your monthly support of The Bittersweet Life and receive awesome prizes in return for your generosity! Visit our Patreon site to find out more.

DONATE: Prefer a one-time donation? Click here to send financial support via PayPal. (You can also find a Donate button on the desktop version of our website.) The show needs your support to continue.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: If you have a question or a topic you want us to address, send us an email at [email protected]. You can also connect to us through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Tag #thebittersweetlife with your expat story for a chance to be featured!

NEW TO THE SHOW? Don't be afraid to start with Episode 1: OUTSET

SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. Click here to find us on a variety of podcast apps.

WRITE A REVIEW: Leave us a rating and a written review on iTunes so more listeners can find us.

BOOK: Want to read Tiffany's book, Midnight in the Piazza? Learn more here or order on Amazon.

TOUR ROME: If you're traveling to Rome, don't miss the chance to tour the city with Tiffany as your guide!

Do you think traveling by rail is romantic? Or are we the only ones?

We're digging into our archives this week to bring you this episode that we recorded on a train between Rome and Orvieto way back in 2014, the very first year of this podcast!

Summer is a time of travel for many people, but if this week you happen to be stuck at home, come along with us as we discuss just why train travel is the best kind of travel (while the Umbrian countryside whooshes along outside the window).

If you are traveling yourself this week, why not record the sounds of your trip, whatever your mode of transportation, and send them to us? If we get enough, we'll weave them together and publish them on a future episode!

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ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

BECOME A PATRON: Pledge your monthly support of The Bittersweet Life and receive awesome prizes in return for your generosity! Visit our Patreon site to find out more.

DONATE: Prefer a one-time donation? Click here to send financial support via PayPal. (You can also find a Donate button on the desktop version of our website.) The show needs your support to continue.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: If you have a question or a topic you want us to address, send us an email at [email protected]. You can also connect to us through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Tag #thebittersweetlife with your expat story for a chance to be featured!

NEW TO THE SHOW? Don't be afraid to start with Episode 1: OUTSET

SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. Click here to find us on a variety of podcast apps.

WRITE A REVIEW: Leave us a rating and a written review on iTunes so more listeners can find us.

BOOK: Want to read Tiffany's book, Midnight in the Piazza? Learn more here or order on Amazon.

TOUR ROME: If you're traveling to Rome, don't miss the chance to tour the city with Tiffany as your guide!

On today's Bittersweet Moment, we check in with listener and friend Lynn Fortunato to hear her reaction to her session with a psychic medium.

If you haven't listened to last week's episodes, be sure to do that first!

Episode 266: Medium, Part 1

Episode 267: Medium, Part 2

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ADVERTISE WITH US: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

BECOME A PATRON: Pledge your monthly support of The Bittersweet Life and receive awesome prizes in return for your generosity! Visit our Patreon site to find out more.

DONATE: Prefer a one-time donation? Click here to send financial support via PayPal. (You can also find a Donate button on the desktop version of our website.) The show needs your support to continue.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: If you have a question or a topic you want us to address, send us an email at [email protected]. You can also connect to us through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Tag #thebittersweetlife with your expat story for a chance to be featured!

NEW TO THE SHOW? Don't be afraid to start with Episode 1: OUTSET

SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. Click here to find us on a variety of podcast apps.

WRITE A REVIEW: Leave us a rating and a written review on iTunes so more listeners can find us.

BOOK: Want to read Tiffany's book, Midnight in the Piazza? Learn more here or order on Amazon.

TOUR ROME: If you're traveling to Rome, don't miss the chance to tour the city with Tiffany as your guide!