The Bittersweet Life

As a follow-up to last week's Bittersweet Moment mini-episode KIDS, where Tiffany offers tips on traveling to Rome with little ones, this week, Katy and Tiffany reminisce about traveling in their youth. Were they "good" travelers? Were they interested in what they were seeing, or were they bored and sulking? At what age did they begin to appreciate what they were seeing? What is it that causes this shift? Is it merely maturity, or is something else at play?

Also: as kids, why do we remember what we remember from our travels? How can insignificant details stick in our heads, and major sites disappear from our memories?

They also wonder: are kids today—with their ever-present screens—worse than we were back in the day? Or are teenage travelers equally insufferable in any century?

Lastly, we recall our favorite travel games...and invite our listeners to send in theirs.

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SPONSOR THE SHOW: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

DONATE: Click here to send financial support to The Bittersweet Life 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 – Better yet, tag #thebittersweetlife with your 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.

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, Tiffany shares her tips on traveling to Rome with kids. She not only gives suggestions about what sites in Rome are most suited to kids, but more importantly, she shares tricks on how to get your little ones to enjoy the places you want to go.

Aurelio stops by too, and shares his favorite piazza and palazzo in Rome.

Places mentioned in the episode:

Explora Children's Museum

BioParco (zoo)

Museo delle Civiltà (prehistoric museum)

More on Papal Seals

Galleria Doria Pamphilj

Case Romane Ancient homes on the Caelian Hill

Villa Farnesina

Palazzo Braschi

Palazzo Altemps

VoiceMap (Tiffany's Trastevere Audio Tour)

Take a private tour with Tiffany

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SPONSOR THE SHOW: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

DONATE: Click here to send financial support to The Bittersweet Life 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 – Better yet, tag #thebittersweetlife with your 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.

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!

In a sequel to Episode 253 PERCEPTION, this week we are joined once again by visual intelligence expert Amy Herman. Katy and Amy take a walk through the streets of Manhattan, discussing how better to observe the world around them, and by doing so, make better decisions. Decisions that could save a life, or simply make their day better.

They discuss the way our attention has been taken over by our phones, which leads not only to rudeness, but also to missing important things that are happening around us. And Katy asks: How have we collectively decided that what's happening in the world isn't interesting? She also wonders: When you work so hard to heighten your visual senses, do the other senses get heightened too or does the visual sense take over the rest?

Amy details how, in a world where we're constantly bombarded with information, we can learn to distill out the information we need and want instead of trying to take it all in, or worse, missing it.

Join us for this fascinating conversation on the streets of New York, and learn how being aware will make you a better cop, nurse, firefighter, parent, student, tourist—person.

Amy Herman is the founder of The Art of Perception, and the author of Visual Intelligence. Find her on Twitter.

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SPONSOR THE SHOW: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

DONATE: Click here to send financial support to The Bittersweet Life 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 – Better yet, tag #thebittersweetlife with your 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.

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 Monday's episode, we discussed the tragic fire at Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral. (If you haven't listened to that episode yet, do that now!) At the end of the episode, we wonder what other buildings in the world, if any, could elicit the same universal heartbreak as Notre Dame? We asked and you answered. Listeners nominated buildings and monuments around the world that, were they to be lost, would leave a gaping hole in human history. Take an audio tour of the world's most priceless and irreplaceable monuments in this mid-week mini-episode.

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SPONSOR THE SHOW: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

DONATE: Click here to send financial support to The Bittersweet Life 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 – Better yet, tag #thebittersweetlife with your 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.

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, Katy and Tiffany discuss the tragedy of the Notre Dame fire. How do you move on after all but losing such an integral monument to human history? We muse on our own reactions to the disaster, and how it took us back to the trauma of tragedies such as 9/11. And that raises another question: can the loss of a building like Notre Dame be compared to the loss of a human life? We also ask: is there another building or monument in the world that has an equivalent weight, not just in its own city, but to people around the world?

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SPONSOR THE SHOW: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

DONATE: Click here to send financial support to The Bittersweet Life 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 – Better yet, tag #thebittersweetlife with your 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.

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!

In the aftermath of the devastating fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Tiffany is reminded of a similar fire that took place at Rome's Basilica San Paolo fuori le Mura in 1823. In telling the story of the San Paolo fire, she takes comfort in the fact that almost every building or monument of any significant age has been rebuilt, at least partially and sometimes extensively, over the centuries. Even Notre Dame herself was heavily restored after she was brutally ransacked during the French Revolution. Notre Dame will recover from this devastation, just as San Paolo did, just as she has done before. This fire does not signify the "end" of Notre Dame. It is simply another dramatic chapter in her long and fascinating story.

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SPONSOR THE SHOW: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

DONATE: Click here to send financial support to The Bittersweet Life 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 – Better yet, tag #thebittersweetlife with your 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.

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!

Amy Herman is an art expert who trains members of law enforcement, intelligence agents, counter-terrorist specialists, and healthcare professionals to enhance their observation skills by learning to look at works of art. Amy is the founder of The Art of Perception, and the author of Visual Intelligence.

In this episode, Amy and Katy visit the Whitney Museum in New York, and they discuss how observing art is a teachable skill, and why it holds the key to heightening our awareness in our day-to-day lives. Amy asks Katy to describe some of the works of art they are seeing, a fascinating study in why we notice what we notice.

This episode delves into perception, observation, and not just how we see, but how we communicate what we see. Also: how do our biases influence us, not only in terms of the art we chose to look at, but also what we observe and how we interpret what we observe? Don't miss this fascinating conversation, on location at the Whitney Museum!

Visit our social media sites to see some of the works of art described in the episode: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.

Find Amy Herman on Twitter.

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SPONSOR THE SHOW: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

DONATE: Click here to send financial support to The Bittersweet Life 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 – Better yet, tag #thebittersweetlife with your 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.

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 interviews Matt Harding—you know, that crazy American guy who danced with people all over the world and taped himself doing it? His videos dancing alone and with locals, in front of some of the most recognizable monuments in the world and in some of the most remote places in the world, have garnered over 40 million views since he started back in 2008.

In this mid-week mini-interview, Matt explains how he came to discover that everyone in the world is, essentially, the same, and how dancing is one of the most universal and unifying human impulses. He also describes how he managed to record himself dancing with locals in North Korea at Kim Jung Il's very last birthday celebration in 2011.

Find Matt Harding at his website, Where the Heck is Matt?, or connect with him on Facebook or Twitter.

Watch the original 2008 video that started it all (look for Katy in the Seattle crowd!) or the 2012 video.

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SPONSOR THE SHOW: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

DONATE: Click here to send financial support to The Bittersweet Life 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 – Better yet, tag #thebittersweetlife with your 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.

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!

What do Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin (and so many other artists) have in common? They all reached the apex of their creative output while living outside their countries of birth.

An email from a listener, who also happens to be a member of indie band Trash Can Dream, inspired this week's episode. Emma Grace Stephenson is one of two Aussie expats who make up the band that is now based in New York City. Her email sparked a discussion on how travel, and specifically living abroad, can inspire art and creativity, and why we think that is.

We close the show with their song, Out on the Sea, that touches on this topic. Find the band here.

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SPONSOR THE SHOW: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

DONATE: Click here to send financial support to The Bittersweet Life 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 – Better yet, tag #thebittersweetlife with your 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.

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!

In this week's Bittersweet Moment mini-episode, we tackle a question from a listener: how do you learn a new language effectively?

Tiffany draws on her experiences studying and speaking Italian and French (and a smidgen of Spanish and German) to come up with five tips to help you master a new language. Listen in to find out what they are!

PS Aurelio has a few suggestions too.

To find an online language exchange partner anywhere in the world, check out Conversation Exchange.

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SPONSOR THE SHOW: Reach expats, future expats, and travelers all over the world. Send us an email to get the conversation started.

DONATE: Click here to send financial support to The Bittersweet Life 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 – Better yet, tag #thebittersweetlife with your 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.

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!