Should You Move to Germany?


It’s true that German’s are always “fahrt”-ing.

No English-speaker with a proper sense of humor can visit Deutschland without having a bit of a laugh.

It’s Year 2556 in Thailand


The used-bookstore owner asking her young assistant what year it was struck me as a joke. I’d handed over a slightly dated magazine, hoping to trade for a book. Surely this “what year is it?” business was just some kind of over-acted bargaining routine?  After all, we were already on our third month of 2014.

The next day a clerk issued my gym pass and shattered my suspicions of a tried-and-true negotiating scheme.

Massage Mastery & Other Thai Quirks


I dare you to find the 13th floor in any building in Thailand. Really. You’ll struggle. Superstition means the unlucky number even gets left out of hotel room sequences. 210, 211, 212, 214, 215…

Elevator bumrungrad international hospital bangkok thailand

Located just above the 12th floor is the… 14th floor.

In a similar vein, I witnessed a curious display after bargaining with a shirt-vendor in effort to update my wardrobe.

Caning isn’t Singapore’s Only Outrageous Practice


The wildly drunk men on my flight leaving Australia shocked me. Not because they were drunk. Because they were drunk on a plane.  Folks, in plane-paranoid America, this behavior simply does not fly. Literally. You won’t be allowed to fly if even suspected of being intoxicated, especially to a level of belligerent disregard for all other passengers. But here these men were, clad in matching sports-team jerseys, standing around the aisles, shouting, laughing, and tossing back drink after drink. (Yes they were! Standing! In the aisles!!)

Other Australian things in which Americans do not participate:

When Being “Paid Out” is Bad


Australians actually say “G’day, Mate.”   With a straight face.

But you already knew that.

Over the course of a year, the common use of “mate” went from falling harshly on my American ears to rolling easily off my very own tongue.   I also started saying:

Skylark is Not a Bird


The Australian industry I worked in has its own culture and terminology.

At the top of the shock heap is the seriously overdone safety rhetoric and compartmentalization of jobs.

Safety requirements can mean hours between the start of the work day and the commencement of actual work.   Yes, even to do something really tiny, like replace ten plastic cable ties or change a light bulb.