“Fried egg sandwich work with you?”, he choked out.

“Yeah, that’s fine.” I replied, too hungry to care about his feelings, but filled with shame nonetheless.

“Brown bread or white?”

This was going to be a long meal.

The Appalachian Mountains run their course and meekly sink into the ocean as boulders at L’Anse aux Meadows, the town that sits at the northern tip of Newfoundland. It’s a small huddle of houses, no real main street, not much for businesses, and less than 50 people braced against the cold sea.… continued…

I’m on a flight to American Samoa to meet my birth family and, like any teenager, I am daydreaming.

Of exotic red flowers, blooming behind my ears; coconut milk, and pineapple-scented breezes; digging my toes into white sand under a bright sky full of stars; smooth-skinned brown boys, roughly my age; and a parade thrown in my honor, that weaves through the town, as natives rejoice at my homecoming. Amidst the celebration, a sailor kisses a dame and someone takes a picture.… continued…

Hiss. Chirrup.

I’m standing knee-deep in a thick carpet of heather on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere –  and my brain is trying to escape through my ears.

Rrrrribbit.

If you’ve ever been to a rock concert where you hit the interval and suddenly there’s nothing squeezing your head in a vice of amplified sound, prompting you to clutch your ears to stop them exploding – that’s how I feel right now.… continued…

Okay, I admit it. I hate beer. Always have and probably always will. So why did I go to Oktoberfest? Well, it’s just one of those things you HAVE to do if you’re in Germany (during Oktoberfest, obviously). It’s a requirement, or something. My husband and I had already lived in Germany for four years at this point. It was our final year before moving back to the States. Now or never.

My husband, his sister, and I were staying at the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort in Garmisch, which offered shuttle service to and from Oktoberfest.… continued…

A few years ago when I was in Perugia attending the Università per Stranieri, my host family invited me to go mushroom hunting. Nothing heralds the arrival of Fall in Italy more than a trip to the bosco (the woods) to gather chestnuts or mushrooms. That, and the sound of gunfire are leading indicators summer is over and hunting season has begun.

Before we left for the woods we looked at an Italian website dedicated to mushroom hunting that was kind of like YouTube for fungi where people posted photos of their mushrooms and notes on where they found them.… continued…