Empty Nest Expat

Protesters doing yoga in Gezi Park What a fascinating week in Turkey as my friends have risen up and demanded their Turkish democracy be...

Today brings the sad news that the Turkish police have found the body of American tourist Sarai Sierra , 33, from New York City. May she res...

The other day one of my American friends back home was grousing about a politician calling Christmas trees "holiday trees." Ther...

This week, I cast my ballot in the American election. I was proud to have not blown it off but to have figured out how to do it. Figuring it...

Istanbul cast of the 2012 English-language version of "The Vagina Monologues"  What a delight it was to gather one last ti...

Some of our fabulous cast for "The Vagina Monologues" Pictured left to right: Tara, Demet, Yasemin, me, Monique, Harika, and Kendr...

I was proud to moderate George Orwell's brilliant book "Animal Farm" at Global Minds Book Club  One of the Istanbul...

Friends having fun! That's how we spell it: Y-M-C-A How was anyone an expat before the Internet? That was when people really left home a...

Maiden's Tower on the Bosphorus I haven't blogged here for awhile.  It is not because I don't have a million things to say; I d...

Do you remember when Ronald Reagan first declared the totalitarian Soviet Union an "evil empire?" Many citizens in the Soviet Unio...

2010 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Liu Xiaobo (right)  and his wife Liu Xia (left) Last week about this time I was watching the live coverage o...

There are times in one's life when there is no possibility of travel.  When illness threatens, for example, or there are numerous small ...

Good morning from Sofia, Bulgaria! What a fantastic, comfortable, and easy bus trip that was. There was so much to look at.  It was the firs...

The Palladium Mall at Christmas time Inspired by artist David Hlynsky's photos of communist shop windows , I decided to share my consu...