Here goes my first post by iPhone. I’m lying in bed and it’s too hot to sleep and I need something to take my mind off my skin. Last night, the first night here, I had trouble sleeping because my feet were itching. I got up at 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, and 4:00. But there’s little [...]

A couple months ago, I read this fascinating article about bullfighting in the NY Times. It really is as fair and balanced as I’ve seen any articles about the controversial Spanish tradition. I highly recommend reading it.
In that article, I learned of a bullfighter named José Tomás, who came out of retirement last [...]

What’s the deal with the iPhone in Spain? Well, I’ll tell you. Today is July 11, 2008, the international iPhone 3G launch date. And there are no iPhones in the stores in Spain. The local Telefonica outlet in my little town has no information whatsoever about the iPhone. Telefonica is [...]

My tax situation is very unique. It will be less rare in 40 years, but I’m probably one of the first full-time transatlantic telecommuters. I’m an American citizen working for an American company, which pays me in US dollars into an American bank…….but I live in Spain.
Logically, it makes sense to pay taxes [...]

This morning my wife and I are going to Dublin for two days. Santander–Dublin is one of the cheap routes provided by one of the leading “budget” airlines in Europe, Ryanair. Their web designer should be shot. What is it about selling things at a discount price that requires having a wacky [...]

I’ve been living in Spain for almost three years now, and I have seen variations on this story play out quite a few times. It amazes me every time.

My wife works in an anchovy processing plant. They do the entire process: freshly caught fish go in and cans come out. Last Friday, she came home very stressed.

Anyone who lives in Spain and has a television that they turned on this past Easter will have seen video of two celebrities kissing on a balcony under a McDonalds sign. I care zero about the Spanish celebrity gossip scene that overruns the broadcast networks day and night. I do my best to [...]

Europe, and the rest of the non-US world that likes taking an hour of sleep from its citizens every spring, changed over to daylight savings time this weekend. They had a special report about it on the mid-day Saturday news. The reporter was interviewing a nerdy-looking fellow who was sitting at a huge [...]

During my investigations into poems, prayers, or dances that could be done to make this stop this seemingly eternal rain, I discovered the reason for all this watery misery. It turns out that everybody else in the world is sending their rain over here to get rid of it! That hardly seems fair. [...]