"Travel is fatal to prejudice,
bigotry, & narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it solely on these
accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be
acquired by vegetating in one corner of the earth all one's lifetime." -- Mark Twain
A powerful method that teaches you how to speak real Latin American Spanish, called Learn Spanish Like Crazy (get 10 free video Spanish lessons just for signing up)
Turn your trip into cash and travel as often as you want. The Cash for Travelers ebook teaches you how to blog for profit, using your journal entries, travel photos and video clips. How to Arrive and Thrive in the UK: the only complete guide to immigration and success in the UK This is the single biggest source of helpful and useful information that you're going to find in your quest to move to the UK - guaranteed.
If you want to learn Japanese because of school, your love for the language and culture, animation films, video games, manga (Japanese comics), technology or international business, this program called Learn Japanese Right Now is for you. Written at first for his own personal use by an English-speaking computer programmer who learned Japanese the painful way, this is a picture-based Bullet Japanese flashcard system. Simple enough for an 8-year old, you'll master two alphabets and hundreds of words in days.
"As the first wave of baby boomers hits retirement age, life overseas beckons. But be warned: retiring abroad can have its logistical headaches." The Wall Street Journal article in The Miami Herald
Forget the reikin ouchie and finder's fees: first get past the "no pets, no foreigners, and no prostitutes" stipulation a Matthew Firestone post on Gadling.com
People who are fully bilingual and speak both languages every day for most of their lives can delay the onset of dementia by up to four years compared with those who only know one language, say Canadian scientists. Reuters
International Headlines
~ LINKS FOR KIDS ~
It's
hard to find a mix of fun, educational homeschooling
material in English when you live overseas. The internet becomes a
viable alternate source until your next trip home. Some excellent sites are:
The Literature Page: your place to read classic books, plays, stories, poems, essays, and speeches online. A wonderful site to go to when you've run out of English reading material! What's especially handy is the bookmark feature, which uses cookies (no registration required) to keep your page 'til your next visit.
Brush up on painting: Serault's Pointilism, Van Gogh's palette knife broadstroking - fun on-line creation and learning
Learning Spanish? Sign up for a daily email which contains an intermediate or beginning word with full translation and example; an advanced word with definition but no translation; an idiom or proverb along with synonyms; and a modismo or slang expression from a different country. Look what I learned! "Las cosas van de mal en peor." hmmmmm....
a safe and engaging educational environment where very early learners (ages 2-6) can play games, listen to and participate in interactive stories and sing songs.
Really BIG Numbers are easy to comprehend when you use a visual with the common penny.
Learn to Draw on-line: grab some paper and pencils, then follow along. If you enjoy this, you might want to click here too.If older children need to feel involved in proactive ways to help others, click-a-day sites, such as The Animal Rescue Site, can be simple introductions to the world of volunteering.
- Expat Emma Grenham started this information, resource and support site helping residents and visiting families to enjoy the city with kids. This kind of site is a fantastic find for expat parents with young children--wish I had had that when I was in Poland!
- Margaret Manning's site to empower and inspire single women, after the break-up, in reshaping their lives. Has City Guides for solos looking for gal friendly restaurants, hotels, shops and secret places.
- actually, this has nothing to do with expat life per se, but cat lovers everywhere will recognize this and feel all warm and fuzzy, and that's as good a reason to link as any.
How-to-bow.com is an entertaining and detailed video explanation of social intricacies in Japan, with historical reasons to back up the complex behaviors. Very interesting stuff here.
Istanbul anyone? Here's how to rent; phrases for the cleaning lady (and how much to pay her); directions to the local grocery store are given in the forum. Exposes the culture, the mysteries; even the Turkish bath.
"Heathrow's Terminal One has a small play structure with tunnel slides under a large aquarium - kids can climb and parents can attempt self-hypnosis through fish gazing..." ~
"Take a (deflated) beachball in the carry-on. The kids can play at the airport during an interminable lay-over; it won't hurt anyone or get lost and you can let the air out when your flight's (finally!) called." ~
Reader update: "Vancouver International Airport has an indoor playgound and a great adjoining parents' room with cribs, rocking chairs and dimmer lights, change tables and family washrooms." ~
"A tip from my ESL classroom: take along a pocket-sized comic book (Peanuts comes to mind!). Pre-readers can have fun making up stories; and older kids can try their hand at filling in the covered-up speech bubbles." ~
Lots of people who live abroad homeschool their children. Paul and Gena Suarez, publishers of the The Old Schoohouse Magazine, bring you this new e-book, Secrets of Successful Homeschooling to show you that, "Yes! You CAN homeschool!" Whether you are a new parent thinking ahead to your family's educational years, a homeschooler in the trenches, or a veteran who has "been there, done that", this e-book holds something for everyone.
Cambodia Now Life in the Wake of War Karen J. Coates
Bookmark Family Life Abroad today. New articles, helpful tips, links and headlines nearly every day!
Free Download I use this simple corkboard daily and highly recommend it - it's even proven to be a good homeschooling tool, as there is a selection of calendars and clocks to choose and talk about. My pre-reader is typing reminders to herself like "play today" (dictated to and written out by me first), so it's also providing letter and word recognition.
Trying To Love Lettuce