by Kristin Zibell
A newly divorced women transitions from one life to another in Varanasi, India.
Our boat dropped anchor in the middle of the Ganges, and a slight breeze brought relief from the October heat. Two men interrupted the live, languid sitar music by scurrying like beetles around our wide-hulled rowboat, setting out 40 leaf plates [...]

by Tracy O’Neil
“If I Hear One More ‘Ciao Bella’ I’m going to Scream” is a humorous story about my month abroad in Florence, Italy. I write about my encounters with the Italian men, and how they were nothing like I had thought they would be.
Walking down the Ponte Vecchio at night in Florenceone can [...]

by Catherine Jaffee
We open the hive and at least 100 bees hit my face like bullets. Around me, I hear sounds like hail pounding a rooftop. But it’s just the noise of bees attacking my suit. I look at Mehmet Bey, he is unfazed but knows that we need to end [...]

by Stephen Robert Morse
In late January, I arrived in Batumi, the Republic of Georgia’s major city on the Black Sea. Georgia’s pro-Western President, Mikheil Saakashvili, who was thrust into power in 2004 following the nation’s “Rose Revolution,” has made Batumi his pet project. He’s vowed to transform this 125,000-person resort town from a tourism-based economy [...]

by Kimberly Lovato
Preconceived notions and stereotypes melt like a summer ice cream cone.
“I’m lost. I’m late. I’m sorry,” I blurted into the phone, in French.
Silence.
“So, Monsieur Manouvrier, if it’s ok I would still like to meet you today.”
“You are an hour late. Do you think I have nothing better to do? You Americans [...]

by Carol Beddo
A Young woman encounters the courage of her convictions
Being called in to headquarters was not good, but I refused to be afraid. Back then, 1965, people said I had a lot of confidence. In what? I wonder. Myself? My choices?
I had been called in, but no one had told [...]

by Beebe Bahrami
Getting lost and finding oneself anywhere in the world
As a child born and raised in the Rocky Mountains in the USA, I recall my Iranian grandfather’s advice to me. “If you get lost, go downhill, and follow the stream.” I felt safe with these few words. All would be well, [...]

by Suzanne LaFetra
A woman ponders irreconcilable differences on the emerald isle.
“A hole is more honorable than a patch”.
-Irish proverb
Tooling through the bucolic countryside of Northern Ireland, it’s tough for an outsider to imagine “The Troubles” that have shaken this part of the Emerald Isle until recently. Copper beech trees splay their dark [...]

by Beebe Bahrami
She travels at the pace of her spirit in Spain, Iran, the Amazon, and France
The beautiful woman who ran the bar whisked past our table, plunking down just made croquetas, something like a tater, only of white fish, rolled in bread crumbs and deep fried to that perfect mouth-feel of crispy [...]

by Lucy McCauley
At a pond outside of Boston, everything changes in an instant.
“Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man.” Henry David Thoreau, Walden
We drove to Walden Pond that day to escape an unseasonably humid Monday afternoon in June. I knew that Fareed and Samir weren’t particularly [...]