New Feature: Ask the Expat

I get a lot of email thanks to this blog, most of it asking me to share nuggets of wisdom about travel or life as an expat. I enjoy corresponding with readers, but I find that I often don’t have the time to respond thoroughly to all the inquiries I receive. There are also certain questions that I receive over and over again, so I’m starting to think it would make sense to post the answers here on the blog. Thus, I’m going to start answering questions in posts here, dear-abby-style. Because, you know, I’m so very much like Dear Abby.

If you’d like to submit a question, here are a few guidelines that will help me give you a better answer (and increase your likelihood of hearing from me):

• Check the archives first. You can use the search box at the top of the page to search this blog, or browse the category list on the left-hand sidebar. Perhaps I’ve already answered your question in a past post.

• Ask me something I’m likely to know about (or have an opinion about). OK, actually you can ask me anything you want, but you’re probably not going to get an answer if you ask me something I know nothing about. I’ve lived and worked in Italy (Milan and Bologna), Switzerland (Zurich), and Germany (Munich, Berlin, and Halle), and I’ve traveled extensively throughout these and other European countries. But I’m not an expert on much of anything – keep that in mind, too.

• Don’t ask me to do your research for you. If you can find the answer to your question using google, why are you asking me?

Have a question about European travel, expat life, or anything else that you’d like to ask me? You can submit questions by either 1) posting them in the comments section of this post or 2) emailing me. Either way, let me know what name you’d like me to use for you on the blog. I’ll answer questions in new posts, perhaps once a week or so. Maybe it will be a Friday thing. I reserve the right to edit, re-write, ignore, and/or ridicule all questions. Ask away!