I lived in Florida for 20+ years. The beach is wildly overrated. Unless you surf or dive (and FL sucks for surfing), there’s literally nothing to do except walk and sit on sand. Though I will say this: if you’re allowed to have a bonfire on the beach at night, it becomes infinitely more fun. But that’s pretty much banned in FL.

So yeah, I will opt for the forest almost every time.

There is no law that says women can’t wear bikinis in the forest.

‘Death in the City of Light’ by David King. It’s a true crime story about a serial killer in Nazi occupied Paris. Dude would trick Jews into thinking he was smuggling them out, then kill them. Truly diabolical.

I don’t know, but it just doesn’t roll off the tongue the way “cold turkey” does.

“Quitting cold turkey” - I never actually thought about this one, but apparently it’s directly related to addiction (which seems kind of obvious now that I do think about it). When you quit an addiction abruptly, you sometimes get that cold goosebump skin like a cold turkey.

The Wikipedia entry on that one is a fun read. I’ve heard most of these possible origins before, but nobody is actually sure of the true origin of the phrase. It’s kind of frustrating, but also pretty neat that we still use a phrase long after we forgot where it came from.

“Bless your heart” is such a sneaky Southern saying.

Interesting. I always thought it was because the rain was so heavy it drove all the strays to seek shelter, so people noticed a lot more cats and dogs in front of their homes. I think a grade school teacher told me that when I was a kid. I like the dead animal version better.

Albania.

Moving abroad (I’m American). It was something I’d been planning for a few years anyway, and I’m super glad I got the ball rolling when I did. I’ve lived abroad before and loved it, and plan to make it permanent this time, which is a little intimidating, but also exciting.