Apr 23, 2025

On this bonus episode, available exclusively to our Patreon supporters, Katy gives an update on her sister Dana's stage 4 agressive brain cancer.

This is just an excerpt, and if you want to hear more, become part of the Bittersweet Life community by supporting just on Patreon! For as little as $5 per month—less than...

Apr 21, 2025

Are romance languages sexist? On this episode, we discuss the puzzling and seemingly discriminatory aspects of languages like Italian and French.

For example:

Why do inanimate objects have a gender?

Why, in Italian, must you refer to a group of people as entirely male even if there is only one man and 99 women?

Why, in...

Apr 18, 2025

When you come back after several years to a city where you used to live, what do you notice? What has change? What has stayed the same? What have you forgotten about in your time away?

In this episode from our archives, Katy arrives in Rome after four years away, and immediately  notices something that—once ubiquitous...

Apr 16, 2025

Where did Lord Byron and Percy Shelley come to sip coffee while they jotted down their verses? Where did Bizet and Berlioz go to discuss their work? Where could Casanova be found trying to pick up girls?

Caffè Greco, where else?

Having opened in 1760, Antico Caffè Greco is the oldest café in Rome and the...

Apr 14, 2025

Need help falling asleep?

That's not usually our forte—at least we hope it isn't!—but this week the legendary sleep-podcaster Drew Ackerman, better known to his listeners as Dear Scooter, of the popular Sleep with Me podcast, has used not one but two of our past episodes as a script for his sleep-inducing...