The Bare Expat
@thebareexpat.bsky.social
Richard Jennings · writer + photographer
Essays + images from a life remade on the Andalusian coast 🌅
Essays + images from a life remade on the Andalusian coast 🌅
"What Naturism Means to Me." The skipped-grade locker-room kid, the GLAAD lawyer in Armani, and the seventy-something on a Spanish beach are the same person learning the same lesson three times. On finding the life I had quietly been looking for.
Naturism Defined: Embracing Freedom and Nature
What does it mean to call yourself a naturist? A personal essay on body acceptance, GLAAD, expat life, and how a kid who didn't want a body ended up living on a beach in Spain.
bareexpat.com
May 19, 2026 at 6:18 PM
"What Naturism Means to Me." The skipped-grade locker-room kid, the GLAAD lawyer in Armani, and the seventy-something on a Spanish beach are the same person learning the same lesson three times. On finding the life I had quietly been looking for.
An expat in Spain… and as of this week, finally a licensed driver here.
3 attempts at the práctica, months off the road, I wrote up the whole saga + tips for other expats running the same gauntlet:
🔗 bareexpat.com/runnin... #Spain #expatlife #SpanishDriversLicense #drivingtest
3 attempts at the práctica, months off the road, I wrote up the whole saga + tips for other expats running the same gauntlet:
🔗 bareexpat.com/runnin... #Spain #expatlife #SpanishDriversLicense #drivingtest
May 16, 2026 at 10:09 AM
An expat in Spain… and as of this week, finally a licensed driver here.
3 attempts at the práctica, months off the road, I wrote up the whole saga + tips for other expats running the same gauntlet:
🔗 bareexpat.com/runnin... #Spain #expatlife #SpanishDriversLicense #drivingtest
3 attempts at the práctica, months off the road, I wrote up the whole saga + tips for other expats running the same gauntlet:
🔗 bareexpat.com/runnin... #Spain #expatlife #SpanishDriversLicense #drivingtest
New on The Bare Expat: an essay on the invisible manual of daily life — the one you only notice when you move to a country where you no longer have it. Grocery scales, small fridges, narrow roads, bank appointments, and learning Spain one tomato at a time.
bareexpat.com/i-didnt-know...
bareexpat.com/i-didnt-know...
Expat Life: The Journey of Uncertainty and Growth
Moving to Spain taught me that daily life comes with hidden instructions — and I didn’t know the back story to anything.
bareexpat.com
May 9, 2026 at 4:18 PM
New on The Bare Expat: an essay on the invisible manual of daily life — the one you only notice when you move to a country where you no longer have it. Grocery scales, small fridges, narrow roads, bank appointments, and learning Spain one tomato at a time.
bareexpat.com/i-didnt-know...
bareexpat.com/i-didnt-know...
Two world-class museums in a small marble town in Almería — and one painting called Inacabado (Unfinished) that stopped me cold the day before I turned 70.
New on Bare Expat:
New on Bare Expat:
Museo Casa Ibáñez & Centro Pérez Siquier, Olula del Río: Cultural Insights to Enjoy
On a Vera Photo Club outing to Olula del Río, two remarkable museums—Museo Casa Ibáñez and Centro Pérez Siquier—reframe art, marble, and turning 70.
bareexpat.com
May 7, 2026 at 11:41 AM
Two world-class museums in a small marble town in Almería — and one painting called Inacabado (Unfinished) that stopped me cold the day before I turned 70.
New on Bare Expat:
New on Bare Expat:
For me, becoming part of the resistance abroad includes going out of my way to never “buy American” unless and until there is a regime change, and urging others abroad to do likewise.
February 5, 2025 at 10:24 PM
For me, becoming part of the resistance abroad includes going out of my way to never “buy American” unless and until there is a regime change, and urging others abroad to do likewise.
Reposted by The Bare Expat
I hear this in reggae.
February 5, 2025 at 9:30 PM
I hear this in reggae.
. . . solution to a tyrant who can no longer be stopped practically by U.S. laws and the Constitution. I look forward to soon becoming part of the resistance abroad.
February 5, 2025 at 9:48 PM
. . . solution to a tyrant who can no longer be stopped practically by U.S. laws and the Constitution. I look forward to soon becoming part of the resistance abroad.
This will further weaken the country’s economy. That’s the only way the oligarchs and ignorant electorate who support him are going to be persuaded to stop empowering him. Tremendous destruction and untold harm will also have been inflicted callously and needlessly, but it’s the only solution . . .
February 5, 2025 at 9:46 PM
This will further weaken the country’s economy. That’s the only way the oligarchs and ignorant electorate who support him are going to be persuaded to stop empowering him. Tremendous destruction and untold harm will also have been inflicted callously and needlessly, but it’s the only solution . . .
Between such boycotts, the costliness of his tariffs and the elimination of much of the country’s labor supply through deportations, the U.S. economy is going to tank. The chaotic and unpredictable policies of the U.S. will also accelerate the dethroning of the dollar as the world currency.
February 5, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Between such boycotts, the costliness of his tariffs and the elimination of much of the country’s labor supply through deportations, the U.S. economy is going to tank. The chaotic and unpredictable policies of the U.S. will also accelerate the dethroning of the dollar as the world currency.
This is how I see things playing out over the coming months as the ignorant despot and his enabling party continue to act lawlessly both at home and abroad. His stupid, hurtful and offensive actions will lead the rest of the world to boycott and counter the U.S. in innumerable and significant ways.
February 5, 2025 at 9:44 PM
This is how I see things playing out over the coming months as the ignorant despot and his enabling party continue to act lawlessly both at home and abroad. His stupid, hurtful and offensive actions will lead the rest of the world to boycott and counter the U.S. in innumerable and significant ways.
Reposted by The Bare Expat
FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States
FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States
WASHINGTON—Putting the nation on alert against what it has described as a “highly credible terrorist threat,” the FBI announced today that it has uncovered a plot by members of al-Qaeda to sit back an...
theonion.com
February 5, 2025 at 6:31 PM
FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States
We have leapt into some weird fantasy world with the felonious autocrat’s bizarre announcement about the US taking over Gaza last night. The news is hard enough to process these days without involving alternate realities very different from our own. 🤯
February 5, 2025 at 3:28 PM
We have leapt into some weird fantasy world with the felonious autocrat’s bizarre announcement about the US taking over Gaza last night. The news is hard enough to process these days without involving alternate realities very different from our own. 🤯
Reposted by The Bare Expat
This is how autocrats throughout history have endangered the people they govern by erasing factual information vital to health and well being
www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...
www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...
CDC Data Are Disappearing
The agency has already removed scientific data from public view. More could follow.
www.theatlantic.com
February 1, 2025 at 1:15 AM
This is how autocrats throughout history have endangered the people they govern by erasing factual information vital to health and well being
www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...
www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...
Reposted by The Bare Expat
The USA has had two major plane crashes in the last 4 days.
The USA had previously not suffered a major plane crash for 16 years.
‘DEI’ programs have existed for decades.
So what was it that changed in the last 14 days or so to suddenly cause so many crashes?
The USA had previously not suffered a major plane crash for 16 years.
‘DEI’ programs have existed for decades.
So what was it that changed in the last 14 days or so to suddenly cause so many crashes?
February 1, 2025 at 5:21 PM
The USA has had two major plane crashes in the last 4 days.
The USA had previously not suffered a major plane crash for 16 years.
‘DEI’ programs have existed for decades.
So what was it that changed in the last 14 days or so to suddenly cause so many crashes?
The USA had previously not suffered a major plane crash for 16 years.
‘DEI’ programs have existed for decades.
So what was it that changed in the last 14 days or so to suddenly cause so many crashes?
Having absolute power sure doesn’t seem to have impeded Putin in anyway. Looks like the U.S. may soon find out whether someone who is absolutely corrupt already is impeded in any way by gaining absolute power.
February 1, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Having absolute power sure doesn’t seem to have impeded Putin in anyway. Looks like the U.S. may soon find out whether someone who is absolutely corrupt already is impeded in any way by gaining absolute power.
The old saying that absolute power corrupts absolutely was always somehow comforting, as though absolute corruption was a debilitating state awaiting megalomaniacs. But what if you’re already absolutely corrupt, to the core? Maybe then there’s nothing debilitating about gaining absolute power?
February 1, 2025 at 7:51 PM
The old saying that absolute power corrupts absolutely was always somehow comforting, as though absolute corruption was a debilitating state awaiting megalomaniacs. But what if you’re already absolutely corrupt, to the core? Maybe then there’s nothing debilitating about gaining absolute power?
I have to say the swiftness, massiveness and viciousness of Trump's destruction of the Justice Dept and FBI surprised even me and I knew he was going to wreak havoc there. I guess it helps not to care about doing it legally. Those agencies will soon just be retribution centers.
February 1, 2025 at 6:47 PM
I have to say the swiftness, massiveness and viciousness of Trump's destruction of the Justice Dept and FBI surprised even me and I knew he was going to wreak havoc there. I guess it helps not to care about doing it legally. Those agencies will soon just be retribution centers.
And for anyone who still believes elections are going to make a difference going forward, the evidence to date of the behavior of your new president and his cronies should make it clear that is a delusional hope. They have no plans to allow a future peaceful transfer of power.
January 24, 2025 at 8:45 PM
And for anyone who still believes elections are going to make a difference going forward, the evidence to date of the behavior of your new president and his cronies should make it clear that is a delusional hope. They have no plans to allow a future peaceful transfer of power.
For all the morons who voted for authoritarianism because they believed the con about bringing down egg prices, I don't know how you manage to tie your shoes and get through the day as you obviously have no basic intelligence or judgment. You have condemned the U.S. to science and fact free gov't.
January 24, 2025 at 8:45 PM
For all the morons who voted for authoritarianism because they believed the con about bringing down egg prices, I don't know how you manage to tie your shoes and get through the day as you obviously have no basic intelligence or judgment. You have condemned the U.S. to science and fact free gov't.
· An unconstitutional attempt to repeal birth right citizenship from the Constitution
· Removal of protection for former civil servants whose work on behalf of the country led them to be exposed to death threats
Oh, and egg prices are up nearly 40%.
· Removal of protection for former civil servants whose work on behalf of the country led them to be exposed to death threats
Oh, and egg prices are up nearly 40%.
January 24, 2025 at 8:44 PM
· An unconstitutional attempt to repeal birth right citizenship from the Constitution
· Removal of protection for former civil servants whose work on behalf of the country led them to be exposed to death threats
Oh, and egg prices are up nearly 40%.
· Removal of protection for former civil servants whose work on behalf of the country led them to be exposed to death threats
Oh, and egg prices are up nearly 40%.
· Orders barring the CDC, NIH and other federal agencies that issue science related reports and communications from doing so (even though the country is in the midst of a growing bird flu pandemic)
· Orders decreeing there are only 2 genders and nonrecognition of any trans identity
· Orders decreeing there are only 2 genders and nonrecognition of any trans identity
January 24, 2025 at 8:43 PM
· Orders barring the CDC, NIH and other federal agencies that issue science related reports and communications from doing so (even though the country is in the midst of a growing bird flu pandemic)
· Orders decreeing there are only 2 genders and nonrecognition of any trans identity
· Orders decreeing there are only 2 genders and nonrecognition of any trans identity
Among the orders to date:
Pardons for all the violent insurrectionists who attacked the Capital on Trump's behalf on Jan. 6
· A witch hunt against DEI initiatives and anyone who ever had a DEI related position on their resume
· Cancelling of longstanding federal Civil Rights policies and protection
Pardons for all the violent insurrectionists who attacked the Capital on Trump's behalf on Jan. 6
· A witch hunt against DEI initiatives and anyone who ever had a DEI related position on their resume
· Cancelling of longstanding federal Civil Rights policies and protection
January 24, 2025 at 8:42 PM
Among the orders to date:
Pardons for all the violent insurrectionists who attacked the Capital on Trump's behalf on Jan. 6
· A witch hunt against DEI initiatives and anyone who ever had a DEI related position on their resume
· Cancelling of longstanding federal Civil Rights policies and protection
Pardons for all the violent insurrectionists who attacked the Capital on Trump's behalf on Jan. 6
· A witch hunt against DEI initiatives and anyone who ever had a DEI related position on their resume
· Cancelling of longstanding federal Civil Rights policies and protection
Not quite a week into the implementation of Project 2025 and worse by the U.S.'s corrupt and psycho new president shows we have a would be authoritarian already trying to rule by fiat, through dozens of outrageous executive orders.
January 24, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Not quite a week into the implementation of Project 2025 and worse by the U.S.'s corrupt and psycho new president shows we have a would be authoritarian already trying to rule by fiat, through dozens of outrageous executive orders.
Reposted by The Bare Expat
Just absorbing the fact that the first order of business in the new QAnon-inflected MAGA Republican era is to demand that Congress bury its report on sex trafficking and drug allegations against a Republican member of Congress who they're trying to promote to higher office.
November 18, 2024 at 12:58 AM
Just absorbing the fact that the first order of business in the new QAnon-inflected MAGA Republican era is to demand that Congress bury its report on sex trafficking and drug allegations against a Republican member of Congress who they're trying to promote to higher office.