The Dutch lady was barely paying attention to our conversation. “It’s Bitola, not Bitola” she said, putting the stress on the first syllable instead of the second. BEET-ola. Grateful for the correction, I… Continue reading
“Hello! You walk like an American” said the smiling stranger in Istanbul’s Sultanahmet Square. How was I walking? Having been to the city a few times, I knew where I was going but… Continue reading
We’d been like followers of some not very popular religions sect, gathering off-hours to worship in someone else’s oversized church. That’s how Thessaloniki’s train station felt during a rail strike, but a few… Continue reading
Farm bills and agricultural subsidies are always a big deal, from the US to the EU, and definitely in Switzerland. This baffled me a bit. Swiss agriculture? In a country that wealthy and… Continue reading
What do you do when terrorists want you to be afraid? To be closed off, fearful of strangers, and angry? To stay locked in your house, suspicious of others, scared of crowds and… Continue reading
The smell of fresh baked bread. Is there anything on earth so glorious as that smell on a Paris morning? It was Friday and the perfectly round fruit-topped tarts were glistening with sugar… Continue reading
That scrappy little car was dinged up, scratched, and nonspecifically battered into a character all its own before we ever picked it up at the Athens airport. But once I figured out where… Continue reading
Skopje has nothing to do with the Italian verb scopare, which technically means “to sweep,” but just as “to screw” has a bit more oomph than inserting a light bulb, scopare is that… Continue reading
I like to think I can find some version of beauty anywhere. No podunk too dunky to find a po little piece of purty in it. And with some time and a camera,… Continue reading
You can’t come to Skopje and not talk about the monuments. Everyone in the city has an opinion. And I mean that literally, an opinion. The same one. Not a single Macedonian I… Continue reading
