Tag Archive: traveling

Zeus is just the beginning.

Today was a beautiful day for love at first sight, and then heartbreak. I took a local shuttle bus, a “dolmuş” in Turkish, to The Cave of Zeus, (one of three hereabouts) named… Continue reading →

I enjoy being abandoned on the side of a highway in a foreign land.

I woke up on the side of a warm highway, somewhere in Turkey. My bus was getting smaller in one direction, while from the other a tractor was approaching with more noise than… Continue reading →

Shock and awe

I’ve reached saturation point. I can’t take any more. I am in stunning-mosque shock, have had all the beautiful Istanbul views I can handle…and I feel like a toy with the battery taken… Continue reading →

Istanbul makes a man out of me

It was K who noticed the barber shop. “Did you want a haircut?” My head felt like a chia pet left untended somewhere with plenty of water and sunlight, and it was speeding… Continue reading →

“I” is for Impressive, I am for Istanbul.

I’m not sure when the last time was that a city struck me so quickly, so strongly, so impressively as Istanbul has done. We’ve only been here two days, but it is rapidly… Continue reading →

It’s all ending; it’s all beginning.

On the night I left for Nicaragua, a year and a week ago exactly, I took a moment on the drive to the airport to take my hands off the wheel (the road… Continue reading →

Walking in the world, Brussels, Belgium.

They spoke Dutch when I got on the train and French when I got off, though the ads were always English.   Brussels North Station is next to the Red Light District and… Continue reading →

Life is one big game of Super Mario Brothers

My brother-in-law pointed it out. We were talking about how to drive a hybrid car in the most efficient way possible, and noting that even though our efforts didn’t make much of a… Continue reading →

The country is freezing, and in unrelated news: if I stay too long I’ll have to eat the ones I love.

Spring is waiting for something this year. It’s the first time Belgium has had this much snow in mid-March since 1952, it’s the coldest March (23rd at least) since 1873, and the big… Continue reading →

Even being mauled by a wild animal was…familiar.

Back in Western Europe, the Low Countries, my second home. It felt good to be back, a little bizarre, and bizarrely familiar. Dutch felt like a familiar game, more familiar to me than… Continue reading →