On our return trip to Budapest from Krakow, having driven through Eastern Slovakia, Erika and I decided to drive through the Western side. Our eventual destination, where we would stay the night, was the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava, located just a stone’s throw from the Austrian border. Our thought was to be close enough to…
Ubiquitous and endlessly useful.
Reason 1,233 Why I Love Morocco: Everything is possible with WhatsApp—doctor’s appointments, car repair, hotel reservations, fish mongers, taxi pick-ups, you name it. Of course, one must obtain the numbers first, but there’s always a friend of a friend of a friend whose brother knows just the man you need.
No visit to Transylvania is complete without a quick stop at Bran Castle, the reputed home of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, a member of the House of Drăculești, also known, using his patronymic, as (Vlad) Drăculea or (Vlad) Dracula and posthumously dubbed Vlad the Impaler. Regarding his nickname, Wikipedia has this to offer: As the…
Gibraltar is an odd place. It’s tiny and most of the space is taken up by a massive rock in the middle of the peninsula, namely the Rock of Gibraltar. “The name Gibraltar is the Spanish derivation of the Arabic name Jabal Ṭāriq (جبل طارق), meaning “Mountain of Tariq” (Wikipedia). It’s a British Overseas Territory,…
Glamour shot
Reason 595 Why I Love Morocco: New photographs for the carte de sejour come with a free glamour shot.
I am a lover of the odd and unusual, especially the absurd. Thankfully, politicians and regional pride create endless oddities as political bodies and their leaders draw arbitrary lines in the sand in order to separate ‘us’ from ‘them.’ These can be found throughout the globe, from the bizarre Finland/Sweden argument over a misplaced lighthouse and its…
Way out in the desert (seriously, it was a long, long walk), There are three desert sculptures, or art/home installations, built by German Artist, Hannsjörg Voth. From the town of Jorf, or sometimes El Jorf, it’s about a seven mile hike to the nearest piece. Then, it’s several miles between each of them. We thought we…
I have a force that drives me to see the extent of things, to examine them completely. Being in Morocco, part of this means I want to see every part of her, every nook and cranny, to understand what makes her tick. To that end, upon leaving Figuig, I ventured due north to the city…
