A Poor Man in Oslo – What to do in Oslo on a low budget
A wealthy, sterile, modern, and homogeneous society. These were some of the misconceptions I had about Oslo before spending three days there.
Europe
Basque Country
The next day I was on a bus five hours north to Bilbao, the largest city of Spain’s Basque Country—a region and people defined by their ancient language, Euskara. A city so proud, they’ve never fielded a non-Basque on their football club. They even refuse to keep corporate sponsorship on their jersey because they regard it as their national team.
A Stroll through Odessa
Odessa has a severely Victorian character about it; the lampposts, sidewalks and infrastructure are something out of 1812 Hyde Park. The train station and opera house are Crimean War-era. The parks are green and manicured. This place is fancy, European, cosmopolitan and cultivated.
Teaching English in Madrid
For ESL teachers in Europe, Madrid is an appealing city to base yourself for a year or more and there’s no denying it’s an exciting place to live. Add to this: fantastic weather, friendly locals (known as Madridleños), abundant cultural events, world-class art, and unparalleled nightlife.
Bordeaux, France
By Stephen Bugno Blog of a Modern Nomad The next day I rode the slow, winding topo train to the French border town, Hendaye, where I caught a short ride out to the on-ramp of the divided highway. After about 25 minutes standing with my thumb up, I was picked up by a guy heading …
The Country that Doesn’t Exist: Transdniestria
One of the oddest relics of the breakup of the Soviet Union is the Transdniester Moldovan Republic, known locally as Pridnistrovia. As part of the ethnic gerrymandering in the Soviet Union, Moscow added a Russian and Ukrainian populated slice of land on the eastern bank of the Dniester River to the original Moldovan Soviet Republic. This was part of a larger policy of diluting ethnic concentrations in all of the republics to weaken any indigenous nationalism.
Evora and Tomar, Portugal
On the morning of the 21st, I left the Atlantic for the interior of Alentejo. Leaving Sines and changing buses in Setubal, I arrived in Evora at about 2pm, and had a bit of a problem finding affordable accommodation. My main reason for visiting Evora was to see the Chapel of Bones, a church entirely …
Amsterdam
“Amsterdam is the greatest city in the world.” With such a recommendation we knew we couldn’t go wrong. We felt we had to break up the trip from Paris to Berlin by stopping in Amsterdam for a couple nights. Our drivers on the way up all had great things to say about the city, they …
Liverpool
Liverpool played a major part in the African slave trade, serving as one of the angles in the triangle. Tropical goods such as sugar, indigo, and cotton would arrive in Liverpool and much of its 18th century prosperity was a result of the slave trade. Liverpool has been designated a 2008 European capital of culture. …
Meeting in Sarajevo
We hitched into Sarajevo in separate groups after splitting up in Tirana. Nathan and I had enjoyed the oddest succession of rides and a night in a sixteenth century monastery in the mountains of Montenegro while Aby and Jamie had slept on a bloodstained floor in a dodgy apartment in Durres, the Albanian seaside resort. …