Deepest winter, which we are currently very much in the midst of, puts a limit on the amount of Norway’s great outdoors the casual tourist can reasonably engage with. The days are short, the roads are snowy, and all the country’s most popular fjord-based attractions are coated in several inches of solid ice. We kind of knew this when we booked our tickets, but we weren’t very … Continue reading Norway in a Nutshell
I didn’t cry at O’Hare. This airport can drive people to tears at the best of times, so you’d forgive a girl for shedding one or two as she says a final farewell to the city she’s called home for the last 55 weeks. But, as the two main men in my life dropped me at departures, I somehow managed to maintain some sort of facial … Continue reading Banter in the Big Easy
If you just want to read about my recent trip to Gary, Indiana, please scroll down to Part 2. If you want to know about the origins of my pseudo-obsession with the city, please start with Part 1. If you do nothing else, please check out the galleries towards the end for some great scenes of general abandonment and dereliction. Part One: Genesis Everybody knows … Continue reading Indiana Dreaming
I remember watching Friends and other apartment-based American sitcoms as a youth and being slightly sceptical of the premise that there were all these apartment buildings in big cities filled with people that actually hung out with each other. I remember moving into my first landlord-rented apartment in 2010 and, in the two years I lived there, having a grand total of zero instances of communication with any of … Continue reading Tales from the Castle
We are in Maastricht and it is beautiful! So my fantastic parents decided to take the “any excuse for a holiday” approach to me moving abroad, so we basically just loaded up the car with all my junk, grabbed my sister and drove to Newcastle where we got on a ferry, had dinner, sat at the bar for a few hours, went to bed and woke … Continue reading Arrival in Maastricht
Leaving Erie was pretty sad. I’d had an awesome time with some awesome people that I knew I probably wouldn’t see for a couple of years at least. But no time to dwell on that, there’s travellin’ to be done! So. I’m sitting at the bus station in Erie, waiting to for my Megabus to Pittsburgh to arrive, and I notice a bunch of women in maroon … Continue reading The Amish and the Ex-Cons
the lost scot 