At the beginning of my time in Italy last year, I kept a food diary because I wanted to remember every exquisite detail of what I was putting into my mouth.… Read More Keeping a record of your travels — and your meals
I just read that Skye Gyngell’s new restaurant opens today at Somerset House in London. Whenever I think of that beautiful building, I think back to a moment in December 2005 when I stood in front of it, watching the ice skaters whizz by on the temporary outdoor skating rink installed for the winter. Skye Gyngell, by the way,… Read More Petersham Nurseries Cafe and other fine dining memories
I’ve just started watching La Mappa Misteriosa on ABC iView. Each episode of the series is less than ten minutes and it’s compelling viewing — no mean feat for a program essentially designed for learners of Italian. It’s a clever interactive drama that mimics the experience of cultural immersion. The introductions are in English, and English punctuates each… Read More Exploring Italy with La Mappa Misteriosa
I don’t know when I first heard about WWOOF — Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. Although the movement is more than forty years old, I probably learnt about it around the time when we all seemed to become more interested in the true cost of agricultural industralisation. I started to meet people who were involved with organic farming and… Read More My diary of a week on an Italian farm
Warsaw was a bonus stopover, half a day on the way from Paris to Beirut. Aside from a couple of days in Prague last year, I’ve never really travelled in Eastern Europe…and now I find myself being more intrigued than ever. The whole region seems to be changing fast, with an educated and mobile young population who speak English.… Read More A fast impression of Warsaw
Last August I left home — marriage, family and friends, work — to follow my intellectual curiosity, open to where I might end up. Almost a year later, it’s hard to believe that I’m almost at the end of this grand journey. I departed Italy a week ago after graduating with my masters in bioethics and… Read More Meeting Slavoj Žižek and other Croatian adventures
“Stockholm is the greatest city in the world,” I declared on Facebook after a night of drunken revelry in Södermalm with my Norwegian friend, her German friend and her German friend’s Swedish boyfriend. We went bar hopping, drank a lot of beer, I lost my wallet in a drunken haze, and then found it again… Read More Stockholm is the greatest city in the world
The Travels of Elephant Woman 