A Country That Doesn’t Exist Tiraspol is the capital of Moldova’s breakaway state in Transnistria (the Romanian name, the official Russian name is “Pridnestrovia”). By “breakaway state”, I mean that Transnistria is a fully functioning country. It has its own currency (Pridnestrovian Ruble, not accepted anywhere outside of Transnistria), border with passport checks, and government. Everything except its own language […]
Together we’ve traveled to over 60 countries across five continents. Of all of them, Moldova is the most off the beaten track. Few Americans have heard of it, much less could place it on a map. Moldova first appeared on our radar a few years ago when we shifted focus from Western to Eastern Europe – drawn by Slavic cultures, […]
We emerged from the central train station into downtown Warsaw – skyscrapers overhead, bustling streets in every direction. What a better way to enter a city than via an airport! The five-hour journey by train from Berlin was remarkably pleasant too – I worked comfortably, ate a hot meal in the restaurant car, and watched the Polish countryside fly by. […]
Berlin is about as opposite of Cairo, our previous stop, as you can get. It’s orderly, clean, cold (snowy, in fact!) and quiet. Egypt, by contrast, has filthy streets, air so thick with smog you can taste it, and a soundscape that demands earplugs on even the smallest street lest your eardrums be ruptured by constant honking. Yet people there […]
The typical way a tourist experiences Cairo is via guided tours: visit the pyramids and the Grand Egyptian Museum, stroll through the Khan al-Khalili market with a guide at your side. This is how I first traveled there with my family nearly 20 years ago. And it was amazing! So much so, that a few years later, I returned for […]
We’ve added another (furry) member to the family. Here is Ellie’s story. Kittens! Rose actually rescued Ellie the day she was born. Her mom is a street cat, and had just had her litter in a field near our house. We had been feeding the Mom for a few weeks and knew she was quite pregnant. She was also severely […]