Somewhere between Vox & Hunter S. Thompson
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City + Hood
In the previous article, I spent significant time gushing about how much I loved this city but I also talked a lot about the geopolitical isolation of this place. Most people even can't place Algeria on a map, and I want to change that.
But what if you decide you want to come here? What the hell are you going to do while you're here? What does "sightseeing" look like in Algiers?
That's what we'll be discussing today!
At a glance, much of Algiers is almost a mirror image of its former colonizer, France, which sits just across the Mediterranean. Visually, it is defined by Parisian-style buildings, almost all of which are colored white. However, in spite of its surreal visual similarities with France, it only takes about 10 seconds of walking the streets of Algiers to realize that it is a world all its own.
I’m going to tell you this up front: I LOVE this city.
In Boston, things move fast. The city is lively, dynamic, and ever-changing. However, there are some pieces of the Bostonian puzzle that are quintessential, and eternal. No matter what's going on around them, somehow, they never seem to change.
Today I'm going to single out a couple of those places: Bay Bay and Beacon Hill.
Matanzas is a small sea-side city that sits 56 miles (or 90 kilometers) east of Havana, on Cuba's northern coast. It's located in the Bay of Matanzas and is the capital of a province that is also called Matanzas, and it was definitely one of my favorite places in Cuba.
We arrived in Matanzas via camione, and then our adventure began...
Spoiler alert: this was one of my favorite places that we visited during our time in Cuba.
Landing in Havana was, in some ways, surreal for me. This city had been cloaked political taboo for so long that it occupied a mostly theoretical space in my mind. Seeing rural Cuba fly by as we made our landing in Jose Martí Airport removed this cloak quickly and unceremoniously. Despite all the build-up this trip had had, all I could think about was how surreal it was to finally be in this country.
“Cuba. Here it is. It’s real. And I’m in it.”
Ísafjörður [ees – ah – fyur – thur] is the capital of the Westfjords, which are a remote Icelandic province in the far northeastern reaches of the country. It translates to something like “Ice Fjord,” which is pretty fitting, and a shining example of Iceland's love for hyper-literal names. Today we’ll begin by talking about the Westfjords as a whole, but first, some clerical housekeeping…
Waking up in Dhaka I hear the ringing of bells on rickshaws, people yelling, and dogs barking. I am staying on the 9th floor of an office building that rises high over the slums on Dhaka’s southwestern outskirts. I look out the window, and I can see a rainstorm blowing in from the south. The Muslim call to prayer eerily wafts over the half-finished buildings all around me from the local mosques.
When I got to the ticketing counter for Tiger Air, I told the woman at the counter that I was traveling to Yangon. She looked skeptical. “You’re traveling to Yangon? Really?” she said, squinting.
“Uhh… yes?” I replied groggily.
I was required to go through security twice before I got on my flight (the second time at the gate) and when I finally did, the plane was only about 1/3rd full. It was not a smooth flight, so while I’m white-knuckling my seat, let me fill you in on Burma really quick.
