The clouds were heavy and low, a looming threat as I climbed off at the Zagreb bus station. The loitering crowds paid no attention to any new arrivals, faces disappearing into the taxis or threading out on the sidewalks. Bag over shoulder, I opted to chance the coming rain and walk the half hour to… Read More Reconstruction Site
Wallonia is essentially the French-speaking bottom half of Belgium, contrasted with Flanders, the Dutch-speaking north. In contrast to the Flemish, Walloons earn less on average and it shows in the towns that our Skoda wound through in the shallow valleys between rolling hills and forests. We were headed for Dinant, a small town nestled in… Read More At the Next Roundabout, Take the Second Exit
I’m a restless traveler. I don’t like sleeping in and the idea of a full beach day makes me deeply fidgety. Given the choice, I’d rather be out in a city, town, forest, mountain – somewhere – moving my feet. This used to manifest as constantly going from one place to the next, wanting to… Read More Leaning In
Like Rome, I had been to Berlin, our last stop, nearly two decades ago. Sandwiched between my self-important and overwrought teenage musings, my old journal notes that Berlin felt like the first dynamic place, a city not preserved but alive and changing, one that subverted my sheltered expectations of Europe. It has that same feeling… Read More Standing by the Wall
Zak Abroad 