Disembarked in Art & History: Paris> Carthage> Rome> Athens> Troy

Disembarked in Art & History: Paris> Carthage> Rome> Athens> Troy

Life as a relentless art and history nerd gives you strange proclivities. You pour over the collected letters of obscure writers and artists; the lower echelons of your bookcases become heavy with thick volumes of memoirs from generals whose names most people have forgotten or never learned to begin with. You find yourself awake at…

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Disembarked in Tunisia: the Mediterranean of Mosques and Mosaics

Disembarked in Tunisia: the Mediterranean of Mosques and Mosaics

On December 17, 2010, a Tunisian street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in an act of desperate protest that not only changed Tunisia, but would spark revolutions across the Arab world. The day after his self-immolation, Tunisians outraged by corruption, poor living conditions, and a lack of free speech took to the…

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Disembarked in Italy: Traveling with the Fam through Rome, Naples, and Florence

Disembarked in Italy: Traveling with the Fam through Rome, Naples, and Florence

The waitress was explaining that the spaghetti dish came with a sheep-cheese that tasted something like parm—“No I don’t want that.” My cousin shook his head. “Do you have normal cheese?” When our food was served a few minutes later, he frowned. “It’s not even red. Why is it green?” “You asked for spaghetti with…

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Disembarked in Belgrade: Great People, Brutalist Monoliths, and Conflicting Impressions

Disembarked in Belgrade: Great People, Brutalist Monoliths, and Conflicting Impressions

Visiting Belgrade is like coming to at the end of an all-weekend blackout and realizing that you’re in some relic of a punk bar that used to be famous back in the 1980’s. The decor varies from nostalgically beautiful to grimy, and the people range from instantly amiable to despondently depressed. Everyone is drinking cheap…

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