travel(ish)

Since I write according to how the full moon, the 31 bus driver’s mood, or what I most recently ate influences my inclination to write, I have not really written about most of the places I have visited. Instead, here I have written about odd holes in the wall I have visited sometimes with my grandma, and so this does not really count as traveling, but at the time it was what inspired me to put fingers to keyboard. Perhaps I will improve. Time will tell (it won’t, I don’t enjoy travel writing as much as I thought I would).

  • Unexpected Stuff From Strangers’ Mouths:  Complicit Racism On a Visit Home

    Unexpected Stuff From Strangers’ Mouths: Complicit Racism On a Visit Home

    There must be something about my face. People want to talk to it. My sister’s been told she has resting bitch face, and I seem to project a benign resting Labrador face. My face and I are quite fond of minding our own business (quite unlike the aforementioned sister, who once joined a passing police…

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  • Can you remember a time when you last got SUPER excited?

    Can you remember a time when you last got SUPER excited?

    Alright, I’m ridiculously late to the party, but I’ve been bingewatching literally EVERYTHING the VlogBrothers (Hank and John Green) make on YouTube, because I need the good feels these days and I’m also running out of steam with regard to, you know…hopes, dreams, ambition! And four minutes of one of these nutjobs ranting about something…

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  • Humans of Hessdalen: searching for UFOs in Trøndelag

    Humans of Hessdalen: searching for UFOs in Trøndelag

    My friend Martin is responsible for this one. En route to the wedding in Lidkoping in September, bragging about how I’m finding a more outgoing, adventurous side of myself these past months, he chuckled: “You should definitely come to our UFO safari next week then”. At first I pretended I didn’t hear anything, because what I…

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  • Love, lakes (and Swedish-priced liquor!) in Lidköping (Sweden).

    Love, lakes (and Swedish-priced liquor!) in Lidköping (Sweden).

    Ohmygodohmygodohmygod. Oh sure,  Lidköping was fabulous, lovely, excellent even. But the most exciting part was that we had a FULL, TODDLER-FREE WEEKEND. That’s correct. Almost four years into being parents, and we’re already running about, care-free, tasting meringues and sleeping until nine in the morning. The obscene decadence of it. It was bliss. But to…

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  • Jomfruland, Kragerø (Telemark, Norway)

    Jomfruland, Kragerø (Telemark, Norway)

    Some weeks ago we were invited to celebrate the birthday of a friend at a rented house three hours outside of Oslo. The invite was extended by a pair of people so delightful that I would have probably agreed to tag along if they told me Billy Corgan would be there performing only songs from…

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  • 15 Things about Norway that will take a South African some getting used to.

    15 Things about Norway that will take a South African some getting used to.

    During a long night of trying to cajole/threaten the child to sleep, I fell into the black hole that is the frenemy of all people with a few minutes to spare (minutes that quickly become hours I will never get back): humorous listicles. After a few months back in Oslo, I have some things that…

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  • LifeHack: take something simple and make it impossibly complicated in zero easy steps.

    LifeHack: take something simple and make it impossibly complicated in zero easy steps.

    I slouched on the bus one morning about a week ago after a night of no sleep, and thought to myself: “this day is going to be kak”. I knew it the moment I stepped out of the house, and whether it was a case of self-fulfilling prophecy or not, I gave myself a sad…

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  • Trains, canes & hungry dames – Kalk Bay Eating

    Trains, canes & hungry dames – Kalk Bay Eating

    This post was originally from June 23 2014 on a different blog. Today was a day with Ma (my grandmother). We’d planned to go to my eat out in my neighbourhood, but it seems Mondays are not good days for people in the Southern Suburbs. So we went on an adventure. Uh, all the way to…

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  • An Unlikely Coffee Haunt – Lansdowne Recycling Centre

    An Unlikely Coffee Haunt – Lansdowne Recycling Centre

    Alright. Nobody expects a coffee shop at their local recycling centre. And then, after the initial surprise, one really doesn’t expect it to be this GOOD. A week or so ago, on an early Saturday morning, I was trying out a new recycling establishment after the Grumpy Guses at my old one made me wonder…

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