Aslan passed away this morning. I’m sad. He was such a great cat.
I can’t find a good photo right now but here he is:

Goodbye fluffy dude.

It’s been a busy and surprisingly stressful 2 weeks of preparation, but I’m finally ready to drive to Burning Man.
Robin and I are driving as far as Toronto then I’ll continue via the I80 to San Francisco then back to Black Rock City. I’ll take a longer and more interesting route on the way [...]

This morning, on a random street a few blocks from where I’m staying in Montréal, I found a window that produces tabby cats!
While walking along, I spotted a tabby lounging by the sidewalk in front of the window. I stopped to pet him and he started purring. After about 15 seconds, another tabby [...]

I spent 3 days in Amsterdam visiting D&A, coffeeshops, and just wandering around. Amsterdam is a great city and every time I visit I appreciate it a bit more. It seems that every street in "the pie" (official name: Centrum) has something interesting to see.
Then, an evening Thalys train to Brussels where I [...]

Greetings from almost home: last time the train stopped, I was 1171 km from London!
I took a normal night train to St. Petersberg to make the most of my time. It wasn’t a great night of sleep because the train only took 7 hours or so, but it was enough. Upon arriving, I [...]

I made it to Berlin after 36h on a train. I don’t remember how far that is from London… under 3000km for sure. More to follow

2 nights ago, I boarded my train to St-Petersburg when they opened the doors… strange, my carriage was almost empty. Then about 15 minutes before departure, the circus started.
About 20 French people showed up and started boarding. They all had rolling luggage, most of which was too wide to roll down the hallway, but that [...]

It’s pronounced Moskva but it’s spelled Mockba. Crazy cyrillic.
I arrived in Nizhny Novgorod early on Saturday afternoon, intending to spend the night here before taking a Sunday night train to Moscow. The city has a strange layout: most things are on the west side of the Oka and Volga rivers, including the train station, most [...]

There are no hostels between Irkutsk and Moscow, so the cheapest place to stay is usually a Soviet-era hotel.
The price is anywhere from 600 to 2000 roubles per night ($20 – $70.) For this, you get a small concrete room with a single bed and a sink. There’s a shared toilet on the floor, and [...]

I counted yesterday. I had to tell 5 people that I didn’t speak Russian. That’s a typical day for me.
It seems that "point and grunt" communication is a skill, and one that many Russians lack. I guess I’m used to Southeast Asia and China where most people you interact with are part [...]