It was barely noticeable, but right then I watched as a man’s mental faculties shut down rapidly and any brainpower was diverted to purely primal urges. Our new travel companion, in a purely run-of-the-mill conversation about what we do for…
Tip #9: “Holier than thou” Is Right
I fucking hate Bible thumpers. There is nothing worse than these vitriolic little photons coming together by the bajillions to comprise the highest-energy beam of celestial light, the gamma ray, effusively emitting the equivalent of the Sun’s entire lifetime energy…
Tip #8: The Tenderness of Cutthroats
Davi never spoke. Davi only snarled. Every word. His cute family nickname was just a euphemism for the true ruffian, Porfirio, that lay beneath the surface. Davi’s ancestors, the Guarani, were peaceful tribes, content to subsist off the yucca that…
Tip #7: Handling Your Shit in the Land of Milk and Vodka
One fine day in Eastern Europe I had my ear twisted by the warblings of a drunken Ukrainian youth who had spent some time in America, and felt the need to both praise and shit-talk his own people, as I’ve noticed…
Tip #6: Most People Don’t Want to Harvest Your Kidneys
Nothing compares to those thankfully sparse moments in life when you are utterly screwed. I’m not talking about the anxiety that burns all over like shingles when you see a Highway Patrolman with a speed gun and you’ve had a…
Tip #5: Getting Nekkid (Doing as the Hungarians Do)
I have no problem being naked. I am actually quite happy with my body. Yea, it’s sometimes pale and the belly got what the boobs should have, but then again, I wasn’t auditioning for Baywatch anyways. This all changes around…
Tip #4: Liquid Courage, the Best Anxiety Med
There were no hostels in Crimea. OK, to be fair, the hostel craze has, by now, reached that rocky diamond-shaped tumor hanging by a thread from Ukraine, but there was only ONE in 2008. And to call it…
Tip #3: Pregnancy Happens
My dearest friends, for a moment consider the life of an average person who has the horror of being from a city that has been pegged by the lighter-skinned part of the world as a “party-town”. In the Western Hemisphere…
Tip #2: Buying is for Suckers
“Coffee or tea, my friend?”—out of all the questions that occur before you set foot in the ancient cradle of civilization that is Egypt, this is the one you better know your answer to. When faced with any other pertinent…
Tip #1: Don’t Expect Special Treatment
There’s nothing that makes you stand out more in a foreign country than your big-ass, stupid-ass backpack. This is something I have struggled with on more than one occasion: the icy, curious stares of silent locals, their sneering looks loosely…