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From Abroad

You must read Bill Bryson?s ?Neither Here Nor There?

Here are some of my favorite quotes from my most recent read:

?I sat on the toilet, watching the water run, thinking about what an odd thing tourism is. You fly off to a strange land, eagerly abandoning the comforts of home, and then expend vast quantities of time and money in a futile effort to recapture the comforts that you wouldn?t have lost if you hadn?t left home in the first place.?

“The one incurable thing in Istanbul is the Turkish pop music. It is inescapable. It assaults you at full volume from every restaurant doorway, from every lemonade stand, from every passing cab. To say that is it reminiscent of the sounds made by a man who has his head trapped in, oh, say, some industrial machinery is merely to hint at its singular and frantic tunelessness. They say it grows on you. So do tumors.”

?I love the way Italians park. You turn any street corner in Rome and it looks as if you?ve just missed a parking competition for blind people. Cars are pointed in every direction, half on the sidewalks and half off, facing in, facing sideways, blocking garages and side streets and phone booths, fitting into spaces so tight that the only possible way out would be through the sun roof. Romans park their cars the way I would park if I had just spilled a beaker of hydrochloric acid on my lap.?