At Home In The Wasteland Travel Blog

Krakow is one of my favorite places on earth. It is a medieval city full of young people. A wonderful, striking combination. – Jonathan Carroll If you’ve been following this blog for the past few years, you’re certainly well aware that I have somewhat of an obsession with trying to visit multiple countries within a [...]

Oh yeah, we all talk like this.

Oh, what a surprise – the U.S. government is building a huge database to track U.S. citizens that dare venture outside the country: The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or [...]

The Blacksmith Institute recently published its list of the world’s most polluted places, with four of the top ten located in the former Soviet Union: * Sumgayit, Azerbaijan (chemical industry) * Dzerzhinsk, Russia (chemical weapons production) * Norilsk, Russia (nickel mining) * Chernobyl, Ukraine (radiation) Never made it to Sumgayit when I was in Azerbaijan, [...]

Top ten reasons why Houston is better than DC: 1. Abundance of cheap Mexican food 2. BBQ. Like, reeeeal BBQ. 3. Apparently you can surf in Galveston…sometimes. That’s what I’ve heard, anyways. 4. Average temperature for the month of December is 53.5ºF, which is still considered “flip-flop weather”. Washington, on the other hand, is 35.4ºF. [...]

Unless ye be livin’ under a rock, ye should know ’tis International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I been observin’ Talk Like a Pirate Day since I was a wee lass: OK, I admit, it was Halloween…

Painting my own toes tends to result in a bizarre Jackson Pollock like mess, so it’s nice to have someone paint them for me every once in awhile. When I was back home in California last month, I went to the usual place for a pedicure. I like going there – the manicurists are friendly [...]

Is “bloggiest” a word? Whatever. “…with an average of 51 blog posts per 100,000 residents — D.C. ranks as the fourth “bloggiest” city in the U.S., behind Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, according to blog-tracker Outsidein.com.” We’re behind Pittsburgh? Pittsburgh?! How is that possible? This city is full of government employees who do nothing but post [...]

One of my roommates from our sophomore year of college (’01-’02) posted an entry on her blog about our experience at GWU on 9/11/01. “It helped a lot to be amongst friends, since none of us were able to be with family at this time.” Couldn’t agree more. My post from last year on the [...]

Replace Al and Peg Bundy with Gena and Dasha Bukin and Chicago with Yekaterinburg and you have Счастливы вместе / Schastlivy Vmeste (Happy Together) one of the most popular sitcoms in Russia: Turn on the sitcom that is the hottest television show in Russia, and it all seems so familiar. Moored to his living room [...]