Topic
Something that caught my eye here and never would have at home.
18 entries
September
2026
12 entries
11 September · Note
The pavements here are not flat. Tree roots lift them into waves, and between two slabs there is often a two finger step that nobody has marked. A pavement the roots have broken through.
11 September · Note
The plug is the American type: two flat pins, often with no earth. Most sockets grip so poorly that the plug works its way out on its own, helped along by the weight of the cable.
10 September · Note
Every fridge I have seen here tilts slightly backwards. To a European eye it looks like badly assembled furniture, and the first thing I did was try to level it.
10 September · Article · Conquistadores, Medellín
A garbage truck with a slogan saying this city is a little silver cup. Who runs it, where the waste goes, why the landfill has eight years left, and how the people who open bags on the street come to be paid out of the water bill.
9 September · Note
Tinto here is a small black coffee. It travels the streets in thermos flasks, arrives in a cup the size of a thimble and costs a few hundred pesos.
9 September · Note
Underglow, coloured lights in the grille, lettering across the whole rear window. Accessories that would fail an inspection at home are ordinary equipment here.
8 September · Note
Pedestrians have right of way at a crossing, it is written into the law. In traffic they do not, and the police do not pursue it. You cross by waiting for a gap and moving briskly.
7 September · Note
Locks here are the other way round from what you are used to. The key goes into the cylinder with the teeth pointing up, not down. It sounds like nothing.
6 September · Note
Almost every tap I have met here works sideways. The lever does not lift, it turns left and right, and that one movement both opens the water and sets the temperature.
6 September · Note
Public toilets and flats alike, there is almost never a brush. It puzzled me for a while before I worked out that there is nothing for one to do.
5 September · Note
The botanical garden was closed. Not for a holiday or repairs: they are building the Fiesta del Libro y la Cultura inside it, the city's book festival, in its twentieth year and running from 11 to 20…
4 September · Note
In the better neighbourhoods almost every building has its own guard. He sits by the entrance, knows the residents by name, and doubles as caretaker, gardener and the person who holds the door when…
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