Imagine if, 40 years ago, Canada had invaded the northern half of Vermont and was holding the Green Mountain State in its iron grip with its unsurpassed military might. There would be hard feelings, naturally, and there would likely be a constitutional amendment banning maple syrup in the US. At the level of individual cities, however, it …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Kanpur, India
Population: 2.7 million Current weather: 77°F, October 9 Currently on TV: Yeh Hain Mohabbatein (“This is Love”, 1:30 AM local time on the Star Plus network) – this Indian soap opera follows the lives of a Tamil dentist and a Punjabi guy who fall in love but find that things get complicated. Movie theaters in Kanpur: at …
Blessed are the Cheesemakers
Circling back around to Limassol for a minute: I really want to do more than just write about other cities and cultures – wherever possible, I want to get some cultural flavor. In the case of Cyprus, one of its tastiest exports is a cheese called halloumi. I was able to pick some up at …
Cotabato, Philippines
Population, 2015: 299,000 Population, 1990: 127,000 Current temperature: 86°F (Sept. 12) McDonald’s? Yes! Corner of Quezon Ave and Makakua Street If you flip back two weeks, you’ll learn all about Cyprus – an island with a rift in it between Turks and Greeks. This week’s city, Cotabato, is remarkable for a similar reason: it is …
Kazan, Russia
Kazan, Russian Federation. Population: 1,153,366. Weather Now: Temperatures hit a record-setting 95F° on 9/6/16. Kazan is a city of 1.1 million people, making it the eighth largest city in the Russian Federation. The city sits on the Volga River about 620 miles upstream of Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), scene of one of the bloodiest …
Royal Wedding
I realized after my previous post that I failed to clarify an important point: Limassol is not the capital of Cyprus. A city called Nicosia, further north, is the capital. But Limassol is an economic powerhouse in Cyprus, since it’s the hub for the prosperous shipping industry. Limassol’s really big claim to historical fame, at …
Lemesos, Cyprus
My first randomly selected city is Lemesos, a.k.a Limassol, city of roughly 170,000 on the southern coast of Cyprus. It’s a mid-sized, mediterranean port city with a mix of ancient sites, beaches and annual celebrations. One of these is the pre-Lenten Carnival, apparently one of Europe’s dozen or so that are well-known. And if this …
MetroCurious
A random city a week
Jupiter’s Most Expensive Cities
With the Juno Space Probe poised to give us more information than we’ve ever had before on Jupiter, and also carrying a plastic toy brand further into space than I would have thought probable, I am reminded that so much of life is about the confines of our own perspective. It was, according to Carl …
