Don’t Go There!: From Chernobyl to North Korea—One Man’s Quest to Lose Himself and Find Everyone Else in the World’s Strangest Places
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31%
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I always want chocolate when stressed, and even more when not.
33%
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Humans usually love any chance to confetti other humans with their opinions.
35%
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Whatever had happened here, had just happened here.
37%
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She sent me a Skype message that suggested absurdity was taking place there and I should make haste.
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The top half of the man’s face asked questions the bottom couldn’t answer.
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“Oh. My. God. I love this country,” I said, after recovering my powers of speech. “Me too. There’s nowhere that offers this much entertainment for your money.” “Could you imagine living here though?” “No way in hell. Too much FIRE,”
39%
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“I’ve been getting these really bad headaches lately,” he told a young German couple. “So I thought maybe the government had planted a radio transmitter in my mouth.” BullshitFM:
Majenta
...all the conspiracy theories, all the time.
39%
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it’s well and good unleashing your mind, but you have to be careful it doesn’t wander off.
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blushing, ironically near a book entitled Doesn’t Anyone Blush Anymore?
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“Why in the name of what the hell
Majenta
I love this!
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As if it was my only joy in life (in reality, it was just my biggest).
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As well as a blossoming interest in unusual places and the weird things humans did to each other in them, I also had a growing interest in how we treated (or mistreated) the natural world.
66%
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“I’m also planning to create a Procrastination Party. I just didn’t quite get around to it yet.”
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Sober they were a lovely bunch; while drunk, they were awful. They were always drunk.
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Carbohydrates and hedonism had swollen his broad face.
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Jack was employed as one of our two guides. In practice, he was only qualified to lead a tour through a liquor cabinet. He knew his way around liquor cabinets. Or he knew the way in,
70%
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I wanted to buy him a warm meal, then several more.
71%
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“Oh,” I said, the group’s new motto.
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What had its architect been thinking? And, perhaps more importantly, had he or she been adequately punished for those thoughts?
74%
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It was strongly recommended, he said, without saying why.
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Group tours can be nice, but they depend heavily on the group. In this one, I was a fifth wheel on a party Lada.
74%
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not unfriendly or hostile to outsiders, just confused by their existence.
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Given the immigration officer’s comments, I found this as unexpected as passing a wolf in downtown Detroit.
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perfectly adapted to his surroundings, like a chameleon, but a chameleon who understood that his surroundings were nonsense and he really shouldn’t keep being asked to blend into them.
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Do the people want to have another revolution?” He laughed. “I’m not sure they wanted the last one.
76%
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It was unclear what exactly our attendant was supposed to be doing, beyond tightly filling out an official-looking uniform. The group was endeavouring to keep him as busy as possible by spilling, breaking, and shouting things.
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He tripped as he walked, no longer in a state to consult on anything except poor life choices.
77%
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Where was this club and why were we not already in it?
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people who thought restraint was ordering a beer without a chaser, and that intercultural awareness was knowing how to swear in six languages.
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It was a complex emotion. I liked that I was capable of them now.
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as if he had such an abundance of past to draw upon that it would be like trying to drink the ocean armed only with a straw.
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You seem to have a good head on your shoulders. Why not use it?”
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Today, about eight hundred thousand people call Chişinău home, although from their expressions, not all seemed happy about this—many
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A world with fewer borders has to be a better world, right?
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An important demographic, the one famous for its ideas and energy, had already voted with its feet.
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Moldova had its freedom, but it didn’t seem to know what to do with it yet.
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They were like a quadruple gin and stupid (in Transnistria it is thing).
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“Boozebus,” Jack corrected. “Boozebus, thank you, Jack.” Jack burped. “Pleasure.”
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It looked as if he’d recently teleported into this body and wasn’t sure yet how to operate it.
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and a nose trying to compensate in breadth for what it lacked in depth.
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He’d made his point but knew it wasn’t very sharp.
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The bus fell silent. The group turned to observe this strange man, now singing in Romanian. “Boozebus!” Jack roared at him. He swayed, nearly fell, steadied himself with one arm on the headrest in front, took a swig from his flask with the other, met Jack’s gaze, and let out a primal howl of “BOOZEBUS!”
81%
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So it was moments like this that they made Ghanaian moonshine to forget.
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had become a quasi-spokesman for the locals, despite not being able to speak the language of the people he was negotiating with,
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“The man wishes you a good life,” the devil incarnate said.
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It was a scene that I would probably have enjoyed, if I were reading about it in a book and not stuck in the middle of it,
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Was that my future? More importantly, why was this bus my present?
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The solution had morphed into a new problem.
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Thetford is cloaked tightly in forest, as if someone is trying to hide it.
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The Sun, England’s most popular daily waste of tree,