Paul Smit | Mick Palarczyk - Features, Photos and Text : What's New?

Excerpt of the Month: Transhumance

I can see people clambering up the steep mountain meadows everywhere I look. Shepherds with their herds, singing children, horse carts. Enormous baskets of food, carried by women so short and squat that they seem to be dwarf folk. Everyone climbs, ploddingly, up the mountain, like the sea turtles who for millions of years have been climbing up the same beach to lay their eggs every year. I realise how intensely happy these people must be. How fantastic it is to be able to gather on a high meadow for a century-old ritual on this beautiful spring morning.

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Excerpt from Romania: Wolf people in sheep's clothing by Mick Palarczyk.

Excerpt of the Month: Tea break.

Our climb to the Cader Idris begins in a luscious forest. While we are taking a break we are passed by a group of plucky old men, who berate us youngsters: “Not even out of the forest yet and resting already?!” Not much later it is our turn to pass them, clearly getting ready for a break of their own. “Gentlemen, only just out of the forest and resting already?” The oldest, with the unmistakable appearance of a lord, points at his watch and corrects me: “Tea break.” He takes a flowery porcelain teacup from his bag, followed by the saucer and a thermos. In response to our surprised looks, he says: “Don’t think we are fatigued. We are just upholding our culture. The empire may have fallen, but we still stick to our tea.”

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Excerpt from Back to Snowdonia, about the Welsh national park.

Excerpt of the Month: A Dungeon as Laboratory

The master alchemist had boasted to August the Strong, King of the Saxons, that he could make gold. “Go for it,” August said and supplied him with all the equipment he needed…and a dungeon as his laboratory. August deemed isolation the safest way to ensure the alchemist would under no circumstance reveal his working methods to others.

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Excerpt from The Irony of History, about the region around Dresden.

Excerpt of the Month: Beat up the rental!

"What's up?" We explain to the park ranger that we are on our way to Paria Canyon in the Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area; 65 more bumpy kilometres to go. "Will the road ahead be okay for our car?" He walks around the Sedan, tugging at his beard as he considers the matter. Then he lovingly places his hand on the bonnet. "If it's your own car, don't do it. If it's a rental, beat it up!"

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This is an excerpt from In Search of the Wave.