North America Archives | Rambling Feet

Photos of 11 Postcard-Worthy Places in Bad Weather

Part of the fun of travelling around the world these days involves sharing photographs of famous places with everyone back home. Bad weather can ruin those moments, especially if one’s on a tight schedule. Without some photoshop magic or filters, everything appears dull and flat.

However, as The Rolling Stones once sang,”you can’t always get what you want.” So look on the bright side: no-one can buy a bad weather photograph on a postcard and pass it off as their own.

The following is my collection of photographs of tourist attractions as you have never seen them, with better photographs that I found elsewhere for comparison. [Read on]

Rally Mexico Memories

The year Mexico celebrated its bicentenary, I was in California for a semester and swine flu wasn’t as scary as it was when it first broke out. Furthermore, Rally Mexico in Leon was as far from the drug cartels as one could get. It was my chance to catch up with friends working in the business and get close to racing drivers once again.

Barely 9 months had passed since I last attended a WRC event but a few exciting changes had taken place. Former champ Petter Solberg got his hands on a current car and was in a position to challenge for wins again. Kimi Raikkonen had just made his switch from Formula 1. A certain shoe salesman was making his WRC debut and fans of his ‘Gymkhana’ videos were watching.

[Read on]

San Diego Baby: Highlights from a Student Exchange Stint

It’s been 5 years since I got my first taste of living abroad – a semester on the West Coast as an exchange student. I question the relevance of writing a guide this late, so here are the things that stood out during that stint. [Read on]

Every Hailstorm I’ve Been Through

Incredibly, I’ve seen hail on more occasions than I’ve seen snow – 4 times versus 3, and it could have been 5 if I hadn’t been away when a hailstorm hit Singapore last year.

I find hailstorms more fascinating than more frequent weather phenomena: so far it’s only happened to me in the summer (and one Mediterranean winter), a season the uninitiated (like me) would least expect frozen things to fall from the sky. The rain and howling gale that often precedes hail can be terrifying for someone who has not been in a cyclone, but thankfully I haven’t been harmed. There was one very close call though… [Read on]

My Misadventures in Guanajuato

Sat in a minivan in Guanajuato with two Mexican families, I waited for the driver to finish his introduction in Spanish. Surely, an English version would follow.

A minute passed. There wasn’t one.

I then turned to passengers for a translation; I just about made out ‘no’ and ‘ingles’ in the replies.

What did I get myself into? [Read on]