Stories from travels in

Mary Murphy

Cats and falls

I’m fascinated by big cats and leery of small ones and have been ever since I saw an old B&W movie about a woman with

Pigs with teeth

I’m not quite sure why I was so surprised. Driving in from the airport to San José last night, I was quite taken aback to

The shame counter

It’s 10 degrees outside. It’s cold. It’s wet. The wind is blowing and the rain is puddling. Last week, it was snowing. And I was

The kiss of death

The origins of words and phrases are as fascinating as the words themselves. Some say the term the kiss of death grew from Mafia lore

Where’s Gaudí gone?

Mention Barcelona and the first person to come to mind, if you’re not a football fan, is most likely Antoni Gaudí. Any fridge magnet collection

Eating out in Belgrade

My Balkan love affair began back in 2010 with my first visit to Subotica (which I now know isn’t technically in the Balkans) and continued

Market mecca

Barcelona is a veritable mecca for shoppers. The city is big on leather, big on recycling, and big on style. It more than makes up

Zika-free noises in my head

I’m spending a lot of my day sitting and wondering, watching the world go by. Just like they do in Cuba. More than a month

Sugar, sugar

I read somewhere, I think it was one of the Shardlake novels, that back in Henry VIIIth’s time, sugar was such a sign of wealth

Meet Hector

I like to eavesdrop. It’s not something I deliberately set out to do. There’s no conscious decision – Oh, today’s Saturday. I think I’ll go